Bayonetta Review: Shallow and sexy game, or deep thrill?

Bayonetta‘s creator, Hideki Kamiya, has a good pedigree in his latest game’s genre. Being the father of the seminal Devil May Cry series, it comes as no surprise that Bayonetta, the spiritual successor to that series, is equally seminal, albeit not in, er, the original or creative way, that much. Ahem.

You see, bad spunk puns aside, Bayonetta is a very sexed-up game. It’s imagery, sometimes lustful, sometimes sadomasochistic, eschews innuendo for a shocking, more in your face approach. Whilst still suggestive in places, most of Bayonetta is so intense with its sexual references that it manages to weave itself into everything that the game is.

Sex is a big part of this game’s soul, from the skin tight leather outfit Bayonetta herself wears, through the more scantily clad outfit she strips out to during her special attacks, to the spanking, sex jokes and S&M attacks that merge themselves into the gameplay and its intentionally bad B-movie plot. It’s unusual, sometimes uncomfortable, bust mostly funny, provided you’re not shy about enjoying such topics in an adult manner. Though to let sex define what Bayonetta is would be a mistake; there’s a damn good game underneath all that lewdness.

Bayonetta is directly influenced by the hardcore Japanese action games of the PS2-era, such as Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. It falls into all the tropes of the genre from the extreme difficulty, the variety of weapons, orb collecting gameplay and epic boss battles. Just like other games in its genre, its plot is absolutely dreadful, though at least Bayonetta attempts to take the piss. But the main thing that separates Bayonetta from its contemporaries (Devil May Cry 4 and Ninja Gaiden II) is the sheer quality, balance and, most of all the fact that it’s fun.

I love difficult games; when I’m playing I always avoid the easiest difficulty, and most of the time find even the normal difficulty too easy. For me, nothing makes me happier than having a challenge, and a good hard difficulty demonstrates a level of quality craftsmanship on the developer’s part, for it’s so easy to make a game cheap in the name of difficulty (Ninja Gaiden II and the Call of Duty series, I’m looking at you), where dying really isn’t the player’s fault, but more part of the process of digging through a concrete wall with a box of plastic spoons.

Bayonetta is different. Whilst blocking off the hardest difficulty at the start, I found the normal difficulty setting hard enough. Where Ninja Gaiden II dropped the ball by making enemies cheap and impossible to kill for the sake of it, Bayonetta makes it perfectly clear that any boss can be defeated once you’ve practised and gained enough skill to take them on. There aren’t any hidden surprises, cheap explosions or unavoidable attacks.

All this said, playing Bayonetta doesn’t feel like an art form that you have to perfect with elegance. If you don’t play it “right”, then you won’t fail. Learning combos isn’t important. There are, literally, hundreds of them, and they only seem to be there to take the piss, because dodging and mashing the attack buttons will always get the desired effect.

But that’s not to say it’s easy; they’ve made mashing the buttons at the right time a skill, and that’s fabulous. It’s refreshing, because Bayonetta has gone back to the core of what a good game is about: fun. I think other action game developers forgot about that in pursuit of difficulty.

Though to simply compare Bayonetta to other games in its genre – calling it a much better balance of what has already been done – is unfair. Yes, it is all of that: it’s hard but not cheap, challenging and fun and it knows this as much as the players do, but it’s also so much more.

Bayonetta is a spectacle. From the fantastic scenery and the constant buzz of activity during fights to the epic boss battles, it aims to take your breath away with each level. On the most part it achieves that, and even manages to successfully break up the action with minigames such as the shooting gallery and on-rails segments, one of which harks back to Sega classic Space Harrier.

Another part of Bayonetta’s spectacle is the music. With a number of variations on ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ that run alongside a mostly poppy soundtrack, it’s fair to say that it’s rather unusual. It may seem out of place for an action game, but it suits the sometimes glitzy, sometimes sexy vibe the game gives off, and does nothing but add to the spectacle and, to some extent, the joke.

Though it’s equally unfair to say that Bayonetta is all style and no new substance, because Platinum Games have attempted to add unique gameplay features that take it beyond wrapping up something old in a new package. Witch Time gives players a bonus for perfectly dodging attacks, by slowing down time and exposing opponent’s weak spots, whilst wall walking and animorphing provides some strange and confusing set pieces, especially in some of the game’s magnificent final levels. These few unique gameplay features combined with the audio and visual experience help carve Bayonetta into a niche of its own, and I hope to see more in the future.

All told Bayonetta is good package. Underneath the sex is a good action game; certainly one that’s better than the latest offerings of last-generation’s stalwarts, though it doesn’t just ape them and take the piss, but also manages to gain some individuality, setting it apart from being a simple parody. If you’re fan of action games and own an Xbox 360 (I’ve heard bad things about the PS3 version) then it’s worth picking up. It’s nothing groundbreaking or incredible, but it’s a robust and solid game that will give you hours of fun. Likewise, if you want to try something a bit different and rather unusual, and you’re not a prude, then you could do far worse than Bayonetta.