Enjoyable if wildly unfocused mechanics, paired with situations that permit expression without exactly inspiring much strategy: as cursed as it sounds, Bayonetta 3 has big Action RPG energy in how it lets you choose a setup and run that exact flowchart for the entire game. It's cool that these massive enemies aren't limited to formulaic set-pieces, instead roaming each arena relatively freely, but individual actions seem to not carry much weight when 90% of your button presses amount to screen-filling unga bunga shit. Enemies either stagger in a roughly similar, sort-of simplistic way or are still weirdly inconsistent (Grace & Glory parry in mid-air now, which wasn't the case even in Bayonetta 2; unique health thresholds for when enemies can be launched in a game with this many foes leads to an awkward amount of memorization for an intentionally-minded player; leg sweeps sort of exist but only work on a particular set of enemies and don’t actually result in a proper “downed” state, etc.)
This is obviously disappointing when compared to the original's roster of challenging enemies that allow for a wide variety of meaningful soft-counters, set against devilishly varied level design: Grace & Glory with their distance-blocks and fast movement, encouraging attacks with strong hit-stun, knockdown effects or wide hitboxes, Fairness with their anti-air grabs, disincentivizing (but not strictly prohibiting) jumps, Route 666 allowing for risky insta-kills or how you’re asked to maintain a combo during chase sequences — nothing really like that here in the regular mid-level verses from what I’ve played.
So, rather than Bayonetta’s happy medium, 3 ends up opposite to 2 on the “BRUHHHHHHHHHH”-end of the expression vs challenge spectrum: as a pure technical action game, the experience feels about as inconsistent and littered with holes (still no item penalty, totally broken strats like Phantom’s self-destruct, density of mini-games only an insane person would want to master, etc.) but the fact it’s so much less prescriptive appeals way more to my sensibilities. Demon Slave feels like a different take on Umbran Climax that is much more flexible and inviting to experimentation: you get to use it more regularly for longer spans of time (meaning you feel less rushed and encouraged to mash,) but the attack speed and range of your demons is now focused enough that it’s difficult to just stagger the entire screen by mashing X (despite my prior hyperbole in the opening paragraph.) Not only are you allowed to instantly switch between demons mid-combo (either adopting the previous demon’s position or summoning it right next to Bayonetta, granting even more flexibility,) it’s even possible to queue up commands and then take back control of Bayonetta while your demon executes them. It is genuinely clever that the queue can only hold up to two commands (rather than having a larger queue you can fill up for longer just by mashing,) meaning you’ll have to regularly tag between the two actors and coordinate between them positionally to get the most out of the system (specifically, you have to tag back to your demon before the second command has been executed to prevent them from leaving the play space.) The scoring system (while flawed) even takes this into account by having each actor contribute differently to point acquisition (Bayonetta raises points, demons raise the multiplier.)
Like I said, whatever strategy you pick kinda linearly works for the whole game — but at least there’s a lot of stuff to play around with! It almost doesn’t matter that I don’t actually click with a lot of the weapons and demons here when playing through the entire game mostly with Scarborough Fair (meaning “as sub-optimally as possible”) somehow doesn’t turn it into an active chore. I’m not fond of demons where control feels indirect and disconnected (Umbran Clock Tower, Dead End Express) or how weapons in general take control away from Bayonetta for too long (Yo-Yos, Color My World charged Heel Stomp, etc.) and don’t seem to follow intuitive/useful patterns in their dial combos and hold properties, but if anything that actually speaks to the variety on offer and just how many swings Platinum took with the player’s arsenal here. Unique Shot or Umbran Spear variations per weapon don’t even strike me as great inclusions (having Shot as a consistent action was helpful in the previous games to cancel out of certain states or target enemies, and a lot of this stuff just feels linearly better/worse,) but I’m honestly not sure any action game up to this point matches Bayonetta 3 as far as the pure AMOUNT of shit in it. That, and how much freedom you’re naturally given over the enemy’s position as you're toying with them, makes it an absolute buffet for combo fiends, and I can respect that.
I suppose if I had to sum it up, I would say that Bayonetta 3 is packed with interesting and sometimes even very thoughtfully implemented mechanics that spark a lot of intrinsic enjoyment, but the game Platinum have built around them doesn’t immediately inspire me to want to get truly serious about it. You spend a lot of time dicking around and exploring, with movement mechanics that are surprisingly versatile but still feel weirdly kneecapped in some ways (again lacking Bayonetta 1’s satisfying momentum) and are used in platforming challenges that are mostly just kinda quaint and insubstantial. Even rushing through all that, you’re stuck playing through what are probably the shallowest mini-games Platinum have put into code yet (Rock-Paper-Scissors, literally just moving an aiming cursor across the screen — the P**** shmup section was cool though.) But like I said going in, the biggest offender for me so far still is the seeming lack of meaningful encounter variety — at least the Alfheims with all their weird stipulations are a massive step up from Bayonetta 2, but based on what I’ve hard, I’m skeptical that mid-level verses will reveal more sauce on Infinite Climax difficulty.
