To put my thoughts of Bayonetta 3 one way, let’s just say… this is like the video game equivalent of a well constructed house with a stable foundation that’s filled with interior design choices that I’m just not a fan of lmao.
When this game was coming out I admittedly didn’t have too much interest in it largely because of me just not having played the first two games at the time, but after playing both of them earlier this year and really enjoying them, I figured… well, why not pick up the third game? I had heard relatively mixed things about Bayonetta 3 compared to it’s predecessors but, hey, as long as the core gameplay and combat of the first two games was still there, it’d be enough to satisfy me.
And on that note, I would say it did… mostly. The core gameplay of Bayonetta 1 and 2 is still very much intact - in some ways even more fleshed out than in the first two games. The combat especially still feels really good and satisfying, still carrying over all the combos and moves that the game really encourages you to experiment with especially with it’s grading system, on top of even greater weapon variety that’s oozing with a lot of creativity and just overall insanity in the best way possible. I guess I could complain a little bit that this game doesn’t give you the option to equip different weapons to Bayonetta’s hands and feet but it doesn’t really bother me that much.
There’s not too much I can say on that note that I didn’t say about the first two games, but if anything that’s really just a positive, since combat-wise, this really follows the trend of taking what worked about the first game and fleshing it out more with more techniques, combos and weapons to add to the already fast-paced and in-depth gameplay. And in times when the game was purely focused on combat without any extra gimmicks or anything, I can say that I had about as much fun as I did with the first two games for the most part.
Problem is, I specifically said in times when the game was purely focused on combat because, unfortunately, the rest of the game is kind of a mixed bag. I wouldn’t say there was much of anything here that was particularly bad (except for… certain elements), and as a whole, I’d still say Bayonetta 3 was a good game altogether, but compared to the first two games, I would definitely say this game’s lows were lower and more frequent than what they offered that it kinda took it down a few notches for me as a whole package.
The story is probably the biggest thing about this game that’s been scrutinized and frankly it’s for a good reason. I wouldn’t necessarily say the first two games are particular bastions of good storytelling or anything, but in both cases they were entertaining and in general focused on what they were going for. Bayonetta 1 did feel a bit hard for me to follow at times, but there was just that overall concept of exploring this whole mystery of Bayonetta’s backstory and worldbuilding, and Bayonetta 2 upping the stakes with a bit of a clearer goal.
Bayonetta 3 kinda fails to do any of this for me. The game particularly utilizes the ‘multiverse’ concept, which at first I felt was sort of out of place but especially after talking about it a little bit with a certain friend of mine from the r/Sonic server, I realized that the issue isn’t so much that it’s out of place (in fact, with how much insanity is in the world of Bayonetta the multiverse is something that theoretically should fit right in) but rather it’s just not utilized very well. The closest the game comes to actually using the multiverse concept well is with the French version of Bayonetta and maybe the part during the final boss when both of the versions of Bayonetta from the previous games come in to fight, but these are both later in the game, and for the most part it just basically just feels like “what if Bayonetta BUT FROM A DIFFERENT COUNTRY?” I mean, come on, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time already did it smh.
And beyond that the plot just feels pretty unfocused and meandering. I noticed with this game there was a greater emphasis on story and in general the ratio of cutscenes to gameplay felt a lot bigger than in the first two games, and I wouldn’t have so much of an issue with this, if there was just… stuff going on. The cutscenes just feel drawn out in general, and with a lack of a clear focus on an endgoal or overall ‘theme’, it made the story feel a lot less engaging than either of its predecessors, and half the time I just found myself forgetting about the ‘Alphaverse’ goal.
That isn’t even to mention the ending which didn’t really make me angry, just… really confused. Everything about it just felt completely out of left field with the story doing basically nothing to build up to it’s conclusion. Without spoiling too much, I will say I like Viola well enough as a character but I don’t feel like her ascension felt ‘earned’ in that she had any sort of major character arc in which that would be the pay-off, and as a result it just feels… forced more than anything. And speaking of things that were forced… Bayonetta/Cereza being in a certain relationship with a certain character is something that also felt like it had no build up to it even factoring in the first two games and their interactions.
I also really gotta say, I still don’t know what they were going for with this whole side plot about Bayonetta lying to people about being underpaid and then proceeding to ask her supporters to donate to an anti-abortion charity.
