Bayonetta Review

Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by Johnn0 in Games, News, Reviews

Bayonetta is a game I have been keeping a close eye on since it was announced mostly due to the fact that it was being directed by the man that brought us the first Devil May Cry. So, having a great pedigree, can Bayonetta set itself apart from the other games in the genre?

Before we get into too many details about the game just a heads up, there have been reports that the PS3 version of Bayonetta is wildly inferior to the X360 version with load times and frame rate issues during combat, what I would like to point out is that I never played the game prior to the patch that was released to address these issues so I can’t confirm the problems, what I can say however is that I installed the game and played my ass off for 3 days without noticing one frame rate issue. The loading times have been addressed too with loading appearing at odd places sometimes but mostly only for a second (excluding level loading and trips to the shop). All in all it seems that the PS3 issues have been solved and anyone who has been holding off buying this game due to these issues don’t have to anymore.

Anyhoo, back to the review. (rhymes rock)

Players of previous Devil May Cry games will find a similar tone and visual style to Bayonetta, not to say that it is a clone or rip off of the DMC games, it isn’t, it’s better! Bayonetta is the type of game that you will play for a few hours at a time and every now and then, for no reason, you will catch yourself smiling. The story made less that f-all sense to me but hell I played it twice anyway.

What I manged to extract from the story is that back in the day the balance of good and evil was carefully watched over by the Umbran Witches and the Lumen Sages. The umbran witches represented the dark (evil) and the lumen sages represented the light (good) and all was well until a great tragedy caused the clans to go to war and all the umbran witches died, save for one.

The battle between good and evil is not really a battle in this case as the Umbrans are never really represented as evil and the sages aren’t exactly holy it more like the two clans merely made sure that the balance was maintained. So as you may deduce from my very in depth analysis of the story, I didn’t get it, still don’t and it doesn’t worry me in the least.

Bayonetta is a game all about ass kicking and you do plenty of that utilizing one hell of a combat system. As many of you know, Bayonetta has guns in her hands and on her feet with the ability to exchange weapons on customizable setups. This really comes in down the line when more weapons are unlocked allowing you, for example, to equip a sword and guns as class A and a whip and shotguns as class B. Hitting the L2 button will swap between these two classes on the fly allowing for almost limitless combinations to be created.

Add the above skills to the fact that Bayonetta has one of the deepest combo systems I’ve ever seen with the ability to shoot, kick and use a weapon all pretty much at the same time all the while trying to pull of some awesome weave attacks. Also added to the system is the ability to perform torture attacks on your angelic foes that  triggers a mini button mashing QTE that allows the player to deal deadly hits to the baddies.

And that is just the offence. On the defense side of things there is this little thing called witch time which allows you to slow down time and move faster so that you can deal more damage to enemies. This may sound like a cheap trick, it isn’t. It is in fact a necessary skill to learn not only for combat but also for traversing some of the levels. The way it works is that just before you take damage press any direction on the L stick and hit R2 and BAM witch time.  Considering the size of some of the bosses in the game and even some of the cannon fodder you are served learning this skill is important and fun to do.

When you aren’t dealing in death you can visit “The Gates of Hell” which anticlimactically is a bar where you can buy items, skills, accessories and weapons from. The selection of items is never overwhelming but is more than enough to ensure that you can handle yo’ business when the time comes.

Visually the game has superb art direction and while not a technical powerhouse is still easy on the eye, in fact when you are fighting the game’s minions the action looks so awesome at some points with so many over the top moves and blows being dished out by the sexually overtone ridden Bayonetta that when a battle finishes you almost want to hi5 yourself.

The game environments are detailed and reasonably large but what really impressed me is the size and action sequences of some of the bosses. Not to spoil anything, but one of the bosses you actually fight at sea while riding a piece of a destroyed airplane. Awesome. Speaking of bosses, I must add that Bayonetta has a little thing called mid-boss-fight checkpoints, which saves you from hours of frustration trying to kill a boss that has 10 life bars, getting to 9 and the dying. Kudos to Platinum Games for that one.

Conclusion

Bayonetta is not a perfect game, hell it’s storytelling is sometimes so in-cohesive that the plot totally escapes you, there are some poorly implemented quicktime events that lead to cheap deaths, there are some cheesy moments so bad that I couldn’t help but facepalm myself and yet, none of that matters.

Bayonetta is a game that knows where to challenge and where to aid, with a gracious checkpoint system and multiple difficulty settings, Bayonetta ensures that fun and not frustration is what extends it’s playability. Add to that the masterful combat system and beautiful visual style and Platinum Games have created the best action game to hit this generation of consoles.

Score

Graphics	8
Sound	8
Gameplay	10
Overall Much more than the sum of its parts, Bayonetta is the new benchmark for action games, period.	9 / 10

For a second opinion check out our friend Gamestates review of the game below.

A big thank you to Nu Metro for making the game available for review.

Tags: Bayonetta, PS3, Review