Bayonetta 3 review – the weirdest game you’ll play this year

Nintendo Switch; Platinum Games/Nintendo
This long-awaited action fiasco is like a horny anime directed by Christopher Nolan

At Japanese developer PlatinumGames, the phrase dress to kill" is taken very literally. Armed with pistols attached to her platform heels, summoning demons from her luscious locks with a suggestive wink, Bayonetta's fetish-baiting ballet of blood and bullets is as unselfconsciously bonkers as video games come. The brainchild of Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, this demonic series has always combined combo-building combat with a weirdly satanic layer of sexuality.

This third outing, however, has been overshadowed by a dispute with its former star. With the pound scrabbling out of freefall and our third prime minister in the space of four months being inaugurated, you'd be forgiven for missing the #boycottBayonetta controversy, but the long and short of it is that the actor who gave Bayonetta her voice in the first two games did not reprise her role because she was offered an insultingly low fee for the job. Twitter exploded. Fans squabbled. There has been an ugly back-and-forth over the details of her pay. It's hardly the fanfare that anyone would have wanted, and the drama will sour this game for many.