CHUD Gaming Club June 2012: Bayonetta

I almost put this down mid-way through the intro sequence. It's a long-ass cutscene, then it's a tutorial, then another cutscene and another tutorial for a different style of gameplay. I found myself getting frustrated and wondering what the game itself actually looked like, or if there even was something else, or would I be spending the next six hours jumping from scene to scene like a JRPG.

 

Takes a long time to settle down, is what I mean.

I might skip this month talk, unless i find the game again for cheap; however, the whole thing is fresh on my mind (also, Im playing Vanquish), so i'll still post my memories of this game.

I do remember that the sole aspect of the gaming mechanics that i disliked was how some of the weapons were secrets that unlocked without any clues or directions as how to do so, meaning you could finish a playthrough with just the story based weapons and upgrades.

The torture attacks were fun, and the boss overkill sequences were fantastic in that each is unique and tops the previous one both in originality and weirdness.

Word to the wise: dont try to understand the plot at all, just enjoy the game and the characters; also, its amazing how this game is an apology for DMC4 and its recycled missions and stages...hell, i think Bayonetta nevers repeats the same sequence or battle through the whole game.

Also, a Space Harrier and Fantazy Zone tribute sequences? Genius!

Weirdly enough, I started this up Sunday and tried to pick up where I left off, chapter 5.  So there you go.

 

This is one of those games that makes me glad my fiancee is into Japanese shit, or at least understands it.  Cause I feel like the biggest, nerdiest pervert playing this game.  It's fun, but I've been kinda done with invincible character action games for awhile.  You know, where the protagonist is beautiful, untouchable (unless it's gameplay), kills everything instantly and without a hair out of place and fuck that.  I would rather a protagonist that has to WORK for it.  But that is kind of a Japanese thing.

 

I do appreciate how bugfuck nuts the game is.  But goddamn, I suck.  Maybe it's starting back after 6 months or so, but the 2 angels, red and blue, would CONSTANTLY fuck my shit up.  I died like 8 times on that first fight in chapter 5.  And then I turn into a fucking panther? What?!

Please tell me the bolded out line was intentional.

Of course!

Yay! (I was expecting a joke about pubic hair here, but glad to see CHUD's level of class made that outdated)

Also, to this day im not ashamed of admitting that about 99% of my time spend with Bayonetta involved zero memorization of special movements input or checking out the control layouts, it pretty much went like this:

 

IM USING GUNS ON ALL EXTREMITIES! NOW IM USING A SWORD! NOW IM PERFORMING A POLEDANCING OF DEATH! NOW IM A PANTHER, NO WAIT, IM A BIRD! NOW IM NAKED AND USING MY HAIR TO DEVOUR SOME SORT OF LIVING PSYCHODELIC CHERUB STATUE!

 

yes, that about sums it up....weird thing is, the game just flowed, but never felt like i was just mashing buttons or playing it on auto; i guess you could say its a game that puts you in a constant "In the zone" mental state.

It flows fantastic.  It's a really good game, it's just that it's a really good JAPANESE game.

 

I've come to realize that I am not a combat master in video games.  I can't talk about frames or give you the goddamn fucking real-ass name for a move or even consistently do pause moves.  As long as I can pick up a handful of techniques that fuck shit up, I'll be ok.  

 

My biggest thing, jumping back into the game last night, was I had just come off of Asura's Wrath, which is as big and fucking crazy and Japanese as humanly possible and as weird as Bayonetta is...well, fighting a guy on the moon who then swords you with a sword as big as the fucking Earth?  Kinda hard to out crazy that shit.  I need a bit of a refresher from wild and crazy bullshit.

One of the things that I really appreciated about Bayonetta when I played it the first time was that it somehow manages to keep out crazying itself from beginning to end. Bayonetta starts out in a very wacky Japanese place, and it just keeps getting weirder and weirder right up until the very end.

