I have never been more conflicted on a game than Bayonetta 3. This is the series' best combat, and a very welcome evolution from the last two games. However, the story in this is one of the biggest pieces of dogshit ever penned. It feels like platinum games have 50 points to spend when they make each Bayonetta game, and each time they put more and more into gameplay and less and less into story.
I really like playing as Bayonetta here, and if this was the gameplay for a game with a story on par with Bayo 1 this would be a masterpiece, but it isn't.
Haven't even started talking about Viola. Actually 0/5 character. If they make the next game about her I won't play it. She has this awful out of touch punk thing going on that is just horrible. Every time she opens her mouth I want to die, she is so fucking annoying. And, worst of all, playing as her is the most miserable thing ever. She has 1 weapon, 1 demon (Who you can't even control), and you have to do a lame ass parry to use witch time, so you just get to use witch time less and its more risky??? So fucking dumb. No one ever would prefer to play as Viola. Who made this shit man. Fuck Viola.
I really like playing as Bayonetta here, and if this was the gameplay for a game with a story on par with Bayo 1 this would be a masterpiece, but it isn't.
Haven't even started talking about Viola. Actually 0/5 character. If they make the next game about her I won't play it. She has this awful out of touch punk thing going on that is just horrible. Every time she opens her mouth I want to die, she is so fucking annoying. And, worst of all, playing as her is the most miserable thing ever. She has 1 weapon, 1 demon (Who you can't even control), and you have to do a lame ass parry to use witch time, so you just get to use witch time less and its more risky??? So fucking dumb. No one ever would prefer to play as Viola. Who made this shit man. Fuck Viola.
another garbage multiverse story that adds absolutely nothing to the series
looks meh, runs meh, gameplay is meh, straight up bad when you take into account that abusing the giant boring demons is the ''optimal'' way of playing the game, soundtrack is forgettable, some maps are ok tho but end up being boring anyways, game lacks sound effects, most of the time it felt like i wasn't hitting anything but the air and had to genuinely stop pressing buttons to see if i was hitting something, viola is annoying as fuck, the new VA for Bayo isn't that bad but it's still not even close to the original (it's a shame the og VA is an idiot), you have almost no reason to use the shop at ALL, there's a STUPID amount of gimmick fights that are not interesting in the slightest (giant boring demons, side-scrollers, jeanne sections, etc)
oh, the ending was absolutely garbage except for ONE part of the final boss and that's all i'm gonna say about it
it's a shame because i really like bayo 1 and 2 and was really excited for this, but it turned out like this.
looks meh, runs meh, gameplay is meh, straight up bad when you take into account that abusing the giant boring demons is the ''optimal'' way of playing the game, soundtrack is forgettable, some maps are ok tho but end up being boring anyways, game lacks sound effects, most of the time it felt like i wasn't hitting anything but the air and had to genuinely stop pressing buttons to see if i was hitting something, viola is annoying as fuck, the new VA for Bayo isn't that bad but it's still not even close to the original (it's a shame the og VA is an idiot), you have almost no reason to use the shop at ALL, there's a STUPID amount of gimmick fights that are not interesting in the slightest (giant boring demons, side-scrollers, jeanne sections, etc)
oh, the ending was absolutely garbage except for ONE part of the final boss and that's all i'm gonna say about it
it's a shame because i really like bayo 1 and 2 and was really excited for this, but it turned out like this.
Talk about a mess from start to finish, narrative and gameplay wise. Open world exploration mixed with action combat is not what I want from Bayonetta, and even if I did, it’s not fun here! They should have left this for Astral Chain and NieR: Automata, since those are action rpgs. Multiverse story is lame, and the ending, lol.
I think if Platinum were to continue with this action rpg style, they should look into Game Republic’s Genji: Dawn of the Samurai for inspiration. A gorgeous late PS2 title from Onimusha lineage that mixes tight and satisfying action combat with rpg style exploration and storytelling for newcomers and veterans to master. I don’t think a live service title like Babylon’s Fall is the future for Platinum, but they insist otherwise…
I think if Platinum were to continue with this action rpg style, they should look into Game Republic’s Genji: Dawn of the Samurai for inspiration. A gorgeous late PS2 title from Onimusha lineage that mixes tight and satisfying action combat with rpg style exploration and storytelling for newcomers and veterans to master. I don’t think a live service title like Babylon’s Fall is the future for Platinum, but they insist otherwise…
É "melhor" que bayoneta 1 em combate, levemente superior ao 2 e é isso.
É galhofa pura, mais que o 1 e o 2 e foi divertido pkrl, mas que história merda hein e que final decepcionante.
esse jogo tambem é mais feio que bayonetta 2, a direção de arte desse aqui tbm é bem fraca, é triste.
tem umas referências boas e a missão a la tom clancy antigo com a jeanne é muito bacana, a viola é uma personagem ok, ela me agradou com o tempo e seu combate foi definitavamente uma boa adição.
no fim do dia, eu nao vou me recordar tanto de bayonetta 3 e vou seguir adiante, graças a seus o bayoneta origins é interessante.
É galhofa pura, mais que o 1 e o 2 e foi divertido pkrl, mas que história merda hein e que final decepcionante.
esse jogo tambem é mais feio que bayonetta 2, a direção de arte desse aqui tbm é bem fraca, é triste.
tem umas referências boas e a missão a la tom clancy antigo com a jeanne é muito bacana, a viola é uma personagem ok, ela me agradou com o tempo e seu combate foi definitavamente uma boa adição.
no fim do dia, eu nao vou me recordar tanto de bayonetta 3 e vou seguir adiante, graças a seus o bayoneta origins é interessante.
This review contains spoilers
Good, but has some shortcomings. When you’re playing as Bayonetta, it plays great, with the kind of weapon, enemy and combo variety you’d expect, and the new demon summons turning the crazy bombastic spectacle up to 11. Unfortunately though, you aren’t playing as her quite as often as the games prior because it’s bloated with gimmicks and mini-games, most of them very clunky and sluggish. The game also experiences some performance dips, with the framerate sometimes dropping down to 30, and resolution at times appearing PSP quality. The story as well I think is the worst in the series. Not that Bayonetta 1+2 are masterworks of video game writing, but they were at least fun and creative and gave each character room to express themselves. I could forgive the formulaic mcguffin plot or the lack of any connection to the Umbra or the Lumen if the characterization wasn’t so weak. The only two characters that feel all that well characterized are Bayonetta herself, as sassy and unflinching as she’s always been, and Viola who I honestly find so incredibly obnoxious and unlikeable and the ending gave me a similar reaction to “Rey Skywalker.” Also, who the fuck is responsible for Jeanne’s character model in this game?
In short, I think it’s the weakest of the trilogy. A lot of flaws hold it back, but the essentials are there. It’s a decent action game that I still had some good fun with.
In short, I think it’s the weakest of the trilogy. A lot of flaws hold it back, but the essentials are there. It’s a decent action game that I still had some good fun with.
Lots of cool moments but Viola fucking BLOWS and you can beat most encounters with your eyes closed (I did it).
The combat system is incredibly dumbed down and sits at this weird conceptual middle ground between an actual character action game and Astral Chain and sucks at both.
The combat system is incredibly dumbed down and sits at this weird conceptual middle ground between an actual character action game and Astral Chain and sucks at both.
Bayonetta is back, baby! I waited years for this final entry in the trilogy. After being disappointed by Bayonetta 2, I hoped that this would reignite the love I have for this series. After all, Bayonetta is my favorite female video game protagonist. She truly deserves something extraordinary for her grand return, right?
Gameplay wise, she absolutely comes back guns blazing. Bayonetta 2 took a step in the wrong direction in my opinion. It didn’t have the same vigor and practically as the first entry. Thankfully they fixed their mistake here. The inclusion of controlling demons in combat is well welcomed too. My only issue here is Viola. Now, I love her. Her personality is adorable but unfortunately her combat felt lackluster. DMC was able to handle four fully fleshed out characters but this game can’t even handle two. Would’ve loved to see her moveset expanded or even have more levels just for her. Her battle theme is so kickass though. Ugh, the best theme in this game easily.
With all this praise, why can’t I still give this game five stars? Two main reasons. The story and the visuals. The visuals are more of a nitpick, they are honestly just fine, but still, there is not a massive leap in graphics from Bayo 1 to 2 to 3. If anything, this is more of the Switch’s fault. As it already tanks through certain cutscenes and combat scenarios. Dear Jubileus though, the writing in this was AWFUL. Worst than Bayonetta 2 even, which was just a rehash of the first game. Another generic garbage villain that spouts nonsense lines expecting me to actually care? These character action games, primarily by Capcom and Platinum are at their best when they’re silly, goofy fun. Not taking itself very seriously. Instead, becoming self-aware. I have no idea what they were thinking for the finale. It actually upsetted me how baffling the writing was. I just want to forget that ending, that total schlock. Bayonetta 1 is still superior in story it seems.
Even so, I still think it is worth playing through Bayonetta 3, especially if you’re an action game fan. Better money spent than the new COD, right?
Gameplay wise, she absolutely comes back guns blazing. Bayonetta 2 took a step in the wrong direction in my opinion. It didn’t have the same vigor and practically as the first entry. Thankfully they fixed their mistake here. The inclusion of controlling demons in combat is well welcomed too. My only issue here is Viola. Now, I love her. Her personality is adorable but unfortunately her combat felt lackluster. DMC was able to handle four fully fleshed out characters but this game can’t even handle two. Would’ve loved to see her moveset expanded or even have more levels just for her. Her battle theme is so kickass though. Ugh, the best theme in this game easily.
With all this praise, why can’t I still give this game five stars? Two main reasons. The story and the visuals. The visuals are more of a nitpick, they are honestly just fine, but still, there is not a massive leap in graphics from Bayo 1 to 2 to 3. If anything, this is more of the Switch’s fault. As it already tanks through certain cutscenes and combat scenarios. Dear Jubileus though, the writing in this was AWFUL. Worst than Bayonetta 2 even, which was just a rehash of the first game. Another generic garbage villain that spouts nonsense lines expecting me to actually care? These character action games, primarily by Capcom and Platinum are at their best when they’re silly, goofy fun. Not taking itself very seriously. Instead, becoming self-aware. I have no idea what they were thinking for the finale. It actually upsetted me how baffling the writing was. I just want to forget that ending, that total schlock. Bayonetta 1 is still superior in story it seems.
Even so, I still think it is worth playing through Bayonetta 3, especially if you’re an action game fan. Better money spent than the new COD, right?
It's been a long, seven year road to reach this point. Six years of radio silence, one year of anticipation, a couple weeks of controversy that blew up in Hellena Taylor's face, and we finally arrived at a game that would likely make or break the way a lot of people view Platinum Games as a studio. Did the madmen/women at Platinum pull it off?
