Bayonetta starts with a bang. You are fighting grotesque creatures with angelic wings and halos on pieces of a giant clock tower that has collapsed . . . while it is collapsing and falling. Bayonetta is an over-the-top action game with an emphasis on over-the-top. And it makes for one hell of a ride.
Bayonetta tells the tale of . . . well, Bayonetta, who was found trapped in a box at the bottom of a lake twenty years ago and has no recollection of her past. Amnesia is certainly a cliched starting premise for a video game. However, Bayonetta does turn convention on its head a bit for a somewhat unique storyline. Bayonetta is the last of the Umbran Witches — the keepers of darkness. The Umbran Witches tap into the Inferno to bring forth demons in their struggle against the Lumen Sages, the keepers of light who tap into the power of Paradiso. The balance of power between light and darkness was disrupted by a mysterious event hundreds of years ago, and the Lumen Sages wiped out all of the Umbran Witches except Bayonetta in the war that followed. Bayonetta wants to know the truth about her past and will destroy legions of angels to do so.
The storytelling never really excels. The central plot is fairly simple at its core. And although the unique presentation of light and dark in balance with the forces of light being the aggressor offers a slight variation on the traditional tale of good versus evil, the story’s progression is convoluted and hardly makes sense half the time. However, the presentation does excel. The grotesque vision for the creatures of light and the world itself that the game’s director Hideki Kamiya — creator of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe — brings to the table creates a unique universe that is exciting to experience. The world seems at times divinely inspired, with feathers flighting from the sky or a bright light shining from the heavens. Other times, the world spirals into dark chaos, tearing into pieces as lava surges through the cracks.
Bayonetta is an unapologetically strong female character, which is quite refreshing. She has guns strapped onto her hands and feet. However, she still embraces her sexuality, flirting with other characters, or even with the angels she is about to send to Inferno, while she sucks an a lollipop. Umbran Witches’ power extends to their hair. Bayonetta uses her hair to open portals to Inferno and perform special moves. Her hair may form a giant fist that appears through a portal to smash enemies. Or it may even call forth a giant high heel that smashes through an infernal portal in the sky to crush Bayonett’s enemies beneath it. When she defeats boss creatures, Bayonetta performs a “climax” — using her hair to call forth a demon to brutally consume the angel and drag it through a portal into Inferno.
There are many cinematic action sequences scattered throughout where you must complete timed sequences, often interrupted with fights against creatures that feel all the more intense because of whatever impending danger lurks in the background. Although I don’t want to ruin the surprise of these experiences, one example is a level that has you running through the streets and then up the sides of buildings while lava fills the city streets . . . with nary a pause in the angel killing.
And then there’s the boss battles. Although Bayonetta’s boss battles often occur at the end of a level, many mammoth bosses appear in the middle of a level. You just never know when you’ll suddenly encounter a bossy angel, which helps break up the traditional sequencing that sometimes stagnates the flow of action titles. The bosses become more grotesque as the game continues, yet they somehow retain their angelic essence. Epic does not begin to describe some of these fights. Fights on floating platforms against tentacled creatures as you jump from platform to platform to avoid the tentacles crushing them. A battle against a creature on the seas involving Jaws-like attacks and a whirlpool sequence. These examples don’t begin to touch the incredible, and oftentimes unbelieveable, battles you will wage as Bayonetta.
The action is very well done as well. Bayonetta features a combo-based action system, like God of War or Devil May Cry. However, to succeed in Bayonetta, you must master its dodge system, which involves hitting the right trigger button to evade enemy attacks. If you wait until the last second before an enemy would hit you to dodge, you engage witch time, which slows down enemies and gives you enough time to perform brutal combos on them. This technique is essential when you are fighting against hordes of enemies or more difficult creatures. Another reason to master dodging is that if you make hit enemies enough times without yourself being touched, you can perform torture attacks. These are cinematic attacks involving various elaborate torture devices that are not only enjoyable to watch, for those with a dark sense of humor, but also inflict mammoth damage.
Although there are quite a number of combos available, there were several that did more damage. So the action could have become repetitive if you relied solely on those. Thankfully, you acquire more weapons as you progress, which opens different combos that are more useful against certain types of creatures or bosses. You can alter the weapon setup to meet your needs, placing different weapons on your hands and feet with two sets that you can quickly change with a hit of the left trigger button. There are also numerous new techniques and accessories that you can unlock with the game’s currency, halos, which are are earned when you defeat enemies and finish levels. These kept the game fresh by opening up new fighting options and strategies.
Bayonetta also has a lot of replayability. There are various Alfheim Portals hidden throughout the world that are essentially challenge rooms. You might have to defeat a creature only using so many punches or kicks or you might have to try to endure a battle for one minute without touching the ground which, in the world of Bayonetta, is quite possible. The rewards for these challenges are well worth it too, often including increases to your health or magic power or access to additional items. You are also awarded medals for each battle segment within a level and then rewarded a trophy at the end of the level. Although I’m not one to replay levels solely for bragging rights, going back and trying to perform better in Bayonetta proved quite enjoyable after I obtained better weapons and techniques. Moreover, doing so affords the opportunity to earn more halos, which allows you to buy better weapons and accessories so Bayonetta can dominate all the more.
Although the presentation and fighting excel, there are a couple of flaws that must be noted besides the previously mentioned lackluster storytelling. I did have a glitch occur a few times where I became stuck on the environment and had to exit a level and restart in order to continue. Thankfully, the game uses a checkpoint system so I did not lose much progress either time. Additionally, although there are many animated cutscenes that push the story forward, these were punctuated with storyboards. Sometimes a scene would start out animated and then switch to storyboards. Although these didn’t ruin the experience on the whole, especially because the entire game is fully voiced, they did seem out of place with the high quality presentation of the rest of the game. Presumably budgetary or time constraints did not allow fully animated cutscenes throughout. Hopefully that will change in the next installment. Finally, the game lacked some important tutorial guidance about items and weapons. After I obtained a new weapon, I had to look through the menus to discover how to equip it. A tutorial, even a text tutorial, should have popped up as soon as a I got the weapon to inform me how to equip it. The same goes with items. Although once in the item menu, there were instructions how to equip, create, and use items, I had to proactively seek them out. Just a little instruction and notice goes a long way.
Those complaints, however, do not detract significantly from the fantastic overall experience of Bayonetta. I have not been this enthralled and engaged in an action game since I played the first God of War. Like that game, the over the top and epic nature of the game, combined with a good fighting system, imaginative character and world, and great presentation, make Bayonetta a climactic experience.
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