Gameplay-wise I already talked about the combat but, of course, there is more to the game than that with a good amount of new features added. I do have to give them that they did at least do a lot to try and flesh out the formula instead of just sticking to the same tricks as the first two games, but at the same time, the additions they made to the gameplay are pretty… mixed. There are some ideas I really like here but the execution of those ideas isn’t too great.
Probably the most notable new addition is the Demon Slave mechanic where the game gives you different Infernal Demons to choose from that you can summon in battle and control to attack enemies. Truth is there are uses for this mechanic that I actually quite like. Particularly I really liked how you could intersperse them within your combos and use them either to stun enemies that are immune to Bayonetta’s normal attacks, or use them for a final blow, which certainly felt pretty satisfying at times.
But when it comes to their combat on their own… ehh yeah I’m not a fan. Not only do the mechanics feel a lot more limited than what you can do as Bayonetta herself, but in practice it just feels incredibly sluggish and clunky, at times outright disorienting since the camera is still focused on Bayonetta rather than any of the creatures which is especially compounded with all the things that come on screen at times. I guess you could just say I don’t have to use it in combat but… unfortunately that’s kind of untrue especially if you’re going for the best scores and medals since the game often incentivizes you, at times basically requiring you to use it with certain enemies with shields, lots of health or as I said, immune to your normal attacks without at least stunning them.
Not to mention there’s times where certain demons are used to just progress through the level either through a ‘gimmick’ section or just solving puzzles, and even in the latter case a lot of the puzzles just feel kind of there as a secondary justification of the infernal demon mechanics (you have to aim the bird at the fans… cool, I guess?). Even some of the demon puzzles that are more interesting conceptually suffer because the controls of the Infernal Demons aren’t too great as it is. Like, the train is cool and all but it feels like it just halts your gameplay and the way the tracks basically appear automatically one after the other make it kind of difficult to ‘aim’ the train… which, well, you sometimes need to do to take out multiples of those nest things to progress through certain sections.
To backtrack a bit though, I mentioned ‘gimmick’ sections and… yeah that’s also a problem have with this game. One thing I criticized the first game for was how the gimmick sections it had (the motorcycle and Space Harrier sections to be specific) felt overly drawn out at times, and while there’s nothing here that’s quite as bad/drawn out as the Space Harrier section of the first game, I feel like they’re way more frequent here in general than in either of its predecessors and none of them are particularly… good. Granted there’s none that made me feel annoyed or frustrated or anything, but there’s the 2D Jeanne ‘side chapters’ where you take control of her in some Metal Gear Solid gameplay which didn’t feel that interesting and all of these levels just blended together in my head, a rhythm minigame boss (again, Sly Cooper already did it smh), the Godzilla ass boxing matches with sluggish controls, a boss where you fight the enemy by trapping it in bubbles (???) among others. Admittedly, none of them felt particularly bad or anything (except for maybe the Godzilla fights) but… they’re not great either, and they largely just made the game feel bogged down when I just wanted to get back to the actual combat itself. I already mentioned how the story felt unfocused, but all the different gimmick sections this game offers manages to make the gameplay feel unfocused on top of that.
There’s also Viola as a new playable character, and while I liked her well enough in the story, her gameplay just kind of feels like Bayonetta but worse. There’s not really any variation in her playstyle compared to Bayonetta’s, with the only exception being that she has her own ‘Infernal Demon’ in the form of Cheshire that Bayonetta doesn’t have… which is also the only one she can equip, but other than that, the few ways they try to differentiate her from Bayonetta feel inconsequential at best and just worse than Bayonetta at… worst. Like, instead of activating Witch Time by dodging, you activate it by blocking, which… all that really does is confuse me when I’m going between them. It also means that Bayonetta and Viola both have their own health and magic meters, which you have to upgrade through the skills menu rather than having them upgrade automatically. But considering you play as Bayonetta way more frequently than Viola I don’t really feel like there’s much of a reason to upgrade at least beyond one or two levels.
The stage design also kind of takes a turn for the worse in my opinion. I do respect them adding a little quality-of-life improvement in that you can show a ‘waypoint’ to give you direction for where you need to go, but in the context of this game it feels like something they added to solve a problem that was introduced by this game. What I mean by that is, it feels like the stages are built to be ‘bigger’ in scope but feel both confusing and pretty empty at the same time. Like the other games there are collectibles sprinkled throughout each level to incentivize exploration, but with how big and empty the stages can feel at times, I just didn’t have the motivation to really go out of my way and search for stuff for the most part, and beyond that the levels didn’t really feel like they offered any particular ‘setpieces’ or design elements in general to make them stand out from one another (which is even more odd considering this is a game with the multiverse concept and stages based off of different parts of the world… again, underutilizing the concept).
