#Luka Umbra

[arianwen44]

Hi!!! Huge fan of your monster animatic - I have to ask how Luka and Vayen are doing??

Hello!! Thank you so much! 💖

Uh… they’re fine… I’m sure…

[akirawrites24]

My take on Bayonetta 3

What the fuck was that ending supposed to mean, if not the whole story!

1: Where was Loki? He would have done something to prevent this shit.

2: In what universe are we supposed to play in!? Clearly not the one that we played in before. As Bayonetta wasn’t even a family name (was never mentioned. And Balder would know it if it was in the 2nd game to recognize Bayonetta as Cereza) up until the third game.

3: giving Luka powers. WHY. He was more interesting as a normal human, it was nothing more then an excuse to make BayoLuka canon. As it was stated Bayonetta would never date him as he dies long before her. And in the first two games, she clearly only sees him as a toy. Nothing more or less. And may i remind everyone that in the third and second game they had little to no screen time together at all!?

4: WHY DID THEY KILL OFF JEANNE MORE THEN ONCE!? She was only there to bring back Bayonetta’s memories in the first game and was pretty much tossed aside in the last 2 games. #justiceforjeanne 

5: God why, why the lovers by fate part? (It’s heavily implied that every Bayonetta ends up with Luka) where the fuck is the fun in that!? It’s boring and there is no surprise in any of them. Let Bayonetta be single or at least put her together with Jeanne, Rodin or even Enzo for all i care in a few multiverses!  6: Why didn’t any Bayonetta survive in any universe? She is one of thé strongest characters in game history, no way that she will be get caught of guard easily. She wasn’t even caught of guard when Loptr revealed himself when he was pretending to be Loki😭😭

7: Where was Balder and the angels?? Bayonetta is literally all about angels and Eyes of the world (they aren’t even mentioned though it is what the game started it’s adventure in the first place) no way that they didn’t think that the worlds were ending cause they were gone.

8: Why did they feel the need to kill off Rosa again? Bayonetta didn’t had it in her to kill Egyptian Jeanne, but she could with Rosa?? HER OWN MOTHER? Oh please.

9: What the hell is Singularity even supposed to be?? Some robot/human guy that wants it’s own universe.

10: Where did the Chaos Gears come from? Why were they in other universes? How were they created? Who created them??

11: Why doesn’t have any weapon it’s own unique taunt anymore? Why can’t they be equipped on feet and hands individually? 

12: What the hell is the Arch Eve even supposed to be? The strongest Umbra Witch? And why does the Earth vanish if the Arch Eve is killed? What happened when humans weren’t there yet? Was it just a white void like what we have seen in Bayo 3?

13: Where the fuck was Rodin in this? He could have helped a LOT. (Especially as he knows his business is in danger as everyone fucking dies)

14: Did all the worlds get restored? Did Bayonetta and Luka get out of Inferno? HELP

15: Wasted opportunity not to give us a version of Bayonetta where she is a Lumen Sage.

MOST LIKELY MORE THINGS I AM UNSATISFIED ABOUT BUT OKAY

[death-rebirth-senshi]

It's really funny that they explicitly give Bayonetta a cutscene healing factor/I suppose healing magic is more what's happening in a game where we see Bayonettas die in really dumb ways left and right.

Like obviously Umbra Witches have always been mortal, we see other witches get eaten by Fortitudo, but it's funny for them to explicitly be like "Yes Bayonetta can survive getting stabbed and heal away the damage. The other Bayos and Jeanne can't though."

