As some people may have already heard me; I have VERY VERY strong feelings about this game. I am probably going to be the first person to absolutely tear this game apart.
Where do I begin?
Character design. This game pretty much is everything you expect for a Japanese game. Overly busty women, disproportionate bodies, poor emotions. Pretty much almost all of the characters are very ridiculous and provide nothing to make me care for them. I don't think Bayonetta as a character is offensive or whatever some people seem to think. This is pretty much what I've come to expect from Japan. I mean, look at Dead or Alive and pretty much every anime in existence. Yeah, nothing new.
The character Luka is also very annoying. I honestly believe I could have done without him, he offers nothing of interest. SPOILER ALERT (I guess): he believes Bayonetta killed his father, but his anger really seems so subtle. if I thought somebody killed my father, I would be dead set on killing them. this guy chases the witch around, unarmed and pretty much has no desire to harm her. fucking stupid.
Rodin was a kind of cool character. He said some pretty stupid shit, but he was pretty funny. He's like a bartender or something in Hell? I don't even know what he was to be honest. I guess he was a demon. We'll just go with that, he's a big black demon bartender item shop guy. If he had a green mohawk, he kind of reminds me of Zack from Dead or Alive. Very flamboyant, wears sunglasses, black.
Little Cereza was the only character I felt any sort of emotion for. She is so very innocent, and did some of the cutest things hahah ^^;;! ahem... yeah, the whole time parallel thing with her was kind of weird. I don't get how seeing yourself as a child would make you remember anything about your past.
Let me tell you about the dialogue in this game. Everybody I've talked to thinks it's HILARIOUS or something. Yes, it's over the top; yes, it's fucking stupid; yes, it annoyed me to no end. The dialogue was nothing but sexual innuendos and stupid fucking jokes. I couldn't stand watching any of the cutscenes almost. I only watched them to know how the story progressed; which was poorly done. I honestly don't think I laughed once. Maybe quirky Jap-humor doesn't tickle my funny bone. I don't know
The soundtrack is ridiculous as well. It's mostly J-Pop and Dance songs. It kind of didn't fit the mood of most of the game, so I don't know. JAPAN!
Time to get down to the core selling point of this game, at least for me. The gameplay. It's pretty much your generic hack and slash game. You kill enemies, destroy vases, and some other stuff in the environment. In this game, you collect rings that are VERY similar to the rings in Sonic the Hedgehog. These are called Halo's, they act as currency for buying stuff in Rodin's store. You can also get little items to concoct different LOLLIPOPS. Yes, lollipops, this game has lot's of lollipops. You concoct other things, but mainly LOLLI-FUCKING-POPS. The combat was very simplistic, there's a million different combos you can do. I bought every technique, and I don't think I really used any of them. The only useful technique I bought was the air dodge. I don't know why you have to buy that, it's soooo useful. Whatever. Uhh, if you dodge something you go into something called "Witch Time;" basically time slows down, and you can deal massive damage to enemies. It tended to last for like 5 seconds, making it a little pointless; but it did help a lot on some enemies. The developer Platinum just borrowed something from one of their sort of previous games, Viewtiful Joe. Still, it's a nice little feature.
Pro tip: once you get the claws, fucking use them. hands down the game was a million times easier with those things. sooooo powerful. I thought the sword was the shit, but oh my gosh. I destroyed Jubileus once I equipped the claws.
I enjoy collecting things in games, I don't know why. This game offers lots of that. You collect books, witch hearts (4 increase your max health, moon stones or something (2 increase your max witch magic meter thing haha), crows, witch resting places (basically treasure chests), and tons of other things. I was crazy in Uncharted and Uncharted 2 with finding the treasures, I would run around a whole area looking for treasures. I got every single treasure in both games, so it was totally worth it. Anyway, to get off my tangent, that offered some form of enjoyment for me. although I didn't find every item, I found a lot. I just wanted to quit playing this game, so I didn't look so hard.
The worlds in this game were beautiful, the bosses were really cool looking, and some of the enemies were pretty cool. I got kind of tired of seeing so many of the same models just re-skinned, though. Most enemies were pretty dumb, and posed no real threat. I think the hardest to kill were the ridiculous fast fuckers. There was usually a red one and a blue one. I can't think of their names. You HAD to use witch time to kill them pretty much. fucking annoying.
Overall, this game had some really solid gameplay. A bit of slow down at times, but it stayed pretty consistent through out. Boss fights were always interesting, and not too challenging. Jubileus was the only bitch for me. I finally figured out how to avoid the black hole one hit kill thing after like 20 tries and feeling like a dumbass. Bayonetta is your run of the mill hack and slash, and really doesn't offer too much that superior games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden don't offer.
The story is pretty uninteresting. You are a witch that was revived after spending 20 years or something underwater. You meet a little guy that exploits your for a hint on where to locate some treasured "Right Eye." You follow his hint to a made up crazy city called Vigrid in Europe. Vigrid is some crazy religious city, blah blah. You meet a little girl that is lost and calls you "Mummy!" and follows you around everywhere. You kill lots of angels on your way to finding the "Right Eye." uhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah, this story really wasn't all that interesting. I don't want to give anything away either. If you want to know everything just go on wikipedia, whoever wrote it up did a good job.
In the end, I felt very unsatisfied with this game. I am glad I decided to rent it and not buy it. I was in a toss up with buying this or Darksiders. Sooooo glad I got Darksiders. Incredible.
I give this game a 3/5, if you're a fan of stupid Japanese jokes and hack and slash games go play it. If not, rent it like I did and at least play it. It's worth at least playing just to see how ridiculous it is.
