Bayonetta 3 Quick Review script (Spoilers!) (Patreon)

Here's the edited version of that Twitter thread I made on October 30th about Bayonetta 3, so if you'd like to read it, here you go! I'm going to record it now, and hopefully have the video up and done by New Year's Day.

"Quick" thoughts on Bayonetta 3's shortcomings

Spoilers, obviously.

One of my biggest gripes with Bayonetta 3 is that it's heavily implied and pretty much confirmed that new playable protagonist Viola is the daughter of Bayonetta and Luka from a different/alternate universe, since the central conceit of Bayonetta 3 is multiversality.

And there are many moments when she almost reveals her relation to Bayonetta, but always hesitates, and it only ever gets revealed at like the very end, when Bayonetta is about to die in the same way that the first Bayonetta we play as in this game, who is Viola’s mother, (who is not the same as the first Bayonetta we play as in the first Bayonetta game), died.

And like...B3!Bayonetta doesn't really react to that information. The same way she barely reacted or interacted with any of her other alternate Bayonetta selves. The same way that Viola didn't react at ALL to the revelation that her close and personal friend Sigurd in her universe turned out to be the villain and main antagonist from a different universe.

Edit: Okay, having gone back to look over it and beat it a second time, I should clarify: Singularity is NOT Bayonetta 3’s world’s Connor Sigurd, who is known on Cereza’s world as Midmyers Sigurd. He just killed and impersonated Midmyers Sigurd, so I suppose the previous point is moot. Yay for debunking my own point so early into the video, but I still think it’s a fair point to raise because A) these were my first impressions, first jotted out and articulated on my Twitter account on October 30th, and B) it reinforces to me just how unclearly conveyed and convoluted that plot point was.

It had me believing that Singularity was Alphaverse’s Sigurd, but he wasn’t – he was an artificial human accidentally created in an artificial body parts factory in the Alphaverse, who gained sentience, created the Homunculi, and killed all of the humans in his world.

At some point, Midmyers Sigurd of Cereza’s world was the first to discover the true nature of the World of Chaos and how it was comprised of multiverses layered on top of one another. Doing so, he also discovered the existence of the Homunculi from the Alphaverse, and their intentions of destroying all other worlds, save for their own home dimension, as well as the Chaos Gears, which facilitate travel between universes. He invented a way to communicate between worlds, and contacted his own counterpart in Viola’s universe, who was Connor Sigurd.

Soon after, he was killed by Singularity, who impersonated him in Cereza’s universe while using the deceased body of the real Sigurd from that world as a nerve centre for his Aureole Homunculi.

Confused? So was everyone. So again, to clarify: Singularity is NOT a multiversal variant or counterpart of Sigurd, he just impersonated the Sigurd of this world after killing him.

It may have been explained in the lore files, but it certainly was not clearly communicated nor properly conveyed in the game proper. The lore files should be a fun, useful supplement to the story of the game, not have to explain to the players crucial details that are buried in menus that are cumbersome to locate and navigate.

I’m grateful, at least, that Sigurd wasn’t really a real human, because that would have obliterated the narrative weight and thematic importance of Balder’s big, uplifting speech to Aesir about the nature of humanity at the end of Bayonetta 3. Can you imagine if Balder had talked up the positive qualities of humanity and how they may stumble and fall off the path, but they always move forward, only to have Singularity be a real human who just tried to end humanity, and make Balder look foolish for trying to defend it? I’m glad we don’t live in that timeline.

Anyways, Viola doesn’t even react to the revelation that Singularity is basically masquerading as a variant of one of her closest and presumably only friends, the Connor Sigurd of her world. I don’t think it’s made clear if she knows whether or not Singularity isn’t a Variant of Sigurd, given the aforementioned convolution of it all. And if she DID think Singularity was an evil version of her friend Connor Sigurd, why didn’t she get an opportunity to react to that information? To recognize that an evil version of Connor murdered his own variant?

It's so frustrating, because people just don’t fucking react at all to developments, shocking or otherwise, in any realistic way. It really feels like the budget couldn’t be stretched far enough to accommodate more vocal lines especially, because I cannot enumerate or emphasize the amount of times Bayonetta or someone else just hums or makes a vocalization instead of actually speaking. It feels like a cost-saving measure, to not have to pay more than absolutely necessary to make a scene kind of work, which ultimately results in situations like Bayonetta interacting with, talking to, or directly addressing her variants. She doesn’t even really react to how curious and novel an experience it is of seeing a different version of you from a different universe and timeline, and I understand she lives in a reality where Witches can summon demons and slay angels, but I think, especially from an identity standpoint, it’s pretty freaky to recognize that other versions of you exist, are real, living, breathing people with their own lives and memories and stories, and yet she doesn’t react to any of that or even give us her thoughts on it at all.

