From: Platinum Games / Nintendo
For: Nintendo Switch
Rating: ★★★★
Bayonetta Origins follows the story of Cereza, a witch who has been taken in by another witch after being separated from her mother, (also a witch. Look, it’s a witchy kind of scene). Cereza isn’t exactly brave or talented, so she struggles with her training and ventures into the woods, heeding a message from her dream. Shortly after entering the woods, she is attacked, but summons a demon into her stuffed toy, Cheshire. Cheshire doesn’t like it here, and Cereza can’t send him away again, so the duo join together to find a power in the forest that the dream mentioned.
Gameplay here is standard action-adventure fare, with hack-and-slash elements. Outside of combat, you run around with Cheshire, solving puzzles, discovering collectables and finding ways to progress by using one character to help the other through the world. In combat, you’re encouraged to use Cereza and Cheshire in tandem, slowing and stunning with Cereza’s magic and using Cheshire’s claws to deal damage.
You control Cereza with the left side of the Switch, and Cheshire with the right. This is very similar to another Platinum Games title, Astral Chain, inheriting some of the same upsides and downsides. While initially confusing — you’ll find yourself moving the characters in the completely wrong direction a lot — it opens up tactics like distracting enemies and really neat puzzle designs.
Cheshire and Cereza can’t be too far apart for very long, so you can turn Cheshire back into a stuffed toy at any time, teleporting him to Cereza’s location and refilling the magic meter. Cheshire will also return to his stuffed toy form if he takes too much damage, and needs Cereza to pick him up.
There are also skills in the game, obtained using collectibles. Some of them are rather meh, just a minor increase to something or another, but others are quite useful, like more charges on Cereza’s stun or Cheshire’s instant kill attack.
The only issue I had with the combat was that it’s a tad repetitive, especially early. It’s not interesting enough for a true hack-and-slash, as Cheshire can just mash the attack button and win most early game encounters. He later gets other forms which use magical energy to attack, and with a skill upgrade, you can switch between forms on the fly while attacking, finally giving the combat needed depth — but it felt just a tad late in the game, given how boring it was early. It’s a bit of a slog.
You can perform special attacks by fulfilling different requirements, such as stunning the enemies with Cereza and then holding an attack button with Cheshire. The problem here is that, while very cool, they are a tad weak and drain your magic meter a lot. Generally, I defeated enemies faster by just mashing the basic attack than by getting into the special attacks.
I absolutely love the graphics of this game. Cutscene animations are storybook-esque, and Cheshire is a treat to look at, especially when changing forms. When you enter the faerie worlds, the graphics and world become weird and ethereal; cracks in reality and random things just popping up to wall-off paths.
A neat thing I noticed was that the level up animations changed the further you were through the game. Cereza would dance more and Cheshire would refrain from forcefully taking the crystal fruit from Cereza, showing a level of growth in their relationship.
I enjoyed my time here, and I’m fairly sure I’ve missed a lot of references to the main series. There’s not a lot to poke holes in about this game, apart from it being a tad linear and the combat not exactly being the most engaging thing early. Conversely, there’s a lot to like. The story is good, the graphics are well-made, and the game is just a lot of fun to play through. Highly recommended for anyone, even if — as for me — it’s your first Bayonetta experience.
By Michael Roberston
