Bayonetta has been my number one favorite game pretty much since I first played it back in 2010, but when I had that initial realization I’d honestly barely even scratched its surface. To this day I’m still finding new ways to play and improve my strats, which speaks to just how hard it nails that sweetspot between mechanics that are intrinsically satisfying, malleable, but also highly intentional; somehow it’s the one action game that does everything. The control system is so smooth and flexible it’s influenced every genre title since; knocking dudes into each other or tearing through the battlefield with Beast Within offers a sense of physicality other comparable games still don’t come close to; the enemies are some of the most aggressive, varied and polished you’ll ever encounter in a melee combat game; and all of that is wrapped up in a scoring system that miraculously manages to give you clear rules to work with while still allowing for a huge degree of expression. Even the ridiculous Angel Weapons make sense from that perspective — they give you a generous buffer to use whatever playstyle appeals to you in and still earn a Platinum combo in the end.

Between Witch Time, the equipment system and Dodge Offset, Bayonetta makes it easy to name-drop its most obvious gimmicks and leave it there, but those last two in particular are an insane step up for the genre when it comes to freedom and intentionality. How to trip an enemy up, where to launch them, whether to use magic or not: no other action game makes you consider these questions so actively at this fast of a pace, and I can’t get enough of it.

Reviewed on Mar 16, 2021


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