How does a witch begin her story? (Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon in review)

     Hey friends! So this has been a strange year or so for me. At the beginning of last year, I had only played and completed Bayonetta 2, one of the two games in the series that had been released at that time, and now as of this week, I've completed all four games in the series. I guess I should say, I have played the four games with Bayonetta as the main character, as it's hard to believe that today's game is in the same series. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, plays very differently from any of the other games. If you just look at the ESRB ratings for the other titles, they're all rated M (Mature), and then there's this one, which is T (Teen). There's a shift in art style, gameplay, and even style of narrative. The biggest question when it comes to games, however, is always, is it fun? Let's talk about that today as we journey into the Avalon Forest with young Cereza to learn a long forgotten story of her past.

Once Upon a Time...

    As you may know if you've played the Bayonetta series, the important characters mainly consist of the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages. The two groups hated each other, but not all of them were keen on this hatred. Cereza, for instance, was the daughter of a Lumen sage and an Umbra Witch. Their respective clans made her parents outcasts, her mother, Rosa, sent into a cell, and her father sent off into exile by the Sages. The girl was raised by the witches, but she was always looked down upon as the result of what happens when the two clans crossed. This game begins with Cereza living off in the forest outside of the village as she's had enough of the disdain cast towards her and her "mummy." She's being trained by a very strict old witch named Morgana to become a more powerful witch herself when she has a particular dream one night. In this dream, a boy appears and tells her that she may be able to receive the power to save her mother if she travels into the forest. Morgana has told Cereza many times that she must never go into the forest as it's full of fairies which are all about luring children in and never letting them go. Especially at Cereza's stage of development, her witch powers are fairly weak, and she can only channel energy using a special brace that Morgana allows her to use in training. The fairies would make short work of her for sure. As you might imagine by the existence of this game however, one night, Cereza does go into the forest one night under the light of a full moon, accompanied only by her rag doll, Cheshire, which her mother made for her. Through the power of the arm brace, Cereza is able to actually summon a demon, which would normally only be summoned temporarily through the hair of a witch, but since she is not a full witch, the demon must go into her doll, causing it to be stuck inside with no way of returning to Inferno. Cereza informs the demon (which she names Cheshire, after the doll that it's possessing) that she doesn't know how to summon a portal, but once she gets this promised power from the forest, she will be able to send it home. Just like that, a tense relationship is born between the young witch and the demon. This is all just set up for the story, and I don't really want to share more than that, as one of the key strengths that this game has is the element of surprise. Speaking of surprises, there was a genuine amount of them to this whole game's proceedings.

A Co-op Game for One?

    This game tasks you with playing two different characters at the same time. The left stick controls Cereza, you hold ZL to use her magic. In a similar way, Cheshire is controlled with the right side of the controller, he walks with the right analog stick, attacks with ZR and R (The right shoulder buttons). It's a really cool control scheme, one that was utilized in the game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but the difference here is that the game doesn't take turns in being super depressing for no reason and being boring. There are lots of interesting puzzles to do between Cereza's rhythmic dance magic, which she can use for various different things, as well as Cheshire's strength, and different elemental abilities that he gains throughout the game. Unfortunately, not everything was handled incredibly well in this game. While the puzzles are truly pretty interesting and entertaining, the puzzles are hopelessly outmatched by the combat sequences.

    The combat isn't bad, I shouldn't say it like that, but it was the weakest component of the game in my opinion. There were many different kinds of enemies, and some of them required strategy to deal with, and when they were more complicated, the game felt better. Many times, however, the combat just amounted to running around with Cereza so she wouldn't get hit (as she's the only one with a health bar), while Cheshire did the same attacks over and over until all of the enemies were dead. Cereza can stun enemies with her thorns, but a lot of times, I didn't even bother with that, unless it was a boss or something. I understand the need to focus on combat, especially since that's what the Bayonetta series is best known for, but in this context, many of the challenge areas felt very similar, especially by the end. It got to the point where I would groan when I came across another circular room, because I fully knew what to expect. It was a real shame, especially in the face of what this game gets right!

What the game gets right

    I have to say, the style of the Bayonetta franchise is always what has stood out the most to me. While this game is undoubtably going for a very different style, it completely nails it. The entire game looks like a storybook, complete with pages turning when you transition to new areas or when cutscenes are playing out. The world of the Avalon Forest really looks to be painted with watercolors, and it made it real pleasure to explore all of the different areas that the game was split into. Even when the navigation got a little weird at times, or the wolf footprints (which show you the right way to go) were a bit misleading (or maybe I just misunderstood which way to go), I didn't care that much, because the game introduces a fast travel system fairly early on that made the small locations even easier to maneuver through. That being said, a lot of the world does look fairly similar, so there were some times when I thought that I had already been somewhere, but it was a new area that just looked almost identical to one I had been through a few minutes before. That wasn't a huge issue for me, but it was a little annoying from time to time. 

