Topic: Bayonetta 3

Finished it over the weekend but wanted to take a bit to let the ending sink in. Without spoiling anything, I'm mixed on how it finished up. From a gameplay perspective, it's my favorite game in the series, playing as Cereza especially is bad a**. The boss fights are great, I especially love how the last one plays out, it's wild and it's everything great about the Bayonetta games but everything gets let down a bit by some decision making from the devs at the end. Not enough to ruin the overall experience but gives me pause about the series' future if it continues. Still one of my favorite Switch games, however, and second so far this year just behind Shredder's Revenge.

It's finally time! I've beaten sparks of hope, which was great btw. 9/10 easy! So now i can finally move into Bayonetta 3. Just a couple weeks late 😉

@Gamer83
A lot of ppl are misinterpreting the ending, I think.

I haven't beaten the game but I've heard some love it, some hate it. And everyone who hates it, I think, is because of a fundamental misunderstanding. Keep in mind, it's a multiverse storyline. That allows certain creative freedoms in story and ending they normally couldn't get away with.

Here's a video on it, if you're interested.

I did happen to see that video. Some interesting theories for sure. Obviously, end of the day, nobody really knows what direction 4 will take, or if there even will be one, so I'll just wait and see. I do like seeing the different interpretations of what happened, though.

The ending definitely seems to be divisive, I even ran across a review that said it was so bad it caused the reviewer to immediately delete the game it ruined their perception of the series so much.

I think it's this one (from a site called Polygon):
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.polygon.com/platform/amp/rev...

I already know I am going to be in the hate it camp for the ending (and likely the back half of the game) so I stopped playing so I could process all the stages of grief. I’m almost at acceptance so I can start back up but I am very much less enthused. I am one of the few (supposedly) that found the Bayonetta story mostly coherent (mostly) so I am not looking forward to what I have a vague idea is on the way. But hey let devs make the game they wanna make. I just likely won’t be back for a 4th game and may not do a replay for a few years.

Gamer hate is always at such stupid things and I find too many of them like stories to be too literal and samey so I'm tempted to drop my other games and play this feverishly quick to get to the ending to see what the fuss is about.

@Rambler In fairness I don't think anyone here is actually complaining about Polygon's review. As they no longer give a score out of ten people don't like them anymore as they can't complain that game only got an eight rather than a nine so it's unplayable garbage now type stuff.

Had a look at the review, I can't really comment on their thoughts as I've not played the game properly so I don't know what they are on about although I do feel I can take a pretty good guess at what the ending is now.

@Rambler the comment section is always a fun place. It’s the random posts about how the world
is flat, Elon Musk is gonna take everyone to Mars with him and Hugo Chavez stole the election from Trump in the Pokemon article that makes my day.

I’m seeing Da La Soul next week. I’ve somehow never managed to see them live (apart from their guest spots with Gorillaz) and they have Omar playing with them who I only know from being ripped on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

To be honest performance is the main thing I want from a review, not the 60fps stuff but as many games from major publishers are being released in an unplayable state (as in its unfinished, not it only got a 7) and the state of the online for stuff like Splatoon so I just want that info more than anything from a review. It’s an odd one though as I use to think these types of discussion about the direction of the franchise, servicing the characters etc was best left to the fandom to talk about and not the reviewers but as fandom seems to be watered down nowadays where everyone is a hardcore fan for as long as the zeitgeist is about with lots of samey group thinking and needing to shout it out as loud as possible I’m getting to the point of not caring about the fandom community’s thought on such things anymore and would take a reviewer’s thoughts more seriously now.

Honestly thought the ending was fine. The final chapter is probably less bombastic than the previous game/s' stuff but the fight itself was way harder than what I remember of either of the first two games.

As for the ending itself... It's not really something that comes completely out of left field or turns Bayoentta's character on its head or anything, like some people will have you believe.
Like, if you paid a LICK of attention to what the characters do and say in the three games the ending makes sense. And Viola's role in the game overall is pretty great, imo, she's a super fun (and funny) character who fits right in with the rest of the weirdos.

@Rambler that’s cheating as you have to guess for yourself!

Think piece is a good choice of words. I’d take a well articulated fan review/think piece but my worry is the trend of it to become the lowest common denominator fan reviews (as seen so often on Youtube) where they celebrate more of the same but bigger, more nostalgia but more nostalgic etc rather than clever insight coming from sincere fan passion.

I just finished the game today and I have very mixed feelings.
Let's start with the good:
This game is nuts. They kept surprising me with totally random, over the top stuff in every chapter. You could tell the devs were going all out with this one and it really paid off.
Then there is the Bayonetta gameplay which just feels amazing. I wasn't really hooked at first but by the time you get the spider transformation it really started to click for me. I also really liked the visuals and the performance was super smooth for me; I really don't get the outrage about performance.

