Bayonetta Ultimate

"The Umbra Witches are Back"
Bayonetta Ultimate, also known as Bayonetta 1+2, Bayonetta: Anniversary or Project: Ultimate is a remake of both Bayonetta 1 and 2 for Scorpio, Pro, Steam, Switch, and RazerPocket. Sega chose to buy Bayonetta 2 from Nintendo, so they can contribute to Project: Ultimate for Platinum by having both games to all consoles alongside some bonuses. It features 4K 60fps graphics and Bayonetta's arrival on Steam. Platinum and Sega would collaborate again to make Bayonetta Ultimate, a remake with both Bayonetta 1 and 2 alongside a bonus 3rd campaign and other features.
The game has been noted to be a compilation, and as a result of the two games in one for each console at the time, it sold well.
==New Features==
The game has the two campaigns and everything except for the Nintendo exclusive materials. Here are the new features:
*Mommy Mode (which makes the visuals kid-friendly by replacing the gore with red to pink hearts and Bayonetta keeps her uniform when she summons like in Smash Bros. Also, profanity is censored via silence or magic.)
*New weapons (Lumen Laser, Custom Runesword, and the Cross Vulcan!)
*A bonus campaign (The Lumen Empire) unlockable by beating Bayonetta 2 on Infinite Climax (similar in fashion to Netmarble's Seven Knights except on the loops the story continue seperately) (damage to Bayonetta is around Commander in Devastation) (and in Lumen City it is around Magnus to Prime difficulty damage and everyone is immune to flinching means even if you combo them they can still attack at the same time)
**Sequel Difficulty Drop: Bayonetta now has new combos similar to that from Devastation (Panther Strike and Still Safe which is a upgraded version of Bat Within). Oh, and she can now become a nuker if you were to max out damage with the Runesword? Oh, and secret relics that boost damage or add more hits? 
*Revive Charms (up to 10 can be carried and players would be buying this a lot since the enemies in the Tundra and Lumen City hit like a truck like in Devastation)
*Players can now have up to 3 full bars
*Lock-On Targeting: AI has now improved on auto-attack so it can now activate Witch Time (however if you auto for too long Bayonetta or Jeanne will say "Who wants to watch me fight from your TV?")
*Boss Rush Trial (difficulty can be changed and does not include bonus bosses)
*Secret Relics (start with a full magic gauge or phantom sword for double hits)
*Survival Mode: How long can you survive against hordes of the Lumen? (enemies spawn at constant rates and get stronger and spawn faster as the longer you survive. Black and Gold Lumen Legion appear in this mode as well and also the Lumen Recon Squad including the Freyja, Rose, Joker, Mechanic and Windseeker which are special forces that only appear in the Lumen City. (only 5 revives can be used)
==Weapons==
Here are the new weapons for Bayonetta Ultimate. 
Weapon Name 	Description 	How to Get
Lumen Laser 	Fire a laser constantly at enemies (which is an more stronger Love is Blue) 	Complete the first chapter of the Tundra.
Custom Runesword 	Customize this runesword to be a combo dealer, or a ranger, or even a nuker! (very high damage input) 	Buy it from Rodin for 1,000,000 halos
Tornado Blades 	Dual sword with wild runes. Do wild slashes and summon tornados. (Umbran Climax's combos are based off Korra's Airbending with full Chi Gauge that can hit like up to hundred times) Torture Attack instead summons 5 homing tornados that hit 30 times each for 100% melee damage. (only weapon that customizes the Torture Attack)	Find the Lumen Windseeker's LP pieces.
Optimus 	An small autogun that shoots bursts at enemies and has a gear antenna (Umbra Climax throws a turret that shoots at enemies and has rockets) 	Find the Lumen Mechanic's LP pieces.
Crimson Magnus 	A magnum that shoots piercing bullets at enemies (Umbra Climax adds double-strike and extra damage) Best weapon for bossing. 	Find the Lumen Rose's LP pieces
Multi-Target Rifle 	Freeze the enemies and then paint them with the rifle up to 20 shots. Bayonetta will fire 20 shots doing 500% nuke damage. (100% nuke damage is a single slash with max damage) 	Complete the Tundra.
