My game of the year is the third part of Bayonetta. I was so looking forward to it finally happening this year and with the announcement trailer the anticipation finally reached its peak. While I managed to stay away from spoilers, unfortunately I couldn’t escape the drama surrounding Bayonetta’s former voice actress and that took a lot of the fun out of the release – precisely because Hideki Kamiya sadly didn’t behave any better.
Fortunately, this drama was quickly forgotten when the game finally started, because Bayonetta pulled me under its spell right away: exaggerated locations, the concentrated load of action and a lot of options to design the witch as you wish, whether with colors, outfits or crazy weapons and thus also transformation options – actually everything as usual. Except that Bayonetta suddenly turns into a locomotive and Kaijus are thrown into battle as a new tactic. It feels strange at first, but you quickly get used to it. Granted, I often have the big houseanimalsdemons in normal fights because normal fights are the most fun – but their special abilities at the end of the story chapters were always a highlight!
Oh, and then there’s the multiverse. At first it was extremely difficult for me to take the new plot seriously. I dreaded the moment when I would no longer have to take the helm with Cereza but with Viola. But in the end I grew more and more fond of the different versions of Bayonetta during the main storyline and in the end I really enjoyed the levels with Viola.
The alternation between short mini-chapters with Viola or old acquaintances as controllable characters and long story sequences ensure that it never gets boring and that you always keep an eye out for the next reference. You will then find Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, the epic opera scene from “The Fifth Element”, Voltron or Alice in Wonderland and of course on in-house games such as Devil May Cry or Astral Chain. Just keep your eyes open. In addition, the usual small side passages with puzzles or action-packed challenges where you can unlock additional bonuses are always convenient. In the end, even the main story made some sense – but that was never particularly important to me with Bayonetta.
Bayonetta 3 brought back exactly what made the first two games: Lots of action, crazy locations, a framework that keeps you in suspense until the end and a bunch of references to popular music, films, games and co. Now I’m even more excited the new animation style and fresh gameplay behind Bayonetta Origins!
