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Bayonetta Xbox 360
By AmirHayek
Introduction:
Bayonetta is a newly released action game from Team Little Angels at Platinum Games and is considered to be the spiritual successor to Devil May Cry.
The whole concept for Bayonetta was to create a game that delivers an advanced combat system, coated around over the top craziness that makes Dante look like a lazy Japanese dude and Ruy a guy on drugs with no control at all. It is obvious that Hideki Kamiya, the director of Bayonetta has used his experience from his famous projects such as Devil May Cry, Okami, Viewful Joe and even some games from Capcom (RE4).
Is this Japanese "style" game an action masterpiece, or is it simply a game that delivers a not so tasteful style as chocolate on salami?
Technical stuff (sound and graphic)
What does one expect to a Japanese action game such as this when it comes to the technical part? For one, stability, stability and stability. With all the craziness going o
n the screen, a screen tearing now and then could ruin a game like this. Luckily thou, that is not the case with Bayonetta, well at least the 360 version of the game. (Based upon other reviews from famous sites such as Giantbomb, it is clear that the PS3 version is a bad port, but Mentally Blown has not been able to confirm this).
What amazed me the most was how good the game looked, my usual experience with games that is able to maintain 60 fps capped usually don't have good visuals. And also the other way around. But this looks great! It isn't mind blowing, but the details on Bayonetta, the huge bosses and the renaissance style on the environment is pure eye candy for me.
The animations works great as well.
The music style in Bayonetta consists most of Japanese pop, which is a step back in my opinion from the DMC games, it is very catchy, but a bit off in my opinion.
The voice acting is for the most part quite good, it can however sometimes be a bit off sync with the lip moving.
But now that I think of it, the weird soundtrack shouldn't appeal to me, but it does, at least after listening to it a couple of times!
Story
You play as the Umbra Witch called Bayonetta, she is a tall, British accent speaking, Goth looking woman with one goal in mind: spill as much angel blood as possible, and still look sexy! Ohm, did I mention that her outfit is entirely made of her hair?
As everything else in this game, the story is crazy, and wrapped in mind-blowing paper and it also comes with a soufflé mixed with puppy blood. There isn't much to say really, because even after finishing the game twice, I am still dazzled and confused. Just prepare yourself for vengeful angels, more angels, and at last, but not least, big ass angels.
The story telling mostly consists of mind blowing cinematic scenes and Gary's mod humor film strips that just shows how Japanese this game really is. As mentioned before, the story isn't amazing, but it does have an impact on you as a gamer, you might end up liking Bayonetta, or you just might end up with a weird look on your face.
Gameplay
What is an action game really?
Well what defines an action the most is the "beat em up" style gameplay which has been around for years in action games. This game doesn't take the beat em up style to a new level in any sort, but it does the job very well, so well that you might need to change some looser pants.
Bayonetta is equipped with tons of weapons, claws, whip, sword, fists and not mention her hair! It is however very important to mention that you have to find, buy and even achieve some of the weapons to be able to use them. And there are also Guns, friggin guns in this game!!!!
In Bayonetta you have a shoot button, a weapon button, a kick button and a jump button, one would think that two attack buttons would not offer any much variety, but it does!
Combine that with 10 different weapons, then you have a huge list of combos to do, on the ground, in the air and also naked. Wut?
And did I mention you can become a bird, bat and a panther?
Torture attacks is something that makes this game interesting, after dodging and hitting enemies for a certain amount of times you will be able to do torture attacks, which basically means instant kills (for the most) enemies by throwing them into Iron Maidens, or kicking them inside a guillotine. This creates a nice pace to the game, and can even save you from tought situations.
During the game you will encounter shiny golden circles which will teleport you to Alfreheim challenges. These challenges might remind some of the test of valor from Ninja Gaiden 2, but just harder in my opinion. These challenges usually are either kill a certain amount of enemies with either Torture attacks, in a certain amount of time, or in witch time, the thing that makes these challenges very hard is that you usually can only be hit 3 times and the time limit. You will sometimes have to stay in the air for a certain amount of time, which usually don't take a lot of skill, just knowledge!
What really makes Bayonetta stand out from these type of games is how dodging enemy attacks plays a key role in the game. If you don't you will die, many many many times, unless you are playing on easy or very easy which disables the good rewards you get from Alfheim portals and also gives you a "danger" indicator when someone tries to hit you.
My advice too you readers is to start the game on normal, anything less makes Bayonetta too easy.
By dogning an enemy at the very last moment makes Bayonetta go into bullet time, I mean I witch time! Which basically makes everyone go slow except you of course, this way you are able to do a good amount of damage to tough enemies, and if you are lucky/fast enough you will be able to kill weaker enemies.
Last but not least to Bayonets' gameplay are the bosses, prepare yourself for huge ridicules looking (in a good way) angelic creatures who only wants to crush you to oblivion and then return you to Pardiso (heaven). Some can be killed quite easily, and some will make you cry, but one thing I can say for sure is that it never gets ridicules hard with the bosses or in the game in general, unlike Ninja Hard-Gaiden.
Achievements
Now here is where this game stands out from its "inspirations", it isn't as hard as Ninja Gaiden 2 and not nearly as grinding as Devil May Cry 4.
The game offers a good mix of both, an average gamer should be able to get around 400-500 points, but don't take this game for an easy 1000 points earned type of game.
The achievements consists of story progressions, some of them can be achieved several times depending on the difficulty you are playing on. However you must finish the game on normal to unlock hard difficulty and same applies for No Climax difficulty.
Some achievements are about killing a certain amount of enemies through taunting, with different weapons, skills and the use of torture attacks.
The hardest one is in my opinion either finish the game on "No Climax" difficulty or get all the LPs, as the last one requires you to finish 100 chapters to get.
The easiest one is the " A Primer In The Magical Arts ", which you achieve by finished the prologue of the game.
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