My answer is a confident "Yes!" that quitely trails off into a "...kinda."
The star of the show is the gameplay, obviously. The option to equip a different weapon to your arms and legs has been canned, but it's been replaced with something that I am completely down with: several wholly unique and outrageous weapons. A club that doubles as an anti-matter rifle, a trainsaw blade, fire yo-yos, a microphone that you wield as a staff, and more. All of these weapons have unique movesets that share the same commands as all the other movesets, and you unlock more moves via a skill tree. Not a fan of the skill tree! I don't even think there's anything inherently wrong with its execution, I just think it doesn't need to be here, in a game that's already bursting at the seams with options. Demon slave, on the other hand, is an excellent expansion on ideas introduced in Astral Chain. Summoning a demon and giving it commands temporarily takes away control from Bayo, and you can only queue up two moves at a time. What this means is that combat shifts into this crazy back and forth of giving orders, dishing out your own attacks, and continuing your demon's carnage. It also manages to not be completely mindless, as your demons can get temporarily killed, or enraged to the point where they start lashing out at you instead.
There is one more gameplay element I've neglected talking about, and that's Viola. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with Viola's playstyle, but it does feel like an afterthought in the face of enemies clearly designed with Bayonetta in mind. Some enemy attack hitboxes are way too big, Viola's block range feels pitiful, and if you don't activate "Perfect Witch Time", I'm pretty sure that Witch Time literally lasts for less than a second (which is obviously not enough time to get any meaningful hits in). I think my actual problem with her playstyle is how inherently limited her options are in comparison to Bayonetta. As Bayo keeps getting more and more weapons, Viola is still stuck with her singular moveset. It also doesn't help matters that by the time you've made it to Viola's playable debut, you'll have invested all of your resources up to that point into Bayo's skill trees. Whenever the game gave me a choice between the two, I always opted to play as Bayonetta.
My favorite part of this game is, weirdly enough, the stage design. Chapters are still linear affairs, but areas are much more open, and there's so many opportunities to look for extras off the beaten path. Hidden verses are hidden much more naturally; a far cry from Kamiya's asinine "you beat this verse, now backtrack to the very beginning of the stage where there is now inexplicably a hidden verse and a muspelhiem" design philosophy. It definitely helps that there's a ton of extras to collect. Records, art books, 3D models, and most importantly, the Umbran Tears of Blood. There's three of these per chapter, and they each require different strategies to track down and catch. Collecting all of them unlocks extra chapters that can reward you with a variety of things: moon pearls, witch hearts, unique accessories, and even a few demons/weapons. Hiding stuff that could potentially make my Bayo experience more fun behind collectibles is a great way to make me forget the urgency of the story and go exploring.
Now this here is the unsung hero of Bayonetta 3: When replaying chapters, the chapter select lets you begin from several different checkpoints. It shows you exactly what verses you'll start at if you do so, and if you decide to quit the stage midway, it will keep all your ranks. Ranks as a whole now only keep your highest ones. If you get a better rank during a verse on a repeat playthrough, your medal will be permanently upgraded. This negates penalties for using items or continues on your final score for a stage, and your overall rank can only go up. I'm sure there are purists out there who enjoyed the challenge of finishing every single verse in a stage with high marks in one clean run, but I personally applaud the more accessible approach. Now I don't have to spend literal hours attempting to track down a verse I missed.
Something I have to comment on is the game's performance, and I really can't blame Platinum for this. Nintendo owns Bayo's ass, meaning that the game has to be on the Switch. Like it or not, the Switch is an outdated, underpowered piece of tech. Yes, it can do incredible things when you optimize the fuck out of your game, but I legitimately feel like the Switch's lack of power was a limiting factor on how ambitious Platinum could make this game. Even with all that said, the worst crime that this title commits is having somewhat muddy textures, fluctuating between 45-60 FPS when things get too heated, or locking the FPS at 30 in more bombastic gameplay segments. If anything, the game is a technical achievement in spite of its limitations. The visuals are dazzling, the action is ludicrous, and the game barely needs to load at all.
There are...aspects I like about the story. The multiverse shenanigans are great fun, in my opinion. Visiting all these different worlds and fighting alongside/against their version of Bayonetta is kind of ingenious. I like reading the secondary materials you collect, getting an idea of how daily life in these universes went down before everything went to shit. Where the story actually falls short for me are our main characters, which is a pretty damning place to stumble. Bayonetta feels so disconnected from the rest of the cast, probably due to how she's getting involved with whatever multiverse she finds herself in at any given moment. They game alludes to there being something more to the relationship between Viola and Cheshire, but it never goes into detail on that, unless it's meant to represent (endgame story twist that I'm still having difficulty accepting). I don't hate Viola's character, by the way. I have a soft spot for archetypes like her, honestly. That tryhard attitude, the "it's not a phase, mom" fashion choices; I enjoy her antics more than most. However, I don't think we spent nearly enough time getting to know Viola to justify the ramifications of this game's ending. I have no idea what they did to Luka, wrapping him up in the multiverse nonsense, giving him new abilities for what feels like really contrived reasons. And man, the villain plain sucks in this. He shows up at the eleventh hour with little buildup. We barely know anything about him, and then suddenly he reveals himself to be the bad guy. While I watched the (initial) credits roll, I was genuinely convinced I had arrived at a "bad ending" or something, but nope, that's just how the game fucking ends. It feels like we're missing a game's worth of plot to fill the gap between Bayo 2 and 3. I would genuinely love to know how Platinum Games managed to create a story that feels both overcooked and half-baked.
Honestly, I'm mostly relieved that Platinum never seems to stray too far from what they do best: their over-the-top, mechanically dense gameplay. The story definitely bothers me, but my feelings of confusion fade the moment I'm back in the midst of battle, having a grand old time. Good luck trying to follow up this plot though, Platinum. You put yourself in the worst position possible for moving forward.
My answer is a confident "Yes!" that quitely trails off into a "...kinda."
The star of the show is the gameplay, obviously. The option to equip a different weapon to your arms and legs has been canned, but it's been replaced with something that I am completely down with: several wholly unique and outrageous weapons. A club that doubles as an anti-matter rifle, a trainsaw blade, fire yo-yos, a microphone that you wield as a staff, and more. All of these weapons have unique movesets that share the same commands as all the other movesets, and you unlock more moves via a skill tree. Not a fan of the skill tree! I don't even think there's anything inherently wrong with its execution, I just think it doesn't need to be here, in a game that's already bursting at the seams with options. Demon slave, on the other hand, is an excellent expansion on ideas introduced in Astral Chain. Summoning a demon and giving it commands temporarily takes away control from Bayo, and you can only queue up two moves at a time. What this means is that combat shifts into this crazy back and forth of giving orders, dishing out your own attacks, and continuing your demon's carnage. It also manages to not be completely mindless, as your demons can get temporarily killed, or enraged to the point where they start lashing out at you instead.
There is one more gameplay element I've neglected talking about, and that's Viola. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with Viola's playstyle, but it does feel like an afterthought in the face of enemies clearly designed with Bayonetta in mind. Some enemy attack hitboxes are way too big, Viola's block range feels pitiful, and if you don't activate "Perfect Witch Time", I'm pretty sure that Witch Time literally lasts for less than a second (which is obviously not enough time to get any meaningful hits in). I think my actual problem with her playstyle is how inherently limited her options are in comparison to Bayonetta. As Bayo keeps getting more and more weapons, Viola is still stuck with her singular moveset. It also doesn't help matters that by the time you've made it to Viola's playable debut, you'll have invested all of your resources up to that point into Bayo's skill trees. Whenever the game gave me a choice between the two, I always opted to play as Bayonetta.
My favorite part of this game is, weirdly enough, the stage design. Chapters are still linear affairs, but areas are much more open, and there's so many opportunities to look for extras off the beaten path. Hidden verses are hidden much more naturally; a far cry from Kamiya's asinine "you beat this verse, now backtrack to the very beginning of the stage where there is now inexplicably a hidden verse and a muspelhiem" design philosophy. It definitely helps that there's a ton of extras to collect. Records, art books, 3D models, and most importantly, the Umbran Tears of Blood. There's three of these per chapter, and they each require different strategies to track down and catch. Collecting all of them unlocks extra chapters that can reward you with a variety of things: moon pearls, witch hearts, unique accessories, and even a few demons/weapons. Hiding stuff that could potentially make my Bayo experience more fun behind collectibles is a great way to make me forget the urgency of the story and go exploring.
Now this here is the unsung hero of Bayonetta 3: When replaying chapters, the chapter select lets you begin from several different checkpoints. It shows you exactly what verses you'll start at if you do so, and if you decide to quit the stage midway, it will keep all your ranks. Ranks as a whole now only keep your highest ones. If you get a better rank during a verse on a repeat playthrough, your medal will be permanently upgraded. This negates penalties for using items or continues on your final score for a stage, and your overall rank can only go up. I'm sure there are purists out there who enjoyed the challenge of finishing every single verse in a stage with high marks in one clean run, but I personally applaud the more accessible approach. Now I don't have to spend literal hours attempting to track down a verse I missed.
Something I have to comment on is the game's performance, and I really can't blame Platinum for this. Nintendo owns Bayo's ass, meaning that the game has to be on the Switch. Like it or not, the Switch is an outdated, underpowered piece of tech. Yes, it can do incredible things when you optimize the fuck out of your game, but I legitimately feel like the Switch's lack of power was a limiting factor on how ambitious Platinum could make this game. Even with all that said, the worst crime that this title commits is having somewhat muddy textures, fluctuating between 45-60 FPS when things get too heated, or locking the FPS at 30 in more bombastic gameplay segments. If anything, the game is a technical achievement in spite of its limitations. The visuals are dazzling, the action is ludicrous, and the game barely needs to load at all.
There are...aspects I like about the story. The multiverse shenanigans are great fun, in my opinion. Visiting all these different worlds and fighting alongside/against their version of Bayonetta is kind of ingenious. I like reading the secondary materials you collect, getting an idea of how daily life in these universes went down before everything went to shit. Where the story actually falls short for me are our main characters, which is a pretty damning place to stumble. Bayonetta feels so disconnected from the rest of the cast, probably due to how she's getting involved with whatever multiverse she finds herself in at any given moment. They game alludes to there being something more to the relationship between Viola and Cheshire, but it never goes into detail on that, unless it's meant to represent (endgame story twist that I'm still having difficulty accepting). I don't hate Viola's character, by the way. I have a soft spot for archetypes like her, honestly. That tryhard attitude, the "it's not a phase, mom" fashion choices; I enjoy her antics more than most. However, I don't think we spent nearly enough time getting to know Viola to justify the ramifications of this game's ending. I have no idea what they did to Luka, wrapping him up in the multiverse nonsense, giving him new abilities for what feels like really contrived reasons. And man, the villain plain sucks in this. He shows up at the eleventh hour with little buildup. We barely know anything about him, and then suddenly he reveals himself to be the bad guy. While I watched the (initial) credits roll, I was genuinely convinced I had arrived at a "bad ending" or something, but nope, that's just how the game fucking ends. It feels like we're missing a game's worth of plot to fill the gap between Bayo 2 and 3. I would genuinely love to know how Platinum Games managed to create a story that feels both overcooked and half-baked.
