Since launching as part of Osaka studio PlatinumGames’ first wave of games, Bayonetta has had a lot going for it – sexy, stylish, and most importantly, downright goofy – but retention isn’t one of them. It’s an action game where you press a button and watch the screen explode in flashes of rave action, with climaxes stacked on top of climaxes. It would be exhausting, if not so exhilarating.
Bayonetta 3 doesn’t change that. In fact, it’s as exaggerated, exaggerated, and over-the-top as the series, and probably the most outrageous thing PlatinumGames has made to date. It’s also probably the least refined, though, because despite its considerable charm, the Bayonetta 3 is a mess. A fascinating, often dazzling mess, but still a mess.
Perhaps this is inevitable in the sequel, which throws everything possible at the player, piling up one idea after another until the whole thing falls apart. There’s a story here, but I’m not going to try to understand it too much (though, if you keep up with the Bayonettas, you’re going to get face-offs with old favorites and a whole bunch of cameos I won’t spoil here, especially because some extremely strict censorship guidelines prevent me from doing so). It’s important that there’s a multiverse at stake, which means there are multiple worlds to save, which means there’s no shortage of new environments to tear apart in a series of spectacular scenarios.
Once again the restrictive guidelines prevent me from telling you the real highlights, although that’s probably to ensure that the sense of surprise is kept intact, so I’ll keep it sketchy; rooftop chases over Tokyo’s rapidly deforming skyscrapers, speeding demons Gunfights on spiders and monster battles that bring new scale and spectacle to Bayonetta. Given the amount of Witcher 3 in its dozen or so hours of action, I could go on indefinitely, but the best way to describe it is indescribable. These are works that need to be experienced first-hand and must be seen to be believed.
Aside from those frequent set-pieces, the fundamentals of Bayonetta 3 are much bigger than the adjustment between the first two games. The most profound change is the ability to directly control demons, which Bayonetta has traditionally been able to summon in battle, and the introduction of demon slaves brings into play the greater sense of scale and landscape that Bayonetta 3 is all about. The absurdity of the action, the demon slave is an absolute victory; there is the tall Lady Butterfly, whose fist is the size of Bayonetta herself, or the terrifying Gomorrah, a 30-foot-tall dragon that, when summoned, is full of screen and make it tremble with anger.
They’re outrageous, though no one is more outrageous than the Wartrain Gouon, which isn’t so much a demon as a full-sized steam train that can be summoned. Linked to the all-new weapon Dead End Express, the hell demon Wartrain Gouon is probably the most absurd of Bayonetta, and therefore the most sublime, as you destroy enemies with a heavy locomotive engine before turning into a thug. This is Bayonetta: Choo Choo Edition, a premise that is both crazy and enjoyable.
Is that The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Trails reference being summoned as a Wartrain Gouon to solve some light puzzles, as demon slaves recur in some of the Zelda-lite dungeons you’ve explored in Bayonetta 3’s campaign? As ever, there are a range of nods and references in the series dealing with the video game world, from chase sequences emulating Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon to full-fledged side-scrolling levels emulating arcade classic Elevator Action (I’m sure I found a Shout out to cover the Dreamcast release title Pen Pen Trilcelon, though maybe I just lost my mind). It’s this suffocating feeling that makes “Angel Hunt 3” so hot.
However, this dyspnea may manifest as outright wheezing in some places. Controlled chaos has always been the calling card of Witchcraft, but Witchcraft 3 often gets out of hand in action; when playing as Bayonetta, the camera goes further than in previous games to help accommodate the demon slaves that are a base part of her new arsenal , but the result was often illegible battles. Press a button and the screen explodes, which is also the creed of the series: in Bayonetta 3, however, it’s easy to forget yourself amid all the colorful noise.
The Bayonetta 3 isn’t just noisy, though. A lot of times, it’s a total mess. It’s tempting to put some of the blame on the aging hardware that PlatinumGames relies on, and the ambitions here are certainly not helped by technical constraints, a device that wasn’t fully capable of processing when it first launched about five years ago, but Like vague implementation and vague visual design, it seems to be canceled too often. Sometimes, as the serial crime defines by its bubbling hiss, it fails.
Adding a new member to the cast, Viola, a katana-wielding witch in training, fights alongside a cat big enough to earn a spot at the Macy’s parade, and offers a pared-down move that’s in line with the mind-blowing. The excesses of excitement form an interesting contrasting sequence of Bayonetta. It would all have been nice if Viola wasn’t such an underrated, underdesigned character, with her leather jacket wardrobe and tartan pants mixed with secondhand leftovers, and her secondhand punk attitude. Half-joking sarcasm. Viola felt like she was coming from another, smaller series that never really fit into Bayonetta’s fantasy world.
Getting close to Bayonetta, as close to video game royalty as possible, will always be a challenge, but Viola’s mediocrity extends to some mediocre gameplay passages, full of clunky platforming and vague confusion in what appears to be a second evaluation. It undermines a recurring feeling that Bayonetta 3 may just be trying too much, a concept that is underscored by the presence of three different currencies in Bayonetta 3, one for items, one for unlockable cosmetic items, and one for unlockable cosmetic items. One that powers the skill tree, allowing you to unlock new abilities. Even skill trees, since everyone can find one in an almost inelegant web of menus.
It was that elegance that was most lacking in the Bayonetta 3, and the overriding sense of style that held collections together in the past often fell apart at the seams. If Angel Hunt 2 was an improvement on its predecessor, Angel Hunt 3 felt like an uncontrolled explosion, and the resulting action was compelling but jagged and incoherent.
It’s a mess, though. Witchcraft 3 may not be as consistently good as its predecessors, but when it’s good, it’s almost religious; playing the role of Bayonetta with the full set of toys unlocked is as exciting as ever, and it’s a powerful game The spectacle of combat and S&M excess, this is a one-of-a-kind, provocative video game. It’s so exaggerated that trying to understand it would be a mistake, and while the rough edges will disappoint if you embrace the chaos, there’s a lot to love here. “Angel Hunt 3” is exaggerated, and parts of it are immature — but it’s hardly more than thrilling.
