Bayonetta 360 reviewFollow

Picked this up the day it came out and beat it in the following couple of days. I remember back when Devil May Cry came out and how fresha nd cool it was. This game harnesses that same feeling.

Combat is pretty much top-notch and is open to several play styles. This game doesnt fall into the category of doing the same set of button presses for 8 hours straight. You can easily make new combos, change directions, swap weapons and mix it up pretty easy. Couple that with the weapons and the accesories and the techniques and it all coems together nicely. Though there is a lack of weapons to choose from it is made up for by being able to pick up enemy weapons and use them.

The graphics in the game are pretty slick. Everything has a nice level of polish and the animations are very flowing and it never gets old seeing you rip into bad guys even if some of the character models are a bit over used. Along with the ncie graphics you get an interesting way of story telling through still film clips and a pretty awesome sound track to back that up.

The story is pretty confusing and you dont know exactly what is going on until the last boss. You get a lot of flashbacks of the same scene and nothing is truelly explained until the very end where everything comes together.

Overall this game is pretty over the top and met my expectations pretty dead on. I give this game a solid A. If the story had ben coherent a tad more it would of been an A+. The game is about 8-9 hours the first time around but theres a lot to go back and do once you beat it.

The demo didn't show anything but button mashing...

Plays a lot like Devil May Cry.
I enjoyed the demo, but it seemed like its one of those games that would just get annoying after a few hours.

If you button mash in a game its your own fault.

That's somewhat debatable. If you can get through a game by only button-mashing, it's a design flaw IMO.

Edited, Jan 12th 2010 8:20pm by Spoonless

I'm sorry, but I played the demo on my 42 inch 1080p TV, while sitting in on my bed about 7 feet or so from the TV.

When fighting the garbage mobs on the screen at the beginning of the demo when falling through that "Space" type zone, you could barely see your character's position, at that point it's just "hit this button combination and let the auto target system find the mobs for you". The flashes and explosions of special effects on the attacks just add to the clutter, making it even harder to see your character

Sure, when you get to the bosses, and there is just you, them, and a couple other things on the screen, you can see and take your time to plan out certain attacks, dodges, etc.

But in the whole demo there is what, three bosses if I remember correctly? The rest of the time is spent mashing your combos in and clearing the screen of the masses of enemies that completely block your view. That's button mashing.

So how much of the games 8-9 hours was spent fighting bosses, and how much is spent just mindlessly mowing through garbage on the screen while constantly pressing what ever button combination you feel works the best?


(I only mention my TV setup to show that I'm not playing on some blurry old SD 480i TV).

It doesn't matter one bit if you can use a bunch of complicated and flashy looking combos if you don't have to. It's the result that matters, not how you achieved that result. I mean really, who gives a fat flying f*ck about a video game trophy? It's a single player game, who the hell are you trying to impress? The game doesn't care if you used the super special combo of doom or just stood back and shot at the thing. If you can play through the whole game button mashing and win, that is a design flaw, and a pretty big one at that.

Also, I completely agree with Tirith about the screen crowding issue. Between all the random useless flash in the background to the all annoying flashy crap from the combat, half the time you can't even see what's going on. The art designer for this game needs to take a good hard look at the meaning of restraint.

Edited, Jan 13th 2010 2:20pm by Turin

It looked like she became nude-ish and her outfit changed into the Shadow nomnom demon.

Also, is Sonic in the game? Them looked like Sonic Gold Power Rings she was picking up there...

Her hair is also her clothes. Weird I know, but the game isn't trying to take itself that seriously.



Swing and a miss, again. Did you ever play Devil May Cry? If you know what the appeal of that game is, you'll have an idea of the appeal of this. Both series are about fast and stylish combat where you aim at getting high rankings (S and SSS in the DMC series and Pure Platinum in Bayonetta) by trying to be as flashy and flawless as possible. That's the entire fun about the game along with the difficulty when you crank up the difficulty level. I don't care if no one ever sees that I get a high rank, but I have fun knowing I've improved and was able to do it.

And again, so far the people complaining about the button mashing haven't not played the game or only played the demo. Button mashing is only possible on easy and very easy. Play on normal and button mashing isn't possible. You need to dodge and string together moves at the right to in order to win. Otherwise you won't be able to finish the game. The only reason they included the ability to play by just pressing one button was because of the people who found normal to be too hard back with the original DMC.

Blah, blah, blah. I own the first three DMC and none of them are as lame as this game. Well, three had Dante go all Emo twink on us, which was a bit annoying. Your terrible taste in video games is showing again.

Edited, Jan 13th 2010 3:23pm by Turin

You have a real thing for criticizing games you haven't played, don't you? What the hell is your grudge?

I played the demo and I rather like how it plays better than God of War and Devil May Cry.

Also, the developer's blog for Bayonetta is interesting.

Edited, Jan 14th 2010 5:37pm by Kuwoobie

Three, in your estimate, is a lot?


Edited, Jan 14th 2010 3:07pm by Turin