Honestly, I'm mostly relieved that Platinum never seems to stray too far from what they do best: their over-the-top, mechanically dense gameplay. The story definitely bothers me, but my feelings of confusion fade the moment I'm back in the midst of battle, having a grand old time. Good luck trying to follow up this plot though, Platinum. You put yourself in the worst position possible for moving forward.
This one didn't really click with me unfortunately, although I guess that's a bit on me for having my first exposure to the series be the ridiculous multiverse season finale game.
...wait what do you mean kamiya wants to make 6 more of these?
...wait what do you mean kamiya wants to make 6 more of these?
Frustrating camera, always gets EATEN by kaiju enemies, so I can’t see shit and it always gets locked on the kaiju as well, so I can’t see smaller enemies attacking me, especially when they have range or distance attacks.
Viola is not only absolutely boring, she’s also obnoxiously annoying and her moveset is complete garbage.
The multiverse ooga-booga gets bonkers in the worst way possible, making one of the worst finales and endings I have EVER experienced.
100% frustrating experience.
Viola is not only absolutely boring, she’s also obnoxiously annoying and her moveset is complete garbage.
The multiverse ooga-booga gets bonkers in the worst way possible, making one of the worst finales and endings I have EVER experienced.
100% frustrating experience.
Man when this game is good its real good. When its not its really not good. The story is a bunch of garbage and I almost can overlook that if I wasn't playing as a character that I hate to play as a quarter of the time. Or if Jeanne's levels didn't also suck. Or if all the skill trees for all the weapons didn't feel exactly the same. Its still fine and playable enough just was expecting more with such a long wait. I legit think i would have had more fun skipping the cutscenes in their entirety.
Bayonetta 3 ends up not only the worst, but the most disappointing entry in the series.
Bayonetta 3 follows the series trend of changing director's each entry. However, this time round, i think this was ultimately to the game's downfall. For context, Bayonetta 3 was directed by Yusuke Miyata, the director of Platinum Games' Astral Chain, and the similarities of both are endless. One of the core new mechanics of Bayonetta 3 is demon control, in that all of Bayonetta's devil servants are controllable in fights. The issue with it is that when controlling these demons, Bayonetta is left defenceless and uncontrollable. This just results in breaking up the flow of the fights and combos. It doesn't help that due to this new system, the encounters in the game are, as a result, designed for these demon's in mind, leaving you with massive arenas unfriendly to simply fighting with Bayonetta herself, as she becomes way too small to even see at points. Miyata used slightly too much of his experience directing Astral Chain in that regard.
With the new director, i feel as if some of Bayonetta's core identity also went with the previous 2 directors. The incredible thing that set the original 2 Bayonetta games apart from every other spectical fighter was its massively intense sense of complete style. Each Bayonetta game previously was accompanied by really a really funky Jazz soundtrack that both complimented Bayonetta's personality, but also went incredibly well with the high intensity action of the game. Each time you'd hit the climax, when you simply entered a battle, or even when you were in the in game store you'd have this smooth jazz soundtrack playing. The original 2 has ounces and ounces of personality because of this factor, but when you have Bayonetta 3, which has toned these aspects down significantly, if feels as if all soul has been completely ripped from the franchise. A disappointing change which feels unreasonable looking back.
Bayonetta 3 also has the issue of splitting itself in half, by way of a brand new playable character who revolves around the story massively. In 14 chapters, the game is split evenly down the middle with half of the chapters being Bayonetta's side while the other is from the POV of the franchise new character: Viola. It wouldn't be an issue within itself if Viola wasn't obscenely awful to control. In every Bayonetta, a core mechanic has been Witch Time which was activated every time Bayonetta dodged an attack, it'd give you a few brief seconds of slow motion and that was one of the defining mechanic that made Bayonetta stand out. The mecanic is still there for both Bayonetta and Viola, and works the exact same with Bayonetta however, with Viola's playstyle you have to block attacks in order to activate Witch time. This is an awful decision, as having to block in the middle of combos completely ruins the flow and even by the time you have successfully blocked an attack, been hit back, then gone to attack the enemy in Witch time, Viola has absolutely zero range on her, leaving her Witch Time utterly useless.
While the core combat on Bayonetta's side of the story is still in tact and better than ever, it's just unfortunate that so much of the game feels underdeveloped, or simply unfinished in small portions. There's a lot of really interesting ideas, they just don't come together at all.
Bayonetta 3 follows the series trend of changing director's each entry. However, this time round, i think this was ultimately to the game's downfall. For context, Bayonetta 3 was directed by Yusuke Miyata, the director of Platinum Games' Astral Chain, and the similarities of both are endless. One of the core new mechanics of Bayonetta 3 is demon control, in that all of Bayonetta's devil servants are controllable in fights. The issue with it is that when controlling these demons, Bayonetta is left defenceless and uncontrollable. This just results in breaking up the flow of the fights and combos. It doesn't help that due to this new system, the encounters in the game are, as a result, designed for these demon's in mind, leaving you with massive arenas unfriendly to simply fighting with Bayonetta herself, as she becomes way too small to even see at points. Miyata used slightly too much of his experience directing Astral Chain in that regard.
With the new director, i feel as if some of Bayonetta's core identity also went with the previous 2 directors. The incredible thing that set the original 2 Bayonetta games apart from every other spectical fighter was its massively intense sense of complete style. Each Bayonetta game previously was accompanied by really a really funky Jazz soundtrack that both complimented Bayonetta's personality, but also went incredibly well with the high intensity action of the game. Each time you'd hit the climax, when you simply entered a battle, or even when you were in the in game store you'd have this smooth jazz soundtrack playing. The original 2 has ounces and ounces of personality because of this factor, but when you have Bayonetta 3, which has toned these aspects down significantly, if feels as if all soul has been completely ripped from the franchise. A disappointing change which feels unreasonable looking back.
Bayonetta 3 also has the issue of splitting itself in half, by way of a brand new playable character who revolves around the story massively. In 14 chapters, the game is split evenly down the middle with half of the chapters being Bayonetta's side while the other is from the POV of the franchise new character: Viola. It wouldn't be an issue within itself if Viola wasn't obscenely awful to control. In every Bayonetta, a core mechanic has been Witch Time which was activated every time Bayonetta dodged an attack, it'd give you a few brief seconds of slow motion and that was one of the defining mechanic that made Bayonetta stand out. The mecanic is still there for both Bayonetta and Viola, and works the exact same with Bayonetta however, with Viola's playstyle you have to block attacks in order to activate Witch time. This is an awful decision, as having to block in the middle of combos completely ruins the flow and even by the time you have successfully blocked an attack, been hit back, then gone to attack the enemy in Witch time, Viola has absolutely zero range on her, leaving her Witch Time utterly useless.
While the core combat on Bayonetta's side of the story is still in tact and better than ever, it's just unfortunate that so much of the game feels underdeveloped, or simply unfinished in small portions. There's a lot of really interesting ideas, they just don't come together at all.
Might re-review after playing more on Infinite Climax but am disappointed with what I've played thus far.
The action is better than what I remember from Bayo 2 but some flaws of that game compared to Bayo 1 (variable witch time, piss-weak combos, too many giant enemies, etc) haven't been addressed. I don't think the new Demon Slave mechanics are as good as Astral Chain's take on the idea either.
About the story, Bayonetta games aren't exactly Shakespeare, but Bayo 3 is unfortunately the most bloated, least interesting and least entertaining out of the three. They did our girl dirty too.
The action is better than what I remember from Bayo 2 but some flaws of that game compared to Bayo 1 (variable witch time, piss-weak combos, too many giant enemies, etc) haven't been addressed. I don't think the new Demon Slave mechanics are as good as Astral Chain's take on the idea either.
About the story, Bayonetta games aren't exactly Shakespeare, but Bayo 3 is unfortunately the most bloated, least interesting and least entertaining out of the three. They did our girl dirty too.
This review contains spoilers
Bayonetta 3 feels like a game made by an ideas guy plagued with a terrible cause of ADHD who contracted a team of programmers who are just competent enough to execute his ideas so that they don’t turn out complete shit, but forgot to make them actually fun. Spectacle has always been a big part of the Bayonetta games, and Platinum’s games in general, but never to the point where it interfered too much with the game’s central mechanics. With Bayonetta 3, it unfortunately seems like Platinum has forgotten why people like Bayonetta in the first place.
I’ll fully admit I’m a shitter at these games, and I’m never going to be good enough, bored enough, or insane enough to try to do stuff like Pure Platinuming all the chapters on even the easiest difficulty, let alone on Infinite Climax mode. If that means I lack the qualifications to properly criticize this game’s combat in your eyes, so be it. I’d like to believe however that I have at least a basic understanding of what made the first two games fun. Their combat was pretty basic action game stuff where you have punches, kicks, and a dodge, with dodge offset and witch time being the two main things setting Bayonetta apart from other games in the genre. The appeal at least for me was always the extremely satisfying and polished combat, the spectacle of crazy fights and scenarios, and of course Bayonetta herself.
Where Bayo 3 goes wrong is that it leans so far into spectacle, it doesn’t pay enough attention to pretty much everything else. This game’s main gimmick, demon slave, is an ability that allows you to summon and control a giant demon at will, draining your magic meter as you use it. You can’t move Bayonetta during this, and dodging will automatically unsummon the demon and give control back to you. Attacking with the demon has a buffer system where you can input a chain of attacks, let go of the summon button, and move around or attack as Bayonetta as long as there’s still attacks for the demon to do. You can then continue holding the button to keep the demon on the battlefield.
It’s definitely an interesting mechanic, and I can see the potential for some wild stuff, but the fact that it completely takes over almost every battle ruins a bit of the fun. I don’t play Bayonetta to play as some giant, slow, awkwardly controlling monster. It doesn’t help that the camera stays behind Bayonetta so you feel like you’re controlling something in the background and not even part of the action most of the time. To accommodate for the size of the demons and some of the enemies, every arena is massive, meaning that whenever you aren’t using demons, you’re spending far too much time running back and forth to each enemy. Thank god for the homing skill in this game, because you’re going to be using it a lot.
