Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Devil

If you had to imagine a Nintendo-published franchise that could be good even for inexperienced gamers, you’d probably say no right away. Bayonetta From your thoughts: The saga created by PlatinumGames is actually designed to satisfy the most demanding gamers who are eager to test themselves, while those who have not encountered such a title should try their best to overcome various obstacles.

Until now, with Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost DevilAnd The Japanese software house decided to dareTurn a challenging action epic into a fun and relaxing fantasy story, is able to tell us about the first real adventure of our beloved witch and accompany us in the discovery of her first magical powers. An announcement that inevitably piqued fans and insiders’ interest, but the developers have shown they believe it very strongly.

During our initial testing, we had highly appreciated the experience PlatinumGames and Nintendo had adopted: although it felt strange to think of this saga as suitable for a more knowledgeable audience, the art direction and narrative left room for very few doubts. After thoroughly exploring this wonderful little adventure, we can finally cancel and confirm all reservations The experiment certainly workedalbeit with some limitations for more experienced users.

Bayonetta Origins (You found it on Amazon) shows us a more fragile and vulnerable side of the witch Cereza, previously visible only in some segments of the original trilogy and reveals to us that the protagonist at first was not at all self-confident, but was already particularly weak and insecure, to the point of making one wonder Again and again how she can become an invincible witch.

However, his sympathy was coupled with his determined ea an innate magical power of which she herself does not seem particularly aware They would allow her to overcome feats that had proven impossible to many other, more experienced practitioners of magic.

The true power of a witch

As we expected at the beginning, it will be essential in this adventure Control two characters at the same time: With the left Joy-Con, you’ll have all the commands related to Cereza, while with the right Joy-Con, you’ll only control Cheshire. If you choose instead to use a more traditional control scheme, such as the official Pro controller, you can imagine it being “cut in two” based on necessary actions.

The gameplay is divided between an exploration phase, where you can not only encounter different puzzles but also discover everything that the map has to offer, and typical combat sessions between one section of the story and another: in both cases it will be necessary for both parties to work together to be able to overcome the deception of the jungle The enchanted and its dangers.

This mechanic makes the headline Also ideal for local co-op matches Thanks to the Joy-Con’s versatility, even if of course everything is designed to be usable by a single player.

During your adventure you will often encounter some obstacles that will force the two heroes to separate temporarily to allow your partner to advance: Cereza will thus be able to throw Cheshire in doll form into much higher areas or use her magic to block more dangerous elements or modify some aspects of the surroundings, opening alternative routes.

The game mechanics are particularly simple and designed to be used even by novice users, as well as the battles: the fairies you’ll encounter don’t present the slightest challenge to the combined efforts of Cereza and Cheshire, but often even a demon cat will be able to get by on its own with very little help. In other words, if you’ve never played an action game in your life – or even one chapter of… Bayonetta – You’ll have no problem engaging with this story, and you won’t be afraid to miss some reference to the story.

compared to the original trilogy, So the difficulty is incredibly set down Without offering any possibility to make it more difficult – unless you’ve already completed the story at least once – but even offering to make it easier with several accessibility options.

Although it is thus an ideal game for those who want to relax or for anyone who is not familiar with the genre, Choosing not to make new difficulty levels available is bound to make historical fans turn up their noseswhich should not find any real challenge.

However, this does not mean that the gameplay is monotonous and remains the same from start to finish: as the adventure progresses, you will actually be able to unlock new special skins for Cheshire and unlock new powers, thanks to an upgrade system with special coins that separate between two heroes.

Cereza herself will also unlock some particularly useful new skills in the final stages that will make the exploratory stages more interesting, and that will please those who want to see the protagonist evolve into the heroine we all know and love – but we won’t reveal them here.

Unexpected story

One of the most interesting challenges Bayonetta Origins Instead, it was suggested by “Tír na nÓg”: these are special areas in which it will be necessary to solve more complex puzzles and where timing and cooperation between our two protagonists will be most important.

Again, however, it’s not anything particularly impossible or difficult, as it simply requires you to use all the skills you’ve unlocked up to that point, but it is Variety in gameplay that we particularly appreciated And we would have liked to see more depth.

Everything will then end with a battle that is usually more difficult, but as we have already shown you on several occasions, you must not inflict any of your defeats.

For fans who still need some extra help, you’ll have the possibility to create or find special potions to recharge health or get any advantage in battle: we don’t hide it from you. I didn’t really need itbut it remains an additional option that is always available for novice players.

The lack of a serious challenge may inevitably put off more experienced users, but the biggest fans of the saga should still tune in to this episode for a deeper dive into the main story: In fact, there are some links to Chapters One and Three that might be particularly interesting – But obviously we won’t tell you more and let you discover it yourself.

The main map is designed to be explored freely, allowing in some moments to step back a bit to access previously impossible-to-conquer areas: everything is then sweetened with secrets that will push even the most demanding fans to keep playing in order to get everything possible.

And as far as our first-hand experience is concerned, we put it to work From 11 to 12 hours For you to know all of that Bayonetta Origins It should offer: longevity and therefore in line with the standards of the series, even if we do not expect any hitch that could make things more thorny given the particularly lenient level of challenge, as we said.

The idea of ​​turning the saga into a fairy tale adventure – complete with turned pages at the end of each chapter and the dialogues we’ll hear from the narrator – is certainly original and unexpected, but it proves positively successful at the same time: Syriza and the Lost Devil It’s proof that PlatinumGames isn’t done with Bayonetta just yet And that there are still many ideas to keep the saga going.

And developers absolutely do not need to adhere to the standards of the most “hardcore” fans to do this, but they can still try other, more curious and original ideas. like him.