Class D

This is not a game, it is a decade-long scam, and a very successful one at that. A game that is barely functional, completely unplayable for the long term, has been in development for over a decade with funding reaching half a billion, and selling in-game ships for real-world thousands, when those ships aren't even released.

Even if this game magically becomes playable one day, it will be a pay-to-win experience.

A sea of good and pretty ideas, but it lacks the substance to surpass even the most generic JRPG out there.

The game is undeniably visually stunning. I'm not a fan of the character portraits, but there are so many other issues to dislike that I simply overlooked them. The entire map, both in dungeons and the open world, is breathtaking. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to the open-world experience it attempts to portray; it's much more linear than you might expect. The story is overly linear, with minimal side content.

The story is disappointing. It doesn't start off well, and you may hope it improves as the game progresses, but it doesn't. The protagonists lack charisma, the rest of the party is uninteresting, and the pacing is terrible. You'll spend nearly 10 hours with only three party members, and about two hours to finishing the game you add another one? What the hell?

Another aspect I strongly dislike is the need to include cameos from The Messenger. A significant part of this game revolves around references, playing songs, and "epic moments" that you won't understand if you haven't played their previous game. Sea of Stars isn't supposed to be The Messenger 2 (or in this case, 0), but it still deviates from the main story to make references...

The combat system starts off interesting, but after just five battles, it becomes repetitive and, above all, boring. Many bosses and regular enemies are damage sponges, and nothing is genuinely challenging. You'll find yourself using the same two skills and basic attacks for an extended period until you finally unlock more than 1 ultimate attack in the very end of the game. The combos are most useless because every normal enemy will die before you even get 1 of it.

In reality, there isn't much to discuss about Sea of Stars. I haven't played Chrono Trigger yet, but you can't create a game purely for nostalgia. If that's what you're after, you should consider playing Chained Echoes instead, which appears to be far superior to this game in what it attempts, and fails to achieve.

I went out of this game feeling kinda unsatisfied by the end, not getting why I felt this way. But after a week, I can confidently say that this game could've been a lot more. The platforming of this game is embarrassingly easy and way too grind heavy. There's not much variety to said platforming and challenges in the game, with a lot of the character duels just being just getting a higher score or do a pretty easy platforming challenge. The game itself has a really solid foundation with how tight and fluid the player is with all the options in the world for mobility.

Combat is just straight up tedious and not great, and the game puts you in a lot more combat scenarios more than it should. There's no impact to landing hits and the game overwhelms you with cops after just completing tags in the overworld, which makes maneuvering around so annoying to do when you're trying to find the last tags. Bathroom stalls are also not that prevalent so it makes it annoying to get rid of cops. The only parts of combat that I liked was fighting against the turrets, helicopters, and the bosses since they actually incorporate the game's movement and tagging.

The presentation itself is pretty good but honestly nowhere near as bold and expressive as Jet Set Radio Future. The level design too doesn't really give me much in terms of challenge or even world building like Jet Set Radio Future. This game is just Jet Set Radio Future on the surface level, which is the game's biggest detriment but it also at least makes the game stand on its own with what it wants to do. Maybe a sequel or DLC expansion can fix a lot of the problems that I have with this game, there's a lot of good for this game.

It is a strong spiritual successor, both in the fact that it successfully emulates the core of what makes Jet Set Radio good and the fact that it contains a number of old game design choices that are outdated. It is strongly carried by the OST, nostalgia lens, fun environments, and some decent movement mechanics. The story, characters, the combat, some clunkiness, and very high price-tag that doesn't really fit is what drags it down in my opinion. I give the game a solid YAY, but highly recommend only getting it when the price tag drops at least by 25% or more.

Man, what a letdown. I beat Bayonetta 2 on Christmas Eve so naturally didn't have the time to write a review. But I thought it was an improvement on the original in basically every way. I loved it. So naturally I was really excited for this one even with all the dumb drama surrounding its release. Now that I've finally got to it... all I really feel is disappointment.

