I finished Bayonetta this morning around 2am. Here is the short of it. This game is original Xbox Ninja Gaiden, faster, with more weapons, and a hot ass. If you have ever enjoyed any of the recent Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry games you owe it to yourself to try this game. Highly recommended.
Bayonetta is so Japanese it hurts sometimes, the story makes little to no sense, the enemies are some crazy interpretation of Christian angels, and there is bad j-pop music all over the place. Between this and Neon Genesis Evangelion, every time I hear Sinatra's 'Fly Me To the Moon' all I'll be able to think about are weird Japanese angels. The combat music for Bayonetta is a version of that song. Is there some cultural thing with Japan and that song that I'm not aware of?
The deceptively simple core game mechanic that really makes this game feel like an evolution over it's predecessors is 'dodge'. Ninja Gaiden and especially the horrible Ninja Gaiden II could fall into a 'block, wait, strike' loop that could feel slow and frustrating after a while. Devil May Cry focused so much on the player always attacking that the game could feel like there wasn't much of a challenge from AI. Bayonetta keeps the action amazingly fast paced with challenging AI by dodge only, no blocking. The dodge mechanic is super fast, maybe 1/3rd of a second, and you can even keep your combo going through a dodge if you have the skill. To top it all off there is a great bonus for skilled timing with the dodge. If you dodge just before an enemy attack hits, the game goes into slomo for a few seconds allowing you to pull off some really crazy combos. This fast paced gameplay loop is really compelling and rewarding.
The game control is near perfect in it's responsiveness, you really see a benefit from the 60FPS this game is pushing. Surprisingly the game is fairly accessible, there are so many simple combos in the game that button mashing works great, and looks cool. Don't let this fool you into thinking there isn't deep skill below the surface. Much of the more destructive combos require a half second or so 'pause' in the middle of the combo, (example Y, Y, 'Pause', Y,) it really takes a cool head to keep the timing in check when crazy stuff is happening.
My first play through on normal difficulty ended with 12 hours on it, with dying a retrying I probably hit 15 hours. It felt great almost the whole time, my biggest complaint is a late game sequence where they change the game to a fairly long (10 minute) level where the game plays like Afterburner or something. Kind of a cool break, but the unforgivable is the controls are Y-Inverted, no way to change it, even when my normal game controls are set as normal (the default is Inverted, what the hell?). That part in the game really frustrated me, luckily I was able to make it through on the second try. The end sequence is long, wild, and beyond belief. Crazy battles that escalate in varied and huge ways, and when the credits roll, there is still some really cool stuff left.
The worst thing about Bayonetta is maybe that it has broken me a little... Right after finishing Bayonetta I started thinking about what I should play next. Mass Effect 2, Assassins Creed II, Brutal Legend, I have plenty to choose from. Then I though about how comparatively slow those games are going to feel after what I just experienced, and I decided to wait a bit and not unfairly start those games off on a bad foot. I need some time to decompress from the non-stop-awesome. Even worse the game follows in the footsteps of Resident Evil 5 allowing continued play with all the stuff you got from the last one, and tons of unlockables. This game is just begging me to hit it 4-5 times while I try to get better level medals, more weapons, and crazy costumes.
I think me and miss Bayonetta are going to be spending a lot of time together this year...
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