Spur 	Shoots large magnum bullets, but holding it down charges a heavy laser which pierces enemies.  	Find the Lumen Freyja's LP pieces.
Nemesis 	Shoots lightning which does melee damage. Strangely, if you Umbra Climax with it, it shoots slow mecha Umbra Ducks which do scratch damage but explode if you Umbra Climax again while it is in effect (doesn't need Magic gauge)) 	Find the Lumen Joker's LP pieces
Cross Vulcan 	With it, use Y to shoot bullets, and then B to charge up and shoot lasers which do nuke damage! 	Buy it for 500,000 halos
Apocalypse Type-Lumen	Cast blood slashes which hit multiple times. Umbran Climax to summon blood void spheres to hit up to 30 times in 3 seconds. 	Complete "Project Apocalypse"
==Secret Relics==
Only 3 relics can be taken per chapter. Once started, you cannot change them as they will take action once you begin, and unlike accessories, they cannot be taken off. 
Relic Name 	Effect
Shadow Dagger 	Combos and guns hit twice (to make combo scoring easier by doubling the amount of hits)
Fast N Furious Bracelet	Doubles your attack speed.
Crusader's Gauntlet 	Double damage (if you want to go nuke the enemies instead)
Crimson Rose 	Umbran Climaxing now makes your bullets super powerful (300% melee damage)
Magic Charm 	Start with a full Magic Gauge
==New Playable Characters==
Aside from the main 5 playable characters from both games, there are new playable characters also with fixed weapons and special Torture attacks which either buff the player or instead nuke the enemies.
Character Name	Description 	Weapon 	Torture Attack/Climax Burst
Shion 	The Umbra Emperor. He aims to take back what the Lumen had fought against for.	Void Katana: Phantom slashes that hit up to 5 times with high range. 	Pylon Purge: Summons lightning pylons (the amount of enemies) and then executes them with 30 hits each.
Starride 	An Umbran warrior who aims to fight with honor in her. 	Faith: An katana with phantom homing swords 	Conqueror: Starride summons an Umbran Drill to pull all of the enemies within and explode. 
Aaron 	An Umbran angel that mastered the arts of heavenly wars. 	Seeker: A chained jewel that summons an arsenal of magic. 	Fleur dis Lee: Aaron summons a giant eye-crest that annihilates everyone (25 hits, splash explosion)
Esther 	An Lumen soldier who mastered the art of demon-hunting.  	Kinesis Blade: A blade that morphs from a broadsword to a giant heavy sword.	Flight of the Goddess: Esther calls upon the Light Goddess to bless her, doubling her combat hits and speed. Stacks alongside for up to 48 hits on a spin attack in 2 seconds. 
Lohe 	An master fighter who is skilled within the crimson powers of his fist 	Elemental Fists: Utilizes the power of the demons to crush his enemies 	Kaiser: Lohe calls upon the Kaiser, a giant demon to destroy every enemy in the battlefield.
Miriam 	An agent of the cursed. Summons powerful spirits to fight alongside her. 	Soul Scepter: A queen's wand that summons phantom souls. 	Night Parade of 100 Souls: Miriam slashes and summons an army of souls to crush her enemies. 
==Bonus Campaign ==
Here are the chapters for the bonus campaign in Bayonetta Ultimate. A * means this is a "That One Level" on TVTropes.
===Tundra===
Chapter Name 	Verses	Length 	Design 	Total Enemies
Frigid Cold 	11 	10 minutes	Tundra 	78
Robo Rampage*	9 	15 minutes	Robot ruins	112
Blazing Hope 	7 	12 minutes	Battlefield	48 (1 boss)
===Lumen City===
Chapter Name 	Verses	Length 	Design 	Enemies
Lumen Skirmish	11 	20 minutes 	City 	65
Sealed Route* 	3  	150 seconds (pre-nerf)	Gorge Road	32 (1 boss)
Umbran Raid 	10  	18 minutes 	Temple 	69
Transcendence 	3 	
14 minutes 	Throne 	7 (1 boss)
*Robo Rampage: 9 verses, and enemies surround you constantly. Have fun dodging around waves of robots and tanks! Oh, and not to mention watch out for satellite lasers, rocket launchers and shields!
