I might be remembering this wrong, but the whole staff was way into the first game.

@fredchuckdave: Oh sure, I highly doubt the game will do better than 500k, timely reviews or not. These aren't big-picture thoughts about commercial success I'm having here. It's just that if I had to choose between the game selling 250k and 251k copies, I'd much rather it be 251k for my own satisfaction, because I'm just really invested in the game emotionally or whatever.

@fredchuckdave: Ha! It takes a lot for me to put that kind of time into any game, and in the case of Bayonetta it's looking at the unlock list, remembering you have zero chance of getting a platinum medal on every level because you aren't a wizard and sufficing for playing the first few levels on hard.

Oh crap. I found myself looking up prices on Wii U now. Sure looks tempting.

Dammit Kamiya...fine. I'll put this on my to-play list now, but I should burn through quite a bit of my backlog before I get to it.

Kamiya, don't be afraid to make an epic scaled Okami / Zelda style game again.

I'd buy it. That's good enough, right?

What did he say about Mordor? I can (kind of) understand his "complaints" with Bayonetta, but I havent seen anything that could even be considered remotely sexist in that game.

2 games. If you enjoy Bayonetta you will probably enjoy Wonderful 101.

@supermonkey122 He had incredible problems with the stealth kiss in the tutorial

LOL Polygon and their neo-puritan prudishness.

GOTY

Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, ... come on Nintendo add a good Metroid game and I'll buy your dumb console.

@starvinggamer: Fair enough. I'll have to be happy playing it in 5 or 6 years I think, but who knows maybe they'll have a Vita-esque Black Friday deal one of these years.

@arbitrarywater: I think Bayonetta teaches you pretty well, even if it is pretty harsh for the first 20 or so hours that you play it, just keep at it and Platinum medals should be in reach. Of course like every character action game a random normal enemy is probably going to be harder than 90% of the bosses. Pure Platinum is the one for the crazy people outside of maybe normal...

*Praises Platinum*

Can't freaking wait to get my copy!

Really sucks that its an exclusive really liked the first one. hell even wrote and posted a review here. I would however bet anyone if this was published by anyone other than Nintendo, it would be getting totally SLAMMED for its female protagonist and how she uses her sexuality. Hopefully they have a clause if it doesnt sell so many copies they can distribute out in a year. Also will be a big measuring stick for other companies, if this doesn't sell, 3rd party will never return to a Nintedno platform. not worth the time.

So Platinum is basically the new Rare from the N64 era? You're buying the console for the Nintendo classics, but staying for the Platinum goodness. Only infuriating thing is EVERYONE complaining that this is a Wii U exclusive. If you people had bought the original in the first place it WOULD have been on other consoles god dammit, Nintendo betting their chips on this is incredibly cool and should be praised by everyone.

Back to the reviews I really dug the Paste review, I've never heard of that site but I might stick around. Super informative review all around.

@civid: Actually Bayonetta sold really well in comparison to every other Platinum game.

Well other than Mordor pretty much only containing one female character, who IMMEDIATLY gets killed off to serve as a plot setup. You know like 90% of female characters in Western videogames. Oh, but that's not sexist, but look over at this videogame with a female protagonist and MULTIPLE female supporting characters all with their own agenda, THAT game is sexist as fuck.

That's at least awesome. So why wouldn't Sega publish it?

This made me realize that the only Platinum games I've played are Metal Gear Rising and Vanquish(speaking of, I would kill for a 60 FPS current-gen port of Vanquish). I really need to fix that.

glad ti see the good reviews, too bad its for a system ill likely never own

@civid: It sold better than other Platinum games, but not well enough to give Sega confidence in funding a sequel. They should be given credit for letting Platinum search for another publisher, however.

Luckily most of their games go for pretty cheap. Bayonetta 1, Madworld, Anarchy Reigns and the 2 Viewtiful Joes can easily be found for 5 bucks, God Hand is a PS2 Classic for 10, Okami HD is on PSN for 20 and Wonderful 101 is on Amazon for 30.

Everything about this game just makes me feel better about the video game industry :D Any good post mortem articles on the original? Or maybe just Platinum in general.

Not really. Japanese companies aren't particularly open with that stuff.

@corevi: Sorry to be that guy but actually The Wonderful 101 is $23.59 on Amazon.

I just picked it up last week and it truly is wonderful.

@machofantastico: Thats what Ive been debating for the last several day. All these great Wii U games Nintendo is putting out is making me want to buy one more than the xbox one.

I'll probably sit this one out. Not really interested in buying a WiiU and I've never been much of a fan of Platinum, despite their relative critical success.

