Ok, yeah finished it, got all the weapons, made some way into a 2nd playthrough. And I'm gonna be the weird one in the room and think the game was just good, maybe an 8/10 with too many real flaws detracting and doesn't feel as good as a Kamiya game imo. But then I also though MGR was just ok and everyone seemed to love that one too. I still have a problem with the core Bayonetta gameplay which is the same problem I have with MGR, I don't like these action games that are basically 1 button games where you have some good combo options and there's interesting stuff, but the entire game revolves around recognizing enemy patterns and just hitting R or tapping toward every few seconds when an enemy strikes and that's the entire game. MGR was all about the Zandatsu parry and once you mastered that, there wasn't much to the game, and Bayo is still all about dodge or parry while grinding down enemy health with enemies that have way too much health. I like that in the higher difficulties of Bayo there's no witch time and it's more like a standard action game with dodge/parry, but I wish that didn't come along with padded HP healths because honestly big enemies and bosses just get boring once you know their patterns and they just take a while of slamming on them until they finally die. These parts feel more like an endurance game than a kill or be killed exciting edge of your seat action game.
But that's a different thing and none of my problems with Bayo 2 have to do with that. What they have to do with is all the stupid crap that gets in the way of the combat. When people said Bayo 2 was better than the first and many action fans were calling it GoTY, maybe I just got my hopes up high, but I certainly didn't expect horse riding levels, water surfing levels, afterburner levels, mecha riding levels being like 25% of the entire game. I thought part of the "streamlining" of Bayo 1 was getting rid of all the vehicle section dumb parts that people hated in Bayo 1. But nope, it feels like there's even more of this stuff.
Then there's the ton of parts/bosses that revolve around flying. The camera is not always great on the ground and can be pretty awful when flying. And in general I hate flying bosses/big enemies because you can't combo them or do any of the fun stuff that's part of the battle system since it's like fighting a giant mountain. You just do your best BnB high damaging combos and tap toward or dodge every few seconds when you see an attack coming...repeat until the boss is dead. At least on the ground there's movement involved and you can juggle and do more interesting things.
Then there's the forced co-op bullshit everywhere. While I get that they wanted to make it a co-op game, for the most part it just makes the scenes too busy with another character going around fighting along with all the enemies. The framerate almost always sucks during all these parts and and never seems to be around 60fps. Plus I don't want another cpu person finishing up my combos and killing my enemies wtf. I don't want character action games to be 2p. If they want to make it optional for online, sure. But offline I don't want a cpu fighting with me in these games.
Then there's just the visual design which is ridiculously busy to the point where it can hard to even see wtf is going on, especially in the co-op sections. It just looks really messy. In fact, after beating the game and starting a replay, the first stage during the clear blue sky daylight fighting on the back of the harrier jet is probably the best looking part in the entire game. There's you and enemies and a specific space with stuff going on in the background, and you can fight and concentrate on the enemies with no distractions. I think I just want a bloody palace.
And the cutscenes, everywhere and godawful. I don't remember Bayo 1 being this bad but the story and cutscenes were so bad they kept annoying me until I started just skipping them all in the last few chapters because I didn't give a fuck about the story and just wanted to fight.
Also I don't really like all the repetition bosses. They've got nothing on Vergil. The Lumen Saga and the Blue Hand boss basically are doing the same attacks for the most part each time and once you've got their timing down the additional boss fights against them are pretty much the same. That being said I do really like the enemy and boss variety with a lot of patterns to learn.
The level design seemed pretty sucky. There were only a few real levels, most were cutscenes and a couple arenas and that's it. The couple of actual stages to explore were ok but nothing special. I remember Bayo 1 having much better level design. Like I have vague memories of the final stage of Bayo 1 being climbing some tower or something and fighting tougher and tougher encounters along the way and it was awesome. I feel like Bayo 2 is just a bunch of arenas splitting boss fights and cutscenes.
The water stuff sucks, snake form is shit, and the camera/controls suck.
Combat is great. No problems with it beyond issues I have with core Bayonetta. I'm not amazing at this game and honestly I wish I was a lot worse at 3rd Climax because I feel like I shouldn't be able to handle 3rd Climax as well as I did on the first try, but all I had to do was find some good hammer combos, be good at dodging and then BnB all day. I never felt on the edge of my seat or as excited as I felt during DMC3/4, which are still the pinnacle of the character action genre to me. Nothing is as challenging as God Hand's first run here on 3rd Climax.
Mixed on the weapons. I know it's really subjective and I'm sure people love these, but this is a big deal for character action games for me. If I find a weapon or two I really enjoy using, the game is 10x more enjoyable overall. I couldn't really get into any of the weapons in Bayo 2. The standard punch/kick is fine, but the swords lacked impact, the scythe was too slow for my tastes and not strong enough, the hammer was awesome but super slow so I didn't have a ton of combo variety with it, whip was too weak and lacked impact, undine club/guns were pretty good though too close to pistols but slower, and chainsaws were too close to pistols but faster. Maybe as I keep playing I'll find a weapon set I really enjoy using, but just never got into any of these. If the swords had more impact feel and were stronger I'd like them, or if Scythe was closer to Ninja Gaiden 2 scythe in cutting power, but just never clicked.
So yeah, that's probably the most negative write up you'll ever see of Bayo 2, but I liked it. Just it never clicked and felt like going through the motions and wasn't particularly exciting. I still need to get back to Wonderful 101, but that felt much more fresh, challenging and fun than this. I think after MGR and Bayo 1/2 I'll just accept that my tastes run different than modern-era Platinum and modern era action gamers. I'd take Viewtiful Joe, DMC3/4, God Hand and NG Black over any of these games any day. I feel like modern action games are more about easy mechanics to get into and endurance skill of surviving as long as possible without mistakes, and that's the opposite of the type of challenge I like in my games. I like the hardest possible challenge for the quickest possible time, something that's challenging and difficult to master but doesn't waste my time once I do. Vanquish is the only Platinum game that really clicked with me and felt absolutely perfect in mechanics and challenge. Vanquish was freaking intense and I don't remember it being grindy at all. In Bayo 2 because there's no way to upgrade the damage on any of your weapons or anything, there's no real way to speed up boss fights (unless I'm missing something) since the best you can do is your high damage attacks over and over while parrying each incoming attack and the higher the difficulty the longer you'll have to do this as the boss HP will increase. Eh, that's just not for me.
