Game EXP: Bayonetta (NS)

It has actually been a few weeks since I finished the Bayonetta on the Nintendo Switch.  It had been some time since I had played a God of War type game, and I actually think that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the last game in that style that I played back in August, 2015.  So my skills in a third person action combo-oriented game were a bit rusty to say the least.  Coupled with my general not great ability to remember combos often lead battles to turn into button mashing hair filled frenzies.

Yeah, um, she's uh, mostly naked here.

To be honest, I was a little concerned about playing Bayonetta, already knowing beforehand that there was a fair amount of over-the-top / cheekiness to the game paying fan service to certain demographics of the gaming community.  And believe it or not, I had not seen many screen shots, or any gameplay videos of the game for any system before pre-ordering it on the Switch back in January. For the most part though, I did not find the shots of Bayonetta to be too gratuitous as they were relegated to finishing moves against bosses, or to cut scenes.  Okay, sure, here she is naked with around 92% of her body showing, and I would definitely feel uncomfortable playing this game around my father.  Conklederp on the other had began watching me play (in both docked and hand held mode) shortly after the seventh chapter, which was, I believe, before I started spamming Chapter VII for halos, but more on that later.  

Ultimately the point is, is that because the designer of the character of Bayonetta is okay with how Bayonetta was depicted in the game, I guess I can be okay with it too.

Bayonetta’s long hair is the source of her power, and she normally wears it around her body as a means of adornment and protection. However, once she enters battle, she can use her hair to summon incredibly powerful demons from hell. When she summons these Infernal Demons, she is using all of her power, so she has no time to control the hair wrapped around her body and thus she ends up in more “comfortable” attire. The exciting way she looks in this state is one of the parts of Bayonetta that I love.

~Mari Shimazaki

The thing though about Bayonetta using her hair in her special attacks, is that even when she does it during regular fight sequences, often events are happening so fast that being able to focus clearly on her character in order to gawk at her lack of clothing-ness is nearly impossible for the person playing the game.  Although I guess if you are the kind of person who is playing this solely for the purpose of seeing an animated woman whip off her clothing (which already is made of her own hair) and become naked to fight enemies, then I guess you have found the game for you.

Still not going to play it in front of my parents though. 

But still going on about the art style in the game, I loved the design choice for both the angels as well as the other messengers  of God.  In particular, Fortitudo, with the upside down face coupled with the two dragon heads seemed like something out of a 14th century Italian manuscript .  There is no reason for the face to be upside down, but if you read the descriptions of various angelic beings as is written in the Bible, those do not make a lot of sense either.  Some of the creature designs were a bit more absurd, but how are we expected to understand the mind of God?  Yeah, that is what I thought.

In other news, because this game is so heavily based around combat, and that combat is based around doing as much damage as possible in a single long and strung out combo often chained with another combo performed on another enemy, one would think that you would have to be a master on the level of Killer Instinct in order to actively compete in this game.  Let me tell you from someone who spammed the hell out of  the "punch-punch-punch-punch-[oh yeah!]kick" combo, that is not completely necessary.  And this screenshot was taken around halfway through the game when I found out that the game actually kept track of what attacks you used throughout the game.  I probably used this one combo attack close to 300 times by the time I finished the game; actually I'll go check. . . As it turns out, it was 551 times, which was second to my favorite combo, being the "punch-punch-punch-punch-punch" combo which I performed a whopping 723 times.  

I think that perfectly illustrates my take on combo heavy fighting games.  I spam what I know, or at least what my brain resorts to when confronted with having to fight a busket full angels hellbent on your destruction.  But do not get me wrong.  I did not utterly fail at this game and there were times that I felt very accomplished, as witnessed below:

As far as the story goes, I will be spoiler free in that I felt that I did not fully understand what was going on with the characters surrounding Bayonetta and what the aim was with the main antagonist until the very end of the game.  Then elements clicked and (nearly) everything seemed to make sense.  Except how the hell a certain side character made it up into the Tower of Truth, considering you had to traverse a tower that was exploding behind you, running across floating wall tiles that rose up into the sky, and a ran and up across multiple bridges made of angelic light.  I would really like to see that missing part of the story from that characters perspective.

In the end, I spent about 25 hours playing Bayonetta and, with the exception of feeling frustrated by my lackluster fighting skills, I had a pretty good time playing.  I did play Chapter VII frequently as it was the easiest and fastest way to earn halos (money) in order to purchase health and magic upgrades, additional fighting techniques, and accessories to add special elements to fighting in general.  And because the game ranks you after every chapter, I feel it necessary to finally show off my mad skills.  Behold.

For those not in the know, that grey figure who looks like he is falling (a statuesque depiction of the annoying character of , that is like the equivalent of a participation ribbon, and are called "Stone."  Up from that you have Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and a no hit super-fast and very accurate Pure Platinum.  And by looking at that last award, you can see that I apparently spent close to 20 hours grinding out halos, or at least attempting to get better at stages before finally being able to beat them with what I had equipped.  To note, I did find out that the mid-stage checkpoints only exist as long as you do not turn off the game.  I found that one out on Chapter XV after already spending close to 30 minutes trying to make my way through the stage.

 So I guess you could say that if I spent 25 hours on a game that could be completed in about six, I either hated the experience and just wanted to be done with the thing, or I had a fun time and eagerly awaited Bayonetta 2.

I'll let you find out next week.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Cheers to the Devout Lamb



P.S.  Oh, and here is Bayonetta flying/riding/directing a missile, because Bayonetta.