*Sealed Route: If your going for Pure Platinum, this is going to be an nightmare. Although this the shortest chapter, you've got very limited time to nuke 2 verses and nuke the boss. Oh, and not to mention this verse isn't combo friendly when it comes to Pure Platinum due to the very limited time which is actually 2 minutes and 30 seconds? An average player would finish at around 5 to 7 minutes. You have to ACTUALLY draw everyone together and then nuke them out. That has to rely on how you do your combos and nukes, but mostly luck. Oh, and unlike the other chapters, there are no cutscenes or dialogue. You just start right in the gameplay. Have fun dodging around Lancers and Sages as they get provoked outside of the screen and have flinch immunity! Oh, the fastest is close to 30 to 5 seconds before Pure Platinum time is up, and it's nearly impossible to do it without bringing the "start with full magic gauge" and "double-hit" relics and the double-speed accessory. (This would later lead to a Self-Imposed Challenge where you "Pure Platinum" Sealed Route without bringing the full magic gauge relic. Only 80 players did it and proved it as it's mostly a fest of RNG (depending on how long it takes for you to kill all of the "sponge" Bouncers.) and strategy attempts in a Platinum game. Not to mention within 2 months after they nerfed it by adding another 2 minutes and 15 seconds to the Pure Platinum time. (Platinum kept it in as a bonus like 300% Marie from Skullgirls) It's noted that only the Tornado Blades, Apocalypse Type Lumen and Shion are the only weapons/characters that could do it at the time. 
===Project: Apocalypse===
Project Apocalypse is indicated by a black and gold chapter card. It is a "lost chapter", but it's different from Witch Trials. There are cutscenes. Some experiment is going on called "Project Apocalypse" and it goes out of control. They try to stop it but they are unable to and then the screen fades to white. The description of this chapter says "According to this project, you can get the ultimate weapon!!!" You are then sent to the gameplay. The following notes for this chapter card are those:
*Only three revives (after you use up 3 revives it's an automatic game over with no continues)
*Although the 4 verses are linear as you get teleported to them, the order you'll fight the bosses is random. They are buffed with 2x speed and can combo you to death in seconds if you're careless. (Witch Time does not slow down melee attacks, only ranged attacks)
**Black and Gold Lumen Legion (3 Legends)
**The Lumen Recon Squad (Freyja, Rose, Mechanic and Windseeker) *That One Verse* (their slower, but can act as an Wolfpack Boss if your not careful with your "pull-n-nuke" strategy, the most popular strategy is to use the Black Hole Generator to pull them in, and then launch the Tornado Blades' Climax to nuke them out with tornados and slashes before they get the chance to launch their attacks as the Tornado Blades hit millions of times)
**Lumen Nemesis x2 (with machines of spawning Lumen Droids)
**Lumen Seraph x3
*The last verse is going to be Project: Apocalypse (aka Rodin 2.0 by fans) as it's an sci-fi fusion energy cyberdemon with SNK boss-like moves. He is immune to Witch Time and has a void bomb that must be parried as it one-shots the player, making it the first Bayonetta game where the player can die in one hit from an enemy's attack. He also heals over time 1 bar per 45 seconds, and has a maximum of 10 bars.
*The only cutscene is the intro, and unlike the other cutscenes it's a gameplay cutscene that runs at 60fps. There are no cinematics in the ending. (If there's no cinematic ending, a "chapter complete" message would appear, and your character would do a victory pose.)
*Because of how fast this chapter goes, the average times it takes to clear this is 5 to 7 minutes, while hardcore players (with the best weapons) win around 2 to 3 minutes.
*Anti-Frustration Feature: You get infinite time to Platinum this.
*Unlike other chapters which are more fantasy/demon world/angelic like, this one is more sci-fi as it takes place in a space station-like area (with computer screens and fusion reactors in the background). The only background sounds are the emergency red alarms (with red flashes at the start of each verse)
*You get the Apocalyse Type:Lumen weapon if you manage to beat this, which is a sword that hits dozens of times per strike.
