Bayonetta

[pariah]

Witches usually get a bad rap in the media. They're seen as wicked creatures in movies, culture, and occasionally video games.

They're the eaters of children...

Thieves of youth...

And, you know, the wives of Satan.

Though, with the release of Bayonetta, witches have a new angle: Sexy-asskicking-gun-toting-deadly-hair-machines.

After 500 years of containment in a lake, Bayonetta awakens and remembers only fragments of her past. While in search of a valuable gemstones called the "Eyes of the World", Bayonetta starts to piece together her mysterious history with the help of her defeated enemies, a woman with similar moves, and a plucky journalist. She journeys through the city of Vigrid slipping between the world of the supernatural and reality in order to deal with the Angel Clan that is constantly trying to twart our leggy heroine from accomplishing her goals.

Chances are, most people that bought the game bought it for the compelling storyline.

... it's a very well rounded, firm story.

Its a story anyone that plays video games has seen one time or another. Lost past, twists, and mysterious strangers that reappear in the protagonist's life all show up in Bayonetta. Its straight forward and nothing out of the ordinary for a action game.

What shines about Bayonetta is the combat system: fast, furious, and absolutely ridiculous. Punch and kick are the basic moves, but pushed in the right order can chain into different combos that are more effective than punching and kicking at random. Its actually quite easy to appear like you know what you're doing when you're only frantically smashing buttons. And the biggest advantage Bayonetta has over other action games (Lookin' at you, Devil May Cry) is the dodge button. When an enemy takes a swipe at Bayonetta, she can dodge out of the way with a hit of a button. Additionally, if the dodge is well timed, it will activate "Witch Time." Witch Time slows down time for everything but Bayonetta which allows her to wrack up some serious points and quickly kill off enemies.

The hair attacks and sets of weaponry is what makes Bayonetta so much fun. While pulling of a successful string of combos, Bayonetta's fist or leg will manifest as a giant column of hair that ejects from a portal of hell can easily crush enemies. That's only the beginning of the bizarre menagerie of weaponry Bayonetta keeps. To start off, Bayonetta has pistols in her hands and also strapped to her high heels. It is not uncommon for Bayonetta to whip in the air with bullets flying from all four guns simultaneously while spinning in a circle at speed. The weapons only upscale from the pistols. Later in the game, Bayonetta gains shotguns, whip, sword, and many more. Choosing a combination of weapons is entertaining in itself since the player can decide what weapons can go on the feet and which will be held in the hand. In addition, accessories can also be purchased. These give Bayonetta an edge by summoning butterflies to take hits for her, demons to dish out damage, or trading out "witch time" to do additional damage.

Bayonetta also has a magic meter which allows her to activate some accessories or execute "Torture Attacks". These Torture Attacks are quicktimed instant kill or high damage attacks that Bayonetta can perform once her magic is high enough. Said Torture Attacks are constructed as so: full of chunks of gore, a layer of sexy, and topped with humor along the lines of Dead Alive and Evil Dead. A couple of the Torture Attacks made even me, the weirdo gorehound that I am, blush and awkwardly laugh. One in particular was Joy, one of Bayonetta's holy sexy counterparts, is introduced by her being spread eagle and loudly moaning. (Alright, the game is obviously directed by men; confirmed.) The Torture Attack for Joy goes as such: A spiked pummel horse raises from a portal and Bayonetta perches on top of it and swings a chain around her head. The chain lashes out and wraps around Joy's body similar to rope bondage and yanks her to sit on the pummel horse. During this sequence, Bayonetta pushes her foot down on Joy, pushing her deeper onto the spikes until Joy eventually climaxes with glee and splits in two.

Awwwwkard.

While the game works amazing for an action game with great flow and speed, Bayonetta has some flaws. Namely, whenever the game tries to try out anything different other than the combat. In the chapters entitled Route 666 and Isla Del Sol, Bayonetta takes control of a vehicle and is set into an on-rails shooter. Not only are both of the levels lengthy, but they are painfully dull. Route 666 is a never-ending sea of cars and enemies that Bayonetta shoots blindly at while going at top speed. Isla Del Sol, Bayonetta takes to the skies on a rocket and shoots down flying enemies as they whiz by in a third person mode. The huge flaw for this will not effect everyone, but I had a lot of problems with motion sickness. The dodge mechanic in Isla Del Sol spins the screen. Bayonetta needs to dodge a lot in that particular level. I am sure you can see what the problem is.

The game is the right length at about eight hours if its the player's first time through, but it can easily be beaten under three hours. Because of the short time it takes to play through the game, the other difficulties of Bayonetta are much more appealing to beat (especially with the promise of more ridiculously sexy outfits, new accessories and weapons). There are dozens of items and secrets in the game to continue to look for through the different playthroughs.

Bayonetta is a great game because it doesn't take itself seriously. It knows it's gory, sexy, and five levels of campy and it fully embraces that fact (unlike it's butch counterpart, Devil May Cry). Once the player can accept the voluptuous protagonist with all of her hairy beasts and outrageous fights, then a beautiful witch friendship witch relationship will start to blossom...

For now.

another princess another castle

[Shalashaska]

Kudos for avoiding the obvious Palin reference.

The Devil May Cry series really did take a nose dive recently, so any excuse to not see more whiny men postulate is a welcome change.

[pariah]

I guess I didn't really see the Palin.

It really is a fun game.

[Dar]

Thanks for writing this up. This is a really good review. I really need to get this game. D: I want to have some button mashing fun too.

[pariah]

Thanks. c:

[Mr. Reku]

Kool. After reading all the way up to the part about the well-rounded story--

[not because I don't respect you writing, but because you talked about her switching into reality and I didn't even know about that. So I didn't want to learn anything else]--

I google'd progress on the ps3 port again, and it seems like Sony (in conjunction with PG and Sega) (yo no foolin, those two were some lazy-asses when it came to helping the black console [added the black part after, and the slash-through a good deal after I made the post and probably should've just added this as an "edit"]) just released the install-to-harddrive patch.

That's Bah-d'ass. Should I ever return home from college, I will no longer feel conflicted about whether I should betray my console of choice or betray myself with long-ass loading-ass scenes.