[wired-heartbeats]

I get bored sometimes

[thedemonlady]

Bayonetta 3 Trailer 

28/10/2022

[tenshiharmonia]

Bayonetta Recap - Part 6

        III - Miscellaneous notes

- Regarding the characters based on already existing species of angels and demons (like Joy or Malicious), I was considering giving them their own names, to make them feel more like actual individuals than expendable tools. I mean, since Máni and Apollonia care about them as friends, it would make sense. So my idea was that Máni’s demons would have been named after lunar craters, like "Tycho" or "Aristarchus", while Apollonia’s angels would have been named after stars, like "Aldebaran" or "Fomalhaut" (those are just examples, by the way ; I didn’t really think about which names I’d actually like to use*). Ideally, they would also have their own unique appearances, slightly different from the other members of their species to mark them more as individuals... But in the end (and without even taking into account the fact that I lack the artistic precision needed to concretize the idea), I cannot help but feel a little uncomfortable about the whole concept. I don’t know how to put it, but the thing is, I really like those angels and demons as they are, be it in names or in designs, so it kind of makes me feel like I would be desecrating them, if that makes any sense. I don’t know, maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill, but that’s how I feel on the matter. Still, I wanted to at least mention the idea. And maybe ask what you think of it. ;)

* For the record, though, I was considering "Bellatrix" (no, not that one) for the Joy. Etymologically speaking, it appears to mean "female warrior", which is already quite appropriate for the skilled and powerful guardian angel she is, but the fact that it contains the phoneme "bella", even if they are completely unrelated on a semantic level, makes it all the more fitting for such an enticing creature. Additionally, I was thinking about "Castor" and "Pollux" for the Grace and Glory brothers. Those ones are pretty self-explanatory, I guess, being the names of the two brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini, named after the mythological twin sons of Zeus and Leda, but I kind of like how the vowels of the stars’ names match those of the angels’ names (Grace and Castor, Pollux and Glory) ; I thought it was quite funny. Moreover, of the two twins, Pollux is said to be the only one who was actually sired by Zeus, so it would be quite fitting for his name, as the son of the god of thunder, to be given to an angel who controls lightnings...

- If this was an actual game, I like to think that the Moon-themed song of the adventure (you know, like "Fly me to the Moon" and "Moon River" for the first two games) would be a cover of "It's only a paper moon". Since Frank Sinatra seems to be the common denominator between the two aforementioned songs, I limited myself to his repertoire. (For the record, "Reaching for the Moon" and "The Moon was yellow (and the Night was young)" were also considered. And if we don’t limit ourselves to Sinatra’s discography, I also thought of the "Moon Song", from the movie "her", a charming duet whose only downside is its painfully uncreative title.) Anyway, I think that a Bayonetta remix of "It's only a paper moon" could indeed make for quite a stylish battle theme. As for the traditional pole dance section of the credits, I searched for the most languorous version of the song there is, and I think that Harry Nilsson’s cover would be ideal. It’s oh so fittingly slow and sensual... Alternatively, I’m also pretty fond of Paul McCartney’s version. It’s a little more upbeat than Harry Nilsson’s performance, but it could be an interesting choice... (For good measure, I also like to imagine that it would be a double choreography featuring both Bayo and Máni. :3 )

- It has technically nothing to do with my characters, but I must say that I really like Luka and Rodin as a pair (and even more, if you see what I mean :3 ). They admittedly don’t share a lot of scenes, but what little chemistry they displayed in the epilogue of the second game was certainly delightful, so I’d definitely like to give them a larger part in the plot and explore their relationship.

- It’s probably a little weird to think about such a detail without even knowing what the plan would actually entail, but I’d like for Máni and Apollonia’s grand design to be referred to as the "Last Judgement". Because it’s bad*ss. (Alternatively, it could simply be the title of the story’s ultimate segment...)

- Now that I think about it though, their plan could maybe involve some form of massive, forced reincarnation and the idea of passing judgement on the Trinity of Realities, sorting the wheat from the chaff before severing the ties between the three realms… Or maybe they could go full-on Neon Genesis Evangelion and try to force humanity to ascend to godhood... I’ll really have to make up my mind regarding what their goal could be...

