BAYONETTA

BAYONETTA

One of the finest action games this generation.

By SAM MATTHEWS

For the lazy bunch of you who read the rating at the top of the page and have just chanced upon this paragraph, please don't read any further. Do yourself a favor, run out to your game store of choice and pick up Bayonetta. End of review.

And while I'd have probably set the record for the shortest review ever with that paragraph I don't think leaving it like that would do any justice to what is probably the trippiest, most mind-numblingly awesome action title in a really long time.

Created by Platinum Games, the people behind Okami, Viewtiful Joe, Godhand (as Capcom's Clover Studio) and Mad World, Bayonetta is perhaps their biggest achievement yet. Ironic considering that it's their most derivative as well. The gameplay is heavily inspired by God of War except with better use of quick time events and superior button mapping.  Rather than use the right analog stick to dodge, you use the right trigger button, which is an advantage as it allows you to queue up an attack right after evading your enemies. This is extremely useful as the game rewards every successful dodge by filling up a magic meter allowing you dish out 'torture attacks' that guarantee instant death with implements ranging from guillotines to chainsaws. Time your dodges well enough and you'll be rewarded with 'witch time' which reduces the game's pace to slow motion allowing you time to dish out some serious damage to your opponents. Devil May Cry gets a nod with a combo and scoring system similar to it as well as a deep weapon customization section, not to mention weapons named after those in the DMC series. Boss battles are spectacles to behold lasting entire levels and rather than executing torture attacks you get to summon a plethora of monsters, from gigantic ravens to lava spiders: also a recurring boss from DMC.

As you can see, while the gameplay could be called derivative it's extremely distilled and fine tuned to such a degree that watching someone else clearing a level with a platinum rating is a joy in itself, making this a good game for those of us interested in showboating our gaming "skillz". While DMC and God of War were innovative, Bayonetta brings finesse, refining the same goodness to the point of perfection.

However great gameplay alone isn't the only thing Bayonetta has going for it. The premise is downright ludicrous and campy. You don the role of an amnesiac witch by the name of Bayonetta who fights angels and decimates them with her hair (called wicked weave attacks which are performed by pressing a combination of the kick and punch buttons). She also has guns attached to the heels of her shoes and looks somewhat like a sexy librarian, wearing a costume made of her own hair (talk about being self sufficient).

Clearly the team at Platinum Games would have needed some seriously strong hallucinogens to come up with such a wacky concept and even more of them to have made it work so well, with some solid art-direction and graphics to back it up.

Eye candy aside, Bayonetta’s script is filled with references to a ton of titles ranging from Sonic the Hedgehog (you collect rings as currency) to Resident Evil 4 (with Rodin the merchant mimicking RE4’s trader’s gravelly voice asking you “whadya buyin’?"). Throw in a couple of on-the-rails levels which pay tribute to old Sega classics including After Burner and OutRun, and you have one title that acts as a capsule for some of gaming’s most classic and classy days.

The classiness extends to the music as well. From some killer orchestral tracks to remade jazz beats and even Japanese pop thrown in for good measure, Bayonetta sounds as good as it plays, if not better. Speaking of how it plays, that brings me to the most niggling point of the review: which platform does it perform better on?

Having played Bayonetta on both the PS3 and X360, it’s fair to say this game runs best played on X360 as it doesn’t suffer from a drop in frame rates or have any screen tearing which its PS3 equivalent does. That’s not to say the PS3 version is unplayable. With so much happening at once you’d overlook the PS3’s issues in a heartbeat but if you own both consoles you’d be best served with the Xbox 360 version of the game. A patch has come out for the PS3 version, allowing you to install it on your hard drive, which should make things easier for the PS3-only owning audience.

Regardless of format this game is worth experiencing. Newbies will have their hands full even with the normal difficulty setting and old-timers in the crowd will enjoy the added bonuses and extras that multiple playthroughs will bring. All in all Bayonetta is a superlative title and a fantastic start to the year for gamers everywhere. To those who have persevered in reading this far, please go back to the first paragraph, which should now serve as a now polite way of saying “I told you so”. 

RATING 4.5/5

Action

Bayonetta

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