Bayonetta 3 (Nintendo Switch, 2022)

I’ve been excited about Bayonetta 3 for years. The first two titles are some of the most bonkers titles in gaming, delivering pristine camp, incredibly over-the-top setpieces, and some of the most exhilarating combat I’ve ever encountered. Is there a more satisfying mechanic in gaming than ‘Witch Time’, where you dodge an attack at the last minute and get a sumptuous dose of slow-motion to clown on your opponents?

At the back of my mind was the nagging fear that the Switch wouldn’t be able to do justice to a new Bayonetta title, but I ignored it. After all, the already extremely crazy Bayonetta 2 runs perfectly well on this hardware and I didn’t have any technical quibbles with Platinum’s Astral Chain.

I figured the developers knew the hardware’s limitations, would be able to design the game to spec, and while I wasn’t expecting a PS4-level experience I’d have been happy with a sideways evolution of Bayonetta 2.

She doesn’t deserve this.

So my heart sank when I first loaded it up. Bayonetta 3 on Switch is just plain ugly: running at a herky-jerky framerate, in a noticeably low resolution, with washed-out colours, and the Switch is clearly being pushed beyond its limits. I’m no graphics purist, but Bayonetta is all about fabulous-looking violence and this just looked… dowdy.

Fortunately, there are options to make this game sing, though I doubt they’re going to make Nintendo happy. For the first time, I stuck my toe into the murky waters of Switch emulation, figuring that I was in the moral (if not legal) clear as I had my physical copy right there.

This is how the game should look.

Bayonetta 3 played through the Yuzu emulator turned out to be a game transformed. I was able to run it at 4K at an almost locked 60FPS with only the occasional stutter as it compiled shaders. Details washed out by the low-resolution and jaggy aliasing are suddenly resplendent.

Moreover, a smooth framerate makes the combat so much more satisfying and I was suddenly nailing counters I couldn’t on the original hardware. I love Bayonetta and want her to look her best, so it’s a little sad that you have to strap on an eyepatch and traverse the online high seas to do that.

As for the game? It’s a blast. Sure, the story is a garbled mess, but here more than almost any other game it’s just a vehicle to toss you into the next setpiece. Perhaps the game would benefit from fewer minigames and diversions, but this series is all about excess and maximalism so if Platinum want to throw in a random Kaiju battle or bewildering 2D stealth section then go for it.

Plus that all leads to the truly magnificent opera battle on the grounds of the Louvre in Paris, which is easily one of the finest moments the series has delivered to date.

If you’ve played this on Switch and found yourself distinctly underwhelmed and have a decent gaming PC (plus lax morals) then consider trying it out on emulation to see Bayonetta 3 as it should be. I don’t want to encourage piracy as this series needs all the sales it can get, but if you have a physical copy just sitting there then yo-ho-ho.