Wicked? You bet! Bayonetta, the bespectacled witch is back: PETER HOSKIN reviews Bayonetta 3

Bayonetta 3 (Nintendo Switch, £49.99)

Verdict: Barmy but bewitching

Review: **** 

There are no warts on this witch. She’s about 50 percent legs, 40 percent hair, and has a pair of spectacles sitting coquettishly on the end of her nose. Her high heels are a pair of guns that she uses to dispatch various demons back to their nether realms.

PETER HOSKIN: Bayonetta 3 just keeps on giving more, to the point that it risks feeling a bit scattershot. But, frankly, when you’re careering into enemies as a living train, who cares any more?

This is Bayonetta, now the star of her third game. 

And just like Bayonettas 1 and 2, this one is spectacularly silly. If we ignore its slightly maudlin prologue, the first action sequence involves you, as Bayonetta, surfing a cruise ship along a tidal wave as thousands of dimension-crashing enemies send skyscrapers tumbling into the waters around you. 

This is not a series for subtlety.

Or is it? Bayonetta’s greatest strength has always been its combat system — and here, for its first appearance in eight years, that system has been somewhat refined. 

PETER HOSKIN: Bayonetta’s greatest strength has always been its combat system — and here, for its first appearance in eight years, that system has been somewhat refined

Most strikingly, Bayonetta can now summon Godzilla-sized demons to crush her opponents, although doing so leaves her immobile and open to attack. It’s a pleasing trade-off, adding to the tactical complexity of each battle.

And there are still the complicated combinations of button presses by which Bayonetta shoots, shimmies and pirouettes. 

It feels overwhelming at first, particularly as Bayonetta 3 doesn’t do much to introduce newcomers to its gameplay. 

But it soon starts to feel natural — even for someone as uncoordinated as me.

So you press on. Through universes. Through action sequences. Even through different types of game. 

Bayonetta 3 just keeps on giving more, to the point that it risks feeling a bit scattershot. But, frankly, when you’re careering into enemies as a living train, who cares any more?