Bayonetta
Jamie Scotland
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Bang!
Always start with a bang. Straight into the action, hack, slash, dodge, quick time event, gratuitous cleavage shot, rinse, repeat. Driving music, fingers getting sore. Bash the button! Quicker!
A Cut Scene. “What the hell is this about, I didn’t understand a word of that?” Still going on…
Still going on…
Music, hack, slash, dodge, quick time event gratuit…Cut Scene.
Still going on…
Music, hack, slash. “What the hell is that?”, furious hack, slash, hack, slash, quick time event.
Score Screen. “Stone Award? Damn It!”
Originally I had this going on for much longer, but I’m guessing you’ve got the point by now. Bayonetta feels very Japanese. Verrrry Japanese. Fans of the Onimusha and Devil May Cry series are going to find next to no surprises on how this game plays out. That includes the frustrating parts of those games as well.
Liberal use of cut scenes slows down the overall pace of the game whilst item pick ups slow down the actual action sequences. Pick up a book by running over it and the game will pause, allowing you the option to read the book. Why this happens in a game where the action is designed to be arcadey, fast, and furious, I’ve no idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Bayonetta. It’s a fantastic game and a great example of the genre. But I like the combat so much that I want to be actually playing that part of the game, not watching confusing cut scenes, reading score screens, or getting background from a book.
Bayonetta herself is an interesting choice of main character, and it’s certainly kicked off a bit of a debate as to whether she’s exploitative or empowering. There’s no doubt that some of the character design is aimed at males, her hair is her suit and powers, as the powers get larger her clothing gets smaller. There’s an argument right there for the exploitation side of things.
Behaviour wise she’s cool and distant, and wields a control over the game’s male characters that appears to come from physical threat and confidence rather than sexuality. I suppose this would be the main argument for the empowering side.
Game play is very much of an arcade style. Music, graphical flares and pacing are lively and entertainment driven, begging you to put in just one more quarter. There’s a whole host of combo’s to learn, and most of these finish off with a clothes shrinking flourish from Bayonetta.
The enemies (in this case angels) are well designed, but are really just there to be cut down whilst waiting for the bosses to appear. Boss fights, whilst formulaic in terms of game mechanics, are visually memorable, with the now standard God of War-esque quick time events to finish them off.
I want to love Bayonetta, but it all feels just a little too fractured. Maybe it’s an East/West divide, but in my book any future releases in the series are going to need to modernize in order to compete with similar titles such as God of War and the upcoming Dante’s Inferno.
Verdict: Rent It
Tags: angels, bayonetta, fighting
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