Cookie Clicker is not really a game, but more so an interesting case study on how games can tap into humans extrinsic motivation through gameplay mechanics, no matter how repetitive and dull that may be. It's only natural that people will feel some sense of reward to see big numbers go up, even if what they did was not challenging or interesting in the slightest, they just helped the gears turned. While we lament trashy low-effort work like this, the reality is that every game has a form of Cookie Clicker baked into it to exploit that extrinsic motivation we all have, it just does a better job masking that cookie smell.

Bayonetta 2 was made for people who only did one playthrough of Bayonetta. At launch critics and fans praised the game for fixing a lot of the glaring faults of the original. It's more vibrant in colors, removed all resemblance of insta-kill QTEs and terrible After Burner levels, and made cool new additions such as the introduction of Demons and Umbran Climax. However, over time the game's reputation devolved, and if you ask any Platnium Games fan about the game, they'll tell you it's a weaker entry than the original. I share that same sentiment.

You see, the main problem with Bayonetta 2 is that it revolves too much around Witch Time. Now I know what you might be saying, wasn't Witch Time the central mechanic of Bayonetta and so naturally they would want to keep focusing that clear central mechanic? That was never the case.

Witch Time was made as a crutch for newer players to get used to the game on its lower difficulties, but even then there were enemies that spawned that outright ignore Witch Time. On my first playthrough, I thought that was a bug or something, but no, it was intentional. The highest difficulty of Bayonetta 1 you unlock after beating hard mode, Infinite Climax, outright removes Witch Time altogether. That seems insane for anyone who played the original once, some encounters seemed like they're impossible without the mechanic. But no, Witch Time wasn't made for these encounters, it was Dodge Offset.

Dodge Offset was the secret mechanic to the first game that allows for these Witch Time-less encounters to work. It allows Bayonetta to continue combos while dodging. The problem however lies in that while there's a visual queue for a successful dodge offset, that game never explicitly told the player how to do it, and it's the most crucial mechanic to learn how to master the game's combat. I admittedly pissed farted and shitted my way through the first game without ever knowing it was even in the game until years later.

I feel the team behind Bayonetta 2 without Hideki Kamiya's influence thought because the first game never told the player how important Dodge Offset was only a supplemental gameplay mechanic and felt the need to include it in the game without asking the player to master it. It's most likely why Infinite Climax in this game actually has Witch Time activated, as it's this game's main mechanic now.

Well okay, fine, you want to make the game easier for new players and make learning technical stuff an optional thing. That wouldn't be an issue, but for some reason, Witch Time is notably nerfed in this game too. I guess they didn't want players to gain too much reward from it during encounters, but that requires Bayonetta to do any real damage in this game.

The second issue with this game is that Bayonetta doesn't do any damn damage in this game. I already thought the health pools of bosses in the original were obnoxious, but it's taken to ludicrous degrees here now that Bayonetta feels she hits people with a wet towel, and the new weapons don't give any improvements to her damage output. Why? Oh yeah, so Platnium can shoehorn Umbran Climax to your face. It's fine if you wanted to give the player a Devil Trigger-like mechanic, but it shouldn't be the end all be all for dealing substantial damage. It also doesn't help that enemies can break out of combos easier now, which makes getting that damage naturally even harder. It devolves all of the encounters to just waiting for a Witch Time opportunity to do pixel-health damage and to build Umbran Climax meter then releasing it so you can actually nuke their health bars until either the encounter stops or the boss goes away.

I also gotta say, what was the point of adding in slow-moving walking sessions or the Snake Within or Crow Within abilities that amounts to "helping you move by flying or swimming". These don't add anything to an action game, these are blatant padding techniques to bloat out an already shorter game than the original.

So, while Bayonetta 2 does indeed remove a lot of things that plagued the original release, it adds in a bunch of useless features that not only make no sense but completely unbalances what made the original the more compelling and interesting to master game.

