Bayonetta – Review

1. Hideki Kamiya is a man defined by his games. As one of the industry's most charismatic faces, Kamiya's role as developer in multiple critically acclaimed and cult classic games have forever cemented his popularity in the eyes of his fans. As the lead director of PlatinumGames, Kamiya's games are most known for their intricate mechanics, liberating combat systems, and wholly unique quirks. Bayonetta, released in 2009 to critical reception, in many ways walks in the shadow of its "big brother," Devil May Cry. But despite the similar elements it shares with Kamiya's other works, Bayonetta never once felt like anything less than pure originality.
   
   Not unlike games of its ilk, Bayonetta tells its drama with an air of mystery, obscurity, and introspective alongside over-the-top ridiculousness and shenanigans. Having awoken from a five-hundred-year slumber, the last remaining Umbra Witch, Bayonetta, remembers very little of her past, only vaguely recalling pieces of an apocalyptic war with the angels of Paradiso and her own attempted assassination. Alongside their opposite equals, the Lumen Sages, the Umbra Witches used their mastery over magic and the darkness of the Inferno to safeguard the people of Earth until a war between the two clans drove both virtually extinct. Now awoken, Bayonetta travels to the isolated and forgotten European city of Vigrid, where she attempts to piece together her own shattered memories as she battles her way through a host of angels, resolving her own issues and putting to rest long standing intrigue between the two ancient clans. Bayonetta's narrative approach often struggles to find the correct balance between environmental storytelling and linear story exposition. Both aspects are fantastically executed, but not synthesized in a way that might prevent the confusion of the audience. We are introduced to Bayonetta under the premise of severe amnesia and given snippets of her memories in a series of tailored movie reel cutscenes and the game's revelatory moments are designed to mirror the audience's discovery with the feeling of Bayonetta remembering moments of her past, but a lot of how the game presents the story elements to the player begs for confusion, especially on the first play through. Cutscenes often border on complete obscurity to preserve the revelation until further into the game, and as a result confuse the player.
   
   The prevailing atmosphere of Vigrid conveys an almost sleepy feeling despite Bayonetta's very active war against the local angels. Bayonetta freely travels between Earth and the parallel dimension of Purgatory, so most of the game takes place on a secondary plane of existence, but she can still interact with and speak to people on the other side. This makes an otherwise populous city seem eerily quiet, and the enochian-gothic architecture casts much of the game in an ecclesiastic, yellow-white light. Later portions of the game that take place in Paradiso are so stereotypically angelic it's humorous, with high-choral music and holy light permeating throughout. Finally, the game climaxes in a spectacle of explosions, stunts, and ridiculous feats that feel right at home in a PlatinumGames library. Enemy design is handled fantastically, as the game boasts a wide arrangement of angels that draw inspiration straight from Christian lore. Each new enemy type is introduced to the player via a short introductory cutscene that annoyingly segues directly into combat, making for extremely difficult dodges that will undoubtedly catch unaware players off guard. Enemies come in multiple shapes and sizes and often require different strategies to capitalize on their unique properties. Boss fights combine combat sequences with encounter-specific mechanics before culminating in a fever-pitch of QTEs, rewarding players with gory spectacles of sexy success.
   
   Bayonetta as a character has been the source of obvious controversy, and one look at any artistic rendition of her character model explains why. Her most prominent trait is her sexuality, as she's hyper-sexualized to a bombastic degree. However, her choice of character design most prominently displays the truth that sexualization does not equal objectification. Her expressiveness and promiscuous displays and her in-charge attitude combine to form a perfect example of an empowered woman in video games, and the nuances of her characterization are commonly lost on her critics. Her in-your-face use of her sexuality is primarily what sets her apart from Kamiya's other brainchild - Dante - and without it, she would be reduced to a bland, female version of a character we've already seen before. Yet, despite her blatant flaunting, her sexualization is never handled in poor taste. She's the kind of character who's always in charge of herself and never displays vulnerability, and her sexiest scenes choose to paint her in an outwardly independent manner. Even in her pole-dancing scene during the end-credits, she shows class and style before sex appeal, and I found this example of characterization to be especially impressive. Unfortunately, the focus on such a strong and unique protagonist pushed the supporting cast completely to the wayside, and no memorable characters or personalities came out of Bayonetta except the witch herself. Everyone else is basically an aggrandized cliche that fits in the context of the story, but doesn't matter that much once all things are considered.
   
