Before the spring ’26 semester wrapped up, I took a trip to Cambridge with a friend to check out some hobby shops. Our outing ended at my favorite store in the area: Replay’d. Replay’d is a used game store with a plethora of retro options, as well as (and here’s the kicker) modern games for reduced prices. And there was one game I was hoping to find. That being “Batyonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon”; one of the lowest-selling Nintendo published games on the Switch, but a true hidden gem within its vast library.
Bayonetta is a series of character action games where you play as the sassy, stylish, sex-positive badass Umbra Witch Bayonetta, fighting angels and demons by pulling off rapidfire combos, stopping time, shooting guns (in your hands and on your heels), and summoning demons through portals made from hair. It’s a bombastic, cheesy, violence filled, over the top power trip that many consider to be “awesome,” with a narrative that most consider to take the backseat for the crazy set pieces and player-expressive combat.
A prequel spinoff doesn’t sound too bad of an idea, and yet many fans of the series and critics brushed it off, calling it too different and boring. When comparing the one game to its trilogy, it’s easy to see where they came from. If only they stayed a little longer.
While you do play as Bayonetta, she isn’t the same Bayonetta. This was before she could even summon a demon. Before she could stop time. Before she had that infallible confidence. Before she could even fight for herself. Before she was Bayonetta, she was Cereza, a timid Umbra Witch in training. Born from a forbidden marriage, Cereza wishes she had the power to rescue her mother from the prison she’s been buried in as punishment for her love. Ostracized and ignored by everyone except her best friend Jeanne, she goes searching alone for someone who could teach her how to use her powers and gain more. She finds someone living just outside the Fae Kingdom of the Avalon Forest; a banished Witch named Morgana.
Morgana’s harsh teaching methods, Cereza’s anxiety filled impatience, and her dreams of a boy offering her power just beyond her master’s home leads Cereza to head into Avalon Forest with her beloved stuffed cat, Cheshire. As soon as she enters the dense forest, she is ambushed and overwhelmed by a group of Faeries. In a panic, she tries to summon a demon, and accidentally summons it through her stuffed cat. Her doll transforms into a fierce demon! But he isn’t just a mere weapon. Cheshire is his own character. And he’s mighty pissed that he was taken out of his home in Inferno. Cereza promises the grumpy demon that the power she’s searching for could bring him home. Thus begins the uneasy alliance of fledgling demon and witch on their journey through the Avalon Forest.
You now play as Cereza moving with the left analog stick, clicking in to dodge, interacting with the environment with the L button, holding one of four directional buttons to use helpful items in battle, and holding the ZL button near enemies to bind them in place. Pressing L also releases Cheshire from his undignified (yet very very cute) stuffed animal form.
The right side of the controller is under Cheshire’s control. He moves with the right stick, dodges by clicking in, attacks pinned down enemies with ZR; and more that mirrors Cereza’s own controls. Showing that they are both dependent on each other in the combat, story, and exploration is a difficult task, but the game makes it seem so seamless. The puzzle-filled paths of Avalon’s many environments contain obstacles and puzzles that require coordination between Cereza and Cheshire using their respective skillsets. As such, you grow familiar with controlling them at the same time, continuing to conquer the Forest, becoming more confident in each other and themselves.
Bayonetta Origins takes its time to set up its world, stakes and characters. Almost like it’s a story being presented to a viewer while being read through carefully. In that, the game’s graphical and narrative presentation are all based around the bright colors, fantastical environments, and storytime narration that comes with a fairy tale picture book. In a blog post on PlatinumGames’ own website, Game Director Abebe Tinari and Art Director Tomoko Nishii go into how this style came to be.
When Art Director Nishii suggested the picture book motif, Director Tinari was immediately on board, as this style holds special significance to him. It wasn’t novels or comics that helped him learn Japanese after moving to Japan as an adult, but picture books. He states that they “tell deep stories using simple language,” and use illustrations to not only help express the “concise story,” but also adds “a visual dimension [that] opens a whole new area of creative expression that sets your imagination in motion.”
Everything began to click into place. Soon the narrator would give voice to Cereza’s feelings and Cheshire’s gruff way of speaking, and the camera perspective would dynamically stay overhead so it “gives the player the feeling of peering down onto the ‘page,’” and the coloring in of the distant environments as you get closer all make this world into something like dynamic and unique to move through. Even the title screen takes the form of a well loved purple hard cover book with golden accents and the game’s logo imprinted on the front. All of this together, as Director Tinari says, makes it look: “really dang pretty.”
Art Director Tomoko Nishii describes the storybook choice as: “honestly just going with my gut feeling.” In fact, she was so gung ho about this style that she immediately went and proposed the idea “without much of a second thought. And it really resonated with the director … or at least I really hope it did.”
When designing aspects of the game’s graphics, it was ultimately important to not cut any corners when it came to presenting the storybook aspects. Parts of the menu and visual effects use shapes with soft color pallets and wavy lines, cutscenes with text appear in places that the pictures aren’t, it’s all made specifically so this game embodies the feelings and emotions that come with seeing a piece of art come to life and become a part of your life.
It’s a beautiful piece of art that asks you to become comfortable with its oddities, to lose yourself in the forest, and grow alongside those who learn that connecting with others is the only way to truly understand yourself.
