Bayonetta

(8 hours, 52 minutes and 38 seconds on the save file for New Game Plus, many Verses missed of course. Played on Switch in handheld mode with Japanese voice and text.)

Allow me to lead with a secret of mine: I haven’t never played Devil May Cry, neither that “ground-breaker” of 2001 nor any other installment in the franchise. Dante simply is not on my Mount Rushmore of the character action, while the polygonal Ninja Gaiden and God of War with a titular final boss were among my seventeen-year-old self’s favorite. However, my other referencing point with “Directed by Hideki Kamiya” would be the cult classic Okami.

So, to yours truly Bayonetta would be described as “the crew behind Okami learnt something right and a few wrongs from God of War on PS2”, instead of “From the creator of Devil May Cry”. The game is still about the second best games PlatinumGames put out, unfortunately so I might add. Replaying it in 2024 is mostly fun, but I could not help but utter very foul things under my breath occasionally due to some issues.

Accidentally saved the word

Despite her fine look that would attract many in a bar, Bayonetta is a centuries ago witch without memory. Clue regarding her past has recently come to her attention, so she traveled to a corner of Europa to verify it. However, this personal quest became a race to save the world soon enough after a “big red reset button” appeared and some divine finger was itchy to push it.

After those 2 anime “Mad Max One” games, it feels refreshing not to type “planet earth is fouled up beyond any recognition” to sum up a game’s plot. However, Bayonetta does have more than its fair share of cliché. Namely player character with amnesia and someone divine as the final boss, mainstays of JRPG.

How Bayonetta handles those mainstays is its weakness. After all, long JRPG uses those bones to support its meat: fun interaction of their cast members. Bayonetta does not have a varied cast to begin with, the 3 ultimately friendly dudes in the story all are comedy relieves of different kinds (Enzo is loud, Rodin is dry and Luca plays by contrasts.) with few to none interaction among them.

The tale is simply but told convolutedly. The game also lifted things directly from Okami, the game this crew worked on just before this one: time travel just so the game’s leading lady can have 2 set of costumes. It’s not hard to see why Kojima Production under Konami would let Platinum to make a Metal Gear spinoff, for PlatinumGames did make “cut scene games”. Out of 16 chapters plus prologue and epilogue, several of them would let you play for about 5 minutes on top of watching 20 or so minutes of cut scenes. This game’s brand of action comedy is quite a mixed bag: on the one hand, most of the violence played for farce is great physical comedy; on the other, game’s writing is lousy no matter which language one chooses. I would recommend to skip those, even on the first playthrough.

Please stick to fighting

Okay, onto the interactive bit: this is undoubtedly a decent spectacle fighter. The feeling of one combo taking out enemies more efficient than another combo is great. Another reason to see why Platinum made Metal Gear Rising Revengeance is the default button mapping, namely the left face button being dedicated to charge firearm no matter what weapon set Bayonetta uses. For players of God of War and Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta’s button mapping can be jarring at other places than down face button as the jump button. Up face button is for light and fast attack, or as the game put it just “punch”. Right face button is for heavy and slow attack, what the game calls “kick”. A variety of weapons can be signed to either punch or kick, with the left trigger switching between 2 sets called A or B in the game. Some weapon, like the long sword I used for the most of my recent playthrough, can only be assigned to punch.

What Bayonetta leads with is the right trigger for dodge, a well-timed dodge would enable the slow motion known as Witch Time. Unlike Vanquish’s Augmented Reaction, Bayonetta’s slow motion is not hooked to any resource managed here. The length of those usually depends on the kind of attack one dodges, the heavier attacks leading to the longer slow motion seems to be the rule.

What is hooked to resource needs management is the Torture Attacks enabled by Magic Gage. Once the gage is full, the game gives out a bump for push up and right face button together then an optional quick time quest, just to earn additional Haloes, the Sonic ring looking things used as currency. Magic Gage is a reinforcement loop mechanics since one earns it by dodge and hit, hit by enemies would reduce the gage. And no boss can be Tortured on player’s command, so one would waste magic in boss fights.

The camera issue is constant in PlatinumGames and Bayonetta is no exception. For example, final boss has a black hole looking one-hit kill (Not even one “1 Up” per level can relive player from this) player has to running from, then the camera can suddenly whip on that black hole making player unable to see the distance between Bayonetta and the deadly contraption. Camera is dicey in platforming section as well, made me utter very foul things under my breath. Good thing platforming takes the Okami approach of no instant kill though, or I would have snapped my Switch in two if God of War’s sudden death combined with the lousy camera is present.

Witching hour

Back in 2010, I first played Bayonetta after being underwhelmed by Vanquish. A “You got me, you fuckers” moment I would call it. Almost 14 years later, I saw credits roll in Bayonetta for the second time after Astral Chain pissed me off enough to do a Platinum retrospective.

Bayonetta released at turn of the decade holds up well for the most part. Fights are fun. The physical rather than quipping approach to its comedy is great, especially compared to a contemporary known as Uncharted 2 Among Thieves. Though unless you are an edge-lord who would not play a video game without gore, you should play Okami before it or Hi-fi Rush (RIP, Tango.) after it instead. If you are a gorehound like that, skip this one and go for the much improved sequel instead.