Bayonetta

Bayonetta debuted in 2010 as an action game from PlatinumGames, directed by Hideki Kamiya, whose earlier work had defined the genre through Devil May Cry at Capcom. The first game was published by Sega. The title witch, fighting with demonic weapons hidden in her hair and using that same hair to summon towering creatures, set the series' style – flamboyant, highly stylized combo combat, a scoring system that judged every fight on elegance and speed, and the Witch Time mechanic, which slows time on a well-timed dodge and opens a window for a devastating counterattack. Despite strong reviews, the first game had only modest commercial success.

Bayonetta 2 (2014) launched as a Wii U exclusive after Nintendo stepped in to fund the sequel – without that support, a follow-up to a commercially modest original would likely never have happened. The second game refined the combat system, added the partner character Jeanne, playable in her own mode, and later reached Switch alongside a remaster of the first game, bringing the series to a much wider audience than it had ever had on its original console.

Bayonetta 3 (2022), again a Switch exclusive, expanded the scale of combat to include player-controlled battles against giant monsters and introduced Viola, a new playable character with her own more aggressive fighting style and partner. Over more than a decade the series built a reputation as one of the most technical action games on the market, prized above all by players who treat mastering its combat systems and scoring rules as a discipline of its own, comparable to fighting games.