I have never really cared much about Bayonetta as a franchise, because the mainline never really seemed like they would be something I would like. Thus before playing Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon I've had only been exposed to the franchise through Smash Bros., trailers and whatever that situation with Hellena Taylor was about last year.
But when this game got announced at the end of last year and I saw the trailers, the art style and the very interesting looking gameplay, it instantly clicked with me.

Now it took me a bit to get around to start playing it, as I am have been participating in a Pokemon Draft League since January, but when I did 4 days ago (on my birthday) I got sucked in and the game not only met my-, but exceeded my expectations.

As I kind of alluded to before, the gameplay of Bayonetta Origins is very unique. If I had to compare it to anything (and take this comparison with a salt mine) this felt a bit like an isometric platformer/collectathon, as in Skylanders or Lego games, mixed with Kameo and a few sprinkles of Metroid Fusion (in terms of map-design) mixed in and then only the best parts of these games.
This is an extremely scuffed comparison, but it's the best I have got, as it is really original.
Originality for the sake of originality and nothing else is a pitfall for a lot of games or pieces of media in general and make them anything but fun to experience, but believe me when I say that Bayonetta Origins clears that.

I rarely ever go out of my way to 100% a game, even the ones I really like, with a few exceptions, but I had so much fun playing this game that I travelled through Avalon Forest for an extra 10 hours (estimation as the Nintendo Switch for some reason doesn't tell you exactly how long you've played something and doesn't at all until 14 days after starting it the first time.), just to see and experience everything it had to offer.
Now I should mention, that for you have to control 2 characters at the same time for most of the game, but the controls are easy enough that I had them down in under an hour (it probably didn't hurt that I have played this 1p2c), they are also mapped, so both characters can be played using one Joy-Con each.

I can't understate how much fun I had playing this and the ingenious overworld design definitely helped.
During my "item-clean-up" were multiple moments where I unlocked a short-cut, that made me go "wait you can go from here to there?" and this wasn't a one time occurrence.
When talking about the overworld-design I have to mention the map which at best is confusing. It's this games biggest flaw and did sour my experience a bit during said "clean-up" (shout out to Wrapper the wisp), but I think I can say that I kind of understand how it works now and it didn't occur to me as a problem during most of it and definitely not during the (for the lack of a better term) normal playtime of me going through the story.
I would also like to mention that when saying that I have 100%ed this game, I mean that I did everything in the main game and not the new game+.

Outside of the stellar gameplay loop this game also looks incredible. If you don't have an image of it already take a look at this trailer, which still doesn't do the game justice through all its compressed glory and the ost is also really whimsical and beautiful.

The story suffices. I had predicted a lot of story beats, but their execution was good enough for me to not care. I wasn't really the biggest fan of the voice work, but it isn't worse than botw's is and I also didn't care all to much in that game, but be warned if that is something you care about.
The story, such as the game is obviously more tailored towards children than the mainline games (which isn't a bad thing, for the record) and that also shows in its difficulty.

This game for the most part is easy. There is a supposedly harder new game+ though. The only times I died was during one-hit "Tír Na Nóg" trials, but there was one significant difficulty spike during one boss fight.
I have read another review, in which the author said they had problems with the final boss, which might be because they didn't collect the Vitality Petals and/or upgraded their inventory, which probably made the fight easier for me.

I really hope that Platinum will make more games like Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon. There aren't many people talking about it and I could also get the game on Amazon for 40€, which doesn't paint a good picture when it comes to sales figures and that is really unfortunate.
As someone who's first real exposure to this franchise was this game and already loved playing it as a standalone, I really implore you to give this one a chance if you are on the verge of buying it.
Get it! It's good.