Does Bayonetta 3 Run Well on Nintendo Switch? – Answered

After a very long wait, Bayonetta is finally coming back! Originally announced back in 2017, Bayonetta 3 from Platinum Games finally arrives at the end of October 2022 exclusively on Nintendo Switch. Many media outlets have already published their previews of the game, and for now, according to the majority of the first impressions, it seems that Bayonetta 3 will be an extremely fun game and a great continuation of Platinum’s action series.

However, as this long-awaited sequel is only coming out for the Nintendo Switch, many fans are wondering how it will actually work. So, does Bayonetta 3 run well on Nintendo Switch?

Related: When is Bayonetta 3 Coming Out? – Release Date, Trailers, and More

Does Bayonetta 3 Run Well on Nintendo Switch?

Recently, we even had a couple of new PlayStation 5 games that only come with 30fps mode, which players who quickly got used to higher frame rates on next-gen consoles did not like at all. So what can be said about the Switch, where the vast majority of games run at 30fps? Well, we didn’t expect much, but Platinum Games titles always came with a fast and smooth action that required higher frame rates, so through some miracle of optimization, Bayonetta 3 is actually running at 60fps on Nintendo Switch!

The target FPS in the action scenes of Bayonetta 3 is indeed 60. Because of this decision, the graphics can sometimes seem a little more blurry and more pixelated, with no anti-aliasing whatsoever, because apparently there is some dynamic resolution change system that lowers the image quality when the action on the screen becomes more intense, in order to maintain a high FPS.

The end result is not bad at all, especially if you play Bayonetta 3 in portable mode on, say, the OLED screen of the new Switch model. The game also works well in docked mode on the TV, but you will notice the various tricks used to optimize the image quality. The optimization effect that seems to be the worst offender is transparency, which has a dithering effect that we haven’t seen since the PSP days. Of course, we would always trade image quality for rendering speed and smoothness of animation in a game of this type. Even the menus work in 60fps, which gives the entire presentation an unusually smooth feeling that we rarely see on the Switch. Only cutscenes in Bayonetta 3 seem to be rendered at a lower frame rate, but the visual quality is much higher in them.

Overall, Bayonetta 3 looks and works great on Switch and we can’t wait for the full version of the game to land in our hands so that we can bring you detailed coverage and guides here on Prima Games!

Bayonetta 3 releases on October 28th exclusively for Nintendo Switch.

For more Nintendo Switch titles here on Prima Games, check out the following: When is Goldeneye HD Coming to the Nintendo Switch and Xbox? – Answered, Is Disney Dreamlight Valley Nintendo Switch Performance Good? – Answered, and How is Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Performance on Nintendo Switch? – Answered.