Today, I ask the Giant Bomb community to do the right thing and donate to my "Buy Milkman A WiiU" Kickstarter campaign. Your help can make this dream a reality.

Hmm... interesting. I wonder if these reviews are unconscious attempts to perceive a female lead in a game as one of the best games this year, or legitimate criticism found no flaws (besides polygon who I will not comment on more than to say they have a right to their opinion, but they don't like to be constructively criticized so I won't go there anymore). I do really wonder that; I'm not saying it to spark a war. It's on everyone's minds, even if not conscientiously.

Anyway, I didn't like the first Bayonetta. I don't know why, really. Crazy enemies and bosses with insane combat is something I like, but that game never clicked with me. It's cool that it will get some attention, but I would guess that the attention it gets after release will not have anything to do with it's (I presume) solid game play experience.

We'll see. I feel I should leave it at that.

@starvinggamer: After the reviews hit, I was super pumped for this game. If they had waited until a couple days before release I'm sure this would have inspired a few Wii U impulse buys. Its possible they wanted to avoid comparisons with another game coming out that week, but after looking at the release calendar, I don't know what game that might be.

Yet another reason that proves why I think Polygon is kind of a joke. Not because of a 7.5 revire but because why it got a 7.5 review. Also reminds me why I stopped listening to Rebel FM.

I didn't buy a Wii U for this game specifically, but it definitely made the decision easier.

I can say, after watching someone play the Japanese version, Bayonetta 2 is a heck of a good time. I totally understand why it has gotten the reviews it has. It's just about exactly what it sets out to be.

With that said, if you didn't like Bayonetta 1, then this isn't for you. Bayonetta 2 is almost the perfect sequel to that original game. It fixes some of its annoyances and then ratchets things up even more. It's loads of fun if character action games are your kind of thing.

I can understand some suspicions if the first game didn't click with you, but there's no secret here. There's just a pretty solid game that delivers on what many hoped for in a Bayonetta sequel.

Man, I need to get a Wii U fast!

I sure do hope this comes to PC/PS4! Does anyone know how likely/unlikely that would be? (I haven't really been paying attention to the development of this game.)

It was funded by Nintendo so not likely.

Not likely at all, in fact.

Something about the wife being a damsel and being killed (even though the son was too) and that usual nonsense. Basically "waaaaah a woman was in peril so it's sexist".

Wii U exclusive = No buy for me.

Can someone, anyone, explain these two games to me? I remember briefly playing the first Bayonetta and I remember the loading screen lets you try out moves. Other than that, I felt like it was just another 3rd person action game. Am I missing something? Not hating on it, I just don't remember it being as incredible as people say it is. But maybe I missed something?

Only seven more plays left on my demo. The controls are tight, the frame rate is smooth, and that terrible song is going to be stuck in my brain for days. This thing seems really good.

That stinks. You really should get a Wii U, it's great! Secretly best of the new 3 consoles.

It's the best playing character action game ever made.

Bayonetta the character was even in the running for their award for best new character, and was technically beaten by Mordin from Mass Effect 2, yet they still somehow got confused enough to declare her the winner in the award video. That was pretty fantastic.

I don't remember that, or how into the game they were. Interesting. I think my own general disinterest in that franchise somewhat coloured my idea of how the staff thinks about it.

As clarification, I don't dislike Bayonetta, I just don't enjoy the game very much personally. I think both the portrayal of the character and the design of that game are fantastic though.

Let me see if I understand the situation here. The game to dethrone Bayonetta as the best character action game of all time is Bayonetta 2? I guess that confirms my future Wii U purchase.

I can't believe I'm still salty about this, but Brad seriously needs to play Bayonetta 2. If he thought DmC was good then he should find out what perfection is directly from The Queen.

I whole-heatedly agree. Pushing your own social agenda is much different than actually criticism of a work of art.

The sad reality is, (as much as we don't want to accept as developers and we have been trained to not get involved in this social stuff), these shitty social agenda pushing reviews affect the lives of creators and rubbing people of joy of more experiences by that talented bunch. Aside from the metacritic-related bonuses and whatnot, for a AA game, these reviews make or break a game and the livelihood of the studio!

ps. my fav comment of the day was "if she gets a pant-suit DLC pack, is Polygon gonna up the review score now?"

Fuck you reviews! I was happy with no games till we 2k14 then this happens.

Even the gamespot review is ecstatic about it and they don't like anything

I will eventually! I can only afford one next gen console and that's a PS4 for bloodborne and Uncharted 4.