Bayonetta 3 [NSW]

[fuse]

There's already some impressions from others elsewhere on the forum, but let's round em all up, folks!



I've only played to chapter 3 so far so I'm going to keep this brief for now.

It's only on the Switch right now, and yes, there are some performance issues. These are compounded by the fact that Platinum has really gone ham on all aspects of the action - almost everything is bigger and brasher. There is a new character, Viola, though I've not even controlled her yet to comment on those sections.

Summoning seems to be a pretty major part of how they want you to play the game; this means positioning Bayo somewhere safe, holding ZL, and instead channeling your actions into a slower, clunkier, but much larger and stronger summoned monster. I'm not sure how much I like this as a concept - it definitely feels like a lot of the timing and precision requirement goes out of the window.

[Dogg Thang]

Mad to think how time flies. One day a game is released. You blink and it’s retro.

[fuse]

In my defence I noticed immediately and reported my own post. I can only assume the mod team has been hanging out by the pool drinking champagne and spending time with lots of beautiful people instead of being here to clean up after an idiot who can't tell his arse from his elbow.

[speedlolita]

I polished this off in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The story is a bit all over the place. To me it felt like they took a theme present in more recent Marvel movies and used it to showcase some alternative Bayonetta designs, it has a pretty cool payoff but there's nothing of substance here. There's really not a lot going on for the majority of the game, its all front and rear loaded. They even added some mandatory Elevator Action bonus stages between some chapters to spice things up a bit.

Music wise... Well:

Viola was a welcome addition. I thought I wouldn't like her at all, something along the lines of Nero in DMC4, that wasn't the case. It is pretty amusing that her theme starts playing every single verse you're using her in but luckily you're not using her for too many levels so it doesn't get so annoying. Looking forward to seeing how they use her going forward...

Gameplay seemed to revolve quite heavily around the utilisation of demon slaves which I thought was pretty interesting once I got the hang of it but I know some people aren't too happy about. The accessory that allows them to act independently seems like a pretty decent one, I ended up using that alongside the Moon of Mahaa-Kalaa.

There's quite a few annoying set pieces in this game which is a bit disappointing though not really anything new to this franchise, at least twice as many as before. Some of them work better than others but I would have liked if they deployed them sparingly.

Either way, I would say wait and grab a copy for a reduced price down the line if you're on the fence. There's little here to justify a full price purchase currently unless you really love this genre and have reasonable expectations.

[Golgo]

Thanks for the excellent first imps, peeps. But has anyone tried the post-game 'Witch Trials'? I read somewhere that they're more focused combat challenges a bit like earlier games, and indeed featuring the angelic/demonic enemies and mid-bosses from earlier games as well...?

[dataDave]

Thanks for the excellent first imps, peeps. But has anyone tried the post-game 'Witch Trials'? I read somewhere that they're more focused combat challenges a bit like earlier games, and indeed featuring the angelic/demonic enemies and mid-bosses from earlier games as well...?

I’ve not had the patience to unlock that.

[fuse]

Meant to say that I finished this earlier this week. I was struggling to enjoy myself somewhere in the middle sections of the game, only to realise I was causing a lot of that friction by trying to plough through it while still only using the one set of weapons and ignoring a lot of the secondary systems. Changing things up, experimenting with new moves and weapons helped a lot (it turns out I love the yo-yo weapon), and I got back into the swing of things to at least see me through to the end. I like Viola enough as a character, but I don't think she is as fun to use as Bayo, which is a shame.

There are these absolutely madcap ideas, moves, summons and so on that are so creative and just do not feel like they should or even could possibly be in a boring game, but at times it somehow is. That there's new enemies all the time should keep you on your toes, but instead just makes it harder to find a rhythm, a feeling added to by a number of puzzle and platform concepts being dropped in, and on top of the regular distractions of cut scenes that all combine and fester to the detriment of the game's pacing. The last mission really exemplified this for me - it's almost entirely big cinematic battles and story, and despite some moments here and there, I could've happily seen about half of it on the cutting room floor.

I note there is a huge pile of additional content unlocked after finishing it, and I'm sure if I give myself some distance from it and return to start tinkering with these once I've had a break, there's probably a lot in there that'd be a lot of fun and would get me to wrangle with the core mechanic stuff that I fully expect to be excellent. But that main campaign is very bloated and is already more of a commitment than I expect most folks are going to want to put into the game.