Hideki Kamiya, director of the Viewtiful Joe and Devil May Cry series, brings the gaming community another amazing hardcore action game with the recent release of Bayonetta.
The graphics in the game are AMAZING!
Bayonetta allows the player to enter the shoes –or heels rather– of Bayonetta, an ancient witch who lost her memories after being imprisoned for 500 years. The player uses Bayonetta’s ballet-like fighting abilities to take on her enemies, all while looking good in the process. The game plays much like Kamiya’s previous action games, using a combination of guns and melee weapons. The controls flow fluidly between the various weapons, which allows the player to easily string together attacks.
One of the best parts of the game is how over the top and funny the game is. This reviewer found himself laughing out loud at certain cutscenes or moves Bayonetta was doing, which is rare in most games. There is even a move where Bayonetta break dances while shooting the on-screen enemies with her various guns which concludes with her laying on the ground and giving the camera a little wink. Bayonetta often mocks her enemies right before destroying them with cheesy lines that are straight out of a B-grade action movie. Between each level is a carnival-like shooting gallery, which nabs the player extra items depending on how well the player does. Health items come in the form of suckers; green regenerates Bayonetta’s health, red makes her attacks stronger for a limited time, and yellow makes her invincible for a short period of time.
Another amazing aspect to this game is how good it looks, especially the facial features on the main characters. Cutscenes shot up-close to Bayonetta’s face show how much detail the developers put into her game model, down to the details on her glasses. Bayonetta looks beautiful when stringing combos together and even when just randomly walking around the various environments. The enemies all look like disfigured versions of angelic creatures one has seen in various religious themed texts, which is both creepy and amazing to see all at once.
The attacks are a lot of fun to watch and incredibly over the top.
The only negative part of the game is the lack of story explanation in the game. Often times the player will have to read supplemental texts included in-game to get what is fully happening in the story. This may not seem like such a bad thing, but in a world of games where the story is fully explained in-game, this may turn off some players to this amazing game. The other problem with this is some of the supplemental texts are hidden in the game and must be found by the player, which further compounds the problem.
Overall, Bayonetta is an amazing hardcore action game. Although the story is a bit confusing at times, this is more than made up for by its amazing gameplay and graphics. The controls make it incredibly fluid to string together combos using Bayonetta’s various weapons, and the shooting gallery between levels is a lot of fun to play. The game looks absolutely beautiful, in both character models and level environments. For anyone looking for something new to play, this is a perfect choice.
