Review: Bayonetta

Jan 20, 2010

When Bayonetta was first revealed by Platinum Games, most of the focus was initially on the titular character, an impossibly leggy glasses-wearing witch wielding a pistol on each limb, and the ridiculous over the top nature of the game.  Early production also touted the involvement of director Hideki Kamiya, the man responsible for the original Devil May Cry, and the game was labelled as the spiritual successor to that genre-defining PS2 classic.  Over time, more was revealed of mechanics that were as over-the-top as the game’s style, but there was still uncertainty over just how deep the game would be.  The first Devil May Cry, after all, was a much simpler game than 2005′s Devil May Cry 3, but Kamiya’s only direct involvement had been on the original.

With the finished product in hand, however, it is clear that Bayonetta isn’t all cheesy style — the developers at Platinum Games had their sights set on the genre kings.  The game arrives with a feature set and an amount of content that rivals anything with Dante, Ryu, or Kratos in it, and despite having a foundation derived from Devil May Cry the core combat is more developed and focused than the first game in a new franchise has any right being.  It’s not without its faults, but Bayonetta is an incredible first outing and one of the finest action combat games ever made.

Bayonetta unleashes a wicked weave attack

Before getting into the combat, though, we should take a closer look at the world, characters, and trappings that make up the world of Bayonetta.  As good as the combat is, the game’s presentation has already proven divisive to gamers.  Calling it Devil May Cry with a woman doesn’t do it justice — it’s similarly cheesy, but Bayonetta takes it to a whole new level.  This is a game that revels in every negative stereotype attached to gaming by the non-gaming public, as though it were born in the nightmares of the most prudish mother-of-two out there who hasn’t touched a video game since Ms. Pac-Man first shipped.  The main character is a sexually charged witch whose magical hair becomes devices of torture and full on demons which she uses to defeat her enemies, which just happen to be angels.  Her movements often look closer to pole dancing moves than martial arts, and the camera is never shy about highlighting her best “assets” nor the more violent and bloody kills.

This is not all done because Platinum Games is lazy or even unoriginal.  Quite the opposite, the game oozes creativity, and it is keenly aware of just how cheesy it is.  The game never takes itself seriously, and just when you think you’ve seen the most absurd thing you’re going to see, it tops itself.  From running on and up walls to battling angels while riding a missile to numerous boss encounters whose size and scale are untouched, the game is one spectacle after another that rarely slows down and never stops moving.

That’s not to say the presentation doesn’t have its problems.  The soundtrack is certainly appropriate to the game, switching from a saccharine cover of “Fly Me to the Moon” to jazzy piano numbers to loud, choral-and-organs heavy hymnal tracks at the drop of a hat.  Some tracks are better than others, however, with some that are outstanding, others that are forgettable, and others that you will just get tired of hearing before the end of your first 12+ hour playthrough.  Voice acting fares similarly – Bayonetta and a couple of other characters are voiced perfectly, but some other members of the game’s admittedly small cast fall somewhere between unremarkable and just plain irritating.  Not that their dialogue gave them much to work with in the first place:  Intentional cheese is one thing, but the story in Bayonetta is a verifiable mess that never makes much sense.  It’s really there to facilitate the action and give Bayonetta ample opportunity for one liners, but Devil May Cry 3 proved games like these could have a coherent plot with a couple of characters you actually care about, even if it wasn’t exactly Shakespeare.

On the technical side of things the game looks better than average, with impressive architecture and beautiful character animation.  There are shortcomings here too, though.  Certain story sequences are told in a strange “filmstrip style” that isn’t entirely devoid of style, but feels cheap compared to the fully animated cutscenes. Framerates rarely take a dive, but it can happen in particularly busy parts.  But probably most distracting is that the game is prone to screen tearing, particularly when you’re moving fast.  None of these problems ruin the game, but they are noticeable.

While Bayonetta’s bombastic presentation may not be for everyone, the combat is something any fan of the genre can appreciate.  As mentioned before it builds on the foundation of Devil May Cry, but it wasn’t expected to top the insanity of Devil May Cry 3, a game that let players mix weapons and in-game styles in a truly remarkable number of ways.  The surprise is that Bayonetta not only keeps up with its father series but surpasses it in a number of ways too.  Basic combat is the same in that Bayonetta typically progresses from battle to battle, taking out enemies using a variety of flashy moves.  Combat is fast, visceral, and over the top — knocking opponents in to walls or chasing them in to the air after launching them off the ground are both very common and satisfying.  But Bayonetta offers a couple of new twists as well — Torture Attacks and Witch Time.

Torture Attacks are powerful, unavoidable moves that can cancel just about any action, and so can be just as useful defensively as offensively.   In order to use them you have to fill Bayonetta’s magic meter, which fills as you beat on enemies but drains whenever you get hit.  Once initiated, you’ll enter a short cutscene where you’re required to mash a button or spin an analog in order to increase the damage done.  These attacks are always flashy but are genuinely quite useful to boot, and can be especially handy to get you past a particularly annoying type of enemy.

