Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon (2023)

Man, the last two or three hours of the game were really good I'm actually surprised. The last few battles and set pieces were extremely Bayonetta and were a very fitting end. During the Lukaon fight I was thinking, "Man, it'd be a really good pay off if I unlocked Witch Time here. And while that didn't happen, it instead did happen in the next, much grander final boss fight I was really happy. The ending cutscenes managed to get me not gonna lie. I'd say I give this much closer to a 4.5 than a 4. While I really enjoyed most of it, I do wish there were more puzzles focused on the dual character controls. Maybe I just missed it by only doing story, but even along the story path most of the Tir na nog encounters were just battles as opposed to the puzzles from earlier in the game. That said, just about everything was great. Really enjoyed my time with this and I'm glad I managed to finish it.

Tried this out. It strikes me as "Bayonetta for Kids." One of the reasons I like Bayonetta is that it's one of Nintendo's most adult and mature IPs. I get that a big chunk of the Nintendo audience is kids and they want to open the IP up to them, but going from the non-stop action of Bayonetta 1-3 to this is so jarring. I also don't think these type of games are my wheelhouse. I just get bored with them and quickly lose interest. I could see why people would like this game and the graphic style is really cool and "storybook" like, but I think playing the demo was enough for me to know this isn't for me.

This is quite a charming game with a very pretty art direction. I'm enjoying the game's dual control mechanics with combat and puzzles though this is one of the things I'm actually really bad at. The minute the left stick character goes into the right side of the screen I go cross eyed and lose my bearings. The game seems to be longer than I initially thought so I'm not sure I'll be able to finish before RE4r comes around but hopefully I will. I am trying to explore as much as I can and go back to do stuff I missed as I get new abilities but I might just make a beeline to the end for the sake of finishing. As enjoyable as this game is, it's not one I'd probably go back to if I were to step away from it to focus on another game.