Bayonetta is an action, hack and slash game developed by Platinum Games
and Nex Entertainment and published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and
PlayStation 3. It stars Bayonetta, a shapeshifting witch with as many
spells as she has guns, and hair that would make Sindel envious.
The game open with a cut-scene that plays out like one looking over
still images on a roll of film with audio playing over it. A woman is
talking about how someone broke the ancient commandments and crafted a
bond with one of the light making an impure child and sentenced
them to be eternally imprisoned. Chaos ensues, people are running away
screaming, Bayonetta is being stabbed, and then we see her underwater in
a casket being awakened by a scuba diver. It's all really confusing and
unfortunately the story doesn't get any easier to understand from
there.
This is another game that starts you clear off and makes you wish you would have read the instructions manual. You're falling through the sky on a broken clock tower with the narrator explaining what's going on. That'd be nice and all if I wasn't busy FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE! As is the norm with hack and slash games, you're surrounded by enemies, and while button mashing is all well and good, your best bet is with performing as many different combos as you can as fast as you can. As if that isn't enough, when you kill an enemy gold rings (otherwise known as halos) drop to the ground for you to pick up. There's even a guy named Eggman. Nice reference, Sega. In case the halo wasn't enough of a hint, the main enemies you face in this game are angels. I don't mean the pretty ones you see on paintings in churches and museums, these are some ugly mother fuckers! They're probably way more truer to the bible's depiction of angels then anything else you've seen.
In addition to regular moves and combos, you have special moves like torture attack which trigger a humorous scene where Bayonetta tortures the bejesus out of the enemy. Some times you can spin an enemy around and around and fire off your gun in a stationary position when surrounded. The game will present you with several Real Time Events to keep you on your toes if you want to score higher, and at the end of each stage you'll be awarded a trophy depending on how well you did. There are also a variety of items you can use to assist you as well. Four different types of lollipops that raises health, magic, attack power, and makes her temporarily invincible. A magic flute to attack nearby enemies with, and you can even pick up weapons that belonged to enemies and fight with it until its health goes to zero. You can also pick up books along the way which holds information about things in the game kind of like the codex from Mass Effect.
Remember when I made that Mortal Kombat reference? When you're facing a boss you can activate a finishing move the same way as the torture attack and that'll summon a demon, in the form of your hair, to be summoned and literally eat the angel that you were fighting. If it's not eating them then it's either crushing or doing something to royally screw it over. I'll tell you the first time I saw that I was staring at the screen in awe for a good couple of seconds before I snapped out of it. If women could do that in real life humans would be on the endangered species list.
To activate Witch Time, which basically makes everything move slower while you still function at a normal pace, you have to dodge attacks at the last second possible, and then go nuts. It's basically the game's equivalent of a Devil Trigger, making your attacks more powerful and only lasts for a limited amount of time before running out. It can also be utilized to bypass obstacles like brick walls that can only be broken through with your magic, or running water. Yes, you can walk on water. JESUS!
There are also some cool moves you can do like walk on walls. At a certain point you'll be given the ability to walk on the walls of buildings and ceilings when needed to further advance in different stages, or when facing a particular boss.
In certain parts of the game you can find an hourglass that turns back time at a certain point allowing you to reverse the damage done to a structure, like a bridge, in order to navigate across areas that you couldn't get to because you made it there too late. It's even utilized during a boss fight to revert the damage done to the area by the enemy, so you can continue to use it to your advantage. Each boss battle that comes along is even better than the one that comes before it, which just makes your blood pump whenever it's time to face a new boss.
The soundtrack in this game is awesome, but the remake of Frank Sinatra's Fly me to the Moon dwarfs the rest of the soundtrack. You can always hear it playing in the background whenever the action picks up, and you wouldn't have thought that'd be the kind of song to get stuck in your head while killing angels, yet here we are discussing it. Well played, Bayonetta. Well played.
The game has three different realms that separates heaven, purgatory, and hell, all named after the Italian words best known from the Divine Comedy: Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. Purgatorio acts as a kind of in-between connecting all the realms, having both the supernatural of the game walk among humanity, but also not being visible because they stand outside the planes of their reality. Which means most of the time humans appear as transparent watery substance. It's a cool concept that's done very well.