Witch Time is a powerful defensive maneuver that gives Bayonetta a lot of its flair.  The game has a dodge button, mapped to the right trigger, that when pressed will avoid any enemy damage with very generous timing.  If you hit the trigger at the last possibly moment, however, you’ll enter Witch Time.  It’s Bayonetta’s answer to bullet time, and despite being a bit cliche it works especially well here.  There’s no limit to the number of times you can use it and it even helps you rack up higher points, so it quickly becomes a pivotal part of your arsenal.  It’s also just fun to use, and it can keep some extremely hectic battles maintainable even to novice players.

A good number of basic moves feel very similar to DMC’s offerings, but Bayonetta gets more mileage starting with the simple addition of another attack button.  There is a button for punch and a button for kick, which doesn’t sound like much of a difference until you realize just how seamlessly the game will blend any combination of button presses in to a combo.  That said, the most impressive part of having two attack buttons is the weapons.

Bayonetta offers 12 distinct weapons, 7 which are available through the normal course of the game and the other 5 which are unlocked by hitting specific bonus milestones.  You set one weapon to your hands and one weapon to your feet, and you can also assign a second hands/feet weapon combination that you can switch to at the press of a button, even in mid combo.  The number of combinations here is staggering, and there’s a lot of fun to be had in just trying out different weapon combinations and seeing what suits you.  If that weren’t enough, defeated enemies will sometimes drop weapons which you can pick up and use.  These weapons are powerful and completely unique, but break after a few uses.

There are other layers on top of this, too.  The game has a number of new techniques that you can learn from the in-game store, including animal forms that offer increased mobility and even flight.  You can also buy accessories and equip any two at the same time.  These accessories offer a wide variety of different benefits.  Some give you new magic spells while others give you a new advantage in combat, like being able to refill your health if you successfully taunt the enemy.  My personal favorite is an accessory that allowed you to parry enemy attacks by tapping the analog in the direction of the attacker, Street Fighter 3 style.  It’s a difficult mechanic to master, but once you have you’ll wonder how you managed without it.

Lastly, there are also single use items that you can buy or even make yourself that offer a variety of effects, like restoring health, dealing damage to on screen enemies, or bringing you back from death after you’ve taken that last hit.  These items can be mapped to your d-pad for convenient use even in the heat of battle.  There’s even a shooting gallery mini game called Angel Attack that you play between levels where you can trade high scores in for rare items.

Bayonetta in mid-battle

The end result is a combat engine that out-Devil-May-Crys Devil May Cry.  This would be for naught if the game didn’t provide the enemies to test players with, but here the game excels too.  Things start off harmless enough with angel enemies that are slow to attack and simple to pound on, but as you progress through the levels you’ll find more enemy types revealed to you that require new strategies.  As mentioned before the bosses are often huge and spectacular.  There are a couple instances of repeat boss fights, but even these are given new twists or even an entirely new way of fighting the boss that keeps the game feeling like it’s simply regurgitating its content like Devil May Cry 4 did.

When it comes to its core combat, Bayonetta is about as close to performing the Devil May Cry approach as we’ve seen yet.  The game does unfortunately take a few side trips from what it does best which count as its less impressive moments.  That includes first and foremost two vehicle segments and one manned-cannon segment which aren’t awful but are too long and nowhere near as pristine as the game’s core combat.  The game also has an overabundance of QTEs straight out of the God of War school of design.  As cool as it may look to brutally murder your enemies the first time, after about 100 times you’re going to wish you could just skip the animation and instead you’re pressing the X button as fast as you can.

Content wise the game has a lot to offer, though more so if you’re the type of player that enjoys progressing through higher difficulty levels and searching out all a game has to offer.  The first run through the game clocks in at around a dozen hours, and there are five difficulty levels in all, ranging from a Very Easy mode that will do most of the hard work for you to a “Non Stop Infinite Climax Mode” which takes away your Witch Time ability.  There’s also a bounty of unlockable costumes, weapons, accessories, characters, and even a survival-mode style “Lost Chapter” level waiting for players who want to keep getting better.  Like Devil May Cry before it, your game data is the same no matter what difficulty level or stage you’re playing on, so if you want to take all of your treasures from your first playthrough on normal to your second on hard, you’re free to do so.

If there’s a downfall to all this, it’s that the game balance tends to fall apart after you’ve reached a certain skill level.  For all the game’s depth, there are a number of weapon and move combinations that are so powerful they render the game too easy, even on the hardest difficulty setting.  For most players this will never be an issue, but for players who like to compare times and scores, you’ll find that the game’s online leaderboards are quickly becoming crowded by people who are all using the same exploits.

Overall, for fans like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta is quite simply a game not to be missed.  Likewise, for fans of games that are outrageous and over the top, your new queen is here.  It’s probably not the game for everyone, but its among the best games in its genre and an example of remarkable game design.