- That being said, I like to think that, for their own selfish reasons, the forces of Paradiso and Inferno would also be trying to prevent the siblings’ project from coming to fruition. So the latter parts of the game would take place while Glitnir is under attack, invaded by an army of angels on one side, and by an army of demons on the other, as everyone is rushing to Apollonia’s sanctum to prevent Baphomet and her from enacting the last stages of their plan...

- Since each of the three playable characters would have their own collection of weapons, we’ll also need plenty of Gold LPs to unlock all those bad boys (although luring demons with angelic music would probably not be the only way to gain new weapons this time around, especially for Máni, since a large part of his arsenal would be powered by souls his infernal friends would willingly lend him). So to conclude this recap, here is a list of the various pieces of music I’d like to use for this purpose (I’m not a music expert, so excuse me if I mostly use the colloquial names of those songs) : "Air on G string" (Bach) ; "Worthy is the Lamb" (Handel) ; "Veni Creator Spiritus" (Mahler) ; "Te Deum - Prelude" (Charpentier) ; "Wedding March" (Mendelssohn) ; "Sempre libera" (Verdi) ; "Flower Duet" (Delibes) ; "Magnificat" (Liszt) ; "The Infernal Gallop" (Offenbach) ; "Boléro" (Ravel) ; "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle/Habanera" (Bizet) ; "Le veau d'or est toujours debout" (Gounod) ; "Graceful Ghost Rag" (William Bolcom) ; "Dance of the Hours" (Ponchielli)... And many, many more. I was also thinking there would be a special "Ode to Joy" LP, handed by Apollonia herself, as part of the main story or maybe as a reward for a post-game sidequest (or maybe looted from her personal collection XD ), that would allow Cereza to unlock one of the game’s ultimate weapons. I also considered having her gift it to Máni instead, but as I said, her brother’s weapons are actually rarely crafted with the help of an angelic LP, so in the end, I thought it’d make more sense for her to give it to Bayonetta, as a token of friendship and good faith, in a "I heard that your blacksmith friend uses recordings of angelic voices to gather the resources he needs to craft your weapons, so please take this one ; I'm sure it will help him make something especially dandy..." kind of way.

[vendetta-if]

Chapter 4 Public Update 🎉

First of all: Happy new year, everyone 🥳🎊 I wish all of you an awesome year ahead!

Now, on to the Chapter Update! Chapter 4 contains 46K words which brings the total word count to 189K words! Chapter 4 is actually the largest update yet that I've done in a month clocking at 46K words instead of the usual 20-30K words update (I really pushed myself this month, didn't I 😅)

However, this update doesn't just bring the entirety of Chapter 4, but also some new and tweaked stuff on the previous chapters. So, I would recommend playing from the beginning if you want to see what's changed for yourself. I'll list out things I changed from the previous chapter below.

Now, a lot of you are probably aware of this already, but some of the things you'll do in this chapter are:

Meet Yvette and finally have a proper conversation with her (a lot of variations and different decisions).

Choose what you feel about her now. Do the years soften your hatred for her? Or maybe they've made you resent her even more?

Meet the rising star superhero—and your mother's protégé—Skylar Moore.

Meet the black sheep of the ECPD, Detective Santana Valdez.

Have a talk with the CEO of the Constellation Agency!

What have been updated in previous chapters include:

- Added a new clothing style, which is the “All black” clothing style to match the style that Luka is wearing (popular demand 😆)

- Added flavour texts for those choosing “Beatrice” or “Virgil”/“Vergil” codename.

- The skill check limits in Chapter 3 have been lowered. To succeed in the hotel entry, you’ll need at least 50 in the corresponding skill instead of 55. And to succeed in the CQC combat, you’ll now only need (Combat + Grav) or (Combat + Umbra) at least 105 instead of the previous 115.

- Make the Police Commissioner’s unsavoury connection to the Nemesis Project more apparent.