===Enemies===
These are the enemies in the gameplay. A * means that this is a Demonic Spider on TVTropes.
====Tundra====
Enemy Name 	Description 	Introduction 	Toughness	Attack Power
Lumen Droid 	Manufactured by Lumen Labs.  	Droids come in aiming their cannon. 	High 	High (1/3 bar)
Lumen Tank 	A battle tank aimed for Lumen battlefields. 	Tanks aim their cannon and fire. 	Very High	High (1/3 bar)
Lumen Gatling*	Lumen Sages that are armed with vulcan guns. 	Lumen Sages will fire streams of bullets and sometimes a laser.	Medium 	Extreme (3/4 bar if the bullets were to connect) Very high (1/2 bar) for the laser.
Lumen Shield 	A defensive unit used for Lumen battlefields. 	Shields have ranged mortars that fire at enemies. 	Very High	High (1/3 bar)
Lumen Pyro 	Lumen Sages that have the ability to cast fire on it's enemy.	Lumen Pyros aim to shoot a fiery burst. 	Medium 	Very high (1/2 bar)
====Lumen City====
Enemy Name 	Description 	Introduction 	Toughness	Attack Power
Lumen Lancer* 	A knight on a horse working for the Lumen. Aims to destroy their enemy with flair.	Lancers come in charging at the player at same running speed 	High 	Extreme (3/4 bar) 
Lumen Sage 	Traditional Lumen Sage. Rivals the Umbran Witches and Wizards. 	Sages aim to fire magic and slash at the players. 	Very high	Very high (1/2 bar)
Lumen Bouncer 	A giant paladin created by the Lumen. 	White and red armored giant guards that wield hammers. 	Very High	Extreme (3/4 bar)
Lumen Crusader	Warriors aimed with halberds.  	Tall knights wearing a cape armed with a Halberd. They can parry attacks. 	Very High	Extreme (3/4 bar)
Lumen Archer 	Rangers armed with crossbow guns. 	Small rangers with goggles armed with crossbows. 	High 	Extreme (3/4 bar)
Lumen Witch 	Witches armed with gauntlets and 4 guns. 	They act the same way as Bayonetta and Jeanne. Shooting and melee hand attacks.	Very High	Very High (1/2 bar)
====Legendary====
These are enemies exclusive to Survival Mode and the black card "Project: Apocalypse"
Enemy Name 	Description 	Introduction 	Toughness	Attack Power
Lumen Seeker 	Legendary lancers. They are merciless to their target.	Black and gold lancers that seek their target flawlessly (they make homing turns and must be dodged via Witch Time)	Very High	Legend (1 bar)
Lumen Legend 	Legendary Lumen Sage. Has mastered all arts. 	Sages aimed with laser-speed ranged attacks and parries. 	Very High	Legend (1 bar)
Lumen Windseeker	Lumen warrior armed with two Tornado Blades. 	Warriors that are able to harness wind at their side. Be careful! 	High 	(Medium 1/4 bar from tornados) Legend from slashes
==Bewitchments==
Aside from regular achievements from Bayonetta 1 and 2, there are the following new ones.
Achievement Name	Description  	Rank
Bewitched 	You are the new Witch of Time! 	Platinum
Iron Witch 	Survive 30 minutes in survival mode.	Gold
The Tundra 	Complete the "Tundra" section 	Bronze
The City 	Complete the "Lumen City" section 	Bronze
The Laboratory 	Complete "Apocalypse Type: Void" 	Bronze
==Reception==
Bayonetta Ultimate got positive reviews so far. It scored 80's on Metacritic, a 8/10 on Gamespot, an 8/10 on IGN. As the game had both Bayonetta games in the series, with support for 4K 60fps, it was a high seller for Platinum at the time, making it Platinum's highest selling title.
Criticism by gamers involves the power creep, where at the end-game Tag Climax, players of the main Bayonetta and Jeanne, are notably rare, while a majority of players switch over to Shion for his chain strikes, and Esther for the fastest attack speed and damage per second.
