Bayonetta 3 Thread

[hanselthecaretaker]

From the story both Bayonetta games kinda were flops and Astral Chains and Nier really saved things.

The success of Bayonetta on various consoles has nudged the team to do a sequel even if it was to be another " frustrating experience ".

…With Bayonetta selling well both in Japan and the West…


Bayonetta 2 wasn’t even made though until after they did a string of other roughly as successful games, except maybe Wonderful 101 which led to Bayonetta 2 being funded by Nintendo.

 

[Worgen]

including Wonderful 101

Wonderful 101 was a pretty big flop. Total known sales are about 79,000 units for both Japan and the US.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Wonderful 101 was a pretty big flop. Total known sales are about 79,000 units for both Japan and the US.

Yup, I miswrote that part.

 

[BrawlMan]

An update everyone: I am having car trouble again, and I won't be able to pick up the game at midnight. I'll pick it up tomorrow afternoon.

 

[thebobmaster]

 

[Worgen]

I mean, I did hear she that some kinda yikes twitter things, but couldn't be bothered to look more into those specifically, so didn't bring those up, but not that surprised.

 

[BrawlMan]

And now she can really fuck off. Still doesn't change the industry's problem with pay, but everything is being overshadowed by this and what went on previously.

 

[BrawlMan]

I picked up my pre-order today and will be popping the game in soon. I'll give an impression later.

 

[Gordon_4]

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Wonderful 101 was a pretty big flop. Total known sales are about 79,000 units for both Japan and the US.

The Wii U was just a console where good games went to die. Fortunately, most that were actually worthwhile have been ported to other platforms.

 

[BrawlMan]

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[BrawlMan]

Some quick impressions:

• Weapons are just given to you now after certain encounters/story events. You know longer have to collect vinyl records or pieces of them to take back to Rodin. The entire move set for the weapon is there at the start. Each weapon allows a demonic transformation that gives you different styles of movement and how to jump.
• Demon Summons function as their own separate weapon. You don't have to always use them in combat, but they're best used for larger enemies and knowing when to parry their attacks.
• The chapters are quite lengthy with plenty of optional paths to explore. You're gonna wanna explore for some extra goodies and hidden verses.
• Skill Up's the whole "Certain verses last too short" is an exaggeration. I am 6 chapters in, and I have no idea what he was going on about.
• The environments are not as detailed compared to 1 or especially 2, but they do have color to them after leaving the wrecked cities. This was to accommodate the demon summons, so I am not that upset about it. At least there are more paths to explore compared to DMC5 or DmC (2013). Do note that the director of Astral Chain is the director of Bayonetta 3. Which explains the less detailed levels.
• Viola is awesome and such a loveable dork. She plays almost exactly like Raiden. Think Viola as a more reckless Nero, but can still keep up in the end.
• Jennifer Hale does a great job as Bayonetta.

I am stopping for tonight. Another thing to note is there's only one save file now. What is with AAA companies doing this since the mid HD era? I have nothing to worry about, as no one else is playing but me. Yet it still sucks publishers are afraid gamers who want to play someone else's copy feel like said person won't buy the game at some point in their life. Bayo1 has about 20 something save slots, Bayo2 has 3 save slots, and Bayo3 only has the one. Not a deal breaker, but a minor rant on my part.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Some quick impressions:

• Weapons are just given to you now after certain encounters/story events. You know longer have to collect vinyl records or pieces of them to take back to Rodin. The entire move set for the weapon is there at the start. Each weapon allows a demonic transformation that gives you different styles of movement and how to jump.
• Demon Summons function as their own separate weapon. You don't have to always use them in combat, but they're best used for larger enemies and knowing when to parry their attacks.
• The chapters are quite lengthy with plenty of optional paths to explore. You're gonna wanna explore for some extra goodies and hidden verses.
• Skill Up's the whole "Certain verses last too short" is an exaggeration. I am 6 chapters in, and I have no idea what he was going on about.
• The environments are not as detailed compared to 1 or especially 2, but they do have color to them after leaving the wrecked cities. This was to accommodate the demon summons, so I am not that upset about it. At least there are more paths to explore compared to DMC5 or DmC (2013). Do note that the director of Astral Chain is the director of Bayonetta 3. Which explains the less detailed levels.
• Viola is awesome and such a loveable dork. She plays almost exactly like Raiden. Think Viola as a more reckless Nero, but can still keep up in the end.
• Jennifer Hale does a great job as Bayonetta.

I am stopping for tonight. Another thing to note is there's only one save file now. What is with AAA companies doing this since the mid HD era? I have nothing to worry about, as no one else is playing but me. Yet it still sucks publishers are afraid gamers who want to play someone else's copy feel like said person won't buy the game at some point in their life. Bayo1 has about 20 something save slots, Bayo2 has 3 save slots, and Bayo3 only has the one. Not deal breaker, but a minor rant on my part.

Sounds mostly good, except for the lack of details and save nerf.

 

[BrawlMan]

I got something cool. If you have a Bayo1 and Bayo2 save file, and complete the 4th mission, you unlock Bayo's guns from 1 and 2, thus become purchasable. Not only that, but equipping them makes function how they did in their respective games. You don't get the demon transformation, but you get Wicked Weave Attacks and can do Panther Within! That is how you do bonus features!

 

[BrawlMan]

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[BrawlMan]

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[Hades]

I certainly got nothing to complain about on the gameplay front. Demon Slave is a surprisingly fun mechanic, and the Demon masquerade ability makes for some fun traversal abilities. There's plenty of traditional Bayonetta goodness and the new mechanics are solid.

But I think the story is really bad. Like, distractedly bad. Now Bayonetta stories were always really, really stupid but they were the fun sort of stupid. But this time around that's not really the case. Overall the story feels boring, formulaic, repetitive and overly rushed.

