Bayonetta Trilogy Review | Bombastic Style of Varying Success

Hey man that entire Bayo bit on expertise, how opinions are formed, etc. Love it. I feel you. Its why I just do my best and keep moving forward because the expectations randos have for any other person are obscenely tight and confusing to navigate, so we just out here

Whenever people bring up Nero as an example of a proper passing of the torch, I have to remind them that it took over ten years and a bad reboot for that to happen. Nero was NOT immediately embraced when DMC4 came out. He was reviled by many for taking up so much of the game when people just wanted more Dante, something made worse by the fact that Dante got Nero's sloppy seconds in terms of enemies and levels. Fans eventually softened on Nero after the DmC reboot (because they would take anything BUT Donte) and his character was fully fleshed out and rehabbed in DMC5, but it took a long time for that to happen. If anything, Bayo 3 is trying to avoid what happened with DMC4: instead of having a newcomer abruptly usurp the beloved protag's leading role, they created a massive, content-filled send-off to Cereza while providing a starting point to tease Viola's still untapped potential. It's worth noting that a lot of folks are still on the "Viola is just a bad Nero" bandwagon, but I think they're missing the point. Platinum did make the mistake of teasing her as "girl Nero," but at worst she's a subversion of Nero, and at best she's very much her own thing. Nero is cool, hyper-competent, and has a sort of stoic tsudere thing going on in DMC4. From the start, Nero's gameplay suggested that he essentially on Dante's level, despite cutscenes and lore suggesting otherwise. However, Viola is goofy, talented but unpolished, and keeps her heart on her sleeve. Her gameplay and cutscenes both imply she's not yet equipped to take Bayo's role, and literally feel like growing pains that (like most growing pains) can only be overcome with patience and practice (both on your part and hers). She a lot of growing up to do, but clearly has unique potential that will manifest in her own game(s). For now, her appearance here is just a preview, setting the stage for the future. Unfortunately, Platinum's tactic of playfully referencing DMC while running off to do something quite different often falls flat or flies over people's heads, as folks end up focusing more on the references than on what Bayo does differently.

I think it'd be better if you broke down why Bayo 2's story doesn't work because your breakdown of 3 makes it extremely obvious why people hate the story imo. I mean it certainly isn't anything special, but I feel it tells a better story than 3. At least there's setups and payoffs with some fun character interactions. Bayo 3 barely interacts with anything, especially the alt Bayo's. I agree on the whole with the Bayo 3 segment, on top of offscreen attacks, personally I feel the attack tells aren't as good as the previous games. It certainly doesn't help with Viola having a stricter time. As well, Demon Slave is fine, but it becomes clear throughout the game that you should not be playing like a Bayonetta game, you need to summon the Demons to do damage. I have no interest in playing infinite climax because these boring enemies will just be more spongey and enemies will hit like trucks, which I get is the point, but when the enemies suck I don't really want to fight them.

Lopter had a motivation tho, loki and lopter were both half of Aesir's soul (the god of chaos) that once gave his eyes, the eyes of the world to humanity, his soul got turned into two aswell. Loki, the godness of aesir and lopter being the bad one, he just wanted the power of the god aesir back to rule over chaos once again, and by that he needed to take loki's powers to control the eyes, and later the eyes of the world from bayo and Balder. Singularuty just wanted destruction without further explanation of why. He's the worst type of villain in fiction, a one-dimensional bad guy that is bad for only the sake of being evil.

i... actualy love bayo2, i had my problems to adapt to her new hair than to notice those mechanical changes

Imagine instead of killing off the other Bayos, they did have them merge with the main one, giving her access to their demons and weapons. And explains that whole bit at the end where they all return.

I think Viola being called Bayonetta is more a case of “you’re one of us now” rather than her taking over as the protagonist. Like she’ll be on the cover of the next main entry, but I feel like she’s not going to be a full on protagonist without cereza until 5 or 6.

I am VERY happy you pointed out the lack of inertia in Bayo 2/3 hahaha, Durga and even ABK carried Inertia momentum during its attacks in 1, so it's a shame 3 didn't carry that over, I feel like weapons such as G-Pillar would be 100x better if the inertia CARRIED over when swapping back to human form when you are in Gommorah's Demon Masquerade. I feel like it was a big miss to not add a weapon wheel to the game too, adding it to the bottom dpad woulda worked wonderfully IMO. "I hate the dialogue for this game" shows a snap of Bayonetta calling Balder daddy* Me too man, me too.

