Did they reduce the difficulty of DMC3?

[Jetwow]

I used to struggle fighting bosses for hours on easy mode, and now I just played through the normal mode pretty smoothly

[ＣＡＳＰＥＲ]

It's just your mind playing tricks on you. Difficulty's the same as always :)

[The Mailman Thinks I Am Gay]

It's called being good/ progression.

[ＣＡＳＰＥＲ]

That one too

[Atrum Ruina]

Depends. If you mean the original DMC3, yes, they actually did tone down the difficulty.

If you mean DMC3SE, no it's the same so it's likely just you being better/more familiar with the game.

[KaZudra]

Yes, Dante's Awakening was notoriously hard, but all the more satisfying to finally beat it on the hardest difficulty knowing you started by grinding Stage 1 on easy.

[Arcrayon]

Originally posted by JamCrumpet:

Did you play the EU version of the game back in the day?
If so, yes, it IS easier, because this HD collection is based off of the American version of the game, which was dumbed down quite largely in difficulty from the Japanese/European versions of the game.
Essentially, American Normal mode was Europe Easy mode, American Hard mode is Europe Normal mode and so on, and im confident this HD collection is just the US versions of the games.
I booted 3 on the PS2 and tested damage done/dealt to the first boss, and sure enough, im taking much less damage and dealing more to it.

You got that completely wrong the original US version is harder, NA normal = JP hard, NA hard = JP very hard. This is only for the first release all versions of the special edition are the same difficulty.
So if you played the US non special edition this is easier by one difficulty level.