I just finished playing the first couple of chapters. I had forgotten how much I love the Bayonetta soundtrack, especially its obsession with Fly Me To The Moon.  It think at least a part of why this game flows so well for me is because the battle music never gets old. It psyches me up each time I hear it kicking in.

 

Also, I think the sword is perhaps the best weapon in the game and you get it pretty early on. Maybe I should use some of the other ones more this time around, but the sword is just so much fun to use that I'll have hard time doing so.....at least until I unlock the whip. That one's pretty good too.

 

Is anyone else just as amused as I am that the severity of your super special attack things is measured in "gigatons"?

 

Also, I know people say that the story in Bayonetta doesn't make any sense, but I think it makes perfect sense, especially if you bother to read all those books you pick up. Don't get me wrong, the story is batshit crazy, but it does make sense within itself. The gameplay is certainly a fine tuned highlight of Bayonetta, but the crazy plot also has its merits.

I really, really like the boss battle against the giant, double-headed, cherub face for a body, dragon thing. That is all.

This game has some of the best boss battles I've ever seen in a videogame.   They just keep getting cooler and more epic.  

I wonder if I'm the only person who thinks the various battles against Jeanne are the toughest fights in the game. She's got the same moves as you do, and it is much harder to dodge at the perfect moment to get into Witch Time. Jeanne also has some wicked combos that will decimate your health if you are unlucky enough to get caught by one of them.

 

That said, I think one of the later fights with Jeanne toward the end of the game is perhaps my favorite battle in the entire game. We'll see how I feel about it after this playthrough though. There are a lot of great fight setups in Bayonetta to choose from, especially in the second half of the game.

Yeah, I noticed that, too.  I didn't think gross so much as "wacky" and I mean the quote fingers there.

 

I recently rebought the game digitally and decided to pick up on Hard after a good year+ absence, and the first flashback Jeanne battle has me stymied. Thankfully the game lets you skip chapters so I've sort of been playing around her while I get back in the groove of things, but you're totally right that her having a more nuanced style of combat makes it much harder to time versus the big, sweeping attacks of the other enemies.

 

That being said, damn is this game fun. I'm back forth on the whole "wacky Japan" thing (love me some No More Heroes, not a fan of your average JRPG), but the insanity just fucking works here. It also helps that all the cool stuff isn't relegated solely to cut-scenes, but actually incorporated into gameplay with the combos, torture attacks and boss finishers. It's the same with Vanquish, Platinum just seems to know how to make gameplay look awesome even if a lot of it is just a variation on established techniques.

The whip is also fun to use. It's god for smacking things at a distance, and if I remember correctly, you can use while in mid-air to pull enemies up towards you.

 

But, the sword is definitely my favorite weapon in the game. You have to get up a little close to your enemies, and it moves a bit slower than your default gunkata moves do. However, the sword does quite a bit more damage than just punching things, and it's power attacks actually have quite a bit of reach.  Also, spamming the sword's attack button eventually gets you into a quick "lightning quick flurry of  stabs" move that you can finish off with either a large sword slash or a power stomp from a giant foot (by switching to the heavy attack button at the end).  Pulling off that combo is easy, looks really cool, and does a lot of damage.

Jumped back into this tonight, and although this is a pretty gauche statement following the preceding discussion - fuckin' hell, this game is mental. I mean, on every conceivable level.

I'm having trouble getting in to this. I'm on chapter 4, and since I've never had fast reflexes, it feels like I'm resorting to button mashing most of the time. That, and I've never cared for the Japanese manga shit. I'll give it another shot, but I'm having trouble getting motivated to play this. 

Another consummate button masher here. So far I'm just starting chapter 3.

I never can never the hang of fighting games and combo systems, either I hit the botton combos too fast for the game or two slow and they don't register. I also hate quicktime elements in game like this that kill you if you miss them, I'm never fast enough because I get too distracted by the cinematic.

I'm playing on easy now, but it just feels too easy. I need something intermediate between normal (which kicks my ass) and easy.

