Bayonetta Day Guide

Travel Log #1

Bayonetta is a good game, ask the internet, it’ll certainly vindicate me, but what is it like as an experience? As someone who’s never played a character action game before and has been looking longingly in at everyone else dive into DMC5 and wishing its story was the less weighed down than its controversial reboot its predecessor was. I resolved myself to something. I’m going to play a game so far outside my wheelhouse I’ll have little to nothing compare it to. Looking at my credentials we have MANY FPS and 3^rd person shooters, a fair few western RPGs, many an indie platformer or story-‘em-up but little in the way of two things you’d use to describe Bayonetta; straight up character action and a heaping helping of Japanese sensibilities.

Often when jumping into JRPGs (the few times I’ve tried, big sequel numbers are scary) I’ve found that either dense menu-ing and hard and fast layering of systems a bit too much or fast and loose relationship with storytelling dizzying. Maybe trying to get into Dragon’s Dogma at 14 was a bad move, the only game which I can image someone describing as ‘Hella Japanese’ that I’ve ever gotten into is the soul’s series and from what I can tell they’re considered that way because defy the traditional format and structure of the region’s usual exports. Exposition ridden dialogue is replaced with item descriptions, an out of control camera has been pushed way the hell in and your no longer scored for your encounters you just simply must survive them.

So, let’s just say I was curious to see the first impressions Bayonetta would make. Knowing Platinum’s acclaim (I have Nier: Automata ready to go on my PS4 at home for the past 6 months) and reputation, I knew it would be loud. And it certainly was. Constantly within the first half hour I found myself going, ‘hell yeah, this game’. And mainly I think its because it’s a videogame with a late title card.

However, what won me over, and this might be the only time I say this in reference to this game’s storytelling, was its restraint. Before we get greeted to the stylised lettering and a swish sound effect of ‘BAYONETTA’slashing on screen the game has…. Somethings, it’d like to show us. Like the world’s worst date, but great story for warning friends of dating websites it make sure to show them to us plenty of tricks before it even tells us its name.

We begin with the coldest of opens; hurtling towards the ground on a hunk of a building as strange looking white and gold creatures swing at you, the HUD is nowhere to be found, enwrapping you the cacophony of madness going on around your standout-black-skin-tight-clad heroine, there’s a two headed dragon, particle effects-galore and a second character (similar to you but wearing red) all fighting for screen space, but you don’t care, the game hasn’t even told you the controls, it’s perfectly happy to just say, ‘You can’t die right now, so let’s cut the foreplay, mash some buttons, listen to the over the top narration and look at all this cool stuff.’

Before you get a chance to even ask yourself, ‘was that a flash-forward or back?’ the Game Director (Hideki Kamiya)’s tombstone is being urinated on by a character so over the top one of his subtitles actually reads, ‘fuggetaboutit’. After a brief tutorial-ised section where you’re taught the controls, disguised then stripped of a nun outfit, maybe revive a dead friend, kill some angels and strap a near endless supply of handguns to your stiletto-heels (keep up, come on), you’re soon driving down a highway. Your personal-walking-talking-over-the-top-stereotype begins to basically read the first paragraph of your own wiki to you, however, suddenly, despite begin told this modern day, what looks like a WW2 prototype bomber crash lands behind you. You stop time, because witches (oh yeah! You’re a witch), reunite with your red friend, she remembers you, but your recollection is limited to flashes of a backstory which I’m sure will become important… Eventually and the game shows you some more combat basics.

After this encounter some story threads a dangled infront of you but you probably don’t care. You’re a kitten with a ball of yarn that reads, ‘the hell is going on?’ all along it, who gives a rat’s ass about threads, they’re just here to connect the nonsense.

You meet your coffin inhabiting, smooth talking friend at his bar, ‘The Gates of Hell’ (see this game does have subtle writing!) where he gives you four box art friendly hand-cannon looking pistols, you throw them in the air intercut with him shaking you up a drink and are told its important you make your way to the super religious European town of Vigrid. You are greeted to the first chapter with an Indianna Jones style flight sequence and a train ride where its justified why all human NPCs are ghostly mirages you can’t interact with. The titular Bayonetta gets out of her seat, somehow finding a way to strut in the most enclosed of spaces and as the camera looks down the hall of the train your hit with a music queue while Bayonetta stops her disembarking for a second purely to allow the game to finally announce its name to you: ‘BAYONETTA’ in a stylised red front that seem louder and more sexualised than words have any right to be. Yep, this game is rad!

The fact that I’ve just described the entire opening of this game without even mentioning the over-over-the-top raunchy soundtrack, the (well its good Platinum) incredible bombastic combat, the constant film grain in half animated cutscenes and the unexplained film reel jpegs intercut with them for no discernible reason should indicate to you the level of confidence this game has in its presentation. So confident in this vision, in fact it feels like the name is the las key part of the game to be introduced to you, everything else is just as, if not more, important for what this game is going for.

Some of it hasn’t aged well, even in handheld mode on the Switch things seem a little washed out and smudgy and the back and forth between animated and slightly moving static character models oft feels straight out of the days of mid-tier development on the last generation of consoles (which I guess I was). But much like the title, which doesn’t make itself known for the first 30 minutes Bayonetta is so self-assured in its tone, feel and mechanics that it drags you in despite this. Oh, and the currency is halos, yep, this almost 10-year-old game is definitely still rad.

What games have you played that have aged surprising well. Whether it be in tone or gameplay?

Thanks for the good read, I love the first Bayonetta, the second one's good too.

Hmm... Vanquish is a game I still revisit from time to time and it's still a blast to play imo & Persona 4 is still damn near perfect in my book.

Agree DMC5 has made me want to see if Bayonetta 2 on CEMU for PC can hold a candle to it. It's really hard to find good third person hack-and-slash, especially one that has good graphics. Bayonetta is the closest to DMC with Nier missing the mark a little bit

@ieee_gb As someone who's never played any DMC should I pick up V or load up my copy of Nier: Automata first? Also CEMU? Or is there any games really worth going back a gen for/I shouldn't miss before the end of this gen ends?

@someoneproud might be onto something with Vanquish... (I own it and all I'd have to do is boot up my ps3 again, ugh). Also thanks for the kind words!