Formats: Xbox 360 (tested), PS3
Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: SEGA
Released: 8 January 2010
Score: 10/10
Pre-order Bayonetta![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tj12H6sXbPoaYYyaeG24k1LNXY_U3viYd4tDU5-1jh03Hs-FLnentSpQG1cMP41SOntnZ5ft6XBenlMSL_CwBd4QAVfDwvFtlAB2Cs2uJl09vu7EGoX_PS_iIBnKSQ-EelQZpySfL_gRywAXweIHZWLrNVFqFiMBGOVqaYkf_OIV7lzEcJ14nZeg=s0-d)
Developer: Platinum Games
Publisher: SEGA
Released: 8 January 2010
Score: 10/10
Pre-order Bayonetta
There are few games as head-over-heels in love with its main character as Bayonetta. Sure, Uncharted 2
plays plenty of attention to Nathan Drake's finely defined stubble and wet T-shirts, and you'll spend a lot of time in Gears of War
admiring Marcus Fenix's hulking -yet lovingly-detailed- body armour and growling baritone. But nothing like this.
Looking like a cross between an S&M strip club dancer and that supply teacher all the boys used to fancy at school, Bayonetta is introduced with all the restraint of Mardi Gras. Throwing off a demure disguise, she pirouettes into the air, spotlights criss-cross the screen, the camera freezes and displays the object of its affection. Clad head to toe in a black latex catsuit, Bayonetta winks, before launching into an attack against the grotesque angels descending from the heavens.
Cartwheeling between each celestial beastie, Bayonetta rips through flesh with the pistols in each hand and attached to each high-heeled stiletto: a deathly, hot lead tap-dance. Walking with a strut that would make Jessica Rabbit jealous, the camera lingers over every inch of her impossibly long legs, effortlessly finding the most titillating angle as she deals out her balletic punishment. The video game is more than familiar with bizarrely proportioned femme fatales. But nothing like this.
Despite being apparently borne from the imagination of a sex-starved teenager, Bayonetta escapes complete objectification with her strong will and snappy dialogue. The clipped British accent and acid tongue she speaks in laced with pith and charm. Yep, it's love alright.
But even its lustful adoration of its heroine can’t compete with Bayonetta’s all-out reverence for its own medium. It’s an unashamed video game, and it couldn’t be more proud. It celebrates its heritage wherever it can, referencing Sonic the Hedgehog, Resident Evil 4 and Space Harrier, among many others. It’s a testament to the game that these tributes never feel out of place, despite being bold as brass. Bayonetta revels in the freedom that the design remit allows, which disposes with such trifling matters as ‘sanity’ and ‘restraint’. What we get instead is utterly bonkers but utterly, utterly brilliant. Bayonetta is a game stuffed with flamboyant imagination, from its enormous bosses that take up entire chapters to the perspective shifting platforming. Video game developers have thrown caution to the wind and cut loose before, but nothing like ... yeah, I think you get it.
From the mind from Hideki Kamiya – the creator of the Devil May Cry series – Bayonetta’s primary focus is on combat. Naturally, it shares much of its DNA with Capcom’s gothic hack n’ slash, but knocks Dante’s brawling into a cocked hat. It initially gives the impression of sensory overload, a furious firework display as you hammer buttons to pull off Bayonetta’s gymnastic combinations. In fact, the game itself does stutter into life somewhat, interspersing short bursts of combat with overly-lengthy –though admittedly excellent – cutscenes. However, it doesn’t take long for that initial layer of fat to be trimmed and the fighting system begins to reveal its majesty.
Bayonetta gives you a helping hand to embed the game’s enormous range of mêlée combos into your muscle memory. Each load screen doubles up as a training area where you can practice linking your moves together, the right of the screen listing the various button inputs. It’s a genius touch, allowing you to experiment with the huge variety of moves on offer, perfecting your timing before taking it into the game proper. However, learning these combinations is just the start. True mastery comes in the understanding of Bayonetta’s nuances: holding down your final button input to ‘shoot out’ of a combo, racking up your multiplier and allowing you to link together a new string of moves with a hail of bullets; cartwheeling out of a flurry of attacks to avoid a beating, before immediately launching into another combo; learning each audio and visual clue of an incoming enemy attack to dodge at just the right time to slow down time and administer due punishment. You can even assign different weapons to each set of limbs – adding even more combos to your already expansive arsenal – swapping between your configurations with the press of a button.