By the way this game makes me feel like a creep every Bayonetta looks at the camera and licks her lips. Anyone else?

The way I like to see it is, it makes you feel like a creep so you can realize the essential ridiculousness behind her portrayal, with the campiness of it all creating a pisstake of hyper-sexualized videogame characters. Like, she's so ridiculously sexualized it gets overwhelming, and then becomes a comment on the basic ridiculousness of presenting videogame characters as sexual objects.

 

Nah, fuck it, I'm reaching. I feel like a creep too.

 

I'm really enjoying how the game portrays the heavenly world, with its crazy and slightly unsettling depictions of the angels. The various angelic ranks pretty much correspond with how they're laid out in actual Catholic theology too; funny how a such a campy, wilfully ridiculous game shows some genuine thought and homework when it comes to the religious aspect. I'm one of those people who has just never been able to 'do' anime/the more flamboyant sides of Japanese media, but the gameplay and the heaven stuff is keeping me hooked here.

I don't know about you guys but to me Bayonetta looks like the bastard child of an unholy union between Jack Skellington and Barbie.

That's actually an excuse I've seen more than once.  I still don't buy it.  If that was the point, it's not in the game, in my opinion.  Hey, unless that shit pops up past chapter six.  I think it's just video gamers trying to excuse hyper sexuality, once again.

 

It's creepy, but not the creepiest thing out there.  At least she's not dumb and pretty knows she's in a video game.  That does somewhat alleviate it.

 

Somewhat.

I don't think Bayonetta is making a statement on hyper sexualization in video games.   It doesn't feel that smart but she does transcend it in a way by being smart, self assured and kicking ass.   She didn't feel exploited to me in the end but instead empowered.   Definitely not worth getting in a twist about.

Agree with you guys, mostly. I was kind of being facetious above, but the game really is so self-consciously silly about the whole thing it kills the 'creep' factor pretty quickly. Having her kind of be in on the joke as well does a lot to help, too. If anything, the OTT sexualization feels like a diversionary tactic they use to sneak up on the audience with the fact that she's actually pretty intelligent and independent as a character. Interestingly, it's the men who are underdeveloped (And kind of useless) in this game.

 

Well, i caved in and managed to track a copy for cheap...when i realized I had missed the ice skates, rocket launcher and whip weapons, I knew things hat to be set done right.

Now i cant help but replay and try to beat my scores in each mission, plus buying the extras and accesories in the shop...damn you, Justin! I had a huge backlog to play through already!

As for the sexuality in the game, yep, Justin nails it here; sure, the main character is an amalgamation of fetishes, but its her personality and the intrinsic weirdness of the gameworld that make it work and not feel creepy or objectified; Bayonetta's voice acting and dialogue make her feel like a smart, devious and sort of playful character, who comes out as really comfortable with herself and her actions; its sexy, but it sure as hell aint dumb or objectified...hell, Lucca gets more objectified than Bayonetta, with her calling him Pet/Cheshire and teasing him at every turn.

I rewatched Zero punctuation's review of the game, out of curiosity, and im amazed how it drops the ball when it comes to the gameplay (to clear things up, i think Yathzee is a brilliant gaming comedian, but a horrible reviewer); he points that the game suffers from the same "Awesome action in cutscenes, lame action in gameplay" that happened in Devil may Cry 4, which is downright stupid; if anything, this game is an apology for DMC4ś blandness and repetitive gameplay.

Is gameplay at all like Vanquish? Because I could not get into that game at all after repeated attempts.

Not really. Vanquish is all about sliding around on your knees shooting robots in faces.  And smoking.

 

Bayonetta is like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden or a fancy pants God of War. "Character action" is the phrase used. Vanquish is, at the end of the day, a fancy pants 3rd person cover based shooter, but where the cover is YOUR ROCKET LEGS!!!

Vanquish is pretty much Gears of War (3rd person cover shooter) mixed with Contra (Holy shit there's bullets/enemies/explosions everywhere!) with the addition of rocket speed; its quite fun once you get the hang of it.