The thing is I never actually noticed these things on my initial playthrough. Like most people, I thought it was an upgrade to the original because it was prettier and didn't have those terrible QTEs, but what I didn't realize that the monkey paw twisted one of its fingers when I asked for these changes when playing the original. I only did one playthrough of each game and when you only have little understanding of those mechanics you will naturally feel Bayonetta 2 is the better game. But it was until revisiting those games with a better grasp of both these games mechanics and action games as a whole is how I figured out that this game was a lot of smoke and mirrors. It's pretty and flashy, but that can only give you so much to work with.

smart fuckin game, dude!!!

even ignoring the obvious points it gets for featuring LADY CAMILLA alone, the way they nerfed the pair-up mechanic from awakening into something actually engaging here is a real marvel to behold. You can pair a unit up with another to get them into a defensive state that will block bonus attacks from supporter enemies, OR you can have them stand solo - forgoing the safety, but gaining additional attacks from their adjacent friends! Risk? Reward??? Dopamine????? It's pretty brilliant! We are decision-making in the rpg, boys!!!

SO much of the game is like this! No great power comes without some kind of weighty trade off you've got to think the pros/cons through for each immediate moment. And with enemies all able to tap into the same level of technical depth your guys can, you're gonna be living it up, reading all those skill descriptions for stat alterations and advantages for dayz~

Every map is a 10 and you are wonderfully encouraged to be AGGRESSIVE and rock your way through them with purpose NOT ONLY thanks to that killer pairup mechanic, but the crazy buff/debuff potential units can get hooked up with too! Making even the less immediately exciting actions like the out-of-combat positioning of guys or chip damaging with weaker folk moves that can involve some decent thought and provide mad payoff! It's all just so... CONSISTENTLY thought-provoking! Remarkably deep!! I love it...

SURE, the story kinda just flounders around after the big chapter 6 break up; leaving things feeling a bit undercooked and lacking in like a real throughline to really grab you narratively. The kids you can get and their hyperbolic baby dimensions are overtly ridiculous and come off feeling shoehorned in. The petting is goofy, the drama can fall flat, but bro - I don't caaaare??? In a game THIS polished and complex, all that's just the garnish for the real ass rpg experience, bro....

With how unintrusively the narrative elements present themselves, you're left without them more often and spend a greater amount of time just engaging in the raw GAMING of it all and the decision-making over a bulk of any intensive story shit. As long as you go into the thing with the goal of engaging with it mechanically, I think you'll come out fine and feel pretty rewarded! And any story trifles by that point can just serve as relatively cute and goofy set dressing! (They're ROYALS, of COURSE there's gotta be potential anime INCEST ;-;-;-; >:') )))

I think the broadstrokes are DECENTLY entertaining anyway and KINDA LIKE watching Corrin struggle through their DRAMATIC, IMPOSSIBLE DECISIONS all miserable-like and consistently FAIL in their peacemaking efforts before just getting revenge and killing all of their comedically evil oppressors by endgame and uprooting the whole system; all while spouting delicious melodramatic poetry with the help of their loving family of level 20 badasses. It is KINO. JUSTICE IS AN ILLUSION! WE ARE THE MASTERS OF OUR OWN FATE!!!

Ahh just a real lovely game~

I played Celeste in 2020 under a friend's recommendation. He, knowing that 2D Platformers that step on me and call me worthless are my kink, figured it'd be the perfect game for me. Yeah...He wasn't far off.

Celeste is just fantastic isn't it? It's ballbustingly hard, but not in a Dark Souls kinda way where it's like "you suck at the game, get better" but more in an encouraging "you can do it! Keep going!" kind of way, and this ethos is beautifully encapsulated in the way that the game's protagonist - Madeleine is trying to climb the titular mountain just to prove to herself that she can. It's a beautiful example of story and gameplay lining up and serving the same function.

And that gameplay is tight, responsive and so addictive. So many times I looked at the platforming puzzle ahead of me and thought "you want me to do what?" and then I did it, and Celeste made me feel like I was the best player in the world, even when I wasn't. Celeste is the ultimate in immense platforming challenge and mind-bending manoeuvres, Madeleine's physics feel spot-on and her signature air-dash as well as so many ingenious little mechanics contribute to the incredible things you'll achieve in this game.

Celeste pulls this all off whilst having a heartfelt and focused story that anyone with a heart will find relatable. It's very hard to find a flaw with it. I suppose I didn't love the Mirror Temple and I find Celeste's "single-screen" approach as opposed to the side-scrolling approach of games like Rayman Legends or Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze often has me wondering what to do, instead of how I do it. But these things are so minor. What a fucking banger.