    The music in this game is also fantastic, even though, once again, it's very different from the music of the other games in the series. This game features a lot of accordions and lighter instruments like that as opposed to the Jazz-rock fusion instrumentation of the other games in the series. This lends a more ethereal feeling to the game, which fits with the Avalon Forest's Storybook vibes to a "T." While the instrumentation is completely different, however, there are a few returning tracks to this game, which sound pretty fantastic in their new style that matches this game. While I love the visuals and music, as well as an overall good story, there was a fairly major issue.

Pacing...

    Overall, I enjoyed the story of this game, but the promise of some development in the story was definitely what kept me going for a lot of it. From the beginning of the game, you're told to track down four mcguffins, which takes up most of the game's runtime, but in that time, I wasn't super attached to the game, and only played in fairly short sessions. Cereza was sweet and Cheshire was very aloof or outright annoyed by her for the majority of the game. In fact, I had a hard time clinging to the story beats until about Chapter 9 or 10, when the game was nearly over. In my opinion, you shouldn't have to play 50-60% of the game (according to my save percentages) before the story starts to have any sort of impact on you, as the burden of responsibility shouldn't be placed on the reader (or in this case, the player) to care about these characters. The storyteller needs to give the audience interesting moments to cling to, but in this game's case, like I said, I kept going because I wanted the game to be really good, and I was willing to push past the long period of time where very little was happening apart from Cereza and Cheshire getting to the next powerful thing they were told to look for. It's a testament to the game's ending that I'm even writing about this game at all, because there was a time where I didn't think I'd be able to say much about it.

The End.

    There are lots of interesting moments in this game, but they all really happen only a few chapters before the ending. The whole point of this game is to see Bayonetta's origins, as the title suggests, and it's here towards the end when we get some interesting shifts in Cereza's character, as she learns to be a bit more brave and cry less. In a small way, she learns that being a witch isn't all about following the rules or doing as she's told, but sometimes it's the most important thing to make a path for herself. That's a pretty solid lesson to learn, and it's a good sign that she learns it so young. Her naivety also goes way down towards the end, which is a nice step towards the wild witch that we meet in Bayonetta. The aspect that the game really leans on in the end is Cereza's relationship with Cheshire, a demon that she just met, and who she really doesn't get along with for the majority of the game, but they have an appreciation for each other by the end, which is a sweet little twist. Also we get a few glimpses of Cereza's future struggles while she's dealing with these fairies, though not much. It feels almost like they're trying to gear up for other prequel-sequels maybe, so they're holding back on their first attempt. There were quite a few things that I assumed we would see in the ending, and we definitely didn't see a lot of those come to fruition, which I thought was really strange, but I'm sure they had their reasoning for ending the game the way that they did. There are a lot of things that are good about this ending, but it's going to be on a player-by-player basis to see if it's worth pushing through to the finale.

    This game is a tough one for me to review. From its first announcement at the Game Awards back in December, I was definitely interested in this new take on the franchise, and I'm happy that I've now played it to the end. I have to say that this game is probably best for people who really love the Bayonetta series and want more deep lore about Cereza, specifically before she was imprisoned in a coffin at the bottom of a lake for 500 years or so. The interesting thing about her as a character is that she really can't remember a lot of her past, at least in the beginning of Bayonetta, meaning that there's potentially a lot of room to play around with if they wanted to make another prequel in this same vein. I would love to see how she first learns how to fight, since I'm not sure another game with this same control scheme would be as well received, but I'm sure we'll see the Bayonetta series continue in one way or another.

    Before I wrap it up here, I have to say that this was by far the easiest game in the whole series. I really only died to the final boss, and pretty much every other fight was a cakewalk. That said, once you beat the game for the first time, you have the option to play again on a harder difficulty setting that's unlocked, along with a few other bonuses that I don't want to give away here, but they're neat little fan service things. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon is a story that I look back fondly on, even though while I was playing it, I found myself feeling a bit bored for a lot of the runtime. I feel like it actually may be better playing it through a second time, but I didn't feel like doing that right away. I only hope that the next time we see Cereza, she'll continue to keep dancing, like she always does.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! This game is a weird one, but I liked the idea and experimentation behind it, and I really hope that people have liked it so far. It's hard for me to recommend it, but fans of the series are sure to enjoy learning a bit more about everyone's favorite dancing witch. Thanks so much for your support, and I hope you're all doing well and that you'll have a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Apprentice Witch, and I'll talk to you all again soon!