I mean even the hidden challenge verses don’t feel quite as well designed or interesting as the original. At best they just feel kind of there, pretty inconsequential, and at worst they can be pretty tedious and annoying rather than actually challenging. Pretty much all of the ‘tricky terrain’ challenges felt annoying with the dash mechanic feeling hit-or-miss and let’s just say the less I talk about Chapter 10 Verse 1 the better.
Also, if I complained about Bayonetta 2 Wii U being pretty all over the place performance-wise, well… Bayonetta 3 is even worse. While I like the art style for what it is here, it does feel somewhat dull in its color palette compared to Bayonetta 2 and the textures are pretty low quality, which is mindboggling because good lord the framerate can be all over the place. I use the term ‘can be’ specifically since it did mostly seem to run at 60FPS, but there were a pretty non-insignificant amount of times where I just immediately noticed slowdown and frame drops that stuck out like a sore thumb. Like, I get the Switch was never the most powerful console or anything, but I can’t help but feel like they could’ve optimized the game more to run more consistently.
Now, I know I’m sounding pretty negative with this review overall, but let me be clear - I still enjoyed my time with Bayonetta 3. This is a similar situation with Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time where at the end of the day, the core gameplay of it’s predecessors is still very much there, and definitely still really fun. I mean, the combat is a large part of what made the Bayonetta games appealing, and all things considered that aspect is just as fun as it was in those previous titles. It’s just that this game has more flaws to it than it’s predecessors and they definitely stick out to me more than the games I had played up to this point - so of course I’m going to have more to talk about with them. But despite all my issues, I would still recommend this if you enjoyed the first two games (albeit maybe not for $60), as it is still a well-made hack-and-slash even if it’s issues do take it a few notches down for me compared to Bayonetta 1 and 2.
When this game was coming out I admittedly didn’t have too much interest in it largely because of me just not having played the first two games at the time, but after playing both of them earlier this year and really enjoying them, I figured… well, why not pick up the third game? I had heard relatively mixed things about Bayonetta 3 compared to it’s predecessors but, hey, as long as the core gameplay and combat of the first two games was still there, it’d be enough to satisfy me.
And on that note, I would say it did… mostly. The core gameplay of Bayonetta 1 and 2 is still very much intact - in some ways even more fleshed out than in the first two games. The combat especially still feels really good and satisfying, still carrying over all the combos and moves that the game really encourages you to experiment with especially with it’s grading system, on top of even greater weapon variety that’s oozing with a lot of creativity and just overall insanity in the best way possible. I guess I could complain a little bit that this game doesn’t give you the option to equip different weapons to Bayonetta’s hands and feet but it doesn’t really bother me that much.
There’s not too much I can say on that note that I didn’t say about the first two games, but if anything that’s really just a positive, since combat-wise, this really follows the trend of taking what worked about the first game and fleshing it out more with more techniques, combos and weapons to add to the already fast-paced and in-depth gameplay. And in times when the game was purely focused on combat without any extra gimmicks or anything, I can say that I had about as much fun as I did with the first two games for the most part.
Problem is, I specifically said in times when the game was purely focused on combat because, unfortunately, the rest of the game is kind of a mixed bag. I wouldn’t say there was much of anything here that was particularly bad (except for… certain elements), and as a whole, I’d still say Bayonetta 3 was a good game altogether, but compared to the first two games, I would definitely say this game’s lows were lower and more frequent than what they offered that it kinda took it down a few notches for me as a whole package.
The story is probably the biggest thing about this game that’s been scrutinized and frankly it’s for a good reason. I wouldn’t necessarily say the first two games are particular bastions of good storytelling or anything, but in both cases they were entertaining and in general focused on what they were going for. Bayonetta 1 did feel a bit hard for me to follow at times, but there was just that overall concept of exploring this whole mystery of Bayonetta’s backstory and worldbuilding, and Bayonetta 2 upping the stakes with a bit of a clearer goal.
