LogFAQs > #939778863

Final Analysis: Bayonetta
What I thought of Bayonetta: Amusingly absurd and impressively polished.
Would I play Bayonetta again? Yes, if only to satisfy my perfectionist instincts
Did it deserve to lose in round 1? No, it's probably in the top half of the bracket in terms of quality.

Restraint is generally an important concept in art. A lot of audiences might argue, for example, that the Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky could've been more restrained in his use of overly long takes of people sitting around looking sad. A lot of anime gets criticized for lacking restraint in its sexualization. Bayonetta takes the concept of restraint, throws it out the window, then leaps forward in slow motion to riddle it with bullet holes as it descends into a swirling vortex that leads directly to the pits of Hell.

This is ironic for a game whose protagonist is a dominatrix, but at this level of consistency and exaggeration, it works. Most of the game's best moments come from its dizzy heights of high-octane exaggeration: fighting a rival on a flying missile, having dance-competitions with a clone of yourself, or flinging a newly awakened God across the entire solar system and into the sun. It manages a balance where it can have all this absurdity but its few more poignant scenes still have an impact, and that's in part because we become invested in the characters as we share in their fun. Bayonetta herself is endearingly self-assured: one of her sidekicks complains about her battling angels in a nun's habit, and she cooly responds "I can't help it if I like the little outfits."

The game's greatest sin is its tendency to use cutscenes for things it could show in gameplay. There are loads of long scenes where Bayonetta acrobatically annihilates mooks, and they are well-choreographed and often funny, but they can leave the player uselessly clutching his controller and feeling a little left out. Perhaps some restraint would have been useful after all, in this particular area. The cutscenes are so prevalent throughout the levels that they can disrupt the flow of replays, where the player will skip them and suddenly find Bayonetta in a completely different area. The elaborate intro scenes for every single enemy type, in particular, are one thing I could've done without.

Hideki Kamiya is a veteran of the hack and slash genre, and Platinum Games have become its most prominent developer. It's no surprise, then, that Bayonetta's combat mechanics are exceptionally well-done. There are a staggering number of options between the lengthy combo list, multiple weapons that can be attached to both hands and feet for different results, temporary weapons, and additional mechanics like the magic meter and witch time. All that complexity serves exhilarating fast-paced brawling that's especially rewarding to gradually master. Even after finishing the game, I feel like I've only scratched its surface in this regard: I'd like to go back through on normal difficulty for higher rankings, try out the harder modes, and experiment more with weapon options and unlockable skills.

But almost everything else about the gameplay is kind of shallow. The adventure game segments are mostly a series of boring puzzles based around the same two mechanics, and the more unusual motorbike and shoot-em-up sections lack the same polish and made me long to go back to the combat.

When I started playing this game, a few of you guys mentioned that it's not really your type of game. I've said a lot of nice things about it, so it might surprise you to know that it's not entirely my cup of tea either. To explain why, I'll use a contrast. Bayonetta is a Japanese story about fighting angels that extensively re-uses a cover of Bart Howard's Fly me to the Moon, and I happen to be a huge fan of something else that fits that same curiously specific description: Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Apart from the similarities I just mentioned, Bayonetta and Evangelion are about as different as can be. Their protagonists in particular are near polar opposites. While I enjoyed my time with the cocksure, unshakeable, and joyously energetic Bayonetta, I can't see her occupying a position among my favorite fictional characters like Evangelion's akward, self-doubting, frequently reprehensible Shinji Ikari does. Bayonetta can face down angels or even gods without batting an eye, constantly revealing new superpowers to counter them, and that's hilarious, but it deprives these entities of their conceptual force, by which I mean the angels in Bayonetta are as interesting and impressive as orcs in a standard fantasy story, or uncharacterized human mooks in something like Call of Duty. In contrast, Shinji's battles with his angels are traumatic, brooding, and usually narrowly won. He often sees his friends beaten down and in mortal danger, and some of Evangelion's most powerful moments are when his heroic efforts amount to nothing and he's helpless to do anything except wait for death.

In general, at least for me, the more flawed a character is, the better. This hurts the case of a character like Bayonetta, but it's great news for someone like Shinji. I'm not entirely sure why it is, but part of it comes from those previously-raised concepts of subtlety and restraint. At one point in Evangelion, Shinji claims that his primary motive is to win his father's approval, but that's not what we see in his actions. He refuses to take the first step forward on his journey (piloting a giant robot, in this case,) when his dad commands him to. What convinces him to do it is that when he refuses, he sees an injured girl being brought in to do that job in his place. My contention is that while Bayonetta would be a more enjoyable person to spend time with, Shinji is the more interesting character to observe in a work of fiction, and I guess that's part of it - Bayonetta makes her motives perfectly plain, but guessing at his gives us something to think about.

Like its main character, I had fun with Bayonetta, but I wonder if it's something I'll still think about a long time from now. I consider that the test it has to pass if it's a truly great game.

Next Game: VVVVVV

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 2/129
Currently Playing: VVVVVV