Bayonetta – Review

1. Bayonetta is an action game developed by Platinum Games, a newly formed company banded together from past members of Clover. You might recognize some of their work through their former studio such as Okami, Viewtiful Joe, and God Hand.
   
   Now before I start, I’ll mention that I’m a big DMC fan, as well as a moderate God of War fan, but I think it’s safe to say that Platinum Games have made an action game on par with DMC 3 and GoW 2 (which are my favourite games in the 2 series gameplay wise).
   
   Story
   
   The story is nothing new to be honest. Bayonetta’s a witch in a clan and she’s recently woken up from a 500 year sleep. However, she’s lost her memories, and aims to recover them whilst killing Angels and searching for the “Eyes of the World”, which are 2 mysterious jewels that can oversee the world. I’d go into more depth, but spoilers and all.
   
   Anyway, that’s it for the story. Things don’t make sense at first, but then as the story progresses you get snippets in the cutscenes, but eventually things make sense. There are also notes to find that provide backstory so if you like a bit of reading then you should enjoy the notes. All in all, it’s a decent story, but nothing worth writing home about. The game doesn’t take itself seriously for the majority of the game, and there are references (some subtle, some blatant) to other Sega, Clover , Platinum and Capcom games (these are the main companies/games referenced, although there are references to other games).
   7/10
   
   Gameplay
   
   This is the main focus of the game, and boy does it deliver a great gameplay experience. It’s definitely on-par with DMC3 with variety of weapons and combos. You have a Punch button (now called P), a Kick button (K), a Jump button (J), a Shoot button (S) and a Dodge button (D). These 5 buttons will be your best friends. P will be your combo starter, since K starters are slow, but you can start kicking mid-combo, so you can do PPPKK if you wish. Holding down the P or K button allows you to shoot extra bullets/charge a special attack (depending on what weapon you use), this is useful for challenges and taking out enemies. The combo system is fluid IMO, being able to switch between your 2 weapon sets (1 weapon for hands, 1 weapon for feet) on the fly. You can also adjust weapon sets during gameplay by opening the menu.
   
   One main feature of this battle system is Witch Time. To activate Witch Time you must dodge an attack at the last second. What it does is slow down time for enemies, allowing you to beat the crap out of them with combos or Wicked Weaves (Wicked Weaves are combo finishers, these deal a lot of damage and launch enemies far.). Witch Time is useful for getting Platinum/Pure Platinum medals/trophies (more on them soon), since you can rack up damage, combo points and not get hit.
   
   Unlike DMC and GoW, there is no “Devil Trigger/Rage “ mode in this game. Instead, magic is used for Torture Attacks, which are powerful (sometimes 1-hit-KO) attacks that vary per enemy, you can continuously push the marked button to get extra Halos (Halos are the currency for the game, where you can buy healing items, accessories (more on them later) and techniques, amongst other things). Magic is also used for special abilities from techniques or accessories.
   
   Boss fights aren’t as QTE heavy as GoW, but not as “free” as DMC. The battles usually start with you just dodging attacks and hitting the enemies, but after a while on some bosses, you have to follow a little scripted event to weaken/disembody the boss. Most of the time these consist is pushing the P and K buttons at the same, usually to dodge an attack to get closer to a target, and then proceeding to attack the target before finishing it off. Some bosses have different phases, but the concept is still usually the same. Boss fights always end with a “Climax”, where Bayonetta summons an Infernal Demon to finish the boss off. These are practically the cutscenes that play in DMC after you kill the boss, but Bayonetta is a little more interactive with these, as you have to push a button repeatedly to get bonus Halos, yet the results are the same. Some Climaxes are humorous, some are pretty gory, some are over the top (the final boss’ is probably the most over the top one IMO).
   
   Accessories are pieces of equipment that grant special abilities such as summoning devils, parrying/countering enemy attacks and creating copies of your character (amongst others). These are costly items, so they’re sometimes not obtained during first playthroughs, since you’ll mainly be focused on health items. For challenges (which I’ll get to later) and harder difficulties these will make the game easier, but not game-breaking easy (although there are some broken accessories, but they’re rather hard to get, or don’t affect level rankings).
   