A bar named the Gates of Hell (but having nothing to do with Inferno) serves as a shop where you can buy healing items, new techniques, weapons, and other accessories to help you on your journey. You can access the bar in-between stages or through red portals found in the game. The bar is owned by Rodin, a weapons dealer that you'll encounter early on in the game. The halos you collect act as a form of currency when visiting the shop so be sure to collect as many as you can to get the best deals here.
After you complete a level, a minigame called Angels Attack begins where you fire at two types of angels that appear on your screen with a limited supply of bullets to work with. Hit the angels, you score points. Hit them in the head or more than one at a time and you score even higher. Once the bullets run out the round is over and you can buy items with the points you received or convert them into halos. It's done in a first-person perspective and, well, I hate it with a fiery passion. It gets old and repetitive fast and I wish there was a way to skip it, but you can't.
Storytelling in the game switches from the roll of film format I mentioned earlier, and the usual full animation. What the criteria is for switching I have no idea. I doubt it's little more than a style thing the developers were just playing around with to stand out. It works. I have no real complaint regarding the style, it's a style. You either like it or you don't. The narrative itself can get confusing rather easily and if you're not paying attention you're going to be lost. In fact, you could be paying attention and still be pretty lost. The supporting cast doesn't have much substance either, but that seems to be a reoccurring theme in hack and slash games that I've played. Enzo is an Italian stereotype, Rodin is a black man stereotype, Jeanne is a bitch, and Luka is the comic relief. Which leaves the star of our show, Bayonetta.
Despite looking like a supermodel for BDSM, the character herself is actually not that bad. She doesn't just have sex on the brain all the time. She has a goal, and she uses her abilities and resources to see to that goal and never backs down from a challenge, earning the respect of her peers. She even has a soft side – somewhat – sorta – deep, DEEP down inside. Her character arc is pinned down somewhat with the overused amnesia trope, but she fits the criteria of a badass with the cool exterior that a lot of other hack and slash games are known for, being right up there with the likes of Dante, Ryu Hayabusa, and War. Well, I guess you could argue War's exterior isn't exactly cool per se, but that's another story.
Bayonetta is a fun hack and slash, and one of those games where you have to embrace the sheer insanity of it all if you want to enjoy it. If you can do that then you'll be just fine. If not, or you don't like hack and slash games in general or games with angels and demons, this probably isn't something you can enjoy.
Get it
This is another game that starts you clear off and makes you wish you would have read the instructions manual. You're falling through the sky on a broken clock tower with the narrator explaining what's going on. That'd be nice and all if I wasn't busy FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE! As is the norm with hack and slash games, you're surrounded by enemies, and while button mashing is all well and good, your best bet is with performing as many different combos as you can as fast as you can. As if that isn't enough, when you kill an enemy gold rings (otherwise known as halos) drop to the ground for you to pick up. There's even a guy named Eggman. Nice reference, Sega. In case the halo wasn't enough of a hint, the main enemies you face in this game are angels. I don't mean the pretty ones you see on paintings in churches and museums, these are some ugly mother fuckers! They're probably way more truer to the bible's depiction of angels then anything else you've seen.
In addition to regular moves and combos, you have special moves like torture attack which trigger a humorous scene where Bayonetta tortures the bejesus out of the enemy. Some times you can spin an enemy around and around and fire off your gun in a stationary position when surrounded. The game will present you with several Real Time Events to keep you on your toes if you want to score higher, and at the end of each stage you'll be awarded a trophy depending on how well you did. There are also a variety of items you can use to assist you as well. Four different types of lollipops that raises health, magic, attack power, and makes her temporarily invincible. A magic flute to attack nearby enemies with, and you can even pick up weapons that belonged to enemies and fight with it until its health goes to zero. You can also pick up books along the way which holds information about things in the game kind of like the codex from Mass Effect.
Remember when I made that Mortal Kombat reference? When you're facing a boss you can activate a finishing move the same way as the torture attack and that'll summon a demon, in the form of your hair, to be summoned and literally eat the angel that you were fighting. If it's not eating them then it's either crushing or doing something to royally screw it over. I'll tell you the first time I saw that I was staring at the screen in awe for a good couple of seconds before I snapped out of it. If women could do that in real life humans would be on the endangered species list.
