A complete misunderstanding of what made the first Bayonetta game fun

When I think of Bayonetta, I think of fast, fluid combat. There's a lot going on, but the signature "Witch Time" mechanic of temporary slow motion when dodging an attack with precise timing allows you to embody the hero: seeing thru the chaos and enacting an elegant balet of fists, feet, and bullets.

Sadly, I don't think the directors of Bayonetta 3 and agree on that as the core of the Bayonetta series. It seems that they were more caught up in the spectacle of Bayonetta.

The game opens with a literal apocalypse, and abruptly thrusts you into a story where multiverse theory is real, and new protagonist Viola can hop between universes to battle Singularity, a villain who is absorbing power from every universe in order to challenge Paradiso & Inferno (Heaven & Hell).

In the opening moments of the game, Manhattan is completely destroyed by a cataclysmic wave created by an enormous kaiju-sized aquatic beast. Many games would wait a bit to up the ante like this, but Bayonetta 3 starts at "11" and doesn't let up.

I did not enjoy the pacing of the story because of this. The stakes immediately feel at max and never let up, causing no single moment to actually feel important.

From a gameplay perspective, it honestly feels like Platinum has become bored of the bread & butter smooth combat they're known for. A massive amount of this game is the player controlling either boss-sized beasts (which move as slowly and unresponsivly as you would imagine), or full-on Godzilla-sized kaiju creatures.

The first two Bayonetta games had their occasional frustrating QTEs that could result in instant death, as well as novelty levels based on shmup games and driving games of old. I never liked these levels, but someone at Platinum sure does.

Bayonetta 3 features:

• 1v1 skyscraper-sized kaiju fighting game (and you have to play it twice)
• A stealth minigame featuring Jeanne that plays out like a mediocre Xbox Live Arcade game
• Several different "shmup" sections that are completely inscrutable (some are "airplane" style and others are "on rails")
• A rhythm game during a boss fight
• A "treasure hunt" game with a proximity sensor, with absolutely no explanation

The game is constantly name-dropping weird things that are never really explained, but also not interesting. I'm definitely a "show, don't tell" kind of person when it comes to stories, but I was frequently confused and uninterested in this game due to the amount of "Arch-Eve" and "Arch-Adam" nonsense being spewn.

Another thing about pacing: these weird mini-games popup in so many missions I lost count. They are frequently used as the capstone verse of a chapter to make a boss fight feel "epic", but given how boring these modes are it feels more like a punishment than an epic finale.

In short, I do not recommend anyone play this game. And frankly, I'm confused as to how it currently has an 88/100 on Metacritic. I've seen many people say the game is "fantastic" until the story gets bad, but frankly I didn't like this game from the opening hours thru the finale. It's just not fun and not what people expect out of a Bayonetta game.

TO THAT END, I really wanna talk about the story and go into spoiler territory:

Serious spoiler territory starts now

Um, so you may have heard by now that Bayonetta falls in love with Luka, the bumbling moron who follows her around in the first two games and is infatuated with her.

Unfortunately, this is true, and the setup for it is basically nonexistent.

One of the main story concepts of this game is watching Bayonettas from other universes die, and Luka has a tender moment with Bayonetta as she's dying and being dragged to hell. Luka holds her in his arms and comforts her, and she eats it up like a romanceable little lady, in stark contrast to her behavior in the other games.

I knew about this ahead of time, so I was bracing for it rather than taken by surprise. It's really stupid and feels like it was written by someone who wishes they could marry Bayonetta, and who imagines Luka as the self-insert character.

Also, Luka is actually extremely powerful in this game. It's hinted at early on but eventually everyone realizes he can transform into a crystal werewolf thing that beats the crap out of Bayonetta with ease. He has some weird narration about how he's always felt useless or something and this power grew in him. Like what a weird character arc no one was asking for.

Which, let's back up and talk about Bayonetta's sexuality for a moment. When the first game came out, it was highly criticized for the hypersexual portrayal of Bayonetta. This was at a time when Feminist Frequency was highly relevant, and the male gaze was the phrase of the day.

Many people suggested that Bayonetta's design is that of pure sexual fetish: she's basically a walking sexy British dominatrix witch action figure.

I tend to think this is a pretty accurate assessment of Bayonetta's design, but a new opinion started to emerge around the time of Bayonetta 2. In that game, her BFF Jeanne is hinted at being her lesbian lover (they go out shopping together and talk about going home together... also Jeanne sacrifices herself to save Bayonetta in the early game, and much of the story content is Bayonetta literally going thru actual Hell to save Jeanne; y'know, just "gal pal" stuff).

So there was a new popular head canon of Bayonetta as the lesbian witch full of female empowerment.

I tend to think that her repeated humilation of Luka in the first game is less of "I'm not into men" and more of "I'm a dominatrix lol", but perhaps some people saw it as an affirmation of her sapphic-only love interests.

I personally think this is nothing more than a head canon, and that what sapphic quality the Bayonetta series has is just more of a result of Bayonetta's hyper sexuality and all the combat-capable protagonists being women.

This is not to say that I dislike the head canon. I think it's cool if you see a super hot woman kicking ass and you're like "it me, the power lesbian". That's cool and I'm happy for you. I just don't think the creators of Bayonetta ever had that in mind, and I think Bayonetta's newfound love for Luka is more evidence of that.

And OMG I completely forgot the other thing about her love for Luka. Well, now we're going neck deep into massive endgame spoilers for Bayonetta 3, btw.

The new main character Viola is literally Bayonetta and Luka's daughter from another timeline lol.

And Bayonetta "passes on" the family name to Viola, who is referred to as Viola Bayonetta by Rodin at the end of the game, where she's seen wearing Bayonetta's glasses and Luka's scarf before going out to hunt demons.

For me, the story has never been a motivating or key factor for the series, so I don't really care. It just feels like more mediocre decoration as I expected.

The real issue for me is that the core gameplay is just embarrassingly NOT THERE and constantly replaced with half polished mini games.

Based on timing from announcement to release, Bayonetta 2 was in development for around 2 years, whereas Bayonetta 3 took 5 years. I feel like they must've had some internal development hell with this game, because it is jam packed full of ideas and feels incredibly disjointed.

Random note: I uploaded my score after beating the game and apparenlty I had the 23rd fastest run on "standard" difficulty. Kinda surprised to see that, since I wasn't really trying too hard lol.

ANYWAY there's so much more I could write about this game, but it's an actual miracle if you've read this far, so I'm going to wrap this up.

PLEASE go play a better character action game instead:

• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PC)
• Devil May Cry 5 (multiple platforms)
• Bayonetta 1 (Switch)
• Nier: Automata (multiple platforms)

THE WITCH HUNTS ARE OVER

ADDENDUM: I've been informed that Bayonetta's original designer (who is a woman) may have intended Bayonetta to be a lesbian from her initial creation. I wouldn't be surprised if this was de-emphasized from her character strategically due to misogyny and a desire to reach a "larger" (more cishet male) audience. My interpretation of Bayonetta's lesbian sexuality as a head canon is not meant to be offensive to Bayonetta's original designer, but as a contrast of people's interpretations of some ambiguous presentation in the games.