   However, there are some bad points about the gameplay. Missions 8 and 14 are annoying, especially Mission 14. Also there is the point that Bayonetta, like DMC has some annoying enemies. Gracious and Glorious, to me they’re the equivalent of DMC4’s Blitzes and DMC1’s Shadows. They’re just annoying to fight, but they give challenge at least.
   
   You get more weapons by finding LP’s, the first 2 are given to you whole, but the others are broken and you have to find the various pieces hidden in that level. You also get bonus weapons for completing certain objectives such as beating the game on a certain difficulty.
   10/10
   
   Graphics
   
   The graphics are good, I’d say they’re on level with games like Soul Calibur 4 and DMC 4. Not quite GoW 3, Uncharted 2 or FFXIII standards, but damn good nonetheless. The environments are well made, especially missions 9 and 10 (again, my opinion) and the scenery is detailed as well.
   
   The character models are well designed, with some of the Angels looking generic, others looking awesome and some looking creative. Bayonetta’s design is, interesting to say the least, from what I heard she was designed by a female, so if that’s true she’s not the fantasy of some “lonely, unable-to-love game designer” (in quotation marks since it’s a stereotype). Her body is tall, and she has a small head. But her design is great (if a tad seductive/sexual). Other characters have good designs as well, Jeanne’s design does have some resemblance to Bayonetta’s, Luka’s design is fairly basic, but detailed, same for Enzo and Rodin.
   
   The animations for cutscenes and gameplay are also very good, nothing looks really jerky or dodgy, which is good for the fluid, quick style of gameplay this offers. The cutscenes are flashy, and the good graphics show that. However, some cutscenes are in a film-reel style, where the characters don’t move (except for maybe wind blowing their hair etc.). This is mostly done in talking scenes, but it also happens during a couple of fight scenes, which is annoying, since they could have made some flashy, over-the-top scenes for them, but nothing that ruins the experience. This cutscene style has been called lazy/time-restraint/budget-restraint by some people, but others call it a reference to Clover's game Viewtiful Joe.
   
   8/10
   
   Sound
   
   The voice acting is good, no really bad performances from the cast, one character’s (who is a spoiler, hence the cover-up) talking is a bit slow though, but maybe that’s the point, I’m not sure on that.
   
   The soundtrack mainly consists J-Pop/Pop style music, instead of the metal that accompanies DMC’s battles and some bosses. Big boss fights though use an Orchestral + Choir soundtrack, more like GoW’s soundtrack. The J-Pop is just background music to me, nothing really special, it does have a remix/cover of “Fly Me To The Moon” though, so if you’re a fan of the song you might like the Bayonetta version. The Orchestral + Choir tracks are fitting within the battle, with the last 2 boss themes being the best tracks IMO.
   
   Just remember that the game is more light-hearted, so the J-Pop/Pop music suits the theme completely, and the more serious missions/locations/battles don’t use the J-Pop, so the mood isn’t ruined.
   
   7/10
   
   Replayablity
   
   This game has a lot of unlockables, with 2 bonus characters, a fair amount of costumes, plus challenges. If you are an Achievement/Trophy collector, this game will last you a fair while for an Action game. The story itself takes about 9+ hours for a first playthrough, average length for one of these games. But there’s a lot of extra content, plus the challenges are hidden pretty well, and without a guide you’ll probably spend a few hours just finding them.
   
   Conclusion
   
   All in all, Bayonetta is an enjoyable, over the top action game. With a decent amount of weapons and little backtracking, Bayonetta is the game Devil May Cry 4 should have been (not to say that DMC4 was bad, but it didn't meet my expectations).
   
   There are some parts in the game that are uncomfortable sexual (the camera angles during certain cutscenes/attacks. There are a few shots of Bayo’s rear-end in the game), so it’s not something you would want to play with certain people nearby. But it’s got a fun, enjoyable action game with impressive gameplay and set pieces, however, some gamplay, soundtrack and story issues stop this from getting a perfect 10.
2. Rating: 
   9
3. Product Release: Bayonetta (EU, 01/08/2010)

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