Bayonetta 3 kinda fails to do any of this for me. The game particularly utilizes the ‘multiverse’ concept, which at first I felt was sort of out of place but especially after talking about it a little bit with a certain friend of mine from the r/Sonic server, I realized that the issue isn’t so much that it’s out of place (in fact, with how much insanity is in the world of Bayonetta the multiverse is something that theoretically should fit right in) but rather it’s just not utilized very well. The closest the game comes to actually using the multiverse concept well is with the French version of Bayonetta and maybe the part during the final boss when both of the versions of Bayonetta from the previous games come in to fight, but these are both later in the game, and for the most part it just basically just feels like “what if Bayonetta BUT FROM A DIFFERENT COUNTRY?” I mean, come on, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time already did it smh.
And beyond that the plot just feels pretty unfocused and meandering. I noticed with this game there was a greater emphasis on story and in general the ratio of cutscenes to gameplay felt a lot bigger than in the first two games, and I wouldn’t have so much of an issue with this, if there was just… stuff going on. The cutscenes just feel drawn out in general, and with a lack of a clear focus on an endgoal or overall ‘theme’, it made the story feel a lot less engaging than either of its predecessors, and half the time I just found myself forgetting about the ‘Alphaverse’ goal.
That isn’t even to mention the ending which didn’t really make me angry, just… really confused. Everything about it just felt completely out of left field with the story doing basically nothing to build up to it’s conclusion. Without spoiling too much, I will say I like Viola well enough as a character but I don’t feel like her ascension felt ‘earned’ in that she had any sort of major character arc in which that would be the pay-off, and as a result it just feels… forced more than anything. And speaking of things that were forced… Bayonetta/Cereza being in a certain relationship with a certain character is something that also felt like it had no build up to it even factoring in the first two games and their interactions.
I also really gotta say, I still don’t know what they were going for with this whole side plot about Bayonetta lying to people about being underpaid and then proceeding to ask her supporters to donate to an anti-abortion charity.
Gameplay-wise I already talked about the combat but, of course, there is more to the game than that with a good amount of new features added. I do have to give them that they did at least do a lot to try and flesh out the formula instead of just sticking to the same tricks as the first two games, but at the same time, the additions they made to the gameplay are pretty… mixed. There are some ideas I really like here but the execution of those ideas isn’t too great.
Probably the most notable new addition is the Demon Slave mechanic where the game gives you different Infernal Demons to choose from that you can summon in battle and control to attack enemies. Truth is there are uses for this mechanic that I actually quite like. Particularly I really liked how you could intersperse them within your combos and use them either to stun enemies that are immune to Bayonetta’s normal attacks, or use them for a final blow, which certainly felt pretty satisfying at times.
But when it comes to their combat on their own… ehh yeah I’m not a fan. Not only do the mechanics feel a lot more limited than what you can do as Bayonetta herself, but in practice it just feels incredibly sluggish and clunky, at times outright disorienting since the camera is still focused on Bayonetta rather than any of the creatures which is especially compounded with all the things that come on screen at times. I guess you could just say I don’t have to use it in combat but… unfortunately that’s kind of untrue especially if you’re going for the best scores and medals since the game often incentivizes you, at times basically requiring you to use it with certain enemies with shields, lots of health or as I said, immune to your normal attacks without at least stunning them.
Not to mention there’s times where certain demons are used to just progress through the level either through a ‘gimmick’ section or just solving puzzles, and even in the latter case a lot of the puzzles just feel kind of there as a secondary justification of the infernal demon mechanics (you have to aim the bird at the fans… cool, I guess?). Even some of the demon puzzles that are more interesting conceptually suffer because the controls of the Infernal Demons aren’t too great as it is. Like, the train is cool and all but it feels like it just halts your gameplay and the way the tracks basically appear automatically one after the other make it kind of difficult to ‘aim’ the train… which, well, you sometimes need to do to take out multiples of those nest things to progress through certain sections.
To backtrack a bit though, I mentioned ‘gimmick’ sections and… yeah that’s also a problem have with this game. One thing I criticized the first game for was how the gimmick sections it had (the motorcycle and Space Harrier sections to be specific) felt overly drawn out at times, and while there’s nothing here that’s quite as bad/drawn out as the Space Harrier section of the first game, I feel like they’re way more frequent here in general than in either of its predecessors and none of them are particularly… good. Granted there’s none that made me feel annoyed or frustrated or anything, but there’s the 2D Jeanne ‘side chapters’ where you take control of her in some Metal Gear Solid gameplay which didn’t feel that interesting and all of these levels just blended together in my head, a rhythm minigame boss (again, Sly Cooper already did it smh), the Godzilla ass boxing matches with sluggish controls, a boss where you fight the enemy by trapping it in bubbles (???) among others. Admittedly, none of them felt particularly bad or anything (except for maybe the Godzilla fights) but… they’re not great either, and they largely just made the game feel bogged down when I just wanted to get back to the actual combat itself. I already mentioned how the story felt unfocused, but all the different gimmick sections this game offers manages to make the gameplay feel unfocused on top of that.
