It took me long enough to get around to this one, but there’s just something about high-action current gen spectacle brawlers that makes them kind of exhausting to sit through, no matter how much awesome might be delivered. I loved Platinum’s prior kill-sim, MadWorld to death, but I played that one a stage a night, which actually kinda helped with the ‘fictional death sport OF THE FUTURE!’ theme by breaking it up into episodes. Basically, in short sittings, I’m all for mowing down legions upon legions of four or five of the same enemy broken up by over-the-top QTE’s and cutscenes, but if I wanted to sit down and play Bayonetta from beginning to end in an afternoon, I’d probably yank all of my hair out the sixty-five thousandth time Two Little Angels And A Big Angel appeared after I thought I was free to continue down the hallway.
So, speaking of hair pulling, let’s start with the obvious, Bayonetta herself. Obviously, they went crazy trying to make her sexy, but when you wrap ‘realistic’ textures around someone with proportions like Jessica Rabbit with leg extensions, it’s kinda creepy at times. Crack all the jokes you want about people buying the game just to rub one off to the heroine, but honestly, she’s just kind of creepy if you look too closely at her. She has an immobile Tomb Raider monoboob, legs the length of oil drills, and a butt that well, honestly, I think they spent more time rendering than some of the intricate and colossal bosses. Cosmetic stuff aside, why don’t people talk more about how horrendously, terrifyingly powerful the girl is? She doesn’t dual-wield pistols- she quad wields with a second set of weapons on her feet. Her bodysuit is actually made up of enchanted, weaponized hair. Her hair turns into a variety of demons, disembodied hands and feet, and she can summon medieval torture devices from thin air if she feels like being particularly showy while killing you. And let’s not forget the fact she’s able to just plain slam colossal, dragon-like beings over her shoulder. As she puts it, “Don’t fuck with a witch.” Yes’m.
So the game basically follows said witch on a mission to kill lots and lots of angels to make her underworld bosses happy. Sounds pretty bad, but this is one of those worlds where pretty much everyone’s a little bit of a dick, so the good guys aren’t too good, and the bad guys aren’t too bad, so just focus on surviving. The greater story unfolds slowly at first, but ends up pretty decent. Though I don’t imagine you’ll see enough of the story to understand it unless you’re really into the main event- breaking things, people and animals. You can also cash in your saved halos from fallen enemies (I suppose fallen angels applies, but in kind of a different sense) to buy weapons, accessories, items, and new moves that will allow you to better kick opposing asses, or better save your own ass. Healing items can be synthesized from ingredients found lying unsanitarily in flower pots or in enemies’ guts, as well, and the key weapons are made by finding golden records to bring to your demon buddy Rodin at his shop. Ranging from samurai swords to missile launching tonfas, there are a lot of flavors of life-terminating goodness to be had and customized to your tastes.
One of the core mechanics is ‘Witch Time’, set off by dodging an enemy’s attack with just the right timing. You get a few seconds to wail on enemies while their movements are brought to a crawl. The timing isn’t actually that hard, but by mid game, there are so many enemies around at once you’ll probably find yourself mashing the dodge button desperately (which by then, can easily, accidentally turn you into a wolf) trying to trigger the effect on the increasingly aggressive angels. Every few chapters, you’ll be treated to an epic, multi stage boss encounter with one of the ‘Cardinal Virtues,’ which are probably the centerpiece of the whole experience. It’s satisfying as hell to bring a building sized monster down to pathetic scraps, then deliver the coup de grace by turning your hair into a giant monster and biting it in half or something. Basically, when you hear Bayonetta’s theme kick in, you know someone is about to be catastrophically OWNED.
So, solid as it is, and definitely fun, Bayonetta is also pretty damned hard in spots, so it’s more of a rage builder than a stress reliever than MadWorld was. (I’ve actually gotten onlookers worried about how into slamming enemies into spiked walls repeatedly I would get.) It’s got a lot of replay value to it, too since there’s several difficulty levels, moves and weapons and costumes to collect, and a few hidden characters. It’s also current-gen, giving it trophies and achievements and all that jazz, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Ok, I think I need to take a break from writing about games I enjoy. That gets boring, doesn’t it? Let’s try something more… classic next time, shall we?