A big culprit are the boring new villains. Compared to the marble and gold angels these blob monsters just look and feel generic, and while many angel mini and major bosses had personalities all the Homunculi bosses are just mindless beasts. Their leader Singularity is also really boring compared to the likes of Baldur or even Loptyr. Its rather telling that things start getting a lot more fun when the story has you fight other Witches rather than yet another blob monster. Because the enemies are such a downgrade I get rather annoyed how heavily they're pushed as Bayonetta's biggest foes yet, since I think its mostly unearned.

The story also suffers from being really formulaic. The events that unfold in each chapter are always the same. You get to a new location, you need to look for that world's version of Bayonetta, ride the respective demon summon of that world to reach her, meet up with the other Bayonetta, have a boss fight and then you gain her weapon. And its a bit curious how they're heavily pushing a multiverse story while not really making use of it. Except from the China world pretty much every world you visit is the exact same as the normal world. Rather than vastly different realms Bayonetta just visits normal versions of places like Paris and Tokyo, and even the ancient Egyptian chapter might as well have taken place in the real world. The only real difference between the worlds is that there's another Bayonetta running around.

As a whole Bayonetta also seems more reactive than proactive this time around. While still her usual sassy self she seems much more on the background than in her previous adventures.

 

[BrawlMan]

I certainly got nothing to complain about on the gameplay front. Demon Slave is a surprisingly fun mechanic, and the Demon masquerade ability makes for some fun traversal abilities. There's plenty of traditional Bayonetta goodness and the new mechanics are solid.

But I think the story is really bad. Like, distractedly bad. Now Bayonetta stories were always really, really stupid but they were the fun sort of stupid. But this time around that's not really the case. Overall the story feels boring, formulaic, repetitive and overly rushed.

A big culprit are the boring new villains. Compared to the marble and gold angels these blob monsters just look and feel generic, and while many angel mini and major bosses had personalities all the Homunculi bosses are just mindless beasts. Their leader Singularity is also really boring compared to the likes of Baldur or even Loptyr. Its rather telling that things start getting a lot more fun when the story has you fight other Witches rather than yet another blob monster. Because the enemies are such a downgrade I get rather annoyed how heavily they're pushed as Bayonetta's biggest foes yet, since I think its mostly unearned.

The story also suffers from being really formulaic. The events that unfold in each chapter are always the same. You get to a new location, you need to look for that world's version of Bayonetta, ride the respective demon summon of that world to reach her, meet up with the other Bayonetta, have a boss fight and then you gain her weapon. And its a bit curious how they're heavily pushing a multiverse story while not really making use of it. Except from the China world pretty much every world you visit is the exact same as the normal world. Rather than vastly different realms Bayonetta just visits normal versions of places like Paris and Tokyo, and even the ancient Egyptian chapter might as well have taken place in the real world. The only real difference between the worlds is that there's another Bayonetta running around.

As a whole Bayonetta also seems more reactive than proactive this time around. While still her usual sassy self she seems much more on the background than in her previous adventures.

I noticed a lot of gameplay and design elements are borrowed from Transformers Devastation (compared to how Demon Attacks work exactly like vehicle attacks) and Astral Chain. The traveling between realistic cities/real world location, and crazy crimson red (starts as purple in Bayo3) chaos dimension. People jokingly call Bayo3, Scalebound 2. When really, it's that + Astral Chain 2. So we're all clear: Yusuke Miyata worked as one of the developers for Astral Chain, and it really shows.

I don't mind the dimension hopping, but more could have been done with it. The game still has insane moments. It's sad the bosses lack personality, yet it's been made pretty clear the bosses are empty vessels for the big bad anyway, so it makes some sense. Though I'll will give credit to the second major main boss that fights like Sun Wukong. It even has a few cheeky taunts. What the bosses lack in personality, the summons Bayonetta meets and her interactions with them, more than makes up for it.

I do admit some of the enemies do feel samey, but I'll still take them over enemy designs in DMC2, and DmC (2013). Especially the former. Another thing I noticed, but what is with second or third installments of hack n' slash/brawler franchises going to either realistic cities, real world locations or continents? DMC2 has a fantasy island with a city that is a mix of vintage and modern. Too bad the environments are unnecessarily vast and barren. DMC3 starts in the city for 3 missions, and Dante is in the tower for the rest of the game. Don't even get me started on DmC. In Ninja Gaiden 3, Ryu is globetrotting around the world. Technically, that's always been part of the franchise, but that was when KT was trying "ground" everything and be more "WESTERN & REALISTIC". Now Bayonetta 3 kind of does it too, but is nice enough to keep the gameplay varied and mix it up, for better or worse. Usually the first option.

Back on track: I made it to chapter 12 and stopping for tonight. I will probably finish the game tomorrow evening. The previous chapter is a crazy thrill ride through Paris with a boss I was not expecting.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

For the guys already playing:
Are you primarily hand-held or docked with controller? If both, is one significantly better?
And in terms of complexity, how does it compare to the previous? I mean like Bayo2 seemed to simplify the mechanics compared to 1 for example.

Mostly I'm glad to see it's good and doesn't crash and glitch.

 

[BrawlMan]

For the guys already playing:
Are you primarily hand-held or docked with controller? If both, is one significantly better?
And in terms of complexity, how does it compare to the previous? I mean like Bayo2 seemed to simplify the mechanics compared to 1 for example.

Mostly I'm glad to see it's good and doesn't crash and glitch.

I rarely ever go handheld for 3d action games. I did go handheld mode once for the second game, but you can switch it to the standard control scheme and it plays fine. From what I heard, Bayonetta 3 game does great in handheld mode, but I always keep mine docked anyway.