This game’s gameplay did not work super well in my opinion and just felt pretty boring trying to control the kaiju demons instead of just fighting as Bayo. How the hell did you make Kaiju boring??
The story was was ok at best for the series right up until the ending, which I was really not a fan of other than a one particular scene and the after credits thing being kind of interesting at least in concept but was handled really badly in execution.
Speaking of concepts, I like Viola in the sense that I like the role her type of character usually plays in the story but feel like she kinda got sidelined too hard in the last third of the game to reach her full potential as a character. On top of that the game goes out of its way to not let us take her seriously and it kind of sucks. That being said I am interested to see where they take her writing wise going forward if the series continues.
Also a lot of the other characters got treated really weirdly in a way I can only describe as them not being their characters; but being a specific role instead. Luka isn’t Luka, he’s the love interested destined to find Bayo in any universe. Jeanne isn’t Jeanne she’s just a super spy needing to infiltrate a base and find a scientist. Bayonetta isn’t Bayonetta she’s just a stock action movie protagonist with an unfightable passion for the love interest. These aren’t the characters I likes its just put into a situation and not acting like how they’ve been portrayed for the past two games.
Also I only ran into major slowdown once in my playthrough as far as I remember. Game ran a lot better than I was lead to believe but when it slowed down it REALLY slowed down. Game looked really poor visually though imo.
Overall I have come back to this review after sitting on it for awhile and I don’t like this game very much I think. It doesn't ruin the franchise like some people say it does but it was just a huge misstep in how to do several of the story beats/themes it tried to do and a bad direction to take the gameplay. There was probably a great game in here at some point; but it sure isn’t the one we got.
4/10
The story was was ok at best for the series right up until the ending, which I was really not a fan of other than a one particular scene and the after credits thing being kind of interesting at least in concept but was handled really badly in execution.
Speaking of concepts, I like Viola in the sense that I like the role her type of character usually plays in the story but feel like she kinda got sidelined too hard in the last third of the game to reach her full potential as a character. On top of that the game goes out of its way to not let us take her seriously and it kind of sucks. That being said I am interested to see where they take her writing wise going forward if the series continues.
Also a lot of the other characters got treated really weirdly in a way I can only describe as them not being their characters; but being a specific role instead. Luka isn’t Luka, he’s the love interested destined to find Bayo in any universe. Jeanne isn’t Jeanne she’s just a super spy needing to infiltrate a base and find a scientist. Bayonetta isn’t Bayonetta she’s just a stock action movie protagonist with an unfightable passion for the love interest. These aren’t the characters I likes its just put into a situation and not acting like how they’ve been portrayed for the past two games.
Also I only ran into major slowdown once in my playthrough as far as I remember. Game ran a lot better than I was lead to believe but when it slowed down it REALLY slowed down. Game looked really poor visually though imo.
Overall I have come back to this review after sitting on it for awhile and I don’t like this game very much I think. It doesn't ruin the franchise like some people say it does but it was just a huge misstep in how to do several of the story beats/themes it tried to do and a bad direction to take the gameplay. There was probably a great game in here at some point; but it sure isn’t the one we got.
4/10