- Tweak how MC reacts to executing the Police Commissioner. Now, it’s based more on whether you chose your MC to be ready, hesitant, or don’t want to kill him in Chapter 2 when talking to Grandpa.

Oh, and also, I'm planning to make quick and fun polls on the ROs and Yvette in my CoG Forum post, so, if you guys have an account there, consider casting your vote 😁

[DEMO] | [PATREON] | [KO-FI]

[COG FORUM] | [DISCORD]

[fazuellibutbayonetta]

Viola redesign?

Yes

I'm not sure what exactly she is - because while I really like the "She's a Bayojeanne kid" side of things, I also love the theory/headcanon made by @leolithe (original post!) that Viola is actually just an amalgamation of all the people Bayo knows and loves - Rodin, Jeanne, Luka, Enzo, Loki, so on and so forth - so I ended up making two lore bombs under the cut to go along with both, since I couldn't decide on just one

Viola being a Bayojeanne Kid

With Viola being a Bayojeanne kid, I could see a "Possesed/Kidnapped by the Fae" situation going on with her

If you're like me, you didn't like Singularity. Hell, if you're truly like me you hated Singularity. Which is why I'm benching him from his villain pedestal in favor of the Fae.

Fae are much more compelling villains, and if the Cereza and The Lost Demon Cereza is the same Cereza as Bayonetta 3, then I'm pretty fucking sure the Fae are itching for revenge.

Aaaaaand what better revenge on a witch than to take her cub away?

And that's what happened - once Bayo and Jeanne had their little baby girl the rebel coalition of Faeries started plotting on how to steal her away. They probably have agents or spies to keep tabs on them, and once Viola was idk maybe a young teenager - they came in and snatched her away right under her mothers' noses.

The Faeries plan wasn't to just replace Viola with a Fae double - that would be too mild to be proper revenge for what Cereza did to them - so instead they settled for transforming Viola into a Fae, so she would never return to her mothers at all.

...but they failed to realize that not only were they messing with Umbra Witch MOTHERS, they were also messing with an Umbra Witch CHILD.

Cereza and Jeanne at least have some self control over themselves and their magic. Viola had a whooping total of none, zero, negative, she was a ball of chaos and untamed demonic potential - she was arguably worse than child Cereza ever HOPED TO BE, and that's how a portion of Avalon Forest dissapeared in one night 💀.

But to make things clear, what happened was that Viola was able to stop the Fae ritual before they could complete it - and then proceeded to cause massive chaos on the Avalon Forest while trying to get out, only for Cereza and Jeanne to come in, rescue her and trash the remaining Faeries like they were in a Rage Room.

However, some effects from the Fae ritual still were present in Viola, and it didn't matter how much they tried to, it wouldn't come off - so Viola had to learn to live as a 1/3 Fae from then on. Which, as far as Viola is concerned, if having a very powerful Fae form and a sick ass hair and face mark is living as a 1/3 Fae, then she's good with it lmao

And yes, due to the ritual being stopped at about halfway, it caused Viola to have this angry looking dark purple mark on her face - her purple hair strands aren't painted, it's just because the face marking seeped into her hair and made it into THAT. She thinks it's cool tho :)

Viola being an amalgamation of all the people Cereza loves/loved (Fae creation)

With Viola being an amalgamation of Cereza's memories created by the Fae, I can see her as being meant to be a weapon that chose to not be a weapon

In this scenario, I can see Viola being meant to be a counter attack against Cereza - "the only one who can defeat me is myself" and all that - essentialy, a glorified clone.

The Fae used up all their knowledge gathered about Cereza and her family circle, and crafted Viola based on those people and memories. She has everything - Jeanne's volatile/short fuse nature, Balder's flair for dramatics, Luka's determination, Rodin's resourcefulness, even Enzo's goofyness and Rosa's agility and steadiness, Loki's sassy behavior and desire for independence, and most importantly, Cereza's power.