Why? Could they not afford the amount of dialogue this story needed? The game was being funded by Nintendo, I’m sure they had the money to do so. And it’s not like Jennifer Hale is unreasonable for wanting to get paid proper rates to voice the lines, so it’s not a situation of “Jennifer Hale is too expensive so they couldn’t afford all the dialogue they needed and had to make do with what was in the final game”. Again, Bayonetta 3 was bankrolled by Nintendo, so money isn’t a problem with regards to paying her proper rates.

I think, ultimately, the troubled development of Bayonetta 3 probably resulted in the game having a lot of its budget utilized on the gameplay and technical aspects of the game, especially once they had to scale it down when it was clear the Nintendo Switch could not handle the scope of an open world Bayonetta experience like it’s been said to have been originally planned, and the voice acting is, to my knowledge, usually one of the last things to get done when it comes to game development.

That, and the whole “Hellena Taylor declining to return meaning they would have to scramble and hold auditions for a new voice actress who could sound similar enough to how Bayonetta has always sounded”, and I think on that front, both Platinum Games and Jennifer Hale did an exquisite, stellar job. I also might be slightly biased, because as a fellow Canadian, I have to support a legendary Canuck Queen like herself.

If true, that could explain why it feels like Bayonetta speaks the least in this game out of the entire Bayonetta trilogy. And it was extremely, extremely noticeable.

However, it goes beyond just the voice acting too – Cereza, like all of her variants and Jeanne, apparently, have become a joke in terms of their ability to evade attacks or enact Witch Time, but I’ll touch upon that later. For now, though, here are examples of what I mean when I say the (relatively, compared to Bayonetta’s 1 and 2) sparse dialogue and Bayonetta’s extreme underreaction to everything results in everyone looking incompetent.

[Short montage of Bayonetta barely reacting to things, Jeanne dying, etc.]

See what I mean? So many characters were nerfed to hell and back, and it retroactively ruins a lot of what was established in the previous two games?

Like, first off, let's acknowledge that Cereza/Bayonetta has NEVER been more powerful than she is in this game (well, aside from maybe when she summons Queen Sheba or Omne, with Jeanne and Balder, respectively). She even essentially resurrects the long-lost and thought-dead art of Demon Slave, literally taking direct physical control of demons via her iconic dancing.

Not only that, but she also is capable of doing a forbidden ritual where she rips out her own her and chants in Enochian in order to offer up her bloody heart as a sacrifice in order to summon any of her given contracted demon's TRUE form, complete with an immeasurably powerful boost in power and unshackling their true potential/form.

Not only does Cereza do that multiple times with different demons (and I question the fact that she rips out her heart and offers it in order to summon their true, eldritch forms, and then when she's done, she just...puts her heart back in her chest. I thought it would be something that she pulls out as a last result, but if she can rip out her heart any old time and then use Demon Slave (and I’m unsure if it IS Demon Slave, since I don’t remember whether or not she was dancing to control their True Forms) on her newly unfettered demon, then it feels kinda...not AS impressive or meaningful if it was her last resort, you know?), but she does it TWICE AT ONCE, literally summoning the fucking leader of all the Gomorrah, Sin Gomorrah, and Madama Butterfly's true, gigantic form, Queen Butterfly. Like, she dual-summoned them, one after the other. That's fucking insane.

So it's established that Cereza can just rip out her heart any time she pleases for an ungodly amount of power increase, and mind you, this is the same character (but not the same version of the character) that summoned the ruler of Inferno (wth Jeanne's help) and Omne (with her father Balder's help) in order to punch the shit out of the Goddess of Paradiso and Aesir, the God of Chaos. I don't know where the blood ritual ranks in relation to summoning either of those deities, but she didn't have to rip out her heart in order to do that, so that's fucking batshit levels iconic. Positively guano in scope.