Once you unlock more demons, this aspect of the game does improve, but it never feels as polished or fun as it should be. Whenever you get the few fights where you’re just playing as Bayonetta, it’s a major breath of fresh air. Then the realization struck me that I really wish I was playing either of the first two Bayonetta games rather than this one. Pulling off wicked weaves is so much more satisfying in those games, and here they might as well not even exist. You do get something called wink slave, which allows you to quickly summon demons at the end of an attack string, but that’s literally just a slightly more complicated wicked weave. Also, I swear I got hit by offscreen attacks way more than any Platinum Games game. Either that, or this game’s visuals are such a clusterfuck of neon greens, blues, and ugly grays that it all blends together in a visual sludge that makes combat readability virtually nonexistent at times. The camera somehow managing to be the worst camera in a Bayonetta game yet doesn’t help with that either.
With all that being said, Bayonetta’s combat definitely isn’t bad, it’s just not as good as previous games. If the game gave you more time to get used to the general combat, maybe I would have felt more positively about it, but the problem is that Platinum felt the incessant need to fill every chapter with some gimmick section that plays way more differently than any other part of the game. One of these involves a kaiju battle, one’s a rhythm game, Jeanne has her own set of 2D levels inspired by the Elevator Action games, and more. The best way to describe all of these is that they’re all conceptually neat and fun on paper, but once you play more than 30 seconds of them, you realize that it’s either really boring or really obnoxious. I can only imagine the suffering people will go through trying to Pure Platinum these parts. One of my biggest issues with Platinum is their obsession with gimmick sections like this, especially when they’re the most difficult part of their games (I’m looking at you, Wonderful 101 shmup sections). Bayonetta 3 manages to double down on this, to the point where I’m convinced that half of your playtime isn’t even really playing as Bayonetta. We’re legitimately bordering on a minigame collection with this one.
And then there’s Viola. I have nothing wrong with multiple playable characters in games like this, but holy shit Viola sucks. Literally everything about her sucks. Her combat sucks, her personality sucks, her story sucks, like Jesus Christ there’s so little to like about her. She is genuinely the worst controlling Platinum Games character ever that I can think of. It’s so jarring going from how smoothly Bayonetta controls to how clunky Viola does. The worst part of her kit by far is her parry. It doesn’t work like in Metal Gear Rising, as you may expect it to work. Platinum decided that her parry should have this weird start up lag, meaning that you have to hit the parry button way earlier than you think you do in order to activate witch time. You can also just hold the block button to prevent most attacks from damaging you, but it turns the game into being way too defensive and passive, which is the exact opposite of what I want from a Bayonetta game. She has a summon too, Cheshire, and it genuinely tends to feel more effective to just summon him and have him do most of the work while you spam her dart attack. People are finding out tech with her that makes her seem more interesting, but I doubt she would be more fun. Even Platinum didn’t seem to have confidence in her gameplay style considering she only gets 3 levels devoted to her. I can’t help but wonder if the demon slave and Viola mechanics were leftovers from their cancelled game, Scalebound, that Kamiya decided to sneak into this game because he was still buttmad over Microsoft dabbing on his idea and throwing it in the gutter.
While we’re talking about Viola, might as well dive into the story. Bayonetta has never had a particularly great story, sometimes bordering on downright incomprehensible, but it was generally serviceable and the characters always stood out and carried the poor writing. Bayonetta 3 though has a terrible problem with tone. It appears that Platinum had no idea what they wanted to do with this game, so they just put everything in the pot and made the story equivalent of a cacophony. It’s really bizarre going from the intro scene of New York City being utterly destroyed, millions of innocent people dying, and then seeing Bayonetta do her quirky little winks and dances as jazzy music plays. Bayo 1 and 2 had moments of destruction that probably lead to a couple people getting offed, but it never lingered on that stuff at all unlike in 3. In a game that seems to be trying to take itself more seriously, the more wacky moments really stand out as awkward. It gets even worse when you get into the multiverse stuff and see one Bayonetta after another getting killed in the most boring, unceremonious way right after silly scenes like an army of zombie-like creatures doing a Thriller dance. It’s like if The Last of Us had Joel doing Fortnite dances when he defeats a group of enemies before a scene where he’s told that Ellie has to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
What’s especially bad is that Bayonetta barely feels like a character anymore. Jennifer Hale actually does a surprisingly good Hellena Taylor impression, so it’s a shame that she never really gets to shine here. Her dialog is the most generic, uninteresting dialog you could think for a game like this. You know why these kinds of action games are often called character action games? Because they’re all about the personality and charisma of the character. The only time Bayonetta really feels like herself is at the very end of the game, and it’s not even the one you’ve been playing as.
Even worse is that Viola seems to have way more dialog and it’s the cringiest shit ever. I can’t tell if Viola is supposed to be a parody of DmC Dante type characters or not, but the fact that they appear to be really trying to get you to like her makes me think they’re being genuine with this. Platinum tried to pull a Nero with her and failed miserably. Oh yeah, going back to tone, Viola literally has scenes where she becomes a Looney Tunes character. There’s actually a moment where she steps out of a portal and does the whole “standing on nothing and gravity doesn’t affect her until she looks down” gag. They’re trying to do a “passing the torch” story with Wile E. fucking Coyote. All the dumb slapstick with her is poorly done and goes completely against the more serious tone of the overarching storyline. It probably would have been better to just have her be a complete edgelord to contrast with Bayonetta’s more calm and collected demeanor. I really don’t want to harp on Viola too much because she really doesn’t take up that much of the game, but man for how little you play as her she really drags the game down hard. It’s impressive how bad she is. Hell, even her music is forgettable. They give her this punk rock look, and her music is basically just Paramore. Oh yeah, the first thing I think of when I imagine punk is fucking Paramore. I hate Viola so much it’s unreal.
Anyway, the story for the most part is bad and forgettable. Nothing happens for the majority of it other than every Bayonetta dying 5 minutes after being introduced, and you getting each of the ChaosEmeralds Gears. Luka, formerly a joke character, now has super powers and can turn into a werewolf creature. Then some guy in a pod turns out to be the big bad and kills Jeanne in a way that really should not have killed her. Also Bayonetta and Luka are really into each other now, despite there being little to no indication in previous games of them having those kinds of feelings for each other other than on a purely sexual level. I guess Bayonetta is just really into werewolf dick.
I’m not one of those crazy Twitter cultists who thought that Bayonetta munched on carpet on a daily basis, but the romantic aspect of this game truly does not make any sense. It comes completely out of nowhere. Again, I have no idea what the fuck Platinum was thinking with this story. It’s the same level of quality as a Kingdom Hearts fanfiction.
What’s most frustrating about all this is that there is a truly great game in here somewhere. It’s certainly not bad, just not as good as it should be. Combat is still mostly satisfying and fun once you get used to the new mechanics. Many of the boss fights are pretty cool too, including the final boss which was actually a step up from Bayonetta 2’s lackluster finale. Considering things like Hellena Taylor’s temper tantrum forcing Platinum to find a new VA and the original director leaving the studio in the middle of this game’s development, I can only imagine the production issues this game underwent. I’m convinced that there were a bunch of other behind-the-scenes mishaps that led to this game being the mixed bag that it is. Ultimately, the game ended up a disappointing hodge podge of cool ideas that are half baked and take too much time away from the series’ strengths.
Sadly, I can’t see myself really wanting a Bayonetta 4 to “fix” things since Platinum has been on a downward spiral in my opinion for a while now. Their licensed games were forgettable to bad (I’m sorry, I won’t be gaslit into believing that Transformers Devastation is anything better than adequate), Nier Automata barely even counts as a Platinum Games game, and Astral Chain was also a disappointment to me, albeit it is an outlier since most people seemed to enjoy it. Then there’s Babylon’s Fall, which might go down as the biggest bruh moment in video game history. This was Platinum’s last straw for me and I do believe they’ve lost their touch.
I’ll fully admit I’m a shitter at these games, and I’m never going to be good enough, bored enough, or insane enough to try to do stuff like Pure Platinuming all the chapters on even the easiest difficulty, let alone on Infinite Climax mode. If that means I lack the qualifications to properly criticize this game’s combat in your eyes, so be it. I’d like to believe however that I have at least a basic understanding of what made the first two games fun. Their combat was pretty basic action game stuff where you have punches, kicks, and a dodge, with dodge offset and witch time being the two main things setting Bayonetta apart from other games in the genre. The appeal at least for me was always the extremely satisfying and polished combat, the spectacle of crazy fights and scenarios, and of course Bayonetta herself.
Where Bayo 3 goes wrong is that it leans so far into spectacle, it doesn’t pay enough attention to pretty much everything else. This game’s main gimmick, demon slave, is an ability that allows you to summon and control a giant demon at will, draining your magic meter as you use it. You can’t move Bayonetta during this, and dodging will automatically unsummon the demon and give control back to you. Attacking with the demon has a buffer system where you can input a chain of attacks, let go of the summon button, and move around or attack as Bayonetta as long as there’s still attacks for the demon to do. You can then continue holding the button to keep the demon on the battlefield.
It’s definitely an interesting mechanic, and I can see the potential for some wild stuff, but the fact that it completely takes over almost every battle ruins a bit of the fun. I don’t play Bayonetta to play as some giant, slow, awkwardly controlling monster. It doesn’t help that the camera stays behind Bayonetta so you feel like you’re controlling something in the background and not even part of the action most of the time. To accommodate for the size of the demons and some of the enemies, every arena is massive, meaning that whenever you aren’t using demons, you’re spending far too much time running back and forth to each enemy. Thank god for the homing skill in this game, because you’re going to be using it a lot.
Once you unlock more demons, this aspect of the game does improve, but it never feels as polished or fun as it should be. Whenever you get the few fights where you’re just playing as Bayonetta, it’s a major breath of fresh air. Then the realization struck me that I really wish I was playing either of the first two Bayonetta games rather than this one. Pulling off wicked weaves is so much more satisfying in those games, and here they might as well not even exist. You do get something called wink slave, which allows you to quickly summon demons at the end of an attack string, but that’s literally just a slightly more complicated wicked weave. Also, I swear I got hit by offscreen attacks way more than any Platinum Games game. Either that, or this game’s visuals are such a clusterfuck of neon greens, blues, and ugly grays that it all blends together in a visual sludge that makes combat readability virtually nonexistent at times. The camera somehow managing to be the worst camera in a Bayonetta game yet doesn’t help with that either.
With all that being said, Bayonetta’s combat definitely isn’t bad, it’s just not as good as previous games. If the game gave you more time to get used to the general combat, maybe I would have felt more positively about it, but the problem is that Platinum felt the incessant need to fill every chapter with some gimmick section that plays way more differently than any other part of the game. One of these involves a kaiju battle, one’s a rhythm game, Jeanne has her own set of 2D levels inspired by the Elevator Action games, and more. The best way to describe all of these is that they’re all conceptually neat and fun on paper, but once you play more than 30 seconds of them, you realize that it’s either really boring or really obnoxious. I can only imagine the suffering people will go through trying to Pure Platinum these parts. One of my biggest issues with Platinum is their obsession with gimmick sections like this, especially when they’re the most difficult part of their games (I’m looking at you, Wonderful 101 shmup sections). Bayonetta 3 manages to double down on this, to the point where I’m convinced that half of your playtime isn’t even really playing as Bayonetta. We’re legitimately bordering on a minigame collection with this one.