She was born and bred to be the perfect anti-Cereza weapon, capable of blocking any and all her attacks, and counter them accordingly - but with how many people were used to make her, her mind is a jumble of feelings and memories that are not her own at all, and they influence her in ways the Fae didn't imagine it would.

Cereza's love for her mom, the memories of the sadness over not being able to rescue her, her love for Jeanne, how she considers Enzo, Luka and Rodin as her family and would do anything to protect them, all of her experiences and feelings and memories - Viola feels all, she knows everything, for fuck's sake she can hear Cereza's heart bleeding for these people - and she can't find it in herself to ever turn her hand against them, she feels too much, she's too soft. She also feels for Cereza too, how could she not, when she was made from her?

However, as much as she has Cereza's memories and feelings, she slowly begins to wish for her own self, to not be a weapon or a clone or just another Fae, but Viola, her own person with her own feelings and her own experiences. Which is what drives her to reach out for Cereza and her family as a call for help (the gang probably adopt her as a collective but she only calls Cereza [and maybe Jeanne] Mom)

The facial markings and hair are from the fact that while she is quite the outstanding creation, she's still both a Fae and an imperfect copy. Viola is not human, or Umbra (her ability to activate Witch Time comes from Cereza's memories, not really from a natural place within herself), she is and will always be Fae until the day she's dead, and she's not a perfect carbon copy of Cereza either - she has her own emotions and reactions that are wildly different from Cereza herself.

Another thing that is worth mentioning, is that one of the reasons Viola couldn't find it in herself to attack any of Cereza's family might be because she was made from the people she loved - love was the key in the equation, if the Fae had made Viola using only what Cereza hated (angels for example) chances are they would have a much more effective but volatile weapon (Viola evil counterpart maybe 👀?)

Aaaaand that's it for Viola for now, I must say I prefer the Amalgamation!Viola tho gotta love experiments that learn to be human 😍

[rubyyrezaa]

I’ve seen a lot of arguments surrounding Bayonetta 3, especially regarding Bayoluka, saying that queers who didn’t like the game were just mad that Bayo ended up with a man.

The problem wasn’t that her “love interest” ended up being a man, it’s the fact that that man was Luka.

The comedic-relief side character that detested Bayonetta for the vast majority of the first game over the misconception that she murdered his father. The guy that Bayonetta treated like a child and never took seriously, even going as far as to nickname him “Cheshire” after her childhood toy.

Out of all the characters that they could have paired with the Bayonetta, you know, the Umbra Witch who literally fought god and won, they picked…that

[mememan93]

you sound like you want to talk about Luka. Wanna talk about Luka?

BOY DO I

For people who haven't played bayonetta, Luka is a reocurring character in all 3 games. He's an investigative journalist, following his father's footsteps in investigating myths. In bayonetta 1, he's trying to learn about the Clans of the Umbra Witches and The Lumen Sages, and events 500 years prior, which is what Bayonetta is trying to remember.

At the same time, He's looking to expose bayonetta to the world, because he blames her for the death of his father. His father found bayonetta's sealed coffin and opened it, releasing bayonetta.

He's wrong, obviously. Bayonetta didn't kill Luka's father, Angels looking for Bayonetta did. Humans like Luka can't see the angels, (think the mist from percy jackson) so to luka it looked like bayonetta tore his father apart with magic.

So Luka spends his whole life looking for a chance at revenge, and to avenge his father.

Throughout the game, the pair keep meeting up, as they're looking for the same thing (Even if they don't realize it yet) and bayonetta keeps saving Luka (But again, he can't see what from, so from his perspective she's shoving him around for no reason.)

Eventually, Bayonetta finds a child (it's actually bayonetta as a kid but thats not important rn) and hands her off to Luka, whos first reaction is to get super protective of the child

Again, Luka is wrong, but its a reasonable conclusion to make. Luka, after taking care of the child for a while, eventually tries to get information out of the kid, and gets his chance to see the angels for the first time.

