Bayonetta 3 is the textbook definition of too many cooks in the kitchen. It throws the kitchen sink at you, not realizing how badly it kills the pacing, storytelling and replay value.

So much of this game is bad. Yes, playing as Bayonetta against monsters is better than ever, but its also the Bayonetta game with the least of it. Viola and Jeanne stages are atrocious and ever frequent. It took me a year to slog through this 13 hour game because I dreaded having to play for 30-45 minutes playing a mission with a character that isnt fun. (Jeannes levels are way shorter, but they're the jankiest and ugliest to make up for it).

The less said about the story, the better. Seriously. Even if I ranted about how Platinum massacred Bayonetta as a character and sandblasted at least 80% of the original's camp comedic writing away for self-serious multiverse bullshit, it wouldn't help. The joy of Bayonetta 1 was that the ridiculously fun gameplay was matched in energy by over the top, funny cutscenes with lovable characters. Just...fuck Bayonetta 3 for doing this.

The aliasing in this game is genuinely hideous. Like, everything is shimmering and jagged and the lighting is weird and the textures are shining like a students first unreal project, its a mess. I know its not the end of the world, but I had to play on a CRT to hide how ugly this game is. (To my TVs credit, it worked wonders and made it look decent).

Most importantly of all, Bayonetta 3 keeps thinking the player hates playing Bayonetta. Every chapter has some stupid puzzle mechanic or new gimmicky demon to learn to use for 10 minutes, or a shitty boring shmup section, or bad platforming, or clunky kaiju fights that actually remove happiness from the universe statistically; Bayonetta 3 is an unfocused mess of gameplay ideas that got thrown in as a first draft. Much like this meandering review.

To wrap up my rant, the game is still a begrudging 2 stars because playing Bayonetta is still good fun. Its not as constant as I'd like, but around 40% of the total experience is good. I wouldnt buy it for 60 dollars when DMC5 launched at the same price and is also Bayonetta 3 except they nail it on every level and don't kill the franchise.

I know the reception isn't that bad, but with a dev hell stillbirth like this and the departure of Kamiya, Im not expecting a new game starring "the next generation". Fuck man, did Platinum not notice how hard Capcom had to sell the fans on Nero to make him popular? What made them think Bayo 3's ending was a good idea?

Final rant: Why is the enemy design dogshit? Remember the Joy fight? Now everything is just nickelodeon slime dinosaurs and mannequins.