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check your brain, sense of reality, and expectations at the door. bayonetta is something else.
it's ridiculous, knows its ridiculous, and completely revels in it. from her exaggerated sexy catwalk gait, to the way she kisses barriers away, to the fanservice 'photo op' moments at the end of certain combos, to the way her clothes disappear as you pull off a powerful combo (because her hair not only forms her clothes, but also her most powerful weapons, *of course* they'd get used up when she does something powerful), to the nonsensical plot and cast of characters, to the over the top violent eviscerations...bayonetta is a real gamer's delight...if you have the right mindset. i personally couldn't stop grinning and laughing through the game.
+ everything about this game screams quality (one might argue the script is 2nd grader-quality, but i'd argue it was intentionally so).
+ massive amounts of combos so novices can't help but pull off cool stuff, but also tons of depth so the gamers that want to be *great* can be. there are some tricky combos that can be strung together that are insanely cool see youtube.
+ not quite as hard as the devil may cry series or ninja gaiden...a bit more approachable, if you can handle the chaos on screen.
+ NOT FOR KIDS. seriously. cussing, partial/implied nudity, violence.
+ hilarious soundtrack. from jazzy-j-pop to orchestral, very unique.
quick tips
don't spam the dodge button. you're doing it wrong. just like radiant silvergun or bullet-dodgers of the past, you have to focus on where your character is and who's about to hit you. THEN press the dodge button.
don't button mash. learn the combos, especially the immediate wicked weave ones (e.g. heel stomp). if you can summon those on cue, you won't have as much trouble fighting the flaming enemies (they hurt you if you hit them directly)
you don't have to finish the game to grind. pressing RB at chapter end lets you re-play any previous chapters. chapter 2 is great for grinding halos early on.
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Imagine Devil May Cry 4 or Ninja Gaiden 2 if the main character was a gun-toting, sword wielding, black magic using, stripper-witch. If that sounds like a good time, then you should love this game.Story: 6/10
The weakest part of Bayonetta is the convoluted story. It tells an epic 500 year long tale about the Umbra Witches, the Lumen Sages, Heaven, Hell, Earth, and magic jewels called the Eyes of the World. There's enough story here for a Bioware RPG, downloadable content, and a costly expansion. Unfortunately, there are only six main characters and it feels like there are three too many. Basically, the gods are control freaks and Bayonetta tries to save the world by battling angelic warriors. What saves the story is that Bayonetta doesn't really take anything seriously, she just cracks jokes, struts around like a fashion model, pole dances, and kills things by the hundreds. Although the entire universe is in danger, Bayonetta still manages to have fun the entire time. In one scene, the main characters are in a plane that is about to crash. A dramatic sound effect plays, "Dun Dun" and they zoom in on Luka, who looks terrified. "Dun Dun" and they zoom in on a little girl, clinging desperately to her stuffed animal. "Dun Dun" they zoom in on Bayonetta's cleavage! But, if the lack of story bothers you, you'd be the kind of person who'd bring a book to a strip club and complain that it's too dark to read.
Characters: 9/10
Bayonetta, Jeanne, and Cereza are great, others are forgettable.
Bayonetta is an instant videogame icon. She's beautiful, powerful, sexy, intelligent, fun, and extremely entertaining. Clad in an outfit made of gold chains and magical hair, she looks and moves like a stripper. Her hair is the source of her power; as she performs long combination attacks or powerful magic spells, her hair disappears from her outfit and attacks the enemies, leaving her wearing next to nothing. After she completes these attacks, her outfit rematerializes. Her accessories are great, from her black cat earrings, her butterfly glasses, and her high heels made of magical automatic weapons that never run out of bullets. Bayonetta's primary attacks involve acrobatics, guns, martial arts, magic, and bladed weapons. She can acrobatically jump 30 feet into the air, perform a 20 hit sword combo, and shoot 10 enemies with the guns on her feet before she lands. If that's not enough, Bayonetta also shapeshifts into a flock of ravens or a black panther complete with blood red nail polish. Her dialogue and voice acting are outstanding. Everything about her screams the perfect hostess for a good time.
Jeanne is a rival witch who appears in the game as an ally and a boss character. She shares many of the same attributes as Bayonetta.
Cereza is THE CUTEST little girl to every appear in a game... EVER!
The rest of the characters provide some comic relief and are a mixed bag.