It’s an exceptionally intricate system to master, yet welcoming to newcomers (there are even two levels of Easy that automatically triggers combos). Eventually the game becomes a stern test in spatial awareness. Battles explode from the screen, with intense concentration needed to see through the furious spectacle and escape a confrontation unscathed. Then there are the torture moves, where Bayonetta conjures up a gothic guillotine or similarly nasty piece of equipment to finish off her foes.
Last, but certainly not least, there are the devil’s weave attacks. Bayonetta’s dominatrix catsuit is, in fact, woven from her own hair. Channelling her power, the outfit disappears from her body – leaving little to the imagination – and is absorbed into a giant summoning. In basic combat, it brings forth a huge fist, or a giant stiletto to kick unsuspecting angels in the face. When battling the huge bosses, however, the tendrils of Bayonetta’s hair shifts and contorts into such horrors as a humungous spider, or a monstrous dragon, which proceed to then gobble up your foe as a tasty snack. Did we mention that Bayonetta is a little bit ... different?
It all adds up to a spectacular system, which is unquestionably the best of its type. Bayonetta’s battling is responsive, intuitive and relentlessly entertaining in and of itself, but what impresses most is the way it is used throughout the game. Kamiya’s team at Platinum Games craft their system around a plethora of ever-more-insane scenarios, toying with perspective in a way not seen since Super Mario Galaxy. Bayonetta will battle fellow witches while scurrying up walls, fight giant sea-dwelling demons while surfing and get into scraps on pieces of masonry fizzing through the cosmos. While combat may be the constant, you rarely feel you’re doing the same thing for long before Bayonetta throws another curveball, asking you to adapt in the blink of an eye. And it’s so seamlessly crafted; you do so with ease in your mind and a grin on your face. It only truly stumbles when it tosses in an unexpected and contrived QTE, the failure of which can often mean instant death.
Of course, with so much going on, it can sometimes stretch the technical limitations of your console, such as when the camera struggles to keep up with the furious pace of the action. The 360 version also suffers from occasional framerate dips and slightly more frequent screen tearing, although it’s not as troublesome as the PS3 port’s well-documented problems. They tend to amount to little more than niggles, however; a small price to pay for such unbridled exhilaration. It may even be too much for some players who prefer a more grounded gaming experience. If that’s your inclination, move along, there’s nothing to see here. Bayonetta is so over the top, it's down the other side, through the earth's crust, straight through its core and out the other end. Then it blasts off into space.
It’s also a game that demands to be replayed. For each micro-battle you take part in throughout the game, you are awarded a medal based on your performance, with online leader boards comparing your efforts with the world’s best. On completion of the game’s default difficulty, hard mode is unlocked, which ups the ante even more. Button mashers need not apply. Tougher enemies are introduced earlier on, and even with all of Bayonetta’s upgrades carrying over, you’ll need an in-depth knowledge of the battle system to best it. By then, you’ll also have access to more items at the game’s upgrade shop ‘The Gates of Hell’, which adds further quirks to the already bewitching formula.
Bayonetta’s exceptional quality as a video game is beyond question, raising the bar of its respective genre to hitherto unseen heights. But it’s also a shining beacon for Japanese games development. The untouchable Nintendo aside, the games industry in the Far East is perceived to be on a downward spiral, with even Capcom’s Keiji Inafune declaring the Japanese games industry ‘finished’ at last year’s Tokyo Games Show. With a sweep of her gun-toting stilettos, Bayonetta kicks that theory into touch. Bayonetta’s unashamedly a video game, but it’s also unashamedly Japanese, a celebration of the unique exuberance that characterises the country’s long-standing approach to video game craft. What’s the phrase? “Only in Japan?” Sometimes that’s true, and the rest of the world can only look on in envy. Somehow, you can’t see the west producing an action game starring a schoolmistress-cum-dominatrix with guns on her heels, whose primary form of defence is punching angels heads off with her magical hair extensions. Considering just how good Bayonetta is, the gaming world would be a much duller place without it.
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