It's very clear that this is a 1993 gameboy game, as as far as I know they changed nothing from the original. As such, there's very cryptic and vague moments to the point I had to look up a walkthrough more times than I'd like. Eagle tower is also kinda annoying. Aside those, this game is pretty wonderful! The new music combined with the cute visual style can make for very comforting moments, such as in Mabe Village. It was fun to just explore on my own as well, aside from what the game was telling me to go do. I'm really torn on what I'd like to rate this game, so my rating might go back and forth between a 7 and 8. Overall, a pleasant experience bogged down by being a gameboy game.

Bayonetta has ended up being one of the biggest disappointments I've had in gaming for quite a while and it's honestly not even close. Basically everything about this game screams pure greatness on paper, but then you need to actually play it and properly experience what this game has to offer, and it honestly falls flat almost across the board for me. Almost every element of this game feels as if it severely falls short of the mark and just has me thinking "why?". On the surface, this game seems like yet another character action game with super flashy combos and an insane sense of scale that manages to outdo itself at every turn, but the dynamics and mechanics that are built upon feel consistently ill conceived and end up falling far below the mark of what this genre can typically provide.

That's not to say that this game is without virtues however, there are definitely some fantastic things I can appreciate, especially the game's style. I love the really excessive, self-aware tone that Bayonetta brings to the table at some points that creates a manic, over the top experience that has the hype completely flow through the player. You know that a game starts off well when the opening sequence involves summoning angels just to kill them with a coffin of guns, all while an upbeat, jazzy rendition of Fly Me To The Moon plays in the background, or that time where you're fighting a boss in the middle of a tornado. Basically, when the game wants to, it brings forth some jaw dropping setpieces that make full use of pure spectacle. Where this falls flat is the way that the narrative itself, both the plot and the way it's delivered, feels completely nonsensical even for crazy action game standards, often feeling obnoxiously stupid while also being completely incomprehensible. For as much as Kingdom Hearts gets relentlessly (at times rightfully) mocked for its writing, at least it's told in a way that doesn't feel like it's intentionally keeping things hidden while also feeling like it literally says nothing. I genuinely feel like the story feels so disconnected from the gameplay that I'd get the exact same experience if I just skipped every overlong cutscene, I wasn't looking forward to fight a boss because of any sort of character drive or anything, I just wanted to rush up to the mountainous behemoth that I knew would be a badass fight. This issue would be more acceptable if not for the fact that the game feels so often halted by its insistence on cramming this element down your throat, making it harder to ignore with each interruption.

The combat is where this really falls flat for the most part, which is a problem with a game that is almost entirely based around its combat. I personally consider a few different issues with the game to culminate in an experience that feels fundamentally flawed, where certain problems feel as if they run deeper than something that can be fixed just by tweaking a couple of values. The encounter design is especially problematic to the core gameplay loop with how difficult it feels, sometimes being a great challenge that requires keen awareness of the players surroundings along with effectively utilising the plethora of attack and crowd control options, but other times boiling down a bit more to an enemy going "lol I'm going to throw out an attack with no proper telegraphing". If it were something that happened only once or twice it'd be an annoyance but nothing major, but the fact that almost every enemy seems to have at least one attack like this, it just feels unreasonable, especially with how much you're punished for getting hit. The game just feels too fast all around, almost never providing the player with ample opportunity to properly deal with the situation without abusing certain mechanics, and this is where witch time comes in, the things that ends up almost singlehandedly ruining the game flow.

On paper, the inclusion of a mechanic that temporarily slows down the absurd pacing of the game, rewarding careful dodging seems like a good idea, allowing the player to dish out massive damage in a relatively unimpeded state by timing a couple of dodges really nicely, but what ruins it is the simple fact that you feel like you often absolutely need it for a chance of getting past most challenges. This essentially results in the game having a dominant and recommended strategy that eliminates almost any actual variety, you just wait and dodge an attack, and use your few seconds of time slowing to deal a bunch of damage, and then rinse and repeat. Not only is it riskier to attempt to perform combos outside of this state, but the game often feels as if it's outright punishing you for even attempting such a thing, and nothing really feels as snappy or flashy in slow motion, making this mechanic not only detract from the core loop itself, but it also indirectly tanks a lot of the spectacle and flair at the same time leading to a game that never can feel truly enjoyable even in a "turn your brain off and watch awesome explosions" sort of way.

And as if that wasn't enough, this is also the sort of game that I'd say is directly responsible for the visceral hatred the mere concept of QTEs often receives. Along with the pace breaking nature of witch time, an even more pressing concern is the sheer amount of obnoxious button mashing that occurs in this. Not only is button mashing required, but the player is heavily rewarded from smashing those controller buttons at a carpel tunnel inducing speed and intensity, and that's if you're not having to rotate the analog stick around with just as much speed. Other problems include when cutscenes suddenly require you to quickly time a button press or else you straight up die, basically none of the weapons contributing to the fluid movement that Bayonetta builds itself around, essentially making the game feel worse to play if you try and diversify your moveset that much, and the fact that there are a bunch of these other ideas that don't fit with the way the rest of the game plays. Having to do a little first person shooting gallery stage at the end of every level feels tacky, the level with a motorcycle controls far too heavily to be satisfying, you get these random on rails flight sections where it feels like nothing happens, there's just a bunch of nothing tacked on throughout the experience that makes it all feel like a confused mess, and frankly, by the time I hit the 12th stage and yet another enemy attacked me the moment its intro cutscene ended before I could properly react, I was done. I feel like I played enough of this game to be able to form an informed opinion on this, and unfortunately, Bayonetta was mostly an exercise in misery, occasionally lit up by a cool boss fight or amazing setpiece, but it didn't stop the fact that for the vast majority of my playtime, it was a frustrating, uneven, and boring experience.