Gameplay: 10/10
Bayonetta's gameplay is amazing! Because she attacks with her hands, feet, magic hair, swords, blades, gun heels, spells, etc... She has the most potential to be the deadliest video game character of all time. She's up there with Kratos from God of War.
The game relies on a combo system based on pressing the hand, foot, jump, and shoot buttons. Anyone can easily pull off impressive looking 20 hit combos. Many of the combos can be linked together to perform 40 or 60 hit combos if you have some skill. There is no block, just an evade button. If you evade just before an attack hits you, the game slows down for a few seconds, allowing you to counterattack enemies. Bayonetta's enemies are ruthless and complement her attack styles. Most action games have cookie-cutter throwaway enemies that perform simple attacks. You can tell, that a lot of effort was made to suit the enemies to Bayonetta's fighting style from the minions to the gigantic bosses. This results in GREAT FUN!
You can upgrade Bayonetta with more weapons, spells, items, attacks, etc... There are enough upgrades in the game to warrant three playthroughs if you want to collect `em all.
When some enemies are killed, Bayonetta can wield their weapons as well. Polearms, massive swords, bows, axes, demonic claws, etc...
As you play through the levels, you collect potion components, and halos that you can use to create or buy items. There are temporary power ups, like health, limited invincibility, magic, improved damage, that come in the form of suckers... because Bayonetta likes to suck on things. It sure beats the typical "stepping on a first aid kit" that old shooters used to have. You can also buy items that boost Bayonetta's Max Health, or Max Magic. So, if part of the game is too difficult, you are free to replay an easier level and "farm it" for halos. Bayonetta can also buy more outfits, weapons, spells, attack moves, etc...
Level Designs: 9/10
The levels are amazing set pieces to showcase the action. There are destructible areas, hidden spell components, halos, power-ups... The art style is similar to Devil May Cry. The levels are linear and it's almost impossible to get lost. Aside from the action levels, there are also, driving, shooting, and flying levels as well. At the end of each level, you get a grade and a bonus based on your time, combo points, and damage that you took. You're free to replay levels if you want to get a better award.
Bayonetta can also "Witch Walk." This allows her to run on walls and ceilings, which makes some of the levels even more dynamic and over the top. In one level, a city floods with lava and you run on the sides of buildings while performing acrobatics and fighting angels.
Reward Systems: 8/10
Bayonetta's rewards are great, but this system would have worked much better in an open ended game like GTA, Red Faction, Fallout 3... At times, you may want to farm levels to collect money for an upgrade. This really encourages you to break the game's story continuity and replay levels while skipping cutscenes. It's a minor gripe because the upgrades and reward systems are very well done.
Replay Value: 7/10
If you like action games, the combat system, weapons, and reward system are good enough to play over and over and over. Playing through on Normal Mode is just short of 10 hours. Bayonetta's combat system is so deep, it warrants 18 levels and 5 difficulty settings. You can keep playing to unlock new weapons, techniques, outfits, and compete on the Xbox Live Leaderboards.
Sound: 8/10
Some of the music tracks are epic and fun, while a few others don't quite fit. Most of the voice acting is great! The explosions, demonic sounds, gunfire, collapsing buildings... all punctuate the action.
Maturity: M
The game is sexy and suggestive, but there aren't any sex scenes. Instead the game is playful and fun. There are loads of gore and some harsh language. This is for late teens and adults.
Overall: 9.5/10
Bayonetta's character design, combat system, and determination to make the player have a great time, make it a strong contender for Action Game of the Year. It's one of the most entertaining games beat-em up games that I've ever played.
Buy this game if you like great action games like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, or God of War.
Rent it if you have 10-12 hours, love AAA Action Titles, and have commitment issues.
Avoid it if you hate fun.
