We first saw Bayonetta in action at a private demo in SEGA’s 2008 Electronic Entertainment Expo booth. The game looked stunning and centered mainly around watching a raven-haired witch’s rear-end, clad in black leather, glisten as she walked around shooting things with a super-model’s swagger. A year and change later and we now have our very own copy of the full version of Bayonetta and a review to boot!
(Notice they have turned down the ‘glisten’ in the game’s final release)
Bayonetta is the heroine of the tale, a witch who awoke twenty years past in a coffin at the bottom of a lake with no memory of who she was. At the start of the game she is an agent working for none other than Hell itself. The religious themes in the game are very palpable, even by disguising the name of Hell by calling it ‘Inferno’ and Heaven as ‘Paradiso’. The basic enemy Bayonetta will fight are called ‘affinities’, but you may know them better as ‘angels’. Only, in Bayonetta, angels are these winged creatures who resemble the crazed hybridization of a human being and a vulture. In fact, most of the creatures from Paradiso are grotesque in some way and the game’s most human-looking characters are from Inferno. Is the director, Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya trying to tell us something about his views on religion? Quite honestly, I don’t know, but I digress as it is worth mentioning if you are of the Christian faith and looking at this title.
As for the rest of us, while many of the characters in Bayonetta may be grotesque, all of them are very beautifully-designed and Bayonetta herself is one of the best-looking females I have ever seen brought to life in a video game. Not only do the game’s various characters look good, but they also sound amazing thanks to some truly excellent voice acting.
If you have ever played a game from the Devil May Cry series, you will feel mostly at home with Bayonetta. Gameplay is controlled by using just a few buttons on the controller and combat combos are pulled off even if you don’t know their sequences most of the time. This is mainly because SEGA has crammed so many possible combos into the game that it is damn-near impossible not to hit one, even accidentally. Combat is spread mostly between Bayonetta’s numerous martial arts moves combines with her four projectile weapons, each attached to one of her limbs. On top of these are her torture and climax attacks, which can do anything from summon an iron maiden to throw your opponent into to transforming Bayonetta’s very long and flowing hair into a gigantic demon to devour them!
Throughout the course of each of the game’s many stages, you will collect numerous items, some power-ups and others just loot to sell at the store. One character, Rodin, will construct new weapons for Bayonetta to make use of as she collects more halos from the dead forces of Paradiso. The game features a number of weapons Bayonetta can use, most of them from the fallen forces of Heaven. Bayonetta’s main non-martial or magical arsenal are her guns.
There are two big issues with Bayonetta. First, there is very little instruction with the game. Due to how simple the controls are, this is not that big of a deal after a while. However, in the game’s opening battles you are not given the tutorial of how combat works and are thrown into the fight without a clue. Of course, you could read the instruction manual but, let’s be honest, who does that anymore? So, if you jump in be prepared for a bit of confusion for a couple levels until the combat tutorial is shown to you.
The second, even bigger issue is the game’s camera system. Bayonetta’s in-game camera gets stuck on objects, is often-times zoomed too far out and sometimes locked at a weird angle for you to get your bearings on what is taking place in the fights. Fights tend to be fast and furious and, coupled with this wonky camera, it’s easy to lose your Witch in the melee – especially with all the particle effects and hair flying about.
Bayonetta reeks of over-the-top style, from a ‘crazy’ Japanese remix of Bart Howard’s ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ to a heaping amount of the good old-fashioned ultra-violence. Even the voice work, with Bayonetta’s wry-delivery of lines in an English accent is perfect for this title. Throw in some really epic boss battles and the game is truly a sheer-action spectacular to behold.
Overall, SEGA’s Bayonetta is a fun third-person shooter game with easy controls, tons of style, and beautiful visuals that is sure to keep you entertained for a while if you can get past the wonky controls and over-the-top style (to some it may be a bit much – However, I dug it).
DISCLOSURE: SEGA provided GamingShogun.com with an evaluation copy of Bayonetta for this review.
