This is one of the weirdest games I played in a while. The game is solid and enjoyable, at the same time, I question this game's existence and if it was better off not being a Bayonetta game at all and just being a different IP entirely.
First I'll describe the story, Bayonetta never had a good story and I was never a big fan of Bayonetta's character, this game however does kind of have a decent enough story at least when you view it on it's own. The story between Bayonetta and her "pet" demon Chesire is told well enough and their friendship felt solid and beliveable. They don't like each other that much at first but they slowly start to warm up to each other and become friends, it's stuff you have seen before and it won't really light your world on fire, but the execution of this story is good to the point where I don't cringe at it every 10 seconds like a lot of the games in the series.
The titular character isn't as cocky and flamboyant like she usually is and she is actually quite scared and timid for much of the game. This could piss off a certain group of people like those who dislike Metroid Other M and Tomb Raider Survivor Trilogy but if you give the writing a chance you might enjoy it, as long as you view it as own thing. The story isn't all great, the narration can be a bit excessive and sometimes the narrator can just say things that the viewer himself can infer like when she explains how the characters feeling after certain big and emotional moments and there is a heel turn later in the game involving a certain character that comes out of nowhere and is poorly foreshadowed. Morganna's turn heel turn is so poorly handled since she barely had any screen time and Cereza was barely with her so when she "turns" to the dark side, it didn't feel very beliveable to me, it comes too out of left field to even work. It's a decent story carried primarily carried by Bayonnetta and Chesire.
Now this is where the whole thing is questionable, why is it a prequel to Bayonetta and have any connection to it at all? This may sound like a contradiction but I am not a big fan of prequels, most of them I am not big on, and when this one explains how Bayonetta got her Witch Time, I am like, "does this need to be explained at all?" With Bayo 3's retcons, which Cereza is this game a prequel to? The series doesn't even have it's "Earth 616" or mainstream continuity at all, so I am even more confused. The whole thing also feels more confused in that even though it is a prequel, what is even the point? There is no Jeanne or Rodin and they show up in all the mainline games. Jeanne shows up at the start but never pops up again and then the creature of Chesire never really shows up in the mainline games from what I remember so it has that annoying prequel quirk I dislike so much, which is characters that show up in the prequel only and then never gets mentioned in the mainline continuity. Story, I'd still say is decent, but and me being not so big on prequels is just has me questioning it.
The gameplay is solid. The best way of describing this game is that if a Lego game, Brothers a Tale of Two Sons, the Last Guardian and Zelda all had a baby you get this. If you are one of those people that were getting sick of the way Platinum of making games and their gameplay style then this game might be the game for you. It's one of the more unique games you can find on the Switch and which Nintendo is also charging full price for that doesn't go on sale that you can't find elsewhere. It feels like AAA indie game with much of it's design.
The game has Brothers' controls scheme but it has more challenging and involving gameplay then the latter since you have to work together even more so to get past the game's obsticles, you have to avoid more complex obsticles like avoiding laser beams, moving Cereza and Chesire at the same time while avoiding traps and solving puzzles to get them both across and so on. You also have to move them Chesire and Cereza with at least some form of precision to get past the game's challenges at all so in a sense, you could play Brothers a Tale of Two Sons as a way of getting "prepared" for this game, if not you can use the game help options, but I'd say Brothers is worth checking out since it's a short game and it can help you familarize yourself with the controls of the Lost Demon, I wouldn't know if I'd be good at the game if I didn't play Brothers.
You got the Lego games' system of solving puzzles where all your characters have to across in order to progress through the level but this game has more involving and enjoyable combat, while combat in the Lost Demon isn't as involving as mainline games, it's solid, you get different elemental powers and each one has it's own uses. You need to use different powers on enemies to break their shields and do damage to them as well as solve a number of puzzles to continue progress. You also need to make sure Cereza doesn't take damage and you can use her powers to trap enemies while Chesire attacks in order to make past many of the combat encounters, make sure to use the elemental powers and break shields since you need to do that defeat enemies. You will also need them for enviroment traversal as well, plant for grapple points, stone to block and break things, water to have Cheshire swim and move lillpads and fire to break ice. You will be switching through these abilities a lot which helps makes gameplay more involving since you don't gain a new ablitity and the rest become useless.
You got the Last Guardian where you have to work together with a creature but you can control Chesire rather than relying on an AI, which is great since I recall not liking Trico's AI.
Despite the game having a number of inspirations, it clearly does a number of things better than those games to make it feel fresh on it's own.
So what didn't I like about the gameplay? The game is a bit too long, and by the time I was getting to Chapter 11, I was starting to get tired of the puzzles and combat since it was starting to feel more and more one note without enough new to break up the pace. It was just more combat where you fight longer enemy waves and more puzzles which both while varied just feels too simplistic for how long the game is. By the time I was fighting Lukaon, I just wanted the game to wrap up and the game's combat is too one note and dull by that point that I just wanted the game to end. Lukaon felt like the culmination of everything and when the kept going, I was starting to get really bored. The skill tree also feels tacked on and pointless since I was getting through much of the game without using most of the skills and some ablities like Chesire's finishing move should've been in his moveset at the start of the game. I also dislike the lack of jumping but considering how the game controlled I can see why Platinum made at that way since trying to keep track of Chesire and Cereza would be too much if both can jump which can lead to a lot of the player accidentally falling. The game also having blue wolf tracks for guiding could arguably be a cop out for people who don't like being told where to go but at the same time, the game can have too many off the beaten path side activities so I want to know where to go next, so it didn't bug me too much.
Overall, Bayonetta Origins is a solid game but just don't think of the mainline games or it being a prequel all too much. Think of it as Platinum games making an experimental indie game with a AAA budget and polish.
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