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.

Vibes immaculate, thematic subtext very interesting, but the level design being so endlessly obtuse and frustrating, as well as the actual mechanics not really engaging me all that much knock this down for me. You can run past most enemies in this game and even if you get yourself in a tight corridor they're often trivial. The puzzles aren't terrible on the whole but a few rely on some real pixel hunting adventure game logic that doesn't really serve the game well at all imo. Harry is a bit of a drip which can be equal parts charming and just kind of boring.

I will say now that I've gotten past all the pain points this first time around I think this game would only get better with subsequent playthroughs where I can stop worrying quite as much about what to do with the rubber ball and more about soaking in the frankly incredible mood this game sets for itself.

This might bump up to a 3.5 when the game is actually finished but right now this is the worst offender of the Switch Era Mario Sports games' "just add the content later" approach. Next Level games does an amazing job bringing personality to these characters yet again and the core gameplay is extremely solid but there is just nothing here to really keep you coming back. Also, they made the pitch a bit too small for my liking. Feels like having some variety in field sizes would go a long way towards mixing things up with the gameplay, and if they scrapped that idea because it wouldn't fit with their weird "every stage is a mash-up of two different stages" gimmick then that was an extremely bad call.