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Though I consider 2011 technically the start of the new decade, Bayonetta along with Darksiders has been branded the first games of the new decade, the rip-roaring start to what should be a fantastic year yet an unbelievably crowded first 4 months of 2010. Bayonetta, developed by Platinum Games who worked on Viewtiful Joe and Okami, have basically made what people want to describe as the "action genre evolved", the new standards to which the next Devil May Cry or God of War have to live up to. While there's definately some moments that I can legitimately say no game has ever done for, there's other parts where I lament its inclusion or wish something was tweaked so it wasn't a certain way. Essentially the game, unless you're an action-game master, might be a tad too difficult for people with nimble reflexes, good understanding of the combat and some rare instances of almost needing clairvoyance to avoid the "where'd that come from?" deaths. For in Bayonetta you have one of the most fluid battle systems to be in a game, you also have trial-by-death moments, a tonally-off storyline and parts that don't give the game any favors. Least we'll get one hell of a sequel though. Possibly.Story: You play as Bayonetta, an Umbran Witch part of a clan that's more or less on the "bad side" which wars against the forces of Heaven, or the Lumen Sages. Having been re-awakened after 500 years of being sealed away with no memory, Bayonetta embarks on a quest to discover her past, her connection to a little girl named Cereza and artifacts known as the "Eyes of the World". The problem with the game as a whole as far as its story is concerned is that its hard to tell when the game is taking itself seriously and when it's poking fun so the game is either really serious with slapstick thrown in or satire/comedy with odd pathos moments mixed in. Not to mention for some people it might be hard to follow and outside of Bayonetta herself, the characters aren't incredibly likable but like Devil May Cry, story is just an aside to the action.
Graphics: Graphically, the game isn't quite a "holy ****!"-esque stunner but the game is very-well animated with the character animations for moves, certain levels such as Paradiso levels looking flat-out gorgeous while enemy designs, especially bosses, are imposing, weird and screen filling. In fact there's one boss in the game that practically eclipses the final boss of Shadow of the Colossus and that guy was a tower. But then the game does do this weird stylistic thing where cutscenes play out more like animated comic strips with no lip-sync but just a character pose and lines of dialogue which jets around to another frame to present another look at the cutscene. It'll either be cool or just...weird.
Sound/Music: Another oddball soundtrack which combines jazz and epic orchestral themes and part of it just doesn't work. While we're a long ways to the awful metal track that permeated through Devil May Cry, at times you'll hear a nicely done orchestral theme and then you run right smack into a jazzy theme and yes, even a J-pop song and unlike some games which usually one J-pop theme with the main type of music throughout, it goes back and forth so much and the music itself might not seem that memorable either. Voice acting also is somewhat stilted and while Bayonetta and the character Jeanne are nicely done, everyone else is kind of ridiculous and the mastermind behind the whole ordeal is so droll in his voice and thanks to a long cutscene, you might be in a snooze before you realize you gotta fight the dude.
Gameplay: Bayonetta is similar to Devil May Cry's battle system where a certain command is used to start a move as opposed to say Ninja Gaiden or God of War which was a combination of X/Square and Y/Triangle but here, there's things like "tap forward twice and Y" or "rotate left analog and B" but what makes Bayonetta work as an action game is just how well it works and God of War 3 does have its work cut out for it because I'll be honest with you, I button mash God of War yet I learn Bayonetta/Devil May Cry systems. One especially useful tactic is Witch Time where if you press RT when you're about to get hit you activate a bullet time for a few seconds which allows you unfettered access to wail on enemies without fear of being attacked though strangely as you progress in the game certain enemies aren't even affected by Witch Time and you just dodge the move regularly. In addition, Bayonetta has guns and unlike DMC's candy shooting pistols, they're nicely useful here and with guns strapped to her feet and held in her hands, that's 4 guns to use on enemies and it's fun to "breakdance" and just spin around on the floor and shoot everything in sight. And you can also buy abilities that'll change you into different forms such as the Panther (a fast runner and quick getaway in battle), Crow (a flight-based attacker that flies for a bit) and Bat (click RT when you've just gotten damaged and you turn into a bat, negating that damage though I can never get the timing down). All in all, there's a huge arsenal of moves to use and with a loading screen acting as a training ground with move lists ready to be read and used, it's fairly easy to pick.
That being said, Japanese game developers, especially when it comes to action games tend to be, well, a lot more better than the average player and at times it feels like that's how the game was made, a game for experts. Granted there is an easy and very easy mode but for most people, Normal tends to be the default and when you're getting your ass handed to you regularly in normal encounters, bosses that are very cool and inventive but some take way too long (final boss for sure) or quicktime events that come out of nowhere, it might frustrate a few new players and I've beaten Ninja Gaiden 2 on Mentor (well, Sigma 2 I should say, NG2's a mess) and even I was having problems though I suppose practice will make perfect. However, that doesn't excuse certain sections of the game that quite frankly don't work, the out-of-the-blue Quicktime events or the astronomically high prices of the accessories which practically encourage farming or replaying to the Nth degree. Some might enjoy it but I like it when I can afford everything reasonably, not replay a mission 12 times to afford one thing only to find out there's 10 things I gotta purchase.