And then there’s Viola. I have nothing wrong with multiple playable characters in games like this, but holy shit Viola sucks. Literally everything about her sucks. Her combat sucks, her personality sucks, her story sucks, like Jesus Christ there’s so little to like about her. She is genuinely the worst controlling Platinum Games character ever that I can think of. It’s so jarring going from how smoothly Bayonetta controls to how clunky Viola does. The worst part of her kit by far is her parry. It doesn’t work like in Metal Gear Rising, as you may expect it to work. Platinum decided that her parry should have this weird start up lag, meaning that you have to hit the parry button way earlier than you think you do in order to activate witch time. You can also just hold the block button to prevent most attacks from damaging you, but it turns the game into being way too defensive and passive, which is the exact opposite of what I want from a Bayonetta game. She has a summon too, Cheshire, and it genuinely tends to feel more effective to just summon him and have him do most of the work while you spam her dart attack. People are finding out tech with her that makes her seem more interesting, but I doubt she would be more fun. Even Platinum didn’t seem to have confidence in her gameplay style considering she only gets 3 levels devoted to her. I can’t help but wonder if the demon slave and Viola mechanics were leftovers from their cancelled game, Scalebound, that Kamiya decided to sneak into this game because he was still buttmad over Microsoft dabbing on his idea and throwing it in the gutter.
While we’re talking about Viola, might as well dive into the story. Bayonetta has never had a particularly great story, sometimes bordering on downright incomprehensible, but it was generally serviceable and the characters always stood out and carried the poor writing. Bayonetta 3 though has a terrible problem with tone. It appears that Platinum had no idea what they wanted to do with this game, so they just put everything in the pot and made the story equivalent of a cacophony. It’s really bizarre going from the intro scene of New York City being utterly destroyed, millions of innocent people dying, and then seeing Bayonetta do her quirky little winks and dances as jazzy music plays. Bayo 1 and 2 had moments of destruction that probably lead to a couple people getting offed, but it never lingered on that stuff at all unlike in 3. In a game that seems to be trying to take itself more seriously, the more wacky moments really stand out as awkward. It gets even worse when you get into the multiverse stuff and see one Bayonetta after another getting killed in the most boring, unceremonious way right after silly scenes like an army of zombie-like creatures doing a Thriller dance. It’s like if The Last of Us had Joel doing Fortnite dances when he defeats a group of enemies before a scene where he’s told that Ellie has to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
What’s especially bad is that Bayonetta barely feels like a character anymore. Jennifer Hale actually does a surprisingly good Hellena Taylor impression, so it’s a shame that she never really gets to shine here. Her dialog is the most generic, uninteresting dialog you could think for a game like this. You know why these kinds of action games are often called character action games? Because they’re all about the personality and charisma of the character. The only time Bayonetta really feels like herself is at the very end of the game, and it’s not even the one you’ve been playing as.
Even worse is that Viola seems to have way more dialog and it’s the cringiest shit ever. I can’t tell if Viola is supposed to be a parody of DmC Dante type characters or not, but the fact that they appear to be really trying to get you to like her makes me think they’re being genuine with this. Platinum tried to pull a Nero with her and failed miserably. Oh yeah, going back to tone, Viola literally has scenes where she becomes a Looney Tunes character. There’s actually a moment where she steps out of a portal and does the whole “standing on nothing and gravity doesn’t affect her until she looks down” gag. They’re trying to do a “passing the torch” story with Wile E. fucking Coyote. All the dumb slapstick with her is poorly done and goes completely against the more serious tone of the overarching storyline. It probably would have been better to just have her be a complete edgelord to contrast with Bayonetta’s more calm and collected demeanor. I really don’t want to harp on Viola too much because she really doesn’t take up that much of the game, but man for how little you play as her she really drags the game down hard. It’s impressive how bad she is. Hell, even her music is forgettable. They give her this punk rock look, and her music is basically just Paramore. Oh yeah, the first thing I think of when I imagine punk is fucking Paramore. I hate Viola so much it’s unreal.
Anyway, the story for the most part is bad and forgettable. Nothing happens for the majority of it other than every Bayonetta dying 5 minutes after being introduced, and you getting each of the Chaos
I’m not one of those crazy Twitter cultists who thought that Bayonetta munched on carpet on a daily basis, but the romantic aspect of this game truly does not make any sense. It comes completely out of nowhere. Again, I have no idea what the fuck Platinum was thinking with this story. It’s the same level of quality as a Kingdom Hearts fanfiction.
What’s most frustrating about all this is that there is a truly great game in here somewhere. It’s certainly not bad, just not as good as it should be. Combat is still mostly satisfying and fun once you get used to the new mechanics. Many of the boss fights are pretty cool too, including the final boss which was actually a step up from Bayonetta 2’s lackluster finale. Considering things like Hellena Taylor’s temper tantrum forcing Platinum to find a new VA and the original director leaving the studio in the middle of this game’s development, I can only imagine the production issues this game underwent. I’m convinced that there were a bunch of other behind-the-scenes mishaps that led to this game being the mixed bag that it is. Ultimately, the game ended up a disappointing hodge podge of cool ideas that are half baked and take too much time away from the series’ strengths.
Sadly, I can’t see myself really wanting a Bayonetta 4 to “fix” things since Platinum has been on a downward spiral in my opinion for a while now. Their licensed games were forgettable to bad (I’m sorry, I won’t be gaslit into believing that Transformers Devastation is anything better than adequate), Nier Automata barely even counts as a Platinum Games game, and Astral Chain was also a disappointment to me, albeit it is an outlier since most people seemed to enjoy it. Then there’s Babylon’s Fall, which might go down as the biggest bruh moment in video game history. This was Platinum’s last straw for me and I do believe they’ve lost their touch.
This review contains spoilers
FUCK THIS STUPID ASS FUCKING GAME THEY MADE HER HETEROSEXUAL AND THEN FUCKING KILLED HER AND MADE HER A MOM AND THEY TOOK OUT WEAPON COMBINATIONS AND ITS ALL ABOUT STUPID FUCKING SUMMONS WHO ONLY HAVE LIKE 3 FUCKING DIAL COMBOS EACH FUCK YOU BAYONETTA 3 AND FUCK THAT TERF ASS BITCH OG VOICE ACTOR WHO TOLD US TO BOYCOTT THIS I STILL BOUGHT THE COLLECTORS EDITION BAYONETTA IS MY GIRL FOR REAL
It really frustrates me that this game is like, probably the most fun and dense mechanically of every Bayo game because its not a good game. And that makes me really upset cause I had a lot riding on this game. Bad story, really poor character writing, lacking in features that were in every game prior, really poor balance on Viola, kinda lackluster monster design, its really a shame. This game needed two more years to cook and I would've been happy to wait.
Bayonetta 3 is an absolute blast to play. The combat’s as good as ever, and the new demon summoning mechanic works surprisingly well with the flow of combat. It is a shame, in my opinion, that this is the worst Bayonetta game by a very large margin when it comes to pretty much everything else.
Bayonetta 3 is one on the most visually unpleasant games I’ve played in recent memory. The character models and the environments constantly clash, and the image quality is just sad. It’s the worst looking Bayonetta by far, which is insane because the first game came out in 2009. There are plenty of set pieces in the game (almost one per chapter) but none of them hit because none of them are visually impressive. Kratos was fighting hordes of enemies on the moving back of Gaia and Nathan Drake was hanging on to an airplane that was falling apart in games that were running on weaker hardware and they still looked a lot better than anything in this game. Even the set piece in Bayonetta 2’s prologue was more visually impressive and memorable than anything here. Is sliding down buildings on top of an infernal demon really that big of a deal when the buildings look like cardboard cutouts begging to go out of frame?
Then there’s the story, which is…sigh. Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the stories in the first two games weren’t hot messes, but they were the fun, campy kind of hot messes. Bayonetta 3’s story is just kinda…bad. The game tries to do this whole multiverse (ugh) thing, but none of the universes you visit are actually all that interesting save for one, and you never stay in any of them for long enough to get an actual feel for the world. Then there’s pretty much all the characters feeling…a little off. Bayonetta feels like a different character at times, and it’s not just because of the VA change (Hale does a good job FWIW, but there’s no beating Taylor). She feels a lot more subdued and generally a lot less fun here. Same goes for Jeanne (I need to have a conversation with whoever came up with her design this time around to try and understand the thought process behind it because…) and Luka. Then there’s Viola, a terribly voice acted 2D cardboard cutout of a character that unfortunately ends up having a big role in the grand scheme of things. Then there’s the ending, which is insanely abrupt and is only made worse by the post-credits scenes that follow it. The game also has the worst soundtrack out of all of the games. It’s still great and there are a couple of bangers, but I genuinely thought Moonlight Serenade’s rendition was a joke when I first heard it.
There’s also a weird amount of padding in the game that really wasn’t needed. The Jeanne missions are…there but they at least try to mix up the gameplay a little as opposed to Viola’s missions, which had me constantly questioning why the game was forcing me to play as a clunkier, less-fun Bayonetta.
Again, Bayonetta 3 is an undeniably fun game and I still had a good time with it overall, but the first two games are some of my all-time favorites and this one just simply failed to measure up. It’s probably the most I’ve been disappointed by a game since Zero Time Dilemma.
Bayonetta 3 is one on the most visually unpleasant games I’ve played in recent memory. The character models and the environments constantly clash, and the image quality is just sad. It’s the worst looking Bayonetta by far, which is insane because the first game came out in 2009. There are plenty of set pieces in the game (almost one per chapter) but none of them hit because none of them are visually impressive. Kratos was fighting hordes of enemies on the moving back of Gaia and Nathan Drake was hanging on to an airplane that was falling apart in games that were running on weaker hardware and they still looked a lot better than anything in this game. Even the set piece in Bayonetta 2’s prologue was more visually impressive and memorable than anything here. Is sliding down buildings on top of an infernal demon really that big of a deal when the buildings look like cardboard cutouts begging to go out of frame?