To activate Witch Time, which basically makes everything move slower while you still function at a normal pace, you have to dodge attacks at the last second possible, and then go nuts. It's basically the game's equivalent of a Devil Trigger, making your attacks more powerful and only lasts for a limited amount of time before running out. It can also be utilized to bypass obstacles like brick walls that can only be broken through with your magic, or running water. Yes, you can walk on water. JESUS!
There are also some cool moves you can do like walk on walls. At a certain point you'll be given the ability to walk on the walls of buildings and ceilings when needed to further advance in different stages, or when facing a particular boss.
In certain parts of the game you can find an hourglass that turns back time at a certain point allowing you to reverse the damage done to a structure, like a bridge, in order to navigate across areas that you couldn't get to because you made it there too late. It's even utilized during a boss fight to revert the damage done to the area by the enemy, so you can continue to use it to your advantage. Each boss battle that comes along is even better than the one that comes before it, which just makes your blood pump whenever it's time to face a new boss.
The soundtrack in this game is awesome, but the remake of Frank Sinatra's Fly me to the Moon dwarfs the rest of the soundtrack. You can always hear it playing in the background whenever the action picks up, and you wouldn't have thought that'd be the kind of song to get stuck in your head while killing angels, yet here we are discussing it. Well played, Bayonetta. Well played.
The game has three different realms that separates heaven, purgatory, and hell, all named after the Italian words best known from the Divine Comedy: Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno. Purgatorio acts as a kind of in-between connecting all the realms, having both the supernatural of the game walk among humanity, but also not being visible because they stand outside the planes of their reality. Which means most of the time humans appear as transparent watery substance. It's a cool concept that's done very well.
A bar named the Gates of Hell (but having nothing to do with Inferno) serves as a shop where you can buy healing items, new techniques, weapons, and other accessories to help you on your journey. You can access the bar in-between stages or through red portals found in the game. The bar is owned by Rodin, a weapons dealer that you'll encounter early on in the game. The halos you collect act as a form of currency when visiting the shop so be sure to collect as many as you can to get the best deals here.
After you complete a level, a minigame called Angels Attack begins where you fire at two types of angels that appear on your screen with a limited supply of bullets to work with. Hit the angels, you score points. Hit them in the head or more than one at a time and you score even higher. Once the bullets run out the round is over and you can buy items with the points you received or convert them into halos. It's done in a first-person perspective and, well, I hate it with a fiery passion. It gets old and repetitive fast and I wish there was a way to skip it, but you can't.
Storytelling in the game switches from the roll of film format I mentioned earlier, and the usual full animation. What the criteria is for switching I have no idea. I doubt it's little more than a style thing the developers were just playing around with to stand out. It works. I have no real complaint regarding the style, it's a style. You either like it or you don't. The narrative itself can get confusing rather easily and if you're not paying attention you're going to be lost. In fact, you could be paying attention and still be pretty lost. The supporting cast doesn't have much substance either, but that seems to be a reoccurring theme in hack and slash games that I've played. Enzo is an Italian stereotype, Rodin is a black man stereotype, Jeanne is a bitch, and Luka is the comic relief. Which leaves the star of our show, Bayonetta.
Despite looking like a supermodel for BDSM, the character herself is actually not that bad. She doesn't just have sex on the brain all the time. She has a goal, and she uses her abilities and resources to see to that goal and never backs down from a challenge, earning the respect of her peers. She even has a soft side – somewhat – sorta – deep, DEEP down inside. Her character arc is pinned down somewhat with the overused amnesia trope, but she fits the criteria of a badass with the cool exterior that a lot of other hack and slash games are known for, being right up there with the likes of Dante, Ryu Hayabusa, and War. Well, I guess you could argue War's exterior isn't exactly cool per se, but that's another story.
Bayonetta is a fun hack and slash, and one of those games where you have to embrace the sheer insanity of it all if you want to enjoy it. If you can do that then you'll be just fine. If not, or you don't like hack and slash games in general or games with angels and demons, this probably isn't something you can enjoy.
Get it
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