I think Bayonetta perfectly exemplifies what Devil May Cry 2 fans have known for decades now and what the rest of the gaming community pretends not to understand: Devil May Cry is more than its combat system.

Because in terms of gameplay Bayonetta in some ways exceeds Devil May Cry. If it wasn't for the incessant platforming sections, mini-games, and QTEs, it would've been an objectively superior experience. But in its grandiosity it loses some of the visceral groundedness of DMC. Half the time there's so much stuff happening on the screen that it's hard to pinpoint where the protagonist is or where she's being attacked from. And her seemingly uninhibited mobility makes the combat feel less weighty and punchy.

Most of my problems, however, lie not with the gameplay. Bayonetta is a sort of cocaine-infused try-hard Sailor Moon DMC. On top of its decidedly more anime aesthetic and narrative, everything is just so over the top and silly, it's hard to care for anything. Devil May Cry was set in a serious and dark world. The first game in particular still wore its survival-horror roots on its sleeves. The coolness and humor of Dante largely stemmed from the contrast of his careless attitude in the face of what seemed like real threat. Furthermore the tonal consistency within the first three games made their respective worlds feel atmospheric and mysterious, prompting the player (me) to explore every bit of them. Devil May Cry 4 was much lighter, but it still carried the curiosity, being built on top of the mythos of the previous games. Bayonetta doesn't have that. It still shoves a bunch of lore in your face, but in this case I don't care. Because there is a large tonal dissonance in a lot of levels, and every cutscene depicts its world as a fun and silly place where every character is an anime stereotype, and not a particularly well-written one.

It is true that DMC1's writing wasn't that great either, however it didn't really have much of a story (despite what some clueless DMC2 haters would make you believe). But that also meant that it didn't shove poorly-written cutscenes in your face all the time. DMC2 largely continued in the same vein. DMC3, on the other hand, had a story so good that it retrospectively made you care about the first two games. DMC4's story was rather lackluster, but the level of dialogue writing stayed on about the same level as its predecessor. Bayonetta is simply not as witty as either Dante or Nero, and the rest of the cast doesn't really have any interesting qualities to them like Vergil or Mary had in 3 or to some degree Credo had in 4.

My old save had about 3 hours playtime, and this time I lasted about the same amount. After roughly 3 hours I caught myself thinking "I don't really care what happens next." This was about the time the game started introducing escort missions, so idk if it'll get worse from here, but even though the gameplay up to this point was pretty solid, nothing else really grabbed me about it. Despite the fact that, yeah, the graphics and music are great, and even some of the art design is stunning. A lot of these assets could've been retooled into a great Devil May Cry game, but Bayonetta is just not quite DMC, whether for better or worse. I think, people that hate DMC2 probably love this.