Then there’s the story, which is…sigh. Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the stories in the first two games weren’t hot messes, but they were the fun, campy kind of hot messes. Bayonetta 3’s story is just kinda…bad. The game tries to do this whole multiverse (ugh) thing, but none of the universes you visit are actually all that interesting save for one, and you never stay in any of them for long enough to get an actual feel for the world. Then there’s pretty much all the characters feeling…a little off. Bayonetta feels like a different character at times, and it’s not just because of the VA change (Hale does a good job FWIW, but there’s no beating Taylor). She feels a lot more subdued and generally a lot less fun here. Same goes for Jeanne (I need to have a conversation with whoever came up with her design this time around to try and understand the thought process behind it because…) and Luka. Then there’s Viola, a terribly voice acted 2D cardboard cutout of a character that unfortunately ends up having a big role in the grand scheme of things. Then there’s the ending, which is insanely abrupt and is only made worse by the post-credits scenes that follow it. The game also has the worst soundtrack out of all of the games. It’s still great and there are a couple of bangers, but I genuinely thought Moonlight Serenade’s rendition was a joke when I first heard it.
There’s also a weird amount of padding in the game that really wasn’t needed. The Jeanne missions are…there but they at least try to mix up the gameplay a little as opposed to Viola’s missions, which had me constantly questioning why the game was forcing me to play as a clunkier, less-fun Bayonetta.
Again, Bayonetta 3 is an undeniably fun game and I still had a good time with it overall, but the first two games are some of my all-time favorites and this one just simply failed to measure up. It’s probably the most I’ve been disappointed by a game since Zero Time Dilemma.
Understandably divisive but man I love it. Stands as a very interesting contrast to DMCV to me. V felt like a game that cut as much of the fat as possible to focus solely on arena combat, and it was incredible at that at (what could be argued was) the cost of variety, level design, etc. Bayo 3 revels in excess. It has a weird elevator action side game. It has copious amounts of gimmick sequences. It has extremely expansive and interesting level design, filled with secrets. I think as an alternate path for action games it manages to do this all really well in its own right.
The combat is much improved on 2, if not as elegant in design as 1, due to the enemies not busting out of combos and juggling being more consistent. Enemy design is well considered compared to 2 as well, there's still some bs but there is a lot more clarity in tells I find. Demon slave is a better implemented core mechanic than Umbran Climax, turning the game into a big brain dance between two characters instead of a mash fest. The weapons are some of the best in any character action game. That said, I think the scoring system needs a bit of a rework to properly incentivize this type of play. Less strict time requirements and rebalanced combo score that would lessen the effectiveness of focusing solely on the demons would go a long way here. Viola is pretty good but it's insane that block offset is not explained anywhere and the parry itself is not nearly as satisfying as it could be on a kinesthetic level.
The story is a bit all over the place. Equal parts extremely hype spectacle as you'd expect and also a bit frustratingly undercooked with respect to the villain and especially the ending, which I actually didn't hate at all but completely understand why people did. It doesn't help that it does not feel very well set up and weirdly the cutscene direction (normally super solid as always) falls apart somewhat in these final moments as well, leaving the final dramatic moment feeling a bit limp. Appreciate the fact that this is a really big swing though.
The best version of this game is definitely yet to come. I've put up with a lot when it comes to technical issues on Switch games but I think this is the one that pushed me over the edge into thinking that new hardware from Nintendo is actually necessary if they want 3rd parties to be able to work properly on ambitious games like this. Framerate is not atrocious but certainly isn't good and the visual quality is just so muddy/aliased, it's a bit disheartening and you can see them fighting against the constraints in ways they didn't have to in 1 or 2. Modern rendering techniques just don't work on this old thing.
Pros and cons all over the place but imo this is a beautiful mess that shoots for the moon and hits it quite often. It's nice to see a game made in 2022 that feels like it's still exceling with that PS2 era design ethos of just having a super strong single player campaign filled with sick unlockables and secrets. Long live Bayonetta.
The combat is much improved on 2, if not as elegant in design as 1, due to the enemies not busting out of combos and juggling being more consistent. Enemy design is well considered compared to 2 as well, there's still some bs but there is a lot more clarity in tells I find. Demon slave is a better implemented core mechanic than Umbran Climax, turning the game into a big brain dance between two characters instead of a mash fest. The weapons are some of the best in any character action game. That said, I think the scoring system needs a bit of a rework to properly incentivize this type of play. Less strict time requirements and rebalanced combo score that would lessen the effectiveness of focusing solely on the demons would go a long way here. Viola is pretty good but it's insane that block offset is not explained anywhere and the parry itself is not nearly as satisfying as it could be on a kinesthetic level.
The story is a bit all over the place. Equal parts extremely hype spectacle as you'd expect and also a bit frustratingly undercooked with respect to the villain and especially the ending, which I actually didn't hate at all but completely understand why people did. It doesn't help that it does not feel very well set up and weirdly the cutscene direction (normally super solid as always) falls apart somewhat in these final moments as well, leaving the final dramatic moment feeling a bit limp. Appreciate the fact that this is a really big swing though.
The best version of this game is definitely yet to come. I've put up with a lot when it comes to technical issues on Switch games but I think this is the one that pushed me over the edge into thinking that new hardware from Nintendo is actually necessary if they want 3rd parties to be able to work properly on ambitious games like this. Framerate is not atrocious but certainly isn't good and the visual quality is just so muddy/aliased, it's a bit disheartening and you can see them fighting against the constraints in ways they didn't have to in 1 or 2. Modern rendering techniques just don't work on this old thing.
Pros and cons all over the place but imo this is a beautiful mess that shoots for the moon and hits it quite often. It's nice to see a game made in 2022 that feels like it's still exceling with that PS2 era design ethos of just having a super strong single player campaign filled with sick unlockables and secrets. Long live Bayonetta.
Welcome to Bayonetta 3 / Hideki Kamiya’s Super Mario Odyssey / Yuji Shimomura’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. We hope you enjoy your stay!
At the heart of any good character action game (I hope people don’t dislike this genre term yet) is a character in which we can spend a whole game wrapping our brains around the depths of. In my eyes, the strengths of Bayonetta as a series have always been how it empowers the gameplay loop of self-expression - taking real life examples such as dancing, fashion, and eroticism, and mixing them with this ultra video game-y definition centered around combos and elaborate tech. And if there’s anything I am happy to say about this game, it’s that Bayonetta’s kit is incredibly strong this time around; most of my issues with Bayonetta 2’s gameplay have been shaven down. Her new weapons are incredibly cool in conjunction with each other despite the removal of arm and leg equipment, and there’s just a general sense that Bayonetta’s power has scaled further since the previous game. Every time I got a pure platinum trophy, I hit that platonic ideal of action games; I wanted to make an AMV out of my combos.
The new post-Scalebound cancellation therapy sessions mechanic known as Demon Slaves only contributed to this further: while you can’t control Bayonetta while inputting actions for your demon to execute, you move while your demon is attacking with inputs you buffered. My demons and I were doing NGE episode 9 sync kicks together by the end of the game. That being said, I did feel that Demon Slave wasn’t contested very much by the campaign during my expert mode playthrough, it’s just a bit too low risk high reward there. When I started the post-game, I immediately saw changes I was looking for in the form of enemies that are harder to react to at long-ranged than close-ranged, so the devs clearly know how to balance it.
While this isn’t really a new issue, I think Bayonetta is a bit too buttery smooth for my taste. Witch time is just such a powerful linear defensive technique that I can’t help but think it makes defense in these games a bit unengaging. I’m sure I’d feel the same way going back to the previous 2 games, but the incredibly fast dashes from the get-go, and the long-ranged safety nets of Demon Slave didn’t help my opinion of it.
This is where Viola could really come in and help, seeing as her central concept is having a parry instead of witch time. And I dunno…at least for me, Bayonetta games are about playing as the coolest character ever, and Viola just did not live up to Bayonetta’s kit or personality. Not enough variety in their single weapon, and their take on Demon Slave is notably less expressive. Throughout the game, your recurring humanoid rival character is the Beastman named Strider - who totally highlights the strengths of Bayonetta, as well as the flaws in Viola. He has so many animation mixups that bad witch times are a death sentence, and punishes lazy usage of Demon Slave by instantly killing them. On the contrary, Viola’s ability to infinitely hold a block button sort of makes fighting him super reactive and dull…
Bayonetta games have always been chasing the eternal question of how to fill downtime in action games, and this game is somehow closer and further away from it than ever. Closer in that the way our characters control in the overworld is super tight, conducting some genuinely fun platforming. But the developers have quadrupled down on the idea of Bayonetta as some gimmick highlight reel, despite how they were always top criticisms of previous games. Almost every chapter has some high-effort spectacle moment, and while these are the most visually engaging gimmicks in the series, none of them feel polished enough. You get this scene where Bayonetta rips her still beating heart out of her chest to perform a forbidden spell, and summons SIN GODZILLA - then the screen flips and turns it to a 2D fighting game perspective. It’s this perfect set piece slam dunk, and you play it for a bit, and you’re like… this is going a bit too long huh…oh no…the attack clash window is huge…guess i’ll just camp in the corner for a bit and shoot some projectiles... They made Kaiju Street Fighter, and forced me to play as Guile. These developers are fucking devious.
Maybe the lowest quality you’ll get are the Jeanne 2D stealth missions where you hide in womens bathrooms, and the healing spot is a shower that enemies will try to peep on her through. I was no longer playing Bayonetta: I was playing some 2 dollar anime shovelware game on steam called “Hentai Gear Solid” that my friend would gift me as a joke.
What I would like to briefly praise is the aesthetic direction around the antagonists - a huge departure from the roots of the series, but I digged it. Contrasting Bayonetta’s themes of self-expression, we get this villain literally named Singularity; fighting with mountains of assimilated human corpses. It owns. Also loved the underlying corporate tone of how every enemy has like, MOBA class descriptions lmao
Bayonetta 1 isn’t a game I’d characterize as having a smart story, but I would say it has a clever story - there is a difference! Rather than being a story that rode on emotional depth, the story always managed to set Bayonetta up to spark entertaining dynamics. She had this sharp charisma with every cast member, and could even make banter with the most generic of demon enemies fun. Bayonetta 3’s style is a complete u-turn; every encounter has to have emotional weight behind it, but nothing really interacts with Bayonetta. You’ll get this scene where she stands in front of a major character as they die - neither showing genuine human emotion, or cracking her iconic one liners. As a result, this game’s portrayal of Bayonetta is often awkwardly stoic during scenes that could absolutely be more than that! The returning characters now have more baggage than they ever did before; Enzo lost his family, and Luka has some tragic backstory now. You can really feel like they wanted to make Bayonetta as a series more mature - but if you asked someone what was mature about Bayonetta, their answer would be the character. Yet the storyline has chopped its focus up across a bunch of characters who never earned it. It feels like Platinum wanted to go for critical acclaim again; if Bayonetta 3 released 20 years ago, would it have “From the creators of Nier: Automata” on the box?