Agree with the sound mixing. Hearing Bayonetta dancing, foot movement and body movement being louder than the music. It felt like something you would hear in a will Ferrell comedy Took me out of the scene and couldn't take it seriously

Really love that you put emphasis on peoples subjective experiences in your Bayo 2 thoughts. Personally loved Bayo 2 more than 1, and I still do, despite recognizing and empathizing with peoples gripes with it Thing is many of those gripes are over things that're not easy to intuit for most players, like the scoring system. I played Bayo 1 on 360 when it came out and have replayed it on every other platform I got it on, but I was never able to consistently get a high combo ranking in any playthrough. It wasn't until I google'd what the ruleset was during my most recent playthrough out of curiosity right before 3 released. (I just don't look up external resources on games, its just not how I like to experience them usually) It IS much more fun when you understand it, and I see what they were going for with it now. I have been going through Bayo 1s higher difficulties for the first time and having a blast because of it, but nothing should feel THAT obfuscated when its displayed on screen the whole game. Though Bayo 2s system is not a fix for this, it was FAR less frustrating in that respect. Bayo 1 has lots of great qualities, but a lot of its encounter and combat design wound up discouraging me from exploring them and that was not the case with 2. Bayo 2 didn't feel that different mechanically from Bayo 1 to me when I first played it, and I wound up putting like 300 hours into it on Wii U because the learning experience is just so much smoother in it (rip my pro controller triggers) Sometimes Kamiya's love for old arcade design philosophies just works against his own games, despite what it can create

Calling bayo 3 the DCEU is god damn genius

One thing I haven't seen a lot of people talk about is the "fantasy" aspect as in the "character fantasy" of playing as that character archetype and honestly there are few games that let me have that "battle mage/ summoner fantasy" in action form quite like Bayo 3. Also as a power - scaling trash human I enjoy seeing character and power progression go side by side Bayo 1 "serious mode" for boss fights only Bayo 2 on demand Umbral Climax Bayo 3 straight Demon enslavement and control to the point you can fuse with them (also enjoy that post Bayo 2's Jeanne incident Cereza actually prioritized better demon taming as to avoid it happening again) Ps. DEMON MASQUERADE IS JUST SO FUCKING COOL

I smiled a bit when I saw that gameplay of Gungrave G.O.R.E. It kind of told me that you were playing and recording it for a video. I just hope for your sake that you enjoyed it, because I know some people will think you have obligations to review it after reviewing the first 2 games. Only time will tell.

35:17 I'm SO GLAD someone else mentioned this! I had the same experience and it was throwing me off

let's go, you are now one of my favorite youtuber, found you because of how to get into berserk and stayed for ps2 games recommendation

Blaming the switch limitations for Bayo 3's poor performance doesn't make any sense to me. Bayonetta 1 and 2 look AND play better than 3, and they're both on the switch as well. There are tons of better looking and running games perfectly optimized for the switch that are exclusive, platinum just dropped the ball with this one. It's probably because it was originally intended to be an open world game, so they accepted lesser performance from the get go, and just rolled with what they had initially made when the game was retooled to not be open world.

Pretty much my same thoughts on Bayo 3 except for the new combo finishers, I like them, they're quick, flashy, hit hard and have good variety and utility. The story is ok, I like seeing all the Bayos and I like Viola and her playstyle, the people hating her just need to learn to parry. I had the same issue with Viola charging attacks by mistake and it was on a DS4. If it had a better camera, less annoying enemies and more encounters in general I'd say it's the best of the 3. And yes, the weapon limit of 2 has always been criminal.

there was a moment where you mentioned how it can be hard to want to talk about something if you don't feel qualified enough i've been stuck on certain projects because i felt like maybe i wasn't the right person to talk about hearing someone else say that really helped me just start it again

Another contributing factor to how the game feels like it skips over a lot of context is that YOU DON'T EVEN PLAY AS BAYONETTA FROM 1 OR 2! You play as past Cereza from 1, but that's only explained through her character design and in game files that you have to read.

Played Bayonetta 1. Liked it but was very bad at it as i dont play many of that kind of games Was happy to hear you mention the motorcycle and rocket sections taking too long. My biggest problem with that game was just as i started ti get into the flow I was being interupted by gimick or mini game sections