Bayonetta – Review

1. I admit, this instantly isn’t really my sort of game. I remember playing and enjoying the original Devil May Cry, but I played Ninja Gaiden 2 recently, a similar game, and didn’t enjoy it at all (and not entirely because of its rock-hard difficulty). I just never have the ambition to learn the combos and practice at the game. Bayonetta is a good game to say the least, considering I managed to finish it. However, its one I finished with some difficulty, and not in terms of the actual game difficulty.
   
   The story is completely bizarre and didn’t really make sense. The game just sorta starts and Bayonetta pops out of nowhere, you watch her kill stuff for about five minutes; see a fat man running around then the game begins. There were actually more cut-scenes at the start than I expected, it definitely felt like I was watching Bayonetta fight more than actually playing. You can tell that some effort has been made on the storyline, but it’s poorly told. A lot of the characters aren’t particularly interesting and the cut-scenes range from just eye-candy with Bayonetta fighting in mostly sexualised ways, to rather weird scenes. Basically the screen has film on it (like, actually cinema film) and you see still images of the characters and events, with the film skipping to different pictures. In essence, you’re watching the story as a slideshow with sound effects. Not only is this irritating considering there are plenty of normal cut-scenes also, but it can be rather hard to follow what’s going on. I had no idea largely what was going on, but the idea is Bayonetta is the last surviving Umbra witch, which were good and still are (preserving the balance of Earth or something), however were hunted down by the silly humans who feared their powers. At anyrate, angels attack her constantly so she fights back, and although the premise is merely that at the start, a bigger storyline comes into play. It’s hard to follow and not particularly interesting either, supported by the dull books that you find along the game. I read them for a while but I found them largely uninteresting and just stopped. Toward the end of the game things start to make sense a bit, but you’ve probably given up and are enjoying the game for what it’s really about: the combat.
   
   It’s a simple system: you have a light and heavy attack, two pistols with infinite ammo, and a large number of combos at your disposal. The good thing is that you can see a list of combos during the loading screens, allowing you to practice them. However I will admit I merely button mash since I don’t have much patience to try and learn the combos, and to be fair, I did fine. The combos are merely there for the points, which contribute to an overall ranking at the end of the level. It’s rather harsh though since the game told me I sucked by giving me a ‘stone’ award for basically every level. It’s determined by the ranks you get for the different ‘verses’ throughout the level. You explore and run along then you’re thrown into a ‘verse’ which is usually just fighting and the like, in which you’re rated on the time you take, damage you take and your combo score. Again, the system is balanced since you can play without paying attention to the combos, but they’re still useful for those wanting to improve their score.
   
   The main difference is witch time. To me a lot of games provide a block button but then again I am mostly rubbish at using it, and either it’s just me, but most enemy attacks seem to hurt you anyway. Bayonetta thus provides you with a dodge instead, and as long as you get the timing right you can dodge pretty much any attack which is a welcome addition. Do it right before the attack connects and you go into witch time, a short lasting slow-motion affair where Bayonetta remains in normal time, allowing you to get rather easy attacks on enemies. This doesn’t make the game too easy though, but instead makes a focus on witch time. Simply put, you’ll find the game more challenging without witch time. From what I remember you can use it throughout the whole game, apart from one. Its during the later stages of the game, and I have no idea why, but for one small fight it was disabled. This fight was on a tiny staircase and featured two mini-bosses which were red and blue plated with claws (if you’ve played the game you should know which I mean). Except these weren’t plated, but instead appeared to be stone. And witch time was disabled. That was definitely the hardest and most frustrating experience I had with Bayonetta for the whole of its 12 hour story. That said, it’s an interesting feature which simply works, adding something exciting but also helpful to the game.
   
   Whilst I admit I only played the game through once and haven’t touched it since, there is plenty of replay value. From default normal is the highest difficulty available (it’s what I did it on, obviously), with two more difficulties available after. From what I know, you can use the same file however. When you play, you enter a sort of map screen (with a rather cool piano theme). Here you can enter the shop, select your stage and also change your difficulty. It is here I imagine you can change to the higher difficulty and continue with your upgraded character. During the games you will obtain Halos and in-between levels and even during them in some cases, you can enter the shop. Here you can buy the usual: new techniques (air dodge is absolutely essential), some new weapons, and items which also help. You can only carry a few at a time from the shop (i.e. if you are carrying three normal green lollipops you can’t buy anymore from the shop), however to obtain more you can create items too. They’re fairy standard, ranging from health and magic restoring items, hearts to increase your maximum health, and buff items to improve your strength and defence temporarily. I basically just did the game buying three small green lollipops, a large one, and this red injection thing which revives you when you die (only once though, then you have to buy another). I don’t know how you get them exactly, I simply assume enemies drop them throughout the game, but as mentioned you can get ingredients to create items. Put into a cooking part, I had no idea how to use it exactly but you basically put a certain quantity (either 5, 10 or 15 I believe) of an ingredient into the pot, with the left of the screen telling you what quantities of what you need to make different items. This way, you can carry over 1 large green lollipop, providing you have the ingredients to make it. It’s a simple system but helps a lot, however I forgot completely about it; I only ever used it at the very start then again for the end boss fights, in which case I didn’t even need the extra items.
   