   The main game consists of sixteen story chapters, an epilogue, a prologue, and an intro; so anywhere from sixteen to nineteen chapters depending on how literal you want to be. These chapters are graded individually through a point scoring system reminiscent of Devil May Cry, but instead of letter grades, Bayonetta uses medal grades with Stone being the worst and Pure Platinum indicating absolute perfection in performance. Instances of platforming and combat within chapters are organized into multiple Verses which are graded separately from the overall chapter but ultimately combine to form the cumulative chapter grade. Factors that influence scoring include time, combo points, damage taken, items used, and deaths, and certain factors are weighted more heavily in certain Verses than others. The system is intrinsically similar to scoring systems found in Platinum's other games, but the inclusion of segmented Verses makes sectioning off and replaying certain parts of a chapter until perfection somewhat less mind-numbingly monotonous.
   
   At the conclusion of each chapter, players are presented with a small mini game called Angel Attack, where they are given the opportunity to earn additional items by scoring well in a target range style activity. Multiple enemies fly around the screen in different patterns, and accurate shots are rewarded with point accumulation. Players are given fifteen bullets by default for each Angel Attack game, but more can be collected throughout chapters. After all shots are spent, points can be used to purchase curatives to be used in the main game and any leftover points are converted into extra Halos, the game's standard currency. Halos are typically awarded by killing enemies and building huge combat multipliers, and can be spent at the shop in exchange for items, accessories, new attacks, parameter increases, and cosmetic upgrades.
   
   Playing through the main story chapters is a rewarding experience, as the story is ultimately worth viewing regardless of whether it's convoluted or not. However, the real meat of the game's mechanics lie somewhat outside of the raw narrative. After completing the game on normal difficulty, players unlock Hard difficulty, and after that, Nonstop Infinite Climax, where enemy spawns become outrageous and Bayonetta dies in just a few hits. Completing the game on all the difficulty modes requires patience, skill, and finesse beyond what an average player possesses, but none of the fights seem fundamentally unfair. The game provides all the tools necessary to succeed, and it's the responsibility of the player to employ those tools to their maximum potential. Scattered throughout the story chapters are small challenge realms called Alfheims, which place special restrictions on Bayonetta like disabling the use of certain abilities or making foes impervious to certain attacks. Again, the difficulty of the Alfheims is never unfair, but frequently push players into unfamiliar or even unusual play styles. And finally, for the masochistic, hardcore professional completionists, the option to achieve Pure Platinum on every verse of every story chapter is an ever-present challenge. Other secrets exist deep within the game, such as unlockable weapons, additional playable characters, and a particular superboss...
   
   Without a doubt, the strongest aspect of Bayonetta is its tight, tailored, and intricately detailed combat system. PlatinumGames is known for their infinitely deep and stylish combat, and Bayonetta provides everything and more with ease. Mapped to the four face buttons, players have access to jump, shoot, punch, and kick. Jump and shoot are self-explanatory and generally basic, but punches and kicks (commonly abbreviated to P and K, or yellow and red respectively) are weaved together to make basic combos. Creating combos forms the backbone of Bayonetta's combat system, as it allows players to piece together a ridiculous amount of different attacks into combos that flow completely naturally into each other. Some combos are utilitarian in nature, staggering, stunning, or launching opponents to set up for additional attacks. Others focus primarily on single-target or AoE damage, or position Bayonetta behind or above enemies. Specific combo finishers called Wicked Weaves involve Bayonetta summoning comically large demon limbs to deal massive amounts of damage to multiple opponents.
   
