Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon (17th March)

[Glen-i]

Revealed at the Game Awards. Careful, the trailer shows Bayo 3 footage, footage I've not seen and I was 12 chapters into that game.

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Glen-i

[Glen-i]

Some screenshots from the Nintendo website.

Digging that artstyle.

[Ashley]

I have no idea what's going on in those screenshots but the art style is nice

[Ike]

8 hours ago, Ashley said:

I have no idea what's going on in those screenshots but the art style is nice

Sounds like a Bayonetta game then.

[killthenet]

It looks great, big departure for the series in terms of tone and artstyle but I'm excited to check it out. I'd assumed it was going to be a shorter experience though, maybe a couple of hours maximum, so I was surprised to find out it's £50 on the eShop so I guess it might be more substantial than expected

[S.C.G]

Nintendo at The Game Awards 2022 Roundup

Seeing as this was the only new Nintendo game announced at this years Game Awards, I decided to combine the articles.

Check inside for the roundup.

[MindFreak]

A (true) demo has been released, and the game just got a new trailer:

 

[Glen-i]

Oh snap. In the jam packed February, this slipped my mind. Will have to give it a go for sure.

[Glen-i]

Right, demo thouroughly given go, here are my thoughts.

• Pretty obvious, but the tone is drastically different from the main Bayonetta games. While the main games involve over-the-top and silly comedy, this has more of a bedtime story vibe and aesthetic, with a narrator reading out loud during cutscenes and while you play. I particularly like that the "Lost Demon" is blatantly the female narrator trying to put on a masculine, demonic voice. It's charming.
• Gameplay is also very different. If I had to sum it up, I'd describe it as "Zelda meets Brothers: A tale of Two Sons". For the uninformed, Brothers main feature was that you controlled 2 characters at once and used their different abilities to solve puzzles.
• Cereza is controlled with the left stick and the ZL button, while the Lost Demon is controlled with the Right Stick and ZR Button. They each have different capabilites, Cereza is small and light, and can use magic spells, while the demon can jump further and fight any enemies you encounter, etc.
• Unlike Brothers, which was a purely puzzle based affair, this game has combat. The thing is, Cereza is pretty helpless in a fight, only able to stun a single enemy for a bit. You have to use the Demon to fight while keeping Cereza out of trouble.
• The demo took me about an hour and a half, and the save file said I was at 10% completion. Whether that refers to just the main game or 100% completion is unclear, but that could provide some kind of measure for how long you could expect the game to go on for.

I'm intrigued, I'll be adding this to my wishlist.

[MindFreak]

Sounds interesting. Certainly seems novel but won't have the time to play the game straight ahead after the release. 

[darksnowman]

I put the demo on for about 45 mins. Could see this being a decent enough game, but man is it a bad demo. Because it's the first 10% of the game (trusting @Glen-i on this), it means the demo is the opening of the full game which doesn't exactly throw you into the thick of things. It wasn't long until I was hammering through text and dialogue because I just wanted to get to gameplay—I'd care about story if I was digging into the entire game, from a demo I just want a taste of what's on offer.

The glimpse I got of the two-character gameplay seemed cool. I can imagine there being some solid puzzling as the game goes on. If I ever want to get into Bayonetta I'd definitely consider starting here.

[killthenet]

I picked this up just after launch and played through it this week and really enjoyed it. I love the style and the presentation, nails the storybook vibe and is at times visually jaw dropping (particularly the first time you finish a Tir Na Nog). The gameplay hook of controlling both Cereza and Cheshire at the same time is great when you're out exploring the world but can get a little confusing during combat, an issue which isn't helped by Cereza's ineffectiveness at combat (most of the time I was focused on Cheshire, given that he's the only one who can actually do any damage) but the encounters are still mostly enjoyable regardless. It does run out of steam a bit in the later stages but there is so much charm and joy that it's easy to overlook any shortcomings. Voice acting is great across the board, especially one particularly verbose Faerie villain, and it all works to serve the storybook aesthetic perfectly. 

For those worried its too much of a departure from the mainline Bayonetta games, I won't spoil anything specific but I will say that it does get pretty mad at times so even though the main gameplay is noticeably different it still has that unmistakably Bayonetta style at times. 

It's still very much a game for kids though so I'll definitely be lending my copy to my brother for my 11 year old niece to play - very interested to see what she thinks.

[Hero-of-Time]

Following on from playing the Bayonetta trilogy for Halloween, I decided to play through this. It's been sat on the backlog for a while now and it seemed fitting to play it now.

The credits rolled this morning and I have mixed feelings about the game.

Visually, the game is quite the looker. I love the art style used. It's very stylish and gives the game a lot of personality and character. Mixed with these visuals, the way that cutscenes play out certainly help add to the storybook feel that the game is going for.

The voice acting is very charming. The narrator of the story seems to do the voices of various characters, much like a parent would do when reading a story to their child. I didn't mind Cereza's voice acting but I hated how she pronounced Cheshire. The fact that she constantly shouts his name throughout the game was like nails on a chalkboard for me.

My main issue is just how long the game is. It really starts to drag on as the game goes on and probably could have been a few chapters shorter than it was. Some of the chapters really dragged on as well. I think it was Chapter 4 that was nearly two hours long on it's own. With the game being quite lengthy, the gameplay becomes a little repeatative. A lot of the puzzles are quite fun to figure out using the dual player mechanic but by the halfway mark you've pretty much seen everything the game has to offer.

The game was enjoyable enough but I'm happy I bought it when it was on sale, rather than paying top dollar for it. It's a very charming experience but the charm can only carry it so far.