On Miiverse, the popular posts include:
*Fanart of Bayonetta
*Walkthroughs and strategy guides
*Weapon and character reviews (they found Shion to be overpowered due to the chain-strikes)
*The post that said "We interrupt Bayonetta to bring you Add's Energy Fusion Theory!" (because Project Apocalypse was based off the same dungeon from Elsword)
*A post with huge amounts of  replies that said "Post your Project: Apocalypse Pure Platinum cleartime". The fastest was 1:49 with Shion and the damage/hit/speed relics to be able to do mass strikes to the enemies that hit around 10 to 20 times with high combo score.
*Experiments to attack instantly (Esther, with the Fast n Furious can attack with her double-hit spin attack within 1 second as she attacks at the speed of light with the power of the Goddess combined.
*"Pepsimaaan" The Apocalypse Type Void boss is based of the Pepsiman/Silver Surfer character.
*Gameplay where they reach "9999" with combo scores. (Esther, with the halved damage accessory combined with Fast n Furious, Goddess Buff and double hit, was able to reach the limits of the combo score, and successfully win in a timely Pure Platinum in the chapter Robo Rampage)
*Survival and 3rd campaign strategies and what to use for each chapter
==="Sealed Route" controversy===
On March 4, a post on Miiverse said "Are people constantly getting "stone" on time on Sealed Route? It seems nearly impossible even if you try." Eventually, dozens of "Yeahs" and replies saying they are having the same thing too. The most common time ranges around 4 to 6 minutes. The top reply was like "Too hard Platinum, please nerf". Players were having trouble "pure platinuming" Sealed Route due to it's "too low" time restriction. A hacker later stated that the criteria for Pure Platinum time is actually 2 minutes and 30 seconds, which is impossible to do the average strategy unlike other chapters. (where you gun and combo them effectively)
On March 5, a Japanese player recorded that you actually have to draw everyone together, and then nuke them out, do it again on the next are and then after that is the boss. He even stated that you CANNOT waste any time doing this chapter if your going for Pure Platinum. Later, there were posts saying they managed to do it on the American Miiverse community with their recording playthrough. Players even stated that you have to take the "start with full magic gauge" and the "double-hit" relics to make this possible, and that the overpowered weapons (Shion, Apocalypse Type Lumen and Tornado Blades) are the only weapons that can do this. The fastest Pure Platinum was 2:05 if they were to also take the speed relic also from pure-platinuming this chapter also.
On April 13, PlatinumGames tweeted they will be rolling an update to do some bugfixes. After the update, players noticed that the Sealed Route Platinum time had been raised to 4 minutes and 45 seconds, which is still annoying, but more forgiving since you don't have to draw everyone together and nuke anymore to go for that timing. The top Miiverse post in response was Bayonetta shooting a "Nerf" maverick gun. Originally it was going to encourage players to be more cutting-edge and multi-tasking when it comes to challenges. This was kept in as a "secret" chapter from the extras menu, titled as "Legacy Sealed Route", which the medal is only for bragging rights.
===Survival Mode Overload===
One Twitch livestream had a player who had reached one hour on Survival Mode. he got to a point where Lumen enemies were spawning really fast, and yet he was just chilling with Shion. As he nuked them all with his torture attack with lightning fast chain pylons; the game crashed as the game itself overloaded (it couldn't handle all of the effects in-game so it stuttered, buzzed, and at last froze and crashed on a high-end gaming PC with the message "BayonettaUltimate.exe has stopped working"). He noted that on the high scores that due to a overload crash barely any Japanese players (which the streamer was the first American to reach that) go above one hour. (since none of the players went above one hour when he checked the leaderboards due to a tweet by a Japanese player who reached the crash before him which warned other players not to go above one hour which got around 10,000 retweets which had HIS own recording of his Switch crashing with the SAME error code due to pylon purging the enemies) On the consoles, it gets extremely laggy (framerates between 5 to 20) if Shion were to proc his Torture Attack on them, and the majority of the time it will always lead to a choke and soft crash, as a Switch player later recorded himself pyloning 50 enemies with Shion's torture attack, which it all of a sudden froze (with the sounds stuttering) when it hit all of the enemies, and then the game crashed with an "error occurred code" message. He proved this by doing the same thing again, 150 chain pylons vs 150 enemies, and the crash with the same error code occurred again. As of 2020, this later claimed Bayonetta Ultimate to be one of the most CPU demanding PC games at the time not counting the mitigated Legacy Survival mod. ("But can it survive the Pylon Purge of 200 Angels?") was a meme to the new "so-called" most demanding game that recently got released.
