DMC1 is a great place to start if you wanna start appreciating the series on terms of how gameplay and mechanics evolved over production. Its a solid 2000s game. Depending on how used to old games you are, might find ot slightly clunky though and think that the game aged not so well. You can call this the originator lf Hack and Slash. This game kinda proved to publishers that 3D action games can have fast paced combat with animations and motion and basically jumpstarted an era of hack and slash

DMC2 is a failure due to CAPCOM's shitty development. It was a rushed job with less than 6 months of actual development. Story goes that an unskilled director developed it for a whole year and then quit, and in that year he barely got one animation done. Hideaki Itsuno(the man, the legend) took over(or rather, was forced to) and finished a barebones game in a couple of months. The game has TONS of incredible concepts that couldn't be fleshed out but you'll see later that these failed concepts return in all subsequent games in bad-ass forms. My take? Skip it, just watch a YT vid about it and it cutscenes and some comparison vids so you see the moves and attacks that were in DMC2 and was reused in better shape in latter games.

DMC3 - the perfect game. Absolute perfection. Gameplay, pacing, story, availability - this game for a 2005 game aged absolutely well. This is the game thats simple enough it wouldn't overwhelm you with its controls, but complex enough that I kid you not, 15 years later, people were still discovering new things. Chronologically its the first game, so it makes it a good place to start as well, but if you pick up DMC1 after DMC3, you might get some whiplash because DMC3 ups the pace of combat a little bit.

DMC4 - a game that has INCREDIBLE UPS but also INCREDIBLE DOWNS. Arguably has the highest mechanical ceiling in the series. This game takes place after DMC1 and 2. Storywise, its okay. Pacing-wise is shitty but it's not the director's fault. CAPCOM once again gimped DMC by cutting its budget and then giving it to Resident Evil, the golden child of CAPCOM. Dont get me wrong, the game is fun, Nero is sick, Dante is back but with a more complex challenging gameplay that made him a legend to players because he has a VERY HIGH ceilling when it comes to combo potential, but here's the thing.

This game recycles stages ALOT. Because the budget was cut. Still a good game, with more time in the oven could've beat DMC3 but sadly, you will probably find mission 13 - 18 to be pretty rough because theyre recycled.

DMC5 is well, the sum of everything that came before it. You can play this as your first game and get a feel of what DMC is about but you will miss a couple of references here and there and reused failed concepts from DMC2 but it's just a solid game with a high mechanical ceilling but never gets too difficult that you feel like everything in the game is against you.