LogFAQs > #970889900

2. Bayonetta 3 (2022)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/1/0/AABKTfAAEGKS.jpg

Wow, now THIS is an action game! Ever since I played it around 10 years ago, Bayonetta's been my favorite character action game, and now it's been surpassed. I really loved the huge enemies, great flow, and pure spectacle. Bayo 3 takes that to the extreme. The combat feels awesome, with an extreme amount of variety. You get a ton of different weapons, along with various demons you can summon in combat, so it never gets old. Summoning demons to control in combat is a great new addition in general, and makes for a lot of new strategies you can use. The demons all look damn cool, too. Almost every stage is full of cool things, and exploring them feels better than in the previous Bayonettas due to all the transformations you can use to make traversal smoother. There's a huge number of enemies/bosses, reminding me of Astral Chain, but Bayo 3 is just more fun to play than that game was.

There's a bunch of alternate forms of gameplay too. Viola and Jeanne each have 3 or 4 stages of their own. Viola's fairly similar to Bayonetta, with a unique combat style that isn't quite as fun, but it's fine for a change of pace and there is some neat gameplay with her. Jeanne's are weird stealth stages, but they're ultra short and you can just fight if you get caught, so they were a fun breather too. Several of Bayonetta's stages have awesome set pieces where you play as the demons for a whole section, and while not all of them are hits (the rock/paper/scissors battles with Gomorrah sucked imo), most of them were a blast. The cutscenes of Bayo 3 are a ton of fun in general, mostly being used as a vehicle for over the top action. There's a lot less exposition than the previous games had, so I didn't mind the story as much. The ending was a bit weird and kinda makes me hope we don't get a Bayo 4, but that wasn't really a big deal, and the last boss was excellent. I've seen complaints about the performance, and while it doesn't look the best, I didn't have a problem with it, personally.

All in all this is just one of the best examples of pure fun that I've seen, and it really feels like a game that the devs spent years making as good as possible, considering the myriad variety it presents. Really a triumphant example of what video games can be, and the advantages AAA games can offer over smaller budget experiences.

Next game hint: The game of games (2022)