But if Cereza can rip out her heart and place it back in when she's done with the summon, how the FUCK is Jeanne gonna die to Sigurd's laser beam backstab arm thing? These witches have had ungodly reaction times, Witch Time literally relies on it, but you mean to tell me that Jeanne is just gonna get stabbed in the back by a guy who literally telegraphs his evil intent with some ominous shit he said just seconds before he did so, and she didn't so much as turn around to give him a "what the fuck are you talking about" look?

Seriously, Jeanne’s reaction time has consistently shown to be better than even Bayonetta’s, as Jeanne is usually the one saving Cereza from some attack she doesn’t see coming, but Jeanne was quick enough to intervene in, to her own detriment. She’s literally nearly killed herself multiple times whereas Cereza was almost caught unawares each time, but a fucking telegraphed-as-FUCK laser stab is gonna kill her? No ma’am. Not my Umbran Sister. I’m calling shenanigans.

But going even further, we see in a flashback in Bayonetta 3, that Cereza's mom Rosa died when Loptr (one half of the God of Chaos, Aesir, and his evil half) threw a deadly playing card at Balder, but Rosa jumped in the way and took the hit in the chest to save him, demonstrating her own incredible reaction time, since Balder was caught unawares.

Ma'am, how the FUCK is a playing card going to kill you when your daughter can rip out her heart and put it back in? How is a playing card gonna kill Rosa when Cereza rips out her fucking heart multiple times???? And that's not a Cereza-exclusive ability, she's not the only one physically capable of doing it, she’s just the only one crazy enough to try and do forbidden magic rituals.

Was Loptr's card magically infused or special in some way? Like how the hell is Rosa not gonna tank that, but we see characters tank way harder shit and live to tell the tale?

I'm really glad we got to play as Jeanne in those 2D, 80s thriller spy film gameplay sections, but she was done so dirty in this game. She and Cereza barely interacted, and how the fuck is Jeanne gotta get jobbed AGAIN???

Jeanne saved Cereza so many times from death, at least once per game.

In the first game, she sealed her away so that the Left Eye of Darkness couldn't be taken from them during the Witch Hunts, which little miss Bad Bitch survived against hordes of angels all by herself, mind you, and again when she shoved her away from the missiles on Isla del Sol.

Second game, she shoved her out of the way when Gomorrah broke free of its bonds and tried to kill Cereza, resulting in Jeanne's soul being knocked from her body, and because she was technically dead, the denizens of Inferno were allowed to drag her down to Inferno as stipulated in the contract Umbra Witches sign when they enter a pact with a demon, gaining great power and wisdom and being lent the abilities of the demons they've contracted with, in exchange for their souls and being tortured for eternity upon their eventual deaths (which won't be any time soon, usually, since their Umbran Watches allow them to live for centuries, and Jeanne and Cereza are both over 500 years old). The entire plot of the second game is that Bayonetta goes to save her best friend/roommate/rival/fellow last Umbra Witch/potential love interest from Inferno, a feat no one has ever accomplished before, and she succeeds (at least it was the primary motivation until that faded in the background in favour of Aesir stuff and her fights/rivalry with her father, both unbeknownst to them at the time).

And again, just like in the first game 500 years ago in Vigrid’s history, Little Miss Badder Bitch literally engaged hordes upon hordes of not only angels, but also demons, and given that she was around to summon a Gomorrah, despite one having killed her not too long ago (yet another reason she’s Little Miss Baddest Bitch, how fucking iconic do you have to be to summon the creature that killed you and make it do your bidding again like it’s your bitch? Truly legendary behaviour. She should talk about herself during her history lessons to her students, because that was one for the books), she evidently WON in her fight against the combined forces of Paradiso and Inferno. Jeanne really is incredibly powerful and genuinely my favourite in the entire Bayonetta series. It’s clear why she was going to be heir to the throne, as well as why she was the Pride of the Umbra Witches, even if we presume her to be a beneficiary of nepotism.

And finally, in the third time, Jeanne again saves Cereza from a demon, this time in the form of the Kraken, who easily defeats Jeanne (for no reason????), and then at the end, Jeanne is killed by a sneak attack???

Jeanne was SO disrespected in this game.

They didn't explain shit in the game/during the story/adventure about WHY Sigurd wanted to destroy the multiverse and take it over. He has zero motivations. If there are any, it's likely relegated to the lore files, and that's great and all, but the story itself should have explained that.

So we have the main antagonist who is evil for the sake of it, as far as the game tells you. Neat. At least the Balder/angels/Jubileus and Aesir/Balder had reasons for their actions in B1 and B2 respectively.