TLDR: I recommend it! Expectations about met! Incredibly scuffed around the edges but I’ll take that over Bayonetta 2 any day.
I was dooming extremely hard when my long-range Wicked Weaves didn’t hit despite lock-on in the intro mission though. Come on guys.
Discussion stream I did with more practical examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxop2B5b4rQ
This is obviously disappointing when compared to the original's roster of challenging enemies that allow for a wide variety of meaningful soft-counters, set against devilishly varied level design: Grace & Glory with their distance-blocks and fast movement, encouraging attacks with strong hit-stun, knockdown effects or wide hitboxes, Fairness with their anti-air grabs, disincentivizing (but not strictly prohibiting) jumps, Route 666 allowing for risky insta-kills or how you’re asked to maintain a combo during chase sequences — nothing really like that here in the regular mid-level verses from what I’ve played.
So, rather than Bayonetta’s happy medium, 3 ends up opposite to 2 on the “BRUHHHHHHHHHH”-end of the expression vs challenge spectrum: as a pure technical action game, the experience feels about as inconsistent and littered with holes (still no item penalty, totally broken strats like Phantom’s self-destruct, density of mini-games only an insane person would want to master, etc.) but the fact it’s so much less prescriptive appeals way more to my sensibilities. Demon Slave feels like a different take on Umbran Climax that is much more flexible and inviting to experimentation: you get to use it more regularly for longer spans of time (meaning you feel less rushed and encouraged to mash,) but the attack speed and range of your demons is now focused enough that it’s difficult to just stagger the entire screen by mashing X (despite my prior hyperbole in the opening paragraph.) Not only are you allowed to instantly switch between demons mid-combo (either adopting the previous demon’s position or summoning it right next to Bayonetta, granting even more flexibility,) it’s even possible to queue up commands and then take back control of Bayonetta while your demon executes them. It is genuinely clever that the queue can only hold up to two commands (rather than having a larger queue you can fill up for longer just by mashing,) meaning you’ll have to regularly tag between the two actors and coordinate between them positionally to get the most out of the system (specifically, you have to tag back to your demon before the second command has been executed to prevent them from leaving the play space.) The scoring system (while flawed) even takes this into account by having each actor contribute differently to point acquisition (Bayonetta raises points, demons raise the multiplier.)
Like I said, whatever strategy you pick kinda linearly works for the whole game — but at least there’s a lot of stuff to play around with! It almost doesn’t matter that I don’t actually click with a lot of the weapons and demons here when playing through the entire game mostly with Scarborough Fair (meaning “as sub-optimally as possible”) somehow doesn’t turn it into an active chore. I’m not fond of demons where control feels indirect and disconnected (Umbran Clock Tower, Dead End Express) or how weapons in general take control away from Bayonetta for too long (Yo-Yos, Color My World charged Heel Stomp, etc.) and don’t seem to follow intuitive/useful patterns in their dial combos and hold properties, but if anything that actually speaks to the variety on offer and just how many swings Platinum took with the player’s arsenal here. Unique Shot or Umbran Spear variations per weapon don’t even strike me as great inclusions (having Shot as a consistent action was helpful in the previous games to cancel out of certain states or target enemies, and a lot of this stuff just feels linearly better/worse,) but I’m honestly not sure any action game up to this point matches Bayonetta 3 as far as the pure AMOUNT of shit in it. That, and how much freedom you’re naturally given over the enemy’s position as you're toying with them, makes it an absolute buffet for combo fiends, and I can respect that.
I suppose if I had to sum it up, I would say that Bayonetta 3 is packed with interesting and sometimes even very thoughtfully implemented mechanics that spark a lot of intrinsic enjoyment, but the game Platinum have built around them doesn’t immediately inspire me to want to get truly serious about it. You spend a lot of time dicking around and exploring, with movement mechanics that are surprisingly versatile but still feel weirdly kneecapped in some ways (again lacking Bayonetta 1’s satisfying momentum) and are used in platforming challenges that are mostly just kinda quaint and insubstantial. Even rushing through all that, you’re stuck playing through what are probably the shallowest mini-games Platinum have put into code yet (Rock-Paper-Scissors, literally just moving an aiming cursor across the screen — the P**** shmup section was cool though.) But like I said going in, the biggest offender for me so far still is the seeming lack of meaningful encounter variety — at least the Alfheims with all their weird stipulations are a massive step up from Bayonetta 2, but based on what I’ve hard, I’m skeptical that mid-level verses will reveal more sauce on Infinite Climax difficulty.
TLDR: I recommend it! Expectations about met! Incredibly scuffed around the edges but I’ll take that over Bayonetta 2 any day.
I was dooming extremely hard when my long-range Wicked Weaves didn’t hit despite lock-on in the intro mission though. Come on guys.
Discussion stream I did with more practical examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxop2B5b4rQ
GoufyGoggs
1 year ago