Bayonetta 3 is a game that likes Bayonetta less than I do. Or at the very least, it’s a game that is catering to a crowd they’re afraid of not liking Bayonetta. Every chapter has to have some grandiose gimmick that’ll stimulate your eyes and mind for a few seconds at a time - all so you can forget what game you’re playing. It’s ashamed to be an arcade-inspired game riding on replay value, so it kills its own replay value. It’s ashamed of being simple fun shlock, so it throws all this emotionally charged shit at you, hoping someone will miss the QTE and end up calling it peak fiction. And I’m just gonna be honest…this game’s critic bait! But killing the cynicism for a second; I know it’s true that while I, and many people who use this site would probably grin ear to ear at the idea of buying a literal Xbox 360 game in 2022, most of ours have red ringed by now. And while this is clearly a corporate production, I was impressed to see a Platinum game that felt at times like a true AAA title. I hope this game makes a lot of money, and before their staff is ship of thesius’d with age, they put out a genuinely uncompromised action game. Because as of right now, all I got was a sequel to No More Heroes 2.
At the heart of any good character action game (I hope people don’t dislike this genre term yet) is a character in which we can spend a whole game wrapping our brains around the depths of. In my eyes, the strengths of Bayonetta as a series have always been how it empowers the gameplay loop of self-expression - taking real life examples such as dancing, fashion, and eroticism, and mixing them with this ultra video game-y definition centered around combos and elaborate tech. And if there’s anything I am happy to say about this game, it’s that Bayonetta’s kit is incredibly strong this time around; most of my issues with Bayonetta 2’s gameplay have been shaven down. Her new weapons are incredibly cool in conjunction with each other despite the removal of arm and leg equipment, and there’s just a general sense that Bayonetta’s power has scaled further since the previous game. Every time I got a pure platinum trophy, I hit that platonic ideal of action games; I wanted to make an AMV out of my combos.
The new post-Scalebound cancellation therapy sessions mechanic known as Demon Slaves only contributed to this further: while you can’t control Bayonetta while inputting actions for your demon to execute, you move while your demon is attacking with inputs you buffered. My demons and I were doing NGE episode 9 sync kicks together by the end of the game. That being said, I did feel that Demon Slave wasn’t contested very much by the campaign during my expert mode playthrough, it’s just a bit too low risk high reward there. When I started the post-game, I immediately saw changes I was looking for in the form of enemies that are harder to react to at long-ranged than close-ranged, so the devs clearly know how to balance it.
While this isn’t really a new issue, I think Bayonetta is a bit too buttery smooth for my taste. Witch time is just such a powerful linear defensive technique that I can’t help but think it makes defense in these games a bit unengaging. I’m sure I’d feel the same way going back to the previous 2 games, but the incredibly fast dashes from the get-go, and the long-ranged safety nets of Demon Slave didn’t help my opinion of it.
This is where Viola could really come in and help, seeing as her central concept is having a parry instead of witch time. And I dunno…at least for me, Bayonetta games are about playing as the coolest character ever, and Viola just did not live up to Bayonetta’s kit or personality. Not enough variety in their single weapon, and their take on Demon Slave is notably less expressive. Throughout the game, your recurring humanoid rival character is the Beastman named Strider - who totally highlights the strengths of Bayonetta, as well as the flaws in Viola. He has so many animation mixups that bad witch times are a death sentence, and punishes lazy usage of Demon Slave by instantly killing them. On the contrary, Viola’s ability to infinitely hold a block button sort of makes fighting him super reactive and dull…
Bayonetta games have always been chasing the eternal question of how to fill downtime in action games, and this game is somehow closer and further away from it than ever. Closer in that the way our characters control in the overworld is super tight, conducting some genuinely fun platforming. But the developers have quadrupled down on the idea of Bayonetta as some gimmick highlight reel, despite how they were always top criticisms of previous games. Almost every chapter has some high-effort spectacle moment, and while these are the most visually engaging gimmicks in the series, none of them feel polished enough. You get this scene where Bayonetta rips her still beating heart out of her chest to perform a forbidden spell, and summons SIN GODZILLA - then the screen flips and turns it to a 2D fighting game perspective. It’s this perfect set piece slam dunk, and you play it for a bit, and you’re like… this is going a bit too long huh…oh no…the attack clash window is huge…guess i’ll just camp in the corner for a bit and shoot some projectiles... They made Kaiju Street Fighter, and forced me to play as Guile. These developers are fucking devious.
Maybe the lowest quality you’ll get are the Jeanne 2D stealth missions where you hide in womens bathrooms, and the healing spot is a shower that enemies will try to peep on her through. I was no longer playing Bayonetta: I was playing some 2 dollar anime shovelware game on steam called “Hentai Gear Solid” that my friend would gift me as a joke.
What I would like to briefly praise is the aesthetic direction around the antagonists - a huge departure from the roots of the series, but I digged it. Contrasting Bayonetta’s themes of self-expression, we get this villain literally named Singularity; fighting with mountains of assimilated human corpses. It owns. Also loved the underlying corporate tone of how every enemy has like, MOBA class descriptions lmao
Bayonetta 1 isn’t a game I’d characterize as having a smart story, but I would say it has a clever story - there is a difference! Rather than being a story that rode on emotional depth, the story always managed to set Bayonetta up to spark entertaining dynamics. She had this sharp charisma with every cast member, and could even make banter with the most generic of demon enemies fun. Bayonetta 3’s style is a complete u-turn; every encounter has to have emotional weight behind it, but nothing really interacts with Bayonetta. You’ll get this scene where she stands in front of a major character as they die - neither showing genuine human emotion, or cracking her iconic one liners. As a result, this game’s portrayal of Bayonetta is often awkwardly stoic during scenes that could absolutely be more than that! The returning characters now have more baggage than they ever did before; Enzo lost his family, and Luka has some tragic backstory now. You can really feel like they wanted to make Bayonetta as a series more mature - but if you asked someone what was mature about Bayonetta, their answer would be the character. Yet the storyline has chopped its focus up across a bunch of characters who never earned it. It feels like Platinum wanted to go for critical acclaim again; if Bayonetta 3 released 20 years ago, would it have “From the creators of Nier: Automata” on the box?
Bayonetta 3 is a game that likes Bayonetta less than I do. Or at the very least, it’s a game that is catering to a crowd they’re afraid of not liking Bayonetta. Every chapter has to have some grandiose gimmick that’ll stimulate your eyes and mind for a few seconds at a time - all so you can forget what game you’re playing. It’s ashamed to be an arcade-inspired game riding on replay value, so it kills its own replay value. It’s ashamed of being simple fun shlock, so it throws all this emotionally charged shit at you, hoping someone will miss the QTE and end up calling it peak fiction. And I’m just gonna be honest…this game’s critic bait! But killing the cynicism for a second; I know it’s true that while I, and many people who use this site would probably grin ear to ear at the idea of buying a literal Xbox 360 game in 2022, most of ours have red ringed by now. And while this is clearly a corporate production, I was impressed to see a Platinum game that felt at times like a true AAA title. I hope this game makes a lot of money, and before their staff is ship of thesius’d with age, they put out a genuinely uncompromised action game. Because as of right now, all I got was a sequel to No More Heroes 2.
A slow start, big misstep with the story and the weak Viola sections really brought this down for me sadly
I'm not even gonna get into why I hated this game but I think one of the other things that kills me about this game is the fact that they enhanced the gameplay so much and there was so many fun levels and the story just fucking destroys everything
It has decent combat which feels like a step down from 1 & 2 and the game does get ambitious (maybe a bit too ambitious for what it wants to do) but imagine if Devil May Cry 3 had the plot of 5 and none of its ideas were initially planned but also there's multiverse shit now but the most you get out of it is what if there was a one-note Brazilian Dante
yeah that's basically this game's plot and the ending sucks straight ass
yeah that's basically this game's plot and the ending sucks straight ass
i haven't even got the game yet i just know its gonna be cool as fuck
The sequel to Bayonetta 2. I now see why Microsoft axed Scalebound. it's cool when she's naked
What's taking so long?
Can't wait for multiverse narratives to die in a fire.
Bayonetta 3 is a good action game but a huge step down for the Bayonetta franchise and perhaps the biggest disappointment I have ever felt in a game. Not only is the story an incoherent, embarrassing mess (not that the other two had a high bar to overcome), but unfortunately the gameplay is completely bogged down with the new focus on summoning gigantic monsters in every battle, which creates a clusterfuck of visual clutter and takes the fun and speed out of the otherwise flawless combat system with great new weapon additions.
Platinum really had to sign a monkey's paw deal with Nintendo it seems. On the one hand the franchise was saved, but on the other hand it was confined to the shackles of technological jail that are Nintendo's consoles, meaning that Bayonetta 3 might actually look and feel worse than Bayonetta 1 on the 360 did, which is such a bummer.
I am not hopeful at all for the future of Bayonetta, unfortunately. The story and character decisions did its part, certainly, but most importantly it feels like I have lost the confidence in the belief that Platinum has a coherent vision for the franchise and knows what the strengths are, because Bayonetta 3 certainly did not play to them.
Bayonetta 3 is a good action game but a huge step down for the Bayonetta franchise and perhaps the biggest disappointment I have ever felt in a game. Not only is the story an incoherent, embarrassing mess (not that the other two had a high bar to overcome), but unfortunately the gameplay is completely bogged down with the new focus on summoning gigantic monsters in every battle, which creates a clusterfuck of visual clutter and takes the fun and speed out of the otherwise flawless combat system with great new weapon additions.
Platinum really had to sign a monkey's paw deal with Nintendo it seems. On the one hand the franchise was saved, but on the other hand it was confined to the shackles of technological jail that are Nintendo's consoles, meaning that Bayonetta 3 might actually look and feel worse than Bayonetta 1 on the 360 did, which is such a bummer.
I am not hopeful at all for the future of Bayonetta, unfortunately. The story and character decisions did its part, certainly, but most importantly it feels like I have lost the confidence in the belief that Platinum has a coherent vision for the franchise and knows what the strengths are, because Bayonetta 3 certainly did not play to them.
This review contains spoilers
BIG SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
Well, to preface this, I absolutely adore Bayonetta as a character. As far as the games go, I love the first one and thought the second one was a bit weaker, but still good, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. Then, there is this one…
This is really hard to write a review for. I am giving it 3.5 stars because while the gameplay was all over the place with seemingly no structure, especially at first, it was fun in a guilty pleasure kind of way. I should probably elaborate on “all over the place.” For me, it seemed to go from traditional Bayonetta gameplay to everything else under the sun. First of all, you have three playable characters. One is fun…guess who? Bayonetta. The others, Jeanne and newcomer Viola, just don’t play well. Jeanne’s stealth missions were short, and that was their saving grace. They weren’t satisfying or interesting at all. I was not even stealthy, and still beat them all pretty easily. This desperate attempt to switch up gameplay didn’t gel with me. Viola’s? Her levels made me a tad ragey. They were considerably more difficult than all the others…yet they were mixed in here and there (I think one for every two Bayonetta and one Jeanne chapters?) I have a pet peeve in games when the difficulty jumps around. I like when things progressively get more difficult. Difficulty spikes are fine, but Viola’s levels made some of Bayonetta’s later ones very underwhelming difficulty wise. I am not sure how many people would agree…could have been me.