Bayonetta is certainly a better feeling action game all-around though certain issues I have with it will most likely be corrected if they ever do a sequel but as a first game, this thing is top-notch but to avoid mentioning certain problems it has I think would be a mistake but give it a try, it'll either be the best action game all year or one of the better ones that could've been the best.
Honest reviews on Bayonetta - Xbox 360
Bayonetta has a truly Japanese, odd plot. Angels with baby faces, portals to hell and overly tall sexual witches. I dunno. But despite that, the game is a lot of fun.The story is straightforward walking into the next area fighting minions followed by a boss. There are many homages to Sega's other games including of course Devil May Cry and Sonic. I consider it a button masher, since who the heck actually remembers all 100 combos? You can buy new weapons and moves and of course heal yourself with lollipops. You can also construct your own lollipops but the menu is so un-intuitive and took me several tries to figure out what needed to be done. It's highly unnecessary--you should just be able to find them.
My main gripe with this game is their difficulty system. Despite it's female character and hyperfeminine graphics/names/moves/music it is a game geared toward men (proven by all the males shouting "YEAAH!" when she spreads her legs to take out an enemy). They have difficulties of Very Easy, Easy, and Normal. Normal is actually harder than it should be and Easy is probably too easy (since they increase your health and angels attack less). I'm no pro gamer, so halfway through the game, Normal became too hard for bosses. I switched to easy, and even though every male that played died at least 20x on normal NO ONE could bare to switch to easy. If easy was normal and normal was hard, there would be no problem. I guess it's a challenge of your manhood. I beat the game, but it was too easy on easy. They definitely need an in between.
All in all a lot of fun to mess around with the moves. One of the most fun games I've played this year.
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I picked up this game being a fan of the 'Devil May Cry series'. The action is very over the top, and overall plot/dialogue can't be taken too seriously. But the gameplay/cinematics will make up for the overall campy stroy arc.The plot seems to be very simular to the comic/movie 'Constintine'. An eternal war between paradise and the inferno, the main characters stand between both factions to keep the lines balanced. I'm still very early in the game, but it seems to be stacking cliche plot twists I'm anticipating any moment now. But this really isn't the type of game played for the story-arch.
The gameplay is terribly simular to Devil May Cry, Devil Kings, etc. It is a third person action shooter, with a fairly simple control/fighting scheme. You can string together combos with standard punch, kick, and firearms. Weapons and fighting abilities can be purchased to add more variety in your combos. An amazing feature when aquiring upgrade items is the opportunity to try the attacks before actually purchasing them. It can be frustrating trading in game credits just for an item or weapon you soon realize "yup, I'm never using that." Accomplishing long strings of combos enables more devistating ranged attacks or cinematic "executions". Like holding an enemy while a guilituine or iron maiden appears and you throwing it into the device.
Now the drawbacks. Between stringing attacks and dodging enemies, the rhythm is very fast paced but easy to learn after the opening stages. Even with good timing, the majority of the gameplay can also be accomplished through button mashing, especially fighting standard enemies from one end of the level to the other. It can become VERY repetitive, even with new finishing movies and abilities unlocked. Because of this, you will see the same cinematics over and over again. Because of this most people will either love or hate the game. The gameplay is linear, there is no sandbox enviroment to wander around in. I think games like this are much more entertaining without the free roaming. Not everything has to entitle a GTA like wandering enviroment, but some people have accepted it as some sort of standard. Campaign mode and nothing else. I don't see what else can really be done with a game like this, but the only bonus outside of the story is online leaderboards.
Overall, if you like 3rd person action platformers, this game is definately worth checking out. Be warned, it is repetitive, but the gameplay seems well worth it. It should also be noted that the violence and overt sexual themes are endless. If by chance you're a concerned parent or offended by either, be warned this game never quits with either.
Pros:
Great action
infinate combo strings between weapons/ability upgrades
"Equilibrium" style gunplay
entertaining fight climax/cinematics
looks gorgeous in HD
mindless entertainment is easy and fun
Cons:
REPETITIVE and overall button masher
campaign, leaderboards, and nothing else
cheesy story/bad dialogue all around
mindless entertainment could get old fast