And now that he's starting to get a real perception on reality, he's actively trying to help out Bayonetta

Going as far as to get jeanne's detonator from her (before getting blown up, but hes ok)

Then after Bayonetta remebers who jeanne is before jeanne dies* and gets shot into a building, luka's checks up on bayonetta. Claiming its for his own ego, but hes obviously lying

So then the main villain has him killed in the same way his father was, but bayonetta saves him, making him finally realize what actually happened

So bayonetta saves the world and dies* in the process, so luka shows up to her funeral with a whole ass thing of rosemary (there was a line abt it being a demon repellent)

because he's guilty. He hated her his entire life for no reason and he knows that now, and she was selfless enough to sacrifice herself* for the entire world. He's not there because hes in love with her, hes there because he feels guilty for how he treated her, and just when they started to become friends she died*

Luka isn't in love with bayonetta here, and she's certainly not in love with him. Luka has grown, but not grown in the romantic sense. And as for bayonetta, she moved in with jeanne... and oh my god they were roommates

*shes not dead, this is like the 5th fakeout death of the game and like 3 of them were Luka LMAO

[ardynsflower]

Luka, Bayonetta, And Jeanne with a s/o who’s really affectionate and kind with them.

First, I know the whole fandom is almost dead, but bayonetta 3 is on his way and it’s my time to shine. I really love Luka, Bayoyo and Jea’. No spoils here.

Type: Fluff !

TW: None.

———

Luka

- A gentleman with you !

- Please, be ACTUALLY kind and don’t call him with the name that Bayonetta use. He honestly hates it cause he feel treated as if he still was a child.

- Hugs with Luka are like, hugging a giant soft bear, and they get even better when he got a bad day. He’s desperate for your affection after it.

- If you’re with him and Cereza when Bayonetta is in paradise and when she cry’s for her, he’ll absolutely wanna marry you if sees you helping her to feel better. Seeing your kindness, his heart is doing…Badaboom boom ! Super fast. See.

- obviously, he’ll stop flirting with every woman he sees.

- If you defend him when Bayonetta will go too far about THAT, (yes it will maybe happen sometimes) he will feel embarrassed about getting "protected" but also feel loved.

- A 8/10, i think. He can be a little flirty flirty before your established relationship.

Bayonetta

- Nah because she flirts too much with you to hide her blushing cheeks 😭. Please she loves you, she ain’t got a lot of affection in her whole life and could kill a country and more for you to live peacefully. (At least, she kills angels.)

-Will love proposing you to dance with her when it’s late at night.

-Please please please please please kiss her on the forehead and the nose !! She loves it. Boop it and boom, you got an happy and loving Bayonetta ! No flirt needed for her when you do it.

-Takes you on her shoulders if you’re short, a giant woman can easily take a little gremlins..

-Get a fever when you’re kind and caring, she really feels like a whole person, cause sometimes, you know…the Left Eye of the world remember his lonely times.

-Cereza will call you "Second Mommy", but don’t worry, she loves you as much as she do for Bayonetta.

-She loves when you try to do her haircut ! She finds you really cute and will braid your hair like Cereza’s one. Bayonetta is just a touch starved witch for you, not a flirty brat. A 9/10 <3.

Jeanne

- Obviously she’s not really into affection. She’s more like, act of service. But she’ll still appreciate the feeling. Not a big fan of PDA tbh.

- I believe she can be kind but not as much as you can. She can have some regrets about getting bratty with you if you still wanna hug her or kiss her. Sometimes she just want to run away, she don’t want to get too attached to you. Scared of losing her love.

-If you need help for anything, she will do the work ! And with pleasure, for the bonus.

-If and only IF you both are in a established relationship for a long time, she’ll be more open to it.

-It feels like you guys are in a professional relationship for others, and she is relaxed to know that it worked well. Your couple is pretty happy and nobody knows about it, perfect, isn’t it ?