   Bayonetta is definitely a challenging game, but the boss fights are also pretty fun. You’re either fighting weak enemies, or sub-bosses, something the game loves to pull out a lot. They have their own health bars anyway, and are slightly tougher than normal enemies. During fights you can grab enemy weapons to use which can be useful, sometimes not. Other than that, the boss fights are usually against massive enemies, where scale is upped to the max. During fighting Bayonetta can perform gruesome torture finishing moves, such as pushing enemies into an iron maiden or producing a massive chainsaw in order to cut them in half. This is all done in giga-tons and the like, and these are mostly used during boss fights. They’re mostly simple, you dodge their attacks, attack them for a bit then do the quick time events where you mostly just tap buttons. They’re not used too often though so it’s not too bad. The boss fights are completely insane though, you simply haven’t seen anything quite like it, the felling of them at least.
   
   However, for me, the game simply didn’t entice me enough. The gameplay is fairly well made, however I found it rather repetitive, making it hard to play the game for extended periods of time. It’s only a 12 hour game but it felt much longer and toward the end I found myself struggling to carry on. The combat just didn’t interest me enough. The setting was somewhat dull also, featuring a European town which didn’t have too much variety in a world which is somewhat modern but at the same not-quite. It’s hard to describe but it’s weird but also one that I didn’t particularly enjoy, and found rather boring. As mentioned the plot mostly made no real sense so I wasn’t enjoying that aspect. And whilst the game is mad and the boss fights are impressive, I felt that after a few it was more or less the same thing too, and there wasn’t really anything much different. There is also a motorbike section which spiced things up a little bit but plays poorly. You just keep going and basically the same bit over and over again; I wasn’t entirely sure whether I was doing something wrong because it never ended. Turned out I wasn’t, it’s just really long. Toward the very end of the game also is a Fantasy Zone sort of section which was awful beyond relief. Its kinda funny and that for the first few minutes but it must have lasted a good twenty minutes or so. It was boring and tedious, making it probably the worst part of the game for me.
   
   Whilst the game has a lot of good and interesting ideas (such as witch time), I didn’t feel the whole concept of the game and it’s wacky, tongue-in-cheek humour offered much. The reception for this game has been incredibly positive. I can’t deny that if you’re a fan of the genre you’ll probably love it. If not, you might like it but I felt it had a lot of problems which just didn’t make it appeal all too much. Again, I did manage to finish it though, and despite finding it boring and uninteresting toward the end, the game has plenty of replay value to ensure those who enjoy it come back for more.
   
   The graphics were pretty good but fell a bit short during the slide-show cut-scenes (as mentioned earlier) which just seemed lazy to me. Maybe not, but I didn’t enjoy them and the actual cut-scenes and designed rather well. You’re not exactly doing the fighting but those scenes are fun to watch and animated well, the graphics are rather strong. I felt some of the environments were pretty repetitive and whilst there is some variation in the enemies, they mostly look the same.
   
   However there are also tougher enemies and sub-bosses which all had their own look, making these easy to distinguish. The sound track is alright, but again it depends on your taste. I’m not one for J-Pop but have a rather worrying love for the Persona 4 Sound track. However I remember only hearing about 3 or so J-Pop tracks during the course of the game which just went on and on. They’re repetitive and unless you like the genre, kinda annoying. I can’t praise the chapter selection theme enough though, providing a beautiful piano song which, I admit, made me sit there listening to it before starting the next level. The game also ran fine, and whilst I haven’t played the apparently rather broken PS3 version, the game ran fine, so rest assured, the accusations don’t appear to be fabricated (again, I haven’t played it so I can’t judge it either).
   
   Bayonetta is a strong game but I felt it lost momentum toward the end. After seeing the first few bosses die, I felt like I had seen it all. The game is super crazy, but soon when the other random stuff happens later on, whilst you might not be expecting it, with the game being like it is, nothing shocks you. I enjoyed the first half very much, and that’s not to say the second half is weak, it just gets rather repetitive and nothing new really comes into play. I admit the very last boss was entertaining (but painfully easy), but apart from that, when you get so far, the game gets rather uninteresting. It’s down to taste though, and if you like the genre, I’m sure this game will satisfy you.
2. Rating: 
   7
3. Product Release: Bayonetta (EU, 01/08/2010)

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