Bayo3 is sort of a mess, but it's a mess with lots of greatness and an unfortunate amount of mixed-ness. When this game is letting you play as Bayonetta herself and fighting silly monsters- this is the best she's ever been. It's so unbelievably fun to play and the amount of variety added here by the weapon system and everything new is fantastic. I couldn't get enough. In fact, I wish there was more. My biggest problem with this game is that it tries to be ambitious to both a great strength but also its biggest fault. It feels like it needs to try out as many ideas as it can and provide insane set pieces at the cost of taking away from the heart and soul of the standard combat. The big kaiju battles and chases, on-rails shooting sections, sidescrolling levels, etc. all have some novelty but I can't help but feel the game would be more fun overall if I was Bayonetta fighting a big monster, not a big monster fighting a big monster, etc. There is some fun variety as there is in every Bayonetta game- I think that viola has a sharp learning curve but is quite fun in moderation, as an example, but it just doesn't feel like they took moderation into account. To me, there are two things I love from the Bayonetta games- great combat and silly nonsense. Bayonetta 2 was so tightly crafted with combat but its setting and character moments felt very bland. This time around, there's so much silly spectacle, but just not enough of that combat. Outside of the combat, this game is undeniably of high quality with a great soundtrack, art direction, location variety, replay value, bonus content, skill system, and charm. I have some gripes with the storytelling and the aforementioned gameplay unfocus, but theres a great time to be had here despite its very prevalent faults.

pretty fun experience overall, this game isn't as difficult as it might seem at first since many of the bullshit tools that the enemy has are also available to you if you can play your cards right, the (mostly) tight map design, more pleasant visuals and just a generally nicer game feel (the fan patch might have helped) make it clear that this game has learned a lot from its predecessor
I do however think that I prefer Genealogy's story (although this one is still nice in its own way)
a wild ride with a few missteps along the way but it's okay cuz we got a movement star to get to our destination anyways

Aside from its genuinely great music, I don't know if I have a single positive thing to say about ff8. Every single choice made in this game is one that feels like a joke made in parody to see how badly a jrpg could be constructed. Its gameplay is so broken that the most effective way to play it is to.. not play it? Its side characters are admittedly charming but the main protagonist and his 'love' story are so laughable it feels like intentional satire. The story itself is equally as goofy and nonsensical. Some of the locations like the starting Balamb garden are pretty cool, but the world just feels so simultaneously inconsistent. Everything is off here. You may wonder why I have given this game such a high score regardless? To put it simply, I found it to be such a failure that it wraps around into being absolutely hilarious. As a massive fan of jrpgs, I found myself so invested in this game because every decision was so baffling it ended up feeling extremely refreshing and subversive. It was a great experience, but you'd see me dead before I say it's a genuinely great game.