Cereza BARELY interacted with any of the other Bayonettas, she watches them die and rarely if ever tries to stop it. It felt like they were shafted and nerfed in order to just get our Cereza/Bayonetta the weapons and demon contracts of the other Bayonettas upon their deaths. They were incredibly disrespected too, as was Egyptian Jeanne, and they all died in that "we're witches with super powers and literal magic and god-tier reflexes, but we're ALL going to get stabbed in the back or ambushed and absorbed because the plot needs us dead lmao" bullshit way. At least Egyptian Cereza/Bayonetta CHOSE to sacrifice herself in order to save our unconscious Cereza/Bayonetta from that blackhole or whatever. Everyone else had no choice, agency, or dignity in their deaths.

Note: I wrote this on October 30th, and on December 8th, at the Game Awards, it was revealed that a spin-off title, Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, is in development and is releasing on March 17th, 2023. This will mean that the gap between Bayonetta 3 and Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon will be the shortest time gap between entries in the Bayonetta franchise, since it will literally only be about five months between them, as opposed to the five years between Bayonetta 1 and Bayonetta 2, and the 3 years between Bayonetta 2 and the revelation of Bayonetta 3’s development, and ultimate release 5 years after that, for a total of eight years. We went from waiting eight years from the last game to less than five months.

The latest two entries were likely in development at the same time, or Cereza and the Lost Demon was likely a little after Bayonetta 3 was well under way, so here’s hoping that Bayonetta 4, which has been heavily implied to be greenlight if not in active development by both Hideki Kamiya and Doug Bowser, the creator of the Devil May Cry and Bayonetta franchises, and the President of Nintendo of America respectively, via the former’s tweets about Bayonetta 4 and the latter’s acceptance speech for when Bayonetta 3 won Action Game of the Year for the Game Awards 2022.

All this to say that I wrote this tweet thread-turned-script before the revelation that there was another entry and the first spin off in the franchise, and it looks to be following a younger, perhaps pre-teen or teenage Cereza and will likely include fairy-related story content. So keep that in mind when watching the following part that talks about fairy plot points in Bayonetta 3, given that I’m not a precog, don’t have forbidden foreknowledge, nor gifted with prescience, so I did not factor in something I had no idea existed while crafting this critique!

And the fairy bullshit??? Luka didn't need to get powers and become competent in physical fights in order to have elevated relevance. He had always been the comparatively weaker guy, physically helpless compared to Bayonetta and Jeanne, but he was the one who knew all the lore and history because he was an investigative journalist. He had a purpose and filled his role (and them leather pants) well, but now this feels like they wanted to make him more relevant so he'd be a better romantic match for her because now he could help or keep up in battles, as opposed to always getting in trouble and over his head, the way Cereza pointed out.

There was zero reason for Luka to become controlled/possessed and transform into a fairy werebeast "Twilight Wanderer" Strider, and the romance between him and Cereza was INCREDIBLY rushed and out of left field. Do I mind Bayonetta/Luka? Not necessarily. But she's always treated him as an affable idiot, someone way beneath her romantic attention, and she would never entertain him romantically, despite his repeated attempts to woo and flirt with her.

Despite this, she would definitely come to respect and like Luka, and have a certain fondness for him, forming a bond with him that few others could because she was essentially a woman 500 years out of time, sealed away for a majority of her life by Jeanne for her own protection, and her only important bonds were with Jeanne, Luka, Rodin, and tangentially Enzo. Speaking, of course, of the original Bayonetta from Bayonetta 1, as opposed to Cereza from Bayonetta 3, who did not spend 500 years sealed away.

Speaking of, if Luka first met Bayonetta when his father Antonio Redgrave uncovered her whereabouts in that lake Jeanne hid her in 480 prior to the events of the first Bayonetta game, and if the plot of the first Bayonetta game resulted in Cereza learning from Bayonetta, keeping her Umbran watch close to her chest, and that subsequently saving her life and preventing Jeanne from sealing her away, leading to a splitting of the timeline into a new axis of time where Cereza wasn’t sealed away for 480 years (since Bayonetta says she’s been awake for 20 years at the start of the first game, and she and Luka acknowledge that it's been 500 years since the Witch Hunts/the flashback sections), during which time she presumably got stronger in her Umbran Arts after she and Jeanne survived the Witch Hunts…

…how the FUCK did Cereza and Luka meet in Bayonetta 3 Cereza’s timeline? Cereza was never sealed away, so Luka’s dad couldn’t find her and get killed by angels, so how did they meet? Unless we’re meant to understand that Luka from Bayonetta 3 is the same Luka from Bayonettas 1 and/or 2? Does anyone have an answer for that plot hole?