The demon summons took forever for me to like. Most of them move so incredibly slow, and just aren’t enjoyable to fight as. Also, meeting a new demon in almost or maybe even every chapter got tiring and very formulaic. I might have actually liked one or two of them as characters. Baal stands out for me.
Speaking of characters, well…all the good ol’ faces are there, but I don’t always love their execution. Bayonetta seems not quite as badass as she once was, Jeanne seems like an extension of her, and why is Luka such a hero now? His clumsiness and ineptness is part of why I liked him! Switching up the gender roles made the series fun…as did Bayo (who I always perceived as bisexual) having a sort of “love triangle” with him and Jeanne. I don’t like having a canon couple, but unlike a lot of other people, I wouldn’t have been happy if she ended up with Jeanne either. The playfulness and casualness between Bayonetta and the other two spiced up the series. I don’t think it was cut out to be romantic.
We also have newcomer Viola. For the most part, I found her annoying, probably until the last few chapters where she became endearing. Fighting as her is a pain in the ass, as I mentioned, and everything about her is…lacking. I hate to say it, but I could have done without her.
The ending? I can’t tell you how sad the part after the first credits made me. Annoying “true” final boss aside, Viola taking center stage is just painful. I kind of felt viewing that ending like I did when my favorite band broke up: empty and numb. I guess I will buy the fourth game, but am I looking forward to it? Can’t say I am. Such a shame too, since it was one of my favorite series with one of my favorite protagonists.
All in all, fun, but a disappointment. I don’t know why the writers thought that direction was okay to go in. I love a good multiverse plot too, but this one made me kind of sad, especially at the end, where a story should truly shine.
Glad I played it, but won’t return to it. RIP Bayonetta!
Well, to preface this, I absolutely adore Bayonetta as a character. As far as the games go, I love the first one and thought the second one was a bit weaker, but still good, which seems to be an unpopular opinion. Then, there is this one…
This is really hard to write a review for. I am giving it 3.5 stars because while the gameplay was all over the place with seemingly no structure, especially at first, it was fun in a guilty pleasure kind of way. I should probably elaborate on “all over the place.” For me, it seemed to go from traditional Bayonetta gameplay to everything else under the sun. First of all, you have three playable characters. One is fun…guess who? Bayonetta. The others, Jeanne and newcomer Viola, just don’t play well. Jeanne’s stealth missions were short, and that was their saving grace. They weren’t satisfying or interesting at all. I was not even stealthy, and still beat them all pretty easily. This desperate attempt to switch up gameplay didn’t gel with me. Viola’s? Her levels made me a tad ragey. They were considerably more difficult than all the others…yet they were mixed in here and there (I think one for every two Bayonetta and one Jeanne chapters?) I have a pet peeve in games when the difficulty jumps around. I like when things progressively get more difficult. Difficulty spikes are fine, but Viola’s levels made some of Bayonetta’s later ones very underwhelming difficulty wise. I am not sure how many people would agree…could have been me.
The demon summons took forever for me to like. Most of them move so incredibly slow, and just aren’t enjoyable to fight as. Also, meeting a new demon in almost or maybe even every chapter got tiring and very formulaic. I might have actually liked one or two of them as characters. Baal stands out for me.
Speaking of characters, well…all the good ol’ faces are there, but I don’t always love their execution. Bayonetta seems not quite as badass as she once was, Jeanne seems like an extension of her, and why is Luka such a hero now? His clumsiness and ineptness is part of why I liked him! Switching up the gender roles made the series fun…as did Bayo (who I always perceived as bisexual) having a sort of “love triangle” with him and Jeanne. I don’t like having a canon couple, but unlike a lot of other people, I wouldn’t have been happy if she ended up with Jeanne either. The playfulness and casualness between Bayonetta and the other two spiced up the series. I don’t think it was cut out to be romantic.
We also have newcomer Viola. For the most part, I found her annoying, probably until the last few chapters where she became endearing. Fighting as her is a pain in the ass, as I mentioned, and everything about her is…lacking. I hate to say it, but I could have done without her.
The ending? I can’t tell you how sad the part after the first credits made me. Annoying “true” final boss aside, Viola taking center stage is just painful. I kind of felt viewing that ending like I did when my favorite band broke up: empty and numb. I guess I will buy the fourth game, but am I looking forward to it? Can’t say I am. Such a shame too, since it was one of my favorite series with one of my favorite protagonists.
All in all, fun, but a disappointment. I don’t know why the writers thought that direction was okay to go in. I love a good multiverse plot too, but this one made me kind of sad, especially at the end, where a story should truly shine.
Glad I played it, but won’t return to it. RIP Bayonetta!
Mais uma vez a Platinum prova como é evoluir uma franquia. Bayonetta 3 é épico, porém há alguns pontos que travam a experiência por completo.
A gameplay continua sendo extremamente suave e responsiva, é incrível como o combate nunca fica repetitivo (mesmo eu sendo o mais médio dos jogadores de Hack'n Slash que usa sempre os mesmos combos). Porém, em relação ao seu antecessor, senti o combate mais cadenciado, talvez até um pouco mais lento. As diversas opções de armas que você tem acesso durante todo o jogo é surpreendente, todas muito bem trabalhadas em mecânica e animações, cada uma com suas respectivas invocações de demônios.
O jogo é LINDO de verdade, fico bobo como o Switch mesmo sendo uma plataforma menos poderosa, ainda apresenta mundos impressionantes. Tem seus problemas de desempenho, mas é completamente jogável.
Mais uma vez senti a história meio bagunçada, mas bem legal no geral, talvez seja algo pessoal mesmo. A adição da Viola foi interessante, é uma personagem carismática que dá ar novo nesse mundo, mas ao decorrer da narrativa ela parece meia distante dos personagens que já estão há 3 jogos juntos conosco. Falando em Viola, ela pesa tanto na narrativa como de gameplay, a mecânica de combate dela é muito precária e pouco trabalhada, há momentos que ela quebra completamente o ritmo do jogo por ser muito simples em comparação com a personagem principal. Falando em ritmo, também é algo constantemente quebrado, com as partes da Viola e com o quesito exploração que está muito mais presente em todas as fases do jogo.
Bayonetta é uma experiência incrível em todos os quesitos que foram sempre o forte da franquia: trilha sonora, combate, carisma e mundo. E em cada sequência, tudo isso fica ainda mais apaixonante, mesmo pensando que não tem como melhorar, ainda com poucos poréns que o jogo apresenta. Como disse anteriormente, Bayonetta 3 é ÉPICO!
A gameplay continua sendo extremamente suave e responsiva, é incrível como o combate nunca fica repetitivo (mesmo eu sendo o mais médio dos jogadores de Hack'n Slash que usa sempre os mesmos combos). Porém, em relação ao seu antecessor, senti o combate mais cadenciado, talvez até um pouco mais lento. As diversas opções de armas que você tem acesso durante todo o jogo é surpreendente, todas muito bem trabalhadas em mecânica e animações, cada uma com suas respectivas invocações de demônios.
O jogo é LINDO de verdade, fico bobo como o Switch mesmo sendo uma plataforma menos poderosa, ainda apresenta mundos impressionantes. Tem seus problemas de desempenho, mas é completamente jogável.
Mais uma vez senti a história meio bagunçada, mas bem legal no geral, talvez seja algo pessoal mesmo. A adição da Viola foi interessante, é uma personagem carismática que dá ar novo nesse mundo, mas ao decorrer da narrativa ela parece meia distante dos personagens que já estão há 3 jogos juntos conosco. Falando em Viola, ela pesa tanto na narrativa como de gameplay, a mecânica de combate dela é muito precária e pouco trabalhada, há momentos que ela quebra completamente o ritmo do jogo por ser muito simples em comparação com a personagem principal. Falando em ritmo, também é algo constantemente quebrado, com as partes da Viola e com o quesito exploração que está muito mais presente em todas as fases do jogo.
Bayonetta é uma experiência incrível em todos os quesitos que foram sempre o forte da franquia: trilha sonora, combate, carisma e mundo. E em cada sequência, tudo isso fica ainda mais apaixonante, mesmo pensando que não tem como melhorar, ainda com poucos poréns que o jogo apresenta. Como disse anteriormente, Bayonetta 3 é ÉPICO!
I give it a perfect score for the gameplay. The story is enjoyable as well but it isn't the highlight for Bayonetta, however, I did not enjoy the ending.
Ganha uma estrela pelo combate, que costuma carregar o resto do jogo nas costas mas aqui teve que trabalhar dobrado. As armas que a Bayonetta consegue usar aqui são de longe as mais criativas da série, e toda vez que eu desbloqueava uma eu ia direto pro training mode e testava todos os seus golpes especiais e combos. Minhas duas favoritas foram o microfone que você usa como uma lança e consegue cantar para se buffar e a serra elétrica tremzinho locomotiva que mistura movimentação rápida e golpes lentos e fortes, muito doido fera top épico neuron activation
Tirando isso, esse era um dos meus jogos mais aguardados e umas das razões de eu ter comprado um switch, e é triste dizer que ele não alcança as expectativas. O pacing é muito ruim, o plot do multiverso é formulaico e repetitivo, e todos os capítulos onde você não joga com a Bayonetta (são mais do que você pensa) sofrem com excesso de mecânicas rasas que são usadas uma vez e descartadas. Eu me recuso a levar a história dos bayonettas tão a sério quanto o jogo leva, e eu não acho que uma (1) pessoa gostou desse final desastroso
O combate de kaiju também é bem chatinho e atrapalha o flow do combate, we get it bro you wanted to make scalebound (Ele melhora depois que você consegue o mecha, depois que eu consegui o mecha eu nunca mais invoquei outra coisa até o final do jogo)
Tirando isso, esse era um dos meus jogos mais aguardados e umas das razões de eu ter comprado um switch, e é triste dizer que ele não alcança as expectativas. O pacing é muito ruim, o plot do multiverso é formulaico e repetitivo, e todos os capítulos onde você não joga com a Bayonetta (são mais do que você pensa) sofrem com excesso de mecânicas rasas que são usadas uma vez e descartadas. Eu me recuso a levar a história dos bayonettas tão a sério quanto o jogo leva, e eu não acho que uma (1) pessoa gostou desse final desastroso
O combate de kaiju também é bem chatinho e atrapalha o flow do combate, we get it bro you wanted to make scalebound (Ele melhora depois que você consegue o mecha, depois que eu consegui o mecha eu nunca mais invoquei outra coisa até o final do jogo)