-Will thank you for caring about her with gifts. It means a lot, and you get even more close to her heart every time.

-Sings very well, so, if you find love song wrote in the umbra language, she feels blessed about knowing that you don’t understand a single thing. A lovely and deserved 8/10.

———

:^

[sleepyfaequeen]

Bayonetta Headcanons

Warning(s): implied sexual themes

Jeanne

This woman would never allow anyone to talk you down and if they do they better prepare for an insult and an invitation to death valley.

She thinks you look spectacular in anything but if you ever introduce her to your wardrobe prepare for judgement. It's not that Jeanne wants to make you cry. It's the fact she knows a thing or two about fashion. This woman already rocks red leather and she's always dressed to impress no one but herself. Slaayyy!

She likes to gift you things like handbags, heels and clothes. If it's not your style she will think more on your gifts to hopefully please your eye.

She has also gifted you stylish goggles so that you would ride with her. She's slowly preparing you to come with her in one of her "witchy adventures."

She won't admit it but Bayonetta think it's cute that Jeanne seems more "giddy" when your around. She especially gets flustered when Bayonetta brings up inviting you to things like tea.

This woman will die if she sees you wearing her gifted red leather jacket she bought for you. But if it's just the jacket and heels this woman is going to enter panther mode.

Bayonetta

This woman has a thing for you and she's not afraid to show it. Like quite literally. She loves to just have you around her. Just seeing your face is like a breath of fresh air from her Umbra work.

She loves to include you into things like shopping with Enzo barking out nonsense as he carries all your bags. But be prepared to be showered with so much gifts. Holidays are probably the best and the worst because Bayonetta loves to go above and beyond for you.

The woman knows how to tease you and if she can't- trust me, she'll find your inner dirty secret and use that to tease you. She means no harm but she just loves the idea of you getting so flustered(even Luka is jealous).

Bayonetta loves to do anything with you or for you. There's not a thing she can't do for you because she thinks you deserve the best for winning her heart. One thing is for sure, she would enjoy a nice and quiet hot bubble bath with you. She thinks it's a calm and romantic way of being with you. Intimate or not.

[not-playable-character]

Everyone always mentions the character assassination of Bayo, but no one mention that both Luka and Jeanne were treated like garbage too.

They fundamentally changed Luka to make him the Mostest Special Boi In the Universe ™.  In all the previous games he was never special, and thats what made him special.  Also he was never a guide, the guiding people for all the games were Balder for 1, Rodin/Jeanne for 2, and Viola for 3.  Luka was always there by coincidence or just following Bayo around (in the case of the first game).  He was a babysitter at least and an exposition machine at most, and thats not a bad thing.  He was invaluble to the plot for that reason, in the first game he helped care for cereza when bayo ran off to do her thing and he would explain things that Bayo couldnt remember and need the information to move forward.  That right there is the worst bit they took from him in giving him his magic powers and having him have a combined conciousness.  Luka is SMART, sure hes goofy and silly but this man is smart.  He speaks and reads at least 2 dead languages, found out about a long dead and buried society whose history was burned to the ground purposefully, found artifacts to help him study these cultures.  These powers will take away from that fundamental part of his character (he even says it does in the final stridor fight where he berates himself).  Hes a goofy, perverted genius with a heart of gold and they ruined that making him Special ™

With Jeanne, they did my girl dirty in the latest game.  They made The Heir to the Umbran Throne (technically the elder but this isnt time for that) get killed by some dude in a pod.  You are telling me that the strongest Umbra to live cant sense that the guy who is literally saying “im gonna kill you” is gonna stab her in the back, WHILE shes in the middle of battle where shes surrounded??  Im not 100% but I can almost guarantee that Bayo once dodged Balder’s sword when he attacked from behind in 2 and she was trained by Jeanne.  She also couldnt tell that sigurd was evil?? Really? He was screaming evil, and she should have experience with creepy evil men in a secret facility.  They just really dumbed her down so much, she didnt even get to use her powers until ch12.  Also it goes against the Jeanne dying trope of it always being a heroic sacrifice for Cereza. 