Regardless, I really liked Bayonetta (from the first and second games) and Luka's dynamic, but here's where I have to call bullshit.

Cereza definitely felt way more head-over-heels or blush-y than her previous depictions when it comes to Luka, and she and Luka get together at the end of Bayonetta 3.

Do I find it kind of sweet and romantic that after making sure Viola was okay, Luka chose to die with Bayonetta and accompany her in her descent to Inferno so she wouldn't be alone in her eternal torment? Yes, exceptionally. He chose to suffer with her so she wouldn't suffer alone, and he literally gave up his life for her. He could've walked away, but he chose her. That's romantic as FUCK.

But it feels like Luka and Cereza only got together because they recognized that Viola, despite her best efforts to keep that bit of information to herself, was their daughter from an alternate universe where they did end up together.

So in order to "protect [their] truth", as Luka says, they save Viola and then he chooses to go to hell with Cereza. And they embrace and kiss as they're being dragged down to hell, which is A+ romance.

But the romantic aspect of their relationship came out of left field, and it really, truly, genuinely feels like that they decided to get together solely because alternate versions of them did and had a kid. They never had any build-up or tension or development towards a romantic conclusion, so while it was sweet, it was also absolutely an ass-pull.

Not to mention, Luka choosing to die with Cereza instead of living to take care of their daughter kinda comes across as him being a deadbeat dad. Like, yes, on the one hand, he’s not her literal father, just another version of him is. But on the other had, if we’re expected to believe that Cereza and Luka got together solely because Viola exists, and there’s another version of them that got together to have Viola, why is it so outlandish to say that Luka should have stayed alive to take care of his quasi-daughter? How is choosing to die with Cereza and leaving Viola to fend for herself “protecting [your] truth”, Luka?

Either Viola is so important to them that it can literally cause them to spontaneously fall in love and get together, and therefore she should be important enough to them for Luka to want to take care of her, or Viola is not important enough for Luka to want to stay with and he chooses to die with Cereza, but then that conversely means that Viola’s existence shouldn’t have been used to justify an asspull romance just because their multiversal counterparts fucked just enough times to conceive Viola ONCE, by which I mean, we literally never see any other variants of Viola. Why is that? Isn’t that weird? I imagine Platinum didn’t want to overwhelm us with different versions of Viola, since this was her first outing and her introduction, but still, it makes for a very weird oversight elsewise.

Now, not to have a gay gay homosexual gay opinion here, but…

Contrast that with Cereza and Jeanne's relationship, where Jeanne sealed Cereza away for her own protection (as she was the much sought-after Left Eye of Darkness, half of the pair of the Eyes of the World, with the other half being the Right Eye of Light, held by her father Balder, a Lumen Sage to her Umbra Witch), literally fought against mind-control Cereza's father placed her under for 500 years in order to try and get Cereza to realize her true identity and fate and to stand up and not be afraid of her destiny, as well as telling her that Cereza was "one of a kind", and telling her "those are the eyes I've been waiting to see", and Cereza choosing to ensure Jeanne came home safe with her instead of sacrificing herself to protect Cereza and putting her best friend and sister in the Dark Arts ahead of her own wellbeing because she was "one of a kind", to which Cereza responded, "Jeanne, we're BOTH one of a kind".

Let's not forget that Bayonetta 2 confirms that Cereza and Jeanne share a home and were throwing a party, for which Jeanne forgot to get caviar. Mari Shimazaki, who is the character artist who is partially responsible for creating Bayonetta, and 100% responsible for creating her iconic designs, also even drew art and had a headcanon about Cereza being a morning person with Jeanne not being one, and Cereza trying to wake up Jeanne in their bed in their home. It may not be canon, but it’s got to count for something, right?

Not to fucking mention that Jeanne literally sacrificed herself to save Cereza from the rogue Gomorrah in Bayonetta 2, and literally died as a result. And Cereza subsequently went to fucking HELL in order to save her best friend/Umbran sister/potential lover, literally locating the Gates of Hell and freeing Jeanne's soul, before leaving and living to tell the tale, something that's never been fucking done before. And she did it, for Jeanne.

