I'm not gonna comment on anything else because it would be spoilers but the way it uses difficulty spikes, because the curve is not smooth and seems to be intentionally so, is pretty clever.

There is just a lot of thought pretty much everywhere in this, especially the jabs at GenAI.

Pragmata's approach to keeping the plot relatively bare and putting all its eggs on Hugh and Diana's dynamic and how said dynamic evolves alongside the player skill, which in turn frames the mechanics of a video game as a tool to supplement character development kicks SO much ass.

Fully upgraded Hugh having more dodge actions than Bayonetta (8 vs 5) is extremely funny.

He did comment on his book that the moment Stylish RE stopped being RE he felt relieved he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

One never forgets their original clusterfuck tbh

Almost done with the game and yeah, you can definitely feel the Platinum sensibilities on this.

It's very noticeable with how similar it is to their later titles in how it uses the whole controller constantly and like, it almost feels like the point is the excess in itself within the controls?

Every single session, when he starts a new topic:

"So back in Devil May Cry I did X, therefore for this title I wanna do Y..."

Pragmata's handgun is bonkers wtf

Shotgun too, that thing has so much damage and so much hitstop you can feel the kickback IRL.

The weapons in general are are nuts.

Tbh half this book is like "I really, really miss Dante" said in increasingly elaborate ways.

Can't hate on abyss dogshit if you know it's coming from a place of true passion for said abyss dogshit.

Those issues go away with Verse Select though.

Kamiya not being the defacto director of 3 is probably the only reason it actually had some restraint on the minigames tbh

He likely took cues from GoW and applied it to Viewtiful Joe's structure.

It's easier to see in 3 because of Verse Select highlighting chunks of Chapters but even in 1 the general structure of the levels are 2-3 "normal" combat Verses into a setpiece for basically the entire game.

I'm increasingly convinced the first game not pounding the ever loving fuck out of people's head 10000x harder with its intent really was the issue tbh

It being a relatively clean action game for its first third or so probably further warped perspectives.

The World of Hideki Kamiya.

Came out a while ago, he goes over the games in his career. Incredibly entertaining and you can see some truly asinine leaps in logic on how ideas come to be.

Like, somehow "Bayonetta Fighting Game" became the basis for Bayo Origins' gameplay pitch.

More from Kamiya's Book about the first game specifically.

The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 3's overall game structure makes much more sense, especially TW101 having a literal amusement park on its levels.

I guess Tokusatsu doesn't exist to some people.

There are several shots across the whole series you can just see 'yep they did some cool ass wire work for this part'.

Here is how the Witch Time-esque upgrade works... It's a slight slow but if you hold Aim during it, you get a couple of seconds to do a minigame relatively safely.

There doesn't seem to be any iframes in it besides whatever the dodge already has.

Notice the dash meter doesn't regen during it.

Weapon swap cancels seem to be baked into the players intended DPS. They go into CD after one use and you can immediately swap to another to keep pressure and setups going.

Some unlockable weapons interact with Diana's hacking too.

I was somewhat concerned initially because Stagger Rate is a visible stat in game but it doesn't seem to be an issue at all, at least on Standard from what I played.

The bulk of the setup is done by Diana's side of the gameplay and her Node system can even seemingly force stunlocks so it's fine.

Movement!

Hugh's inertia on turning is obvious but it's pretty easy to deal with tbh

Dash cancels bypass landing recovery to smooth it out and maxed dash unlocks really early.

But... those hyper realistic renders right there on DMC3...

Pragmata does not feel like a 2026 video game.

Hugh has inertia on his movement so you gotta be a little careful here and there but everything else feels so snappy that it's like a game from a different time.

Knifing a Regenerador on Professional in the GameCube version of RE4 should be an experience everyone goes through at least once in life.

Dying over Kamiya, once again, saying in his book that Witch Time is the main mechanic of Bayonetta 1 and Dodge Offset is 'an extra for high level players'.

Yeah, this feels about right.

DLC is a remastered version of Old Game with AI generated assets.

I really need to figure out a way to consistently break Ardor's enemy AI like this.

Purely because it looks so stupid.

I wonder where the idea that DMC3 and 4 didn't aim for realism in the character models came from...

Pragmata being <10h in length...

This might be the one.

The first game is full of stuff like that.

The section where we meet Jeanne has a hint that she is kind controlled in the cutscene but no one is ever gonna pick up on that unless you do several watches and borderline frame by frame it when you already know the twist.

RE4 vs RE4R picking up again, hmm...

Guess it's time to whip out some blocks and mutes so it's joining discussion about a certain series starring a ninja, topic is past the point of parody by now.