Review: Bayonetta (360/PS3)

Hey guys, we’re still alive. Shocking, I know!
But 2010 is, without a doubt, the year that Video Games make us cream our pants again. So, what better year to bring UNB back to life? Might as well jump on the review bandwagon.

With that in mind, lets take a look at the first thing to be reviewed this year by these kind folks. Oh hey, that Bayonetta looks nice. Lets pop in the disk.

Two words you’ll be saying a lot in this game:  Holy Shit.

Holy Shit is the real name of the game. Holy Shit I Can’t Believe This Is Actually Happening: The Game. Everything you do in is so ridiculous, so over the top, that you have to stop and get the Holy Shits out of your system before you can continue along.

For example, most game start with an opening cut scene to introduce you to what’s going on in the world. Bayonetta does that, but it does it in style.

Man That Does Look Kinda Awesome, But I Bet The In Game Stuff Is Nothing Like That

Hey Brosef, do I have good news for you! That’s all in game, and that’s only a taste of the crazy combo system this game has to offer.

Lets do the necessary comparison to the most recent Devil May Cry now: The combos in Bayonetta are far more fluid than you’d expect after DMC4. Where certain combinations simply didn’t tie into others well, everything in Bayonetta rolls right into the next without incident.

In fact, take the combat system of Devil May Cry, the Mid-Battle QTE events of God Hand, and the sheer ridiculousness of Mad World. Throw it in a blender, multiply it by infinity, and you get the Infinite Climax of Bayonetta right there.  The simplicity of the combo system is to the point where you could mash buttons and get a slew of awesomeness.

For example, in my first combo I knocked an enemy into the air, smashed him out of the air with a giant foot made of hair, and then threw him across the screen with a punch from a giant fist made out of hair.

“Holy Shit” number one, that was. Here, just see it all in action:

Alongside the basic combos, there’s Witch Time. By evading an attack at the last minute, you slow down time, allowing you to unleash a salvo of death upon an enemy without fear of punishment. Do well enough and you’ll build up your magic gauge, allowing you to deal massive amounts of damage using a Torture Attack, where you follow an onscreen input usually accompanied by a ridiculously awesome animation, such as sawing an enemy in half with a chainsaw.

Torture attacks become full on Climax Actions in boss battles, where you do such amazing things as suplex a dragon, tear the arms of a giant battle mech, or eat a giant enemy with a dragon made out of your hair.

And for those of you who think they may have trouble with this, you can practice all the combos during the between stage loads.

Well, That Sounds Sorta Easy. If I Can Just Mash Buttons To Win, Then I Don’t Think I’ll Bother.

Well yeah. It is easy. For about two stages. Thats where the infamous Devil May Cry syndrome kicks in and you find yourself in some of the more challenging battles of an action game.

Those Witch Time and Torture Actions I described? Well, they’ll save your life. Heck, if you can even manage to build up the meter for the Torture Actions while flailing around – Every hit you take reduces your meter.

There are various upgrades you can use to increase your survivability – The ability to burst into bats when taking a hit, deflecting attacks, etc – but it all comes down to skill: if you can’t learn basic evasion and combos, you’ll die. A lot. Take my word for it, trust me.

Okay, So It’s Stylish and Challenging. Sounds Just Like Devil May Cry. What Else?

There a bit of variance from Devil May Cry, with all the similarities.

Weapons, for example. Where you’d get new weapons each time you defeated a boss in the more recent DMCs, Bayonetta makes each weapon an optional sidequests aside from the first few. Now you have to find the pieces of broken LPs and bring them to your weapon’s dealer, Rodin, where he creates the weapon and sticks it in your inventory.

That’s right. LP. Records. To gain new weapons.

Along with that comes the ability to change your weapon load out mid level by opening a menu under the Back/Select button. This allows you to change and mix and match on the fly instead of having to find one of those statues in DMC, making preparations for big battles a lot easier and allowing you to adapt as needed.

There’s also two sequences that break up the combat – A Motorcycle homage to Outrun and a Rocket Flying Space Harrier/Fantasy Zone sequence. Both are neat additions, but they go on so long that you sometimes just want to get back to killing things with guns on your feet. ESPECIALLY the Space Harrier/Fantasy Zone stage, as it comes before the best boss fight in the game. It should be a crime to do something like that.

Then comes Angel Attack, the between stage minigame where you shoot angels to get bonus points between stages, which can be exchanged for prizes or added to your current collection of Halos (the game’s currency). The problem with this one is its between EVERY stage, and gets tiring quickly.

Okay, So How Nice Does This All Look?

Holy Shit Man.
The European architecture, the designs for the Angel enemies, the Umbra Demon’s look…it’s all beautiful.

Every place looks amazing and when you get the chance to use Witch Walk — the ability to run up and down all surfaces – you can really take in how well designed all the areas are.

All the Angel designs – in the brief moment you’re able to enjoy them before they start punching your head in – are all beautiful in high definition, from their default statuesque looks to the dripping, meaty, unnerving appearance they take after you start pounding on them.

And – PS3 version aside – everything moves so well and without massive slow down that you can appreciate all of this beauty at all times, even after punching your controller into your TV.

Also, she doesn’t look like Sarah Palin.

Seriously. They don’t look alike at all. They just both wear glasses.

Alright, How About The Story? Do I Want To Play For The Story?

Well, its not so much a story as it’s a Holy Shit generator, as every cut scene in the game involves Bayonetta doing something crazy. Depending on your feelings towards cut scenes in gaming, you’ll either enjoy or hate each one, but luckily all of them are skippable for those who don’t care too much for them.

The vocal cast during the cut scenes is top notch; Bayonetta and her counterpart Jeanne manage to keep their accents consistent, Rodin sounds like a scary black man should sound, and Luka has the ever prolific Yuri “I’m In Everything Now” Lowenthal providing his voice. All the Angel bosses speak in a sort of Psuedo-Latin, but after the first few lines you barely notice it.

Alongside the in game story, there are a series of books you can collect as you run through the game, each one expanding a bit on the history of the world and how the Witches and Angels are viewed. Its an unexpected addition to the game, expanding the plot and giving those completionist out there a neat easter egg hunt.

Well, That Sounds Pretty Alright. Hey, What’s This I Hear About The PS3 Version ?

Ah. That.
The PS3 Version is port done by Sega and not handled by Platinum Games directly. While the game plays the same, there are a few…issues that could have been worked out but somehow weren’t.

The graphics, while still as good as the 360 version, occasionally are hit with pop up and muddled from time to time, at random occurrences. It doesn’t quite detract enough to hurt it, but it can be distracting sometimes to see the textures of a character’s face change midway through a cut scene.

Then there’s the load issues. The loading on the PS3 edition is higher than that of the 360s by a large amount. While it was unnoticeable in the demo, the in game load can get ridiculous – the information screen for new items takes a bit and the load for pressing start makes skipping cut scenes take longer than actually watching them sometimes. There’s even a noticeable load when you save and load.

On the other hand, the between level load is roughly the same, which means the same amount of time to practice combos. Take that how you choose.

So, What Do You Think? Buy? Rent? Skip?

If your a fan of the genre and like your action over the top, go right ahead and purchase this right now while screaming obscenities at anyone who tries to prevent you from doing so. Those who aren’t big fans of campiness may grow tired of the antics along the way, but anyone willing to give this a try won’t be disappointed. With the ranking system and hidden collectibles, there’s a ton of replayability for anyone who wants to go the route of 100% completion. Give it a buy.

And now for your moment of Zen