And let's not forget that the normally cool and confident and sexy Bayonetta was nervous and scared and unsure when she thought she was too late and Jeanne was dead for good, only to pretend she was nonchalant about it when Jeanne DID wake up, and Cereza asked "What do you need, a wake-up kiss or something?"

Like, there's SO much more there for Bayonetta/Jeanne than there is for Bayonetta/Luka, even though the whole "both Bayonetta and Luka were there for each other while they were adults thing was weird but also reciprocal (Luka's obsession with Bayonetta began when he was a kid and believed that she killed his father Antonio Redgrave upon being awoken from her centuries-long sealing/slumber, unaware that it was actually angels that he couldn't see that killed his father; and due to time-travel shenanigans, Luka was taking care of a child Cereza when Bayonetta left her with him so she could go kick demon ass, so this is a really weird situation where an adult version of either character was involved in some way in the other's life as a child).

But does any of that matter? No, apparently not, because they fucking killed off Cereza and Luka and Jeanne, and if there's a Bayonetta 4, there's every likelihood that Viola, having come into her own as an Umbra Witch and no longer an in-training fledgling, and being gifted with the name of Bayonetta by Cereza (who is her mother but also not, because her actual mom was the alternate universe Bayonetta, the universe that Viola came from), will be the protagonist, and it really feels like Platinum Games is trying to do the Devil May Cry thing of introducing Nero and then making him the new infusion of fresh young blood into the series, but I'm sorry, no one is playing the BAYONETTA series for someone who isn't THE Bayonetta. I like Viola, like a lot. I really enjoy her character. But she is not Bayonetta, in anything other than name.

You can't just kill off an iconic character like Bayonetta/Cereza and then hand the name off to her alternate universe!daughter and expect people to be okay with it. Even Devil May Cry took two games after Nero's introduction in DMC4 to seemingly write off Dante and Vergil (I doubt they're gone for good, but if they are, Nero feels like a respectable protagonist who has earned his status as lead and put in the time, whereas this is Viola's first outing and she had a paltry few levels and not as much screen time that would properly set her up as a future lead protagonist for the Bayonetta series).

Not to mention, if this is the end of Bayonetta 3's Cereza, who was heavily implied to be and essentially confirmed to be the little Cereza from Bayonetta 1, all grown up now, that's a shitty ending for her, and it's so depressing. That cute little girl who just wanted to protect people like her mummy and be a good, brave person doesn't deserve to be killed off and dragged to hell. She's the protagonist of a Nintendo franchise, I am surprised that she's allowed to suffer like that, but regardless, little Cereza deserved a happy ending. She deserved so much better than this.

The most frustrating thing about this is, given the previous entries' timeline of releases, we've likely got near a decade to wait before we find out what's going on with the franchise, assuming it isn't outright canceled prior to that. I don't see a cancellation happening, not with how large of an install base the Nintendo Switch has, and how hyped Bayonetta 3 has been, especially given the Hellena Taylor debacle, and Bayonetta 3's praise and skyrocketing popularity as a result of the drama and acclaim the game has earned.

Note: Again, as alluded to earlier, I wrote this script way before the announcement of Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, so while I’m pleased as punch that we’re getting a new entry, even if it’s a spin-off, in 3 short months at the time of this edited script’s writing, I still think we’ve likely got a lengthy wait before we receive Bayonetta 4, and that’s presuming we even get a follow up in answers to unresolved questions and story beats from Bayonetta 3 in Bayonetta 4, but I believe Kamiya-san’s tweets seem to indicate that just might be the case.

When all is said and done, here’s where we’re left at. The gameplay is the best it's ever been. The story's the worst it's ever been. This game left me depressed as fuck, and I feel like I'll just return to Bayonettas 1 and 2 to experience pure joy again. Bayonetta games have always left me hyped and happy and in a good mood.

I fear what wicked portent this beholds for the future of the franchise, given how polarizing the ending of Bayonetta 3 was.

Was the game fun and hype as fuck? Absolutely. Probably by far and away the best in the series, even though I miss the ability to equip different weapons to different limbs. Demon Masquerade and Demon Slave are welcome additions to the series, and truly the pure inspired stuff of genius.

But the ending feels really, really disappointing, and if that line about following the next generation actually pans out, and we are given Viola as the sole playable protagonist, my heart is likely going to be as broken as Cereza's Umbran watch.