I had more thoughts but i cant remember them anymore so this is the end of this nonsense

[xenosagaepisodeone]

We're about 3/4th done the game and the reviews were not kidding when they said that the gameplay was perfect while the story is ass. There's so much personality zapped from the cast. Every AU Bayonetta gets unceremoniously killed in the same scene she's introduced sans Cairo Bayo (whose arc with Cairo Jeanne I really liked! Why couldn't the whole game have been like this!?). Luka's character is reinvented from the ground up in order to justify his sudden plot relevance and ends up taking half the established mythos of the game's universe down with it. Bayo takes a bizarre amount of Ls from her enemies and turns into an awkward mess every time Luka comes up (the character assassination comments were not kidding. who is this woman). If this Bayo is the little girl from 1, then the fact that he calls her "Cerezita" while flirting with her is genuinely creepy and weird. Jeanne gets (predictably) sidelined, but I appreciate the Cutie J callbacks. This game is hardly about it's titular character (let alone the rest of the main cast), so it's hard to get invested in any of these huge changes they're making to game's universe. as far as I'm concerned, it feels like they were trying to get away with actually making Scalebound? The random sci-fi elements make the tone feel completely alien at times, and the whole multiverse plot is somehow more convoluted than the Umbra witches and Lumen sages story.

I desperately want to like Viola, but she doesn't have anything going for her beyond "Nero clone". The fact that the game outright tells you whose kid she is in the beginning just makes the fact that she's never upfront about it during pivotal story moments so frustrating. She doesn't get enough meaningful interaction with the cast to make her interesting to me. Her interactions with Bayo in particular directly contradict how the game initially says she should feel about her. They REALLY are trying to DMCV this game with her, but the way that all the story issues are intertwined with her existence put it closer to Parasite Eve Third Birthday.

"who cares about Bayonetta's plot" Me. I do. Because I like it to watch women get a little wacky and campy and these elements were missing terribly.

[itsmadeofwaffles]

Love Viola, but she was awfully mistreated by the story, she deserves more than just being tossed into a messy plot and end as just the child of/next in line for.

The game introduced fae for the first time, why not introduce her as a full fledged fae who ran to the human realm because after the loss of the Eyes of the world, the menace known as Singularity started a crusade to merge all of the trinity of realities into a single realm.

"Oh? But how are you going to introduce the multiverse in this?"

You might ask, the answer is really simple:

If the Umbra and Lumen keep the equilibrium of the trinities, the Fae are in a parallel mirror realm watching over the multiverse. And Singularity is after the destruction of everything and the creation of the alfaverse.

Viola is not related to any of them, but because she is the youngest one and she tries to be so mature and serious all the time while also being super clumsy and a dork she becomes everyone's child.

There's no arch-eve/arch-adam subplot because the story focuses on the equilibrium of the multiverse and not some last minute made up romance nonsense.

As the game progresses Viola grows to admire and trust both Bayonetta and Jeanne for being so cool and reliable, somehow she gets along really well with Luka and Enzo, and Rodin refuses to give her anything but hot cocoa w marshmallows at the bar.

For me she is a fun character to play with (even if I rarely can activate witch time as her), and can offer a lot of possibilities, but somehow it feels like they threw her into the game and then had no idea what to do after that.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I think if you were going to do a ML/Winx story, have at least your main character from Earth, with the "Earth's Magic hasn’t been around for ages" thing, so you could use the "explain to the new kid" thing. Just don’t know who. Chloe is probably from Eraklyon, Adrien's from somewhere cat related, Kagami's from Domino, Luka and Juleka from Musa's planet (Juleka's dad from Umbra?), Rose from Flora's . . . Marinette could be half-something? Idk

YES

YES!!!