April 10, Platinum stated they thought the engine could support large battles like NieR did, but overwhelming amounts can't. As a result, they made a maximum of enemies on the battlefield (maximum would be 15 and on that livestream was about 130 to 200 as the enemies doubled and doubled past one hour. Calculations shown by players that the "Pylon Purge of 200 Angels" triples the amount of CPU stress to up to 12 cores with 20MB cache, or even 20 if you're doing 8K. Enemies will instead pop up instantly everytime you kill one past that hour threshold.) The bugfix update changed the survival mode, but an modder on Steam was able to add the "Legacy Survival" mode as he fixed the codes to be able to support huge amounts of enemies and effects while bypassing the "crash". "Oh, if your doing Legacy Survival and going around 1 hour or higher, make sure you have an Titan X, 32GB RAM, good cooling system and a very "extreme" CPU." As of today, the furthest a player has gotten on Legacy Survival without their computer overheating or bottlenecking was 2:05:33, which was one of the highest world records. The maximum record in Survival Mode was 9:59:59, and it does not go further. As of the end of 2019, the furthest a player has gotten on New Survival is 4:12:59 hours straight because players aren't going to do a 10-hour run of fighting 20 enemies at a time.  
This gave the reason why Platinum barely makes any games where you fight onslaughts of enemies at once (25 to 100) in Bayonetta style. (huge melee weapons and stylish particles)
WatchMojo put this glitch on Number 6 on Top 10 Controversial Video Game Glitches nicknamed the "Survival Overload" with clips from the Twitch livestream which involved the player crashing the game from "pylon purging" the enemies, with number 1 being the Corrupted Blood Incident from World of Warcraft.  
====Overload vs. the AstralOracle====
Later, a player got a version of Bayonetta Ultimate (which had the old Survival mode mod) for his AstralOracle K version. What he did first on Twitch is that he activated the turbo boost on the AstralOracle's 32 threaded CPU and GPU, and got ready to do Survival Mode to challenge if the AstralOracle can handle the Pylon Purge of 200 Angels (which was the crash where Shion would summon 200 chain lightning pylon orbs to kill all of the angels at the same time). After reaching one hour, he waited for up to 200 angels/demons to enter the battlefield, after that he did the Pylon Purge of 200 Angels attack, which combining all of the particle effects (chain lightning, pylons, enemies ,etc) it dropped the framerates down to around 25 to 45fps, with the lowest being around 16 when the pylons appeared. The player then concluded that the AstralOracle could've avoided the crash due to it's enthusiant specs. (which the reason why the crash occurred is that it choked on the RAM and CPU.) The RazerPocket was also able to handle all this at 1080p.
==Trivia==
*The bonus campaign "The Lumen Empire" is non-canon to the plot (meaning it does not follow any of the Bayonetta games)
*Project: Apocalypse is based off the Add's Energy Fusion Theory dungeon from Elsword; both involve ultimate weapons in progress and failed creations, and in the end they both reward you with that ultimate weapon.
*Back then, Survival Mode could have infinite enemies on screen, but was fixed to 20 due to risk of overload. Even then, Robo Rampage had around 12 to 15 each verse.
*This is Platinum's first game to get a difficulty nerf, as Sealed Route's Platinum time was too strict (4 minutes and 30 seconds of damage sponges that you have to draw together toward you and then nuke them out). Platinum raised the Platinum time to 6 minutes and 45 seconds. Today, it's still regarded one of Platinum's most annoying stages. (aside from the mecha tank trio from Korra) The second nerf was the "Regeneration" update where they fixed the licensed titles, fixed various bugs (including the unresponsive commands in Mutants in Manhattan, cameras, framerates, etc) 
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