Hello again, everyone!

Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon Lead Composer Aoba Nakanishi here! In this entry, I would like to introduce the way the music in the game shifts as the bond between Cereza and Cheshire evolves over time!

Music that changes along with their bond

Witnessing the changes in their relationship through game saves

Although Cereza and Cheshire do not mesh well at first, they overcome the difficulties of their journey together and gradually develop a deep bond. The timid Cereza slowly overcomes her fears through her relationship with Cheshire. In contrast, the somewhat selfish Cheshire starts to understand the principles of human behavior as he travels with Cereza and the two mature alongside each other. As you can see in the video, such changes between the two are depicted in the game in a detailed manner that is both funny and endearing!

Since the story thoroughly depicts the growth of the two and the changes in their relationship, we of course wanted the music to change along with them!

Music depicting the bond with the forest

■Music that evolves with the progression of the story

Exploration themes that change with bonds

Are you able to hear how the arrangements of music gets more and more exciting and upbeat as the story progresses? There are four pieces of music in the video that are in fact all different arrangements of the same theme! We have a quiet, slightly eerie tune at the initial tier of the bond between Cereza and Cheshire, but gradually the melody and rhythm of the music become more pronounced. At the strongest tier of the bond, the tune itself exudes a bright and lively tone. The reason for this execution is that we wanted to show how the inexperienced couple grows together, and how they gradually evolve from moving through Avalon Forest in fear to bravely overcoming their fears and insecurities.

Battle themes that change with bonds

There are also two main battle themes that are played in the forest, one in the early-to-mid stages of the story and the other towards the end. The battle music played in the early-to-mid stages of the story conjures an atmosphere that feels like faeries are teasing Cereza. It is composed in a way to demonstrate Cereza’s sentiment of being overwhelmed during battle in the early parts of the game. Towards the end of the story the two have matured and become much stronger, so the music during battles starts to express them freely manipulating the power of their abilities as they fight in-sync and even enjoy working together in battle. The two battle themes are counterparts, so I hope you’ll compare the pieces of music before and after the bond between the two is formed!

In the game, we tried to focus on producing music that is linked to the relationship between the two characters, rather than being dependent on and tied to in-game locations. Of course, there are several instances where we changed the music to represent the location being explored at the time. By having the same piece of music evolve in a gradual manner, we wanted to show that Cereza and Cheshire themselves are evolving, and that the way they saw and felt the forest differed at the beginning and end of the story.

■Adding in variation even at the same progress points

We were concerned that having the music change with the progress of the story would mean the same piece of music being played repeatedly all the time in some places. This could ultimately drive the players to get tired of listening to the same track over and over. To counter this, we created a few variations of the forest exploration theme to generate the illusion that you are listening to different themes, even at the same level of progression through the game.

♪Forest Exploration Theme | Bond Tier 3 – Ver.2

♪Forest Exploration Theme｜Falling-Out

Rearranging musical pieces to signify the falling-out between Cereza and Cheshire

There are many other pieces of music in the game that have variations, so it might be interesting to consciously listen to the forest exploration background music as you play the game. One way to spot these alternate tunes is to listen carefully just before the track loops!

There are a few other tunes that vary depending on the level of growth and the strength of the relationship between the two characters, so let me introduce a few of these examples.

Music that “grows”

Music for the Skill Tree

As the Skill Tree levels up, the music also “grows” in three stages with more instruments to represent this evolution! ♪

Incidentally, to represent Cereza’s gradual transformation into Bayonetta, we arranged the theme song “Mysterious Destiny” from the first Bayonetta game in a cute and nostalgic fashion to fit the atmosphere of Bayonetta Origins. You should be able to hear that melody as you level up the Skill Tree, so if you are still in the process of playing the story, I recommend you keep leveling up!

Music that plays when you obtain the Inferno Fruit

When Cheshire eats the Infernal Fruit, he starts out by splashing juice all over Cereza’s clothes. However, he becomes a very good boy nearer the end of the story! We also changed the jingle in three different tiers to match the change in his behavior. Aww, Cheshire is so cute!

Bonds with the Wisps

The theme of “bonds” and the music that changes as aforementioned bonds get stronger also applies to the Wisps that appear in the story! The more Wisps you rescue, the livelier their hideaway becomes as the rescued Wisps populate the area. You can get a reward when you talk to Colm, so make sure to visit him once in a while! Rescuing Wisps expands the areas you can access, and the music itself becomes livelier at three different tiers.

Music at the Wisps’ Hideaway

Wisps are truly unique little things, but it seems some of them like to sing! If you help them, they may sing for you at the Wisps’ Hideaway!

Wisps singing

Make sure you help them find their chorus buddies! ♪

In closing…

I wrote quite a lot in my last blog entry, which you can read here, so I wanted to make this one a little more compact.

This is the last entry I will be writing for Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, and I really hope you enjoyed it! I will pass the torch on to Rina Yugi, who served as Music Supervisor on the game. She will be introducing the music we made for the picture book cutscenes. Please be sure to look out for that one!

As this entry covered the topic of “bonds”, let me see you out with these photos that demonstrate our bonds on the sound team!

Guess I’ll see you again somewhere else! Bye for now!

Aoba Nakanishi Joined PlatinumGames in 2019. Composed boss battle themes for BABYLON’S FALL and field music for Bayonetta 3. For Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, she acted as Lead Composer and oversaw the general music direction, as well implemented some of the music into the game. She plays saxophone as a hobby, and performed a traditional Japanese instrument called a hichikiri for the World of Demons soundtrack.