But there are also some things that really hurt the experience for me:
I am beating a dead horse with this one but it is what it is: Viola. I don't like her character, her design and I especially don't like her gameplay. Eventually I just gave up and everytime I was forced to play with her I just tried to rush through the chapters as quickly as possible so I can get back to enjoying Bayonetta again. It doesn't help that her gameplay doesn't evolve throughout the game unlike Bayonetta who keeps getting new weapons and Demon Slaves. Her theme song (GH()ST) is great though and I really liked Cheshire.
I also think they put too much emphasis on fighting giant enemies which kind of put the fun combat to the back and instead focuses on using Demon Slaves. My favourite fights were actually the hidden demon and angel fights because they felt more "Bayonetta" to me.
Overall the story was pretty weak and going for a multiverse plot kind of works against what they were trying to achieve with the ending because in a multiverse nothing really matters.

Which brings me to the ending. I know it's divisive and I will count myself in the "I hate it" group. If Bayonetta 4 is heading into the direction that the ending is heavily implying I am going to skip it.

Overall this game was enjoyable but it's probably on the lower end for me when it comes to PG's games.

I love Viola. Absolute banger of a character, perfect complimentary gameplay and it rounds out the package nicely

I'm only 2/3 of the way through the game, but thus far the story has been waaaaay better and more coherent than past entries, and for a series where story largely doesn't matter and is just a backdrop providing context for the action, it's actually nailed it. So much better than I was expecting given the stuff that was in the last two entries.

As for the ending, I haven't seen it yet but have a pretty good idea what it is. And if it is what I think, I'm all about it. I love heavy endings. Now. Ppl can not like the implications of what the ending might mean for future entries, but that's entirely separate from how entertaining the ending is on its own merit, and the two should not be confused. Though I suspect even the implications are being misunderstood.

Just beat Chapter 9, and have been going back and doing all the special levels unlocked by finding crow, cat and toad. Just 2 or 3 more left before I'm all caught up.

I'm onto chapter 7. So far so good. Playing with viola took a tiny bit getting used to but I actually liked it.

@JaxonH Just beat Chapter 12 and onto the next level - it just gets more and more insane! Chapter 9 was pretty nuts, but it gets crazier and crazier! Viola requires a different mindset to using her, it's like having a different character in a fighting game, she has her own unique fighting style which is less reliant on witch time.

I've been avoiding spoilers throughout, never watched the Digital Foundry vid and won't until after I've beaten the game. I'll do a lot of the challenge stuff when I go back but I've been enjoying the added exploration in this game.

I'm about to start chapter 10 myself. Well, tomorrow that is.

Rolled the credits tonight. Whatta game! Loved the ending, actually. Definitely the best of the 3.

And there it is.

Confirmation from Kamiya himself. Bayonetta isn't going anywhere.

It was obvious they were never gonna abandon Bayonetta as a character, especially when they don't own the IP! It belongs to Sega! Did ppl really think Platinum would do that to a character they don't own? Come now...

@JaxonH a lot of folks are more annoyed at the way the narrative is conveyed and the pacing which makes it feel really rushed/deus ex machina/buttpull. Going “you didn’t see the really small Chechov’s gun” doesn’t change that. For some a narrative should have a smooth flow and that doesn’t mean predictable but rather well conveyed. So for some that response from Kamiya is meaningless. I quit playing to give myself enough distance so I won’t be hyper critical but I already know with what story beats I am aware of this is going to be an incongruent story for me. Perhaps enough to put me off the series. And multiverse stories by nature have to be clear in their narrative or things get muddy really fast. Especially since Bayonetta’s narrative hinges on time travel/paradoxes/multiverses.

Sometimes what seems really obvious to the author (partly because what they storyboarded/mulled over is not the same as the final streamlined product they present) is not to the reader and it is the onus of the author to have the skill to lay out their story clearly.

To that end I say let folks feel the way they feel about the ending. If the story wasn’t adequately conveyed that was a failure on platinum’s part but even if it was that won’t change that not everyone will agree it is a good ending. I think that the view that everyone is overreacting (some do of course) dismisses the fact that people will naturally react differently based on their own internal processing of the story. It’s no different that if someone doesn’t laugh at a joke you find funny. Doesn’t mean they don’t have a sense of humor. Means their sense of humor is different from yours. What keeps arguments going is that often people don’t let others process their own reaction and acknowledge that it is just as valid as anyone else’s.