Bayonetta and Devil May Cry are essentially the same game, and I wouldn’t dare tell the fans of either franchise that. Both games are fast-paced third-person shooters in which the protagonists use a pair of handguns with a name to battle hordes of demons, angels, devils, or anything else that might be in the game’s setting.
In addition, both games feature combo systems in which the player can flawlessly interweave thousands of different attacks to improve their style meters, which awards the player extra points after the level is completed. And the same individual, Hideki Kamiya, is responsible for the development of both of these games. Even in an interview conducted in 2009, he confessed that Devil May Cry served as the inspiration for Bayonetta.
It should be no surprise that Kamiya included a not-so-subtle tribute to the first Devil May Cry in Bayonetta 3, considering he is well-known for making references to his previous works in his more recent video games.
Another resemblance between Devil May Cry and Bayonetta is that both games feature giant, flaming spider demons. Bayonetta is also a sword-and-sorcery game. This demon is referred to as Phantom in Devil May Cry and makes an appearance as a boss fight in both the original game and its sequel. The demon Phantasmaraneae appears in all three Bayonetta games, initially as a boss, then as a mini-boss, and finally as a weapon and a means of transportation in Bayonetta 3.
However, Dante’s first confrontations with Bayonetta in both the first and third games play out pretty much the same. Both stories begin with the spider demon being dissatisfied with the prey or capture they have made, and then the characters of both stories insult the demon as they nonchalantly approach it and rap it twice on the head.
