tokucowboy Finding that Vampire Survivors has a better version of Bayonetta that Bayonetta 3 does. VS by the way is a bunch of fun although I’m concerned about getting too obsessed with what is essentially a slot machine with video game characteristics.
On a completely unrelated note, I’m in the process of bouncing off Bayonetta 3 again. I’m not sure that it’s a problem of the game per se or just me washing out on the franchise or the type of game. It used to be that I preferred Bayonetta to Devil May Cry because DMC (the series, not the game) made me feel like even the popcorniest popcorn enemies took about 1000 hits, in service to letting the player end up having Radical/Bitchin’/Awesome style combos, but Bayo felt like the reward for playing the game ‘right’ (as in, perfect dodge timing>witch time for a few hits>finisher attack) was that rank and file baddies took just a few hits, or maybe one small combo. Bosses were a different story of course. But Bayo 3 seems to have changed all that, but it also doesn’t seem consistent in what enemies go down easily, how closely you need to time your dodges, and what attacks feel meaty and good even.
Some other tiny things: the incredibly dumb dialogue hasn’t aged even a little well, but is consistent with 1 and 2 from my estimation, but really I think I just don’t enjoy how dumb it all is; the game isn’t helped by having big open stages, in much the way that Sonic Frontiers also wasn’t– most of the things I can run around and do are boring; I liked the ‘godzilla surfing’ early game section more this time but it’s visually a mess so I miss things because I can’t tell where the hell I am; I think just most of all I’ve moved on in a bunch of ways from the kind of series Bayo is, in many of the same ways I’ve moved on from No More Heroes and some other contemporary series’.
Literally the only time that I was excited about the game was when Jeanne first appeared on the motorcycle with the extremely good outfit, and I turned to my partner and said “awww, Jeanne!” I know there are Jeanne exclusive stealth levels somewhere in this stinker, and it says something about how little fun I’ve been having that I haven’t been able to hang in there for them.
I still wasn’t bothered by performance and visuals in any way worth speaking about! I’m really not the person to be bugged by this stuff so don’t consider me to be the baseline (the godzilla surfing thing I mentioned above was a matter of design less than performance of graphics I think).
Anyway! That’s the state of Bayo 3 at the moment, in response to @tokucowboy asking me to update! If I had to make a call one way or another, I’d say “don’t bother”, especially given what you’ve said about it.
Oh yeah: I also put some more time in with Blasphemous given that the sequel comes out soon. I still love the aesthetic but very don’t love how hard it is from the outset. I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I sure wish gamedevs would consider putting difficulty levels in their games (starting at very hard and going upward from there doesn’t count) because I don’t have the time or the patience to slowly chip through an NES-level of hard-for-hard’s-sake difficulty anymore. Still, Blasphemous seems very much like an Insert Credit game!