   A large part of seeing success in battle and scoring high in chapters lies in building and maintaining large combos without taking damage, and to do that, players need to make good use of the dodge button. Dodging is essential for beating some of the game's tougher enemies and is closely tied with two other major game mechanics: Witch Time and Magic. On Normal difficulty, a perfect dodge will activate Witch Time, where time slows down, combo multipliers increase, and Bayonetta's damage output is maximized. Witch Time is a powerful ability that can turn even the most difficult encounters in favor of the player, which is why the ability to activate it on dodge is stripped on harder difficulties. Dodging in Bayonetta makes for a quick and effective means of both mitigating damage and dodge cancelling, and a successful perfect dodge will add a small amount of Magic to the Magic gauge. When the Magic gauge has been filled to a certain point, a special Torture Attack becomes available which allows Bayonetta to target a single enemy in a QTE attack that deals massive damage, usually outright killing most low-level enemies. While Torture Attacks are visually appealing, Magic is a much more valuable resource in higher levels of play as it's used as fuel for a large amount of the game's powerful accessories.
   
   Players start the game equipped with handguns, but unlock a colorful assortment of guns, glaives, gauntlets, and other goodies as the game progresses. From the menu, two weapons are equipped at a time - one in Bayonetta's hands and another on her legs - onto a loadout titled Set A, and another loadout called Set B. Bayonetta can switch between Sets with a pull of the right trigger, allowing one to fight with essentially four weapons at a time. Some weapons can be equipped exclusively by the hands or legs, but others can be equipped on both the hands and legs, which gives access to completely different movesets. Different weapons provide different bonuses and serve different roles in battle, so it's a good idea to experiment against the game's many enemy types. For example, armored enemies might be impervious to whip attacks, and a sword or rocket launcher might make for a more effective initiation attack. However, the whip could be used alternatively to launch the enemy, leaving them defenseless and wide open for slower, more powerful attacks. Additionally, Bayonetta can equip two accessories at a time. Accessories alter the flow of battle in significant ways and expose opportunities that would be otherwise unavailable. Some effects include the ability to activate Witch Time manually at the expense of Magic, granting access to a block-and-counter system for punishing amounts of damage, and making enemies deal more damage in return for greater combo point accumulation.
   
   Between the variety of weapons, the diversity between combos and their unique values, the alternative movesets made available by different equipment slots, the ability to switch weapon sets in the middle of battle, and further augmentations to playstyles offered by a unique assortment of accessories, Bayonetta invites players to experiment with a ludicrously deep combat system that only gets deeper the more it's explored. Combo diversity is seemingly endless, and I was still discovering new ways to piece attacks together even after completing the game seven times. Discovering ways to pair hand and leg weapons together for greater effectiveness tasked me with using my imagination in exploring the full range of utility offered by the game's many weapons, and Set switching allowed me to dabble with synergies that would have been otherwise impossible to perform. All the accessories are effective, balanced, and beneficial to specific playstyles, yet not essential to tackling the game's many challenges. This means that any combination of weapons and accessories is viable in most circumstances, and an active and bustling meta is allowed to flourish. Mechanical talk aside, the combat simply feels sharp, coupling staple genre mechanics like animation canceling and directional input with deliberate, utilitarian purpose that feels genuinely rewarding when a combo is executed to effect. Playing Bayonetta feels good, and playing Bayonetta well is one of the most gratifying experiences one can find in the hack-and-slash genre.
   
   Bayonetta stands firmly as a prime example PlatinumGames' touch and of Hideki Kamiya's vision. It meets everything that's come to be expected of a Platinum title: fast and fluid action; engaging mechanics; a strong, solo-act protagonist; and little-to-no padding separating players from the true essence of the game. Because of its obvious storytelling shortcomings, the main scenario is unfortunately forgettable, but the character of Bayonetta is so powerfully poignant that it's completely reasonable to consider her the strongest facet of the game's narrative. The carefully tailored combat system is nothing short of an action gamer's wet dream, offering nigh-limitless combination of techniques with different timings, uses, and animations guaranteed to help casual players feel accommodated and give hardcore players an opportunity to truly cut loose. It comes as no surprise that Bayonetta received such strong critical acclimation, as I found myself having fun well after I had completed all the game had to offer; exploring the limits of the combat system and discovering that I couldn't have been farther from mastering it is truly an awe-inspiring feeling. Bayonetta's unique charm and antics might not be for everyone, but above a crazy story, ridiculous dialogue, and stylistic combat, it offers unparalleled amounts of challenge and fun.
2. Rating: 
   8
3. Product Release: Bayonetta (US, 01/05/2010)

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