Bayonetta is some demented mash up of Devil May Cry gameplay, Viewtiful Joe/God Hand weirdness and  lots of style; if it ever became a film, Takashi Miike would be the only director to be able to handle it.

 

I can definitely see how it could be fun (hence why I bought it), but after repeated attempts, I came to the conclusion my reflexes and hand-eye coordination were not up to the task.

 

Sorry to derail, but I have to give props to that avatar. I was convinced I was the world's only Wild Dog fan.

Hey, thanks for noticing! It was pretty trippy for Midwestern 6th-grader me to get a DC comic set in my hometown. I'll never forget it.

On-topic: You bastards have convinced me. I know I'll be late, but I'll be picking the game up tomorrow if I can get to GameStop before it closes.

So, the boss in Chap 7, I farmed a couple of times, got enough halos to buy everything in the shop, so that's cool.  Also got the claws and ice skates without realizing it. Ice skates are cool. The whole daughter thing is...well, it's a thing, I guess.  She almost has a monobrow.  

 

Since I have too many games to run through this again, I think I'll farm for more halos and buy all the special weapons. Should be fun.  Still absolutely hate fighting the Durga twins, the fire and lightning angels.  Too fucking fast from off screen with heavy, juggle hits. makes them hard to kill without taking heaps of damage.

I picked it up last night and put a few hours in. It's definitely not a game that would appeal to me without the recommendation of chewers, so while it's not exactly clicking with me yet, I'm using it as a mental exercise and trying to see the good. Combos are the bane of my video game enjoyment (died 17 times in the overpass scene where you had to build up your magic meter to pull off the fatalities on the angels), and I'm pondering ratcheting the difficulty down to Easy.

 

Things slowed down to a pace I'm enjoying after I entered Vigrid, allowing me to get my bearings a bit. Left off there.

 

The cutscenes are interminable. Since I don't understand what's going on anyway, any harm in skipping them? Are they this long throughout the game?

The cutscenes can drag on a bit. I found the ones centring on Bayonetta herself worked best, while a lot of the secondary characters get a bit irritating (With the exception of Jeanne and Rodin).

 

To be honest, you can get results resorting to good old-fashioned button mashing in emergencies. One of the strengths of the game's combat system is that while skilled players will be most effective, it also accommodates the less-coordinated among us amply. Easy difficulty helps in that regard as well, though it does occasionally automate things a tad too much.

I'd also echo the recommendation for the sword, I found it the easiest to get a handle on with a few simple, powerful combos.

I found the claws to be a pretty useful weapon especially since they can be turned to fire or ice.   I'm going to try and catch up with you guys so I can find the ice skates and rocket launchers.

Checked for tips online, and i dont know it its a subconcious ant-cheating reflex or maybe im just old, but i cant pull off the MILLION ROCKET COMBO move that everyone seems to know about.

I'm out, gents. I'm just not enjoying dying 5 trillion times in a row, then having to spend 30 seconds having to skip past a cutscene on every single restart. Neither my reflexes or my patience are up to the task. The art direction is stunning, though. Too bad I won't get to see more of it.

I tried, but I literally couldn't get past about 20 minutes before the embarrassment over took me.  Not a knock on any body who's loving the combat, but this game is way too god damn japanese teenager fetish for me.

No fucking shit, man.  Seriously, if not for an understanding fiancee who's a bit of a Japanophile (and already beat it herself) and the Giant Bomb dudes loving it, I'd be too annoyed to keep playing.

 

Still, gameplay is fun.  Really liking the ice skates.

Do what I did the first time around and turn the difficulty down. The game does everything but bring you a beer on the easiest setting. Then just sit back, hammer the Do Everything button and pretend you're watching the strangest non-porny anime ever.

Gotta love that the batshittery in this game escalates on and on...and yet you still can miss on some of it; hell, I had never performed the saw torture attack the first time i played this one.

Playing this makes me wish God Hand had an HD re-release.