There’s also Viola as a new playable character, and while I liked her well enough in the story, her gameplay just kind of feels like Bayonetta but worse. There’s not really any variation in her playstyle compared to Bayonetta’s, with the only exception being that she has her own ‘Infernal Demon’ in the form of Cheshire that Bayonetta doesn’t have… which is also the only one she can equip, but other than that, the few ways they try to differentiate her from Bayonetta feel inconsequential at best and just worse than Bayonetta at… worst. Like, instead of activating Witch Time by dodging, you activate it by blocking, which… all that really does is confuse me when I’m going between them. It also means that Bayonetta and Viola both have their own health and magic meters, which you have to upgrade through the skills menu rather than having them upgrade automatically. But considering you play as Bayonetta way more frequently than Viola I don’t really feel like there’s much of a reason to upgrade at least beyond one or two levels.
The stage design also kind of takes a turn for the worse in my opinion. I do respect them adding a little quality-of-life improvement in that you can show a ‘waypoint’ to give you direction for where you need to go, but in the context of this game it feels like something they added to solve a problem that was introduced by this game. What I mean by that is, it feels like the stages are built to be ‘bigger’ in scope but feel both confusing and pretty empty at the same time. Like the other games there are collectibles sprinkled throughout each level to incentivize exploration, but with how big and empty the stages can feel at times, I just didn’t have the motivation to really go out of my way and search for stuff for the most part, and beyond that the levels didn’t really feel like they offered any particular ‘setpieces’ or design elements in general to make them stand out from one another (which is even more odd considering this is a game with the multiverse concept and stages based off of different parts of the world… again, underutilizing the concept).
I mean even the hidden challenge verses don’t feel quite as well designed or interesting as the original. At best they just feel kind of there, pretty inconsequential, and at worst they can be pretty tedious and annoying rather than actually challenging. Pretty much all of the ‘tricky terrain’ challenges felt annoying with the dash mechanic feeling hit-or-miss and let’s just say the less I talk about Chapter 10 Verse 1 the better.
Also, if I complained about Bayonetta 2 Wii U being pretty all over the place performance-wise, well… Bayonetta 3 is even worse. While I like the art style for what it is here, it does feel somewhat dull in its color palette compared to Bayonetta 2 and the textures are pretty low quality, which is mindboggling because good lord the framerate can be all over the place. I use the term ‘can be’ specifically since it did mostly seem to run at 60FPS, but there were a pretty non-insignificant amount of times where I just immediately noticed slowdown and frame drops that stuck out like a sore thumb. Like, I get the Switch was never the most powerful console or anything, but I can’t help but feel like they could’ve optimized the game more to run more consistently.
Now, I know I’m sounding pretty negative with this review overall, but let me be clear - I still enjoyed my time with Bayonetta 3. This is a similar situation with Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time where at the end of the day, the core gameplay of it’s predecessors is still very much there, and definitely still really fun. I mean, the combat is a large part of what made the Bayonetta games appealing, and all things considered that aspect is just as fun as it was in those previous titles. It’s just that this game has more flaws to it than it’s predecessors and they definitely stick out to me more than the games I had played up to this point - so of course I’m going to have more to talk about with them. But despite all my issues, I would still recommend this if you enjoyed the first two games (albeit maybe not for $60), as it is still a well-made hack-and-slash even if it’s issues do take it a few notches down for me compared to Bayonetta 1 and 2.
An interesting title that for me, despite all of its faults, I found to be a very enjoyable experience from beginning to end. The combat may not feel as satisfying as the other titles in terms of options, removing the hand and feet weapon mechanics for a more traditional two weapon switching system. I found the Demon summoning to make up for it in spades and found it to be a much better mechanic than Umbran Climax. The story overall is pretty weak, but I found the characters, including Viola, to be very fun as always. The premise and villain are however underutilized extremely and while it may be a huge detriment to some, I found those faults to be insignificant to my overall experience with this game.