Before I start being too negative I'll say a few things I like about it. First of all I love how colorful this game is. My biggest complaint with the first game was how damn dreary it looked, and to see 2 and 3 be a lot more vibrant is pleasing. Plus the location variety is fun and helps keep things interesting (desperately needed). I also think there's a really fun selection of weapons to use, Tartarus and the yo-yo being my favorite. And! This game has a lot of dancing. I love dancing. I love Bayonetta dancing. But if this game thinks I'll forgive it for throwing a lot of dancing at the end after mostly boring me for 12 hours then its kinda wrong!

God this game was such a slog to get through for so much of it. The combat may be flashy and the weapons may be cool but it didn't feel fun. The new enemies are almost all just boring. And it feels entirely too reliant on the summoning which besides giving more dancing just makes the combat feel slow and sluggish. Then there is playing as Viola which is a whole other can of worms. You only play as her in three chapters and an epilogue but everything about her moveset is so basic that those three chapters end up feeling like some of the longest in the game. Besides the normal combat the game does switch things up a bit often. I do really like when games get funky with their genres so its appreciated here but even some things like the kaiju fights are just so helplessly boring. There is also Jeanne's side chapters (you don't get to call them Side Chapters and make them mandatory, fuck you) that shake things a bit too but its just.. I really don't know how else to put it. Its not fun.

All of this translates into the cutscenes too. I love the over the top cutscenes in the first two games and DMC but its just way too much here. Its almost all action with very little substance and they drag on and on. Multiple times I just found myself completely zoning out. It all felt mindless. So much creativity with so little love put into it. The story of course suffers from this. Theres very little plot but this game still has the most cutscenes in the series. The first games story was barely decipherable but still fun. 2's was quite enjoyable but still nothing amazing. But here in Bayo 3 its both hard to follow and not enjoyable. The whole multiverse thing is great potential that's handled spectacularly uninterestingly. Only does it really do cool things with it at the very end where its already too late. I actually didn't really mind the whole Viola-Bayo-Luka thing going on but the ending is just kinda bad. Viola is basically female Enzo and I don't hate him but we really did not need more of that. There are dozens of attempts at humor with her and they did not land for me a single time. And now with the game really heavily pushing that they want to continue the story with her as the new main character in Bayo 4? Yeah. My interest in this turning into a saga has almost entirely diminished.

Despite huge missteps with story and pacing, I didn't hate Bayonetta 3. It has cool colors and lots of dancing and Bayonetta is still one of my favorite video game characters. But, I just can't help but feel really disappointed having completed it. I was sure this could be an easy 4.5 for me but Im struggling to find enough reasons for why it deserves a 3/5. Its mostly just the dancing.

man :/

A few more things I wanted to add but didn't know where to fit in to the review. Jennifer Hale my queen does great as the new actress for Bayo. Having one voice line for being idle is annoying. New soundtrack is cool but Tomorrow is Mine still clears. The Switch needs a sequel desperately.

Thanks for reading <3

Nancymeter - 64/100
Game Completion #18 of April
Game Completion #88 of 2023

I like Viola and if she was the only playable character I probably would've been able to finish the game but everything else is such a slog to me that I really can't motivate myself to continue playing despite being half way through the game.

Bayo herself has had her gameplay downgraded due to the god awful monster summoning gimmick this game added which feels what would happen if you took the idea from V in DMC5 of not actually fighting anything but it's not as fun here cause the monsters Bayo summon aren't chainable with the same flow as V's.

Jeane's the worst part of the game, I HATE the stealth missions they gave her because yeah, you don't have to sneak around you can just brute force it but they're not fun and overall it's a bad sign when I have to force myself to play a video game.

I can't enjoy this game except for the Viola levels, Viola is actually fun to play and fight with, I hope if there's a Bayonetta 4, it'll just be more of her because frankly this game just shows me Bayonetta herself has lost her spark.

Want to love this game real bad but ultimately it’s just okay. The music is obviously the highlight. The gameplay starts out feeling really fantastic but it never feels like it goes above and beyond after the first few levels. There’s only a few different enemy types and very similar bosses which is the most disappointing for me. I thought the final boss was by far the most fun part. If only more of the game had interesting set pieces.

I think this game would benefit a lot from some added readability. Things like distinct sound queues for enemies and/or some sort of effect to discern them among all the particle effects. Story portions are cool but sometimes look kinda shitty with their animation.

Lots of style, lacking on substance.