When comparing Bayonetta 2 vs The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Slant community recommends The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for most people. In the question“What are the best games for the Nintendo Switch?” The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is ranked 1st while Bayonetta 2 is ranked 64th. The most important reason people chose The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is:
Most open world games follow the same pattern - they give you a map that's full of blips, forcefully guiding you to marked locations, causing you to ignore everything along the way. Breath of the Wild steps away from this design choice by having a map where only you can mark points of interest. It's up to you to survey the land from high vantage points, choose a direction of heading, and find interesting locations. As a result, exploring and paying attention to the world actually matters, making it a really enjoyable and refreshing experience.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Complex action combat that's satisfying to master
The action combat in Bayonetta 2 is less about arcadey hack-and-slash fighting and more about precise button inputs that are incredibly satisfying to perfect. Mastering combos allows you to string endless attacks to constantly put out damage in between dodging. Dodging attacks at the very last second rewards you with Witch Time, where enemies slow down while you attack freely at normal speed, keeping your combos going even further. It'll take some time for you to get these techniques down, but once you do, you'll find yourself toying with enemies as you practically dance in circles around them.
Pro Epic boss fights with incredible set pieces
Bayonetta 2 has a constant stream of gigantic boss fights set in amazing locations that are memorable because of how over-the-top they are. The enemies you fight against are huge in scope, with level designs that are creative and outlandish.
For example, the prologue of the game is impressive, showing off a massive demon protruding from the side of a skyscraper that Bayonetta fights against while flying through the air. There's also another fight where you battle against a single enemy with multiple forms, where you have to jump from one crumbling building or arena to the next.
There's a lot of spectacle and scope to the boss battles that constantly makes you wonder how the next fight will top the last one.
Pro Thrilling soundtrack
The music in Bayonetta 2 fits perfectly with the huge boss fights, the demonic locations you explore, and Bayonetta's own bombastic personality. While fighting against demons in some of the game's hellish environments, the chorus and violins are sinister and foreboding, giving you a sense of urgency to press forward. The huge fights in these locations are powerful with the accompanying soundstrack, like how the very first boss in the game has an explosive song with an impactful chorus and wind instruments. By contrast, Bayonetta's main battle theme is completely different, mixing sunny female vocals with jazzy pianos that matches how much fun she has while fighting enemies. The variety is great and always matches the tone of the moment, making the game feel a lot more fun to play.
Pro Runs smoothly at 60 FPS
There is no stuttering and no frame dips, since the game holds at 60 FPS the entire playthrough.
Pro Alternate touch screen controls for Wii U and Nintendo Switch
There is an alternate control type that uses the touch screen instead of the game pad. This is great for anyone who wants to switch things up from always having to press the buttons on their controller.
Pro An open world game where exploration feels exciting
Most open world games follow the same pattern - they give you a map that's full of blips, forcefully guiding you to marked locations, causing you to ignore everything along the way. Breath of the Wild steps away from this design choice by having a map where only you can mark points of interest. It's up to you to survey the land from high vantage points, choose a direction of heading, and find interesting locations. As a result, exploring and paying attention to the world actually matters, making it a really enjoyable and refreshing experience.
Pro An engaging cooking skill
Breath of the Wild features a very interesting cooking skill, allowing you to combine up to 5 different ingredients to create useful dishes or elixirs that can aid you on your journey.
While the cooking process itself is really simple, only requiring you to light a fire and use a pot, experimentation is what makes it truly interesting. There is no in-game recipe log to give you hints, so most of the time you're experimenting with ingredient combinations, which can make finding a good recipe feel like winning the lottery. Some guesswork is eliminated because most areas are saturated with ingredients that can be used to create dishes useful to that specific area.
For example, the cold area has ingredients that can be used to create dishes that boost your resistance to cold, so your character won't be shivering and dragging his feet as you explore.
Because most of the dishes you make are useful, it can also motivate you to explore just a bit more, since there might just be a useful ingredient on top of that next mountain.
As a result, Breath of the Wild has a surprisingly engaging cooking skill that blends well into the core of the game, making the experience more fun as a whole.
Pro Wonderfully crafted puzzles
There's a vast array of puzzles found in Breath of the Wild where you use your abilities to move, manipulate or destroy the environment. It can be very simple like destroying rocks with a bomb to unblock a cave entrance. Or it can be fairly complex, requiring you to rotate and connect massive platforms, move stone orbs through an area filled with obstacles, and create pillars of ice on a waterfall to cross a bottomless pit. Regardless of the type of puzzle you encounter, they motivate you to think creatively, making it a delight when you arrive at the solution, especially because there's always a treasure waiting at the end.
Pro A variety of fighting methods keep the combat fun
There are many ways you can fight the monsters in Breath of the Wild.
You can go for close combat, using swords, spears, clubs and many other weapons, besting your goblin-like enemies with well-timed parries, dodges, slashes, and strikes.
Or you can fight enemies from afar by shooting your bow, throwing your boomerang, or lobbing an infinite supply of bombs while maintaining the distance as the monsters try to helplessly get near you.
You can even be stealthy, sneaking up on unsuspecting lizard-folk and stabbing them from behind.
If none of the above works, you can also use the environment to your advantage. This usually involves things like pushing boulders off cliff edges, dropping them on top of oblivious casualties.
All of these provide a great amount of variety that keeps the combat from going stale for the whole playthrough.
Cons
Con The story is ridiculous
Bayonetta 2's story is confusing to keep track of at times, and the plot points grow increasingly more ridiculous and over-the-top as the game progresses. The plot starts off fine enough with Bayonetta on a quest to save her best friend, but then other characters and motivations get thrown into the mix. These other plot points are huge distractions and take away from Bayonetta's personal story of going after her friend who's in danger. If you feel like everything goes over your head as you try to follow the story, then it's not just you.
Con Humor can be childish
While not all of the humor is bad, a lot of it is over-the-top, and some of it lands flat in childish ways. Some of the characters feel like mere caricatures with the way they're constantly presented as comic relief. Depending on your tastes, you might find the humor charming, or it could bore you instead.
Con Online co-op missions are short
Each online mission is a bite-sized piece of action, which means they are all over withing a short time frame. For those looking for lengthier online missions, there are sadly none to be found.
Con Cooking can feel inconvenient
There's no in-game log or cookbook to record cooking recipes you discover. The only method of checking a recipe is by examining a cooked item in your inventory, which isn't very reliable since you can only check it as long as you have the item. As a result, you have to memorize and/or write down any and all cooking recipes you discover, which can feel cumbersome to some players.
Con Weapon durability system can feel tedious to some
When you attack enemies, your equipped weapon quickly loses its durability, breaking when it reaches zero. This can force you to switch to new weapons multiple times during a battle, adding a micromanagement aspect that can disrupt the flow of combat. You're not just fighting enemies, you're also fighting the flimsiness of your arsenal.
On top of that, most weapons can't be repaired either. This can diminish the joy of finding new weapons, since that cool sword you just found will be gone thirty minutes of gameplay later.