Bayonetta

Bayonetta is an action fighting game along the lines of Onimusha and the more popular Devil May Cry series. This time around you control a strangely stylized main character as she struts her way through the lost European village of Vigrid. She’s on a quest to find out something about her past, but on the way she’ll randomly encounter and beat up a wide heavenly host of strange, radiant angelic creatures. From Vigrid to Heaven itself, Bayonetta wages a one woman war on all that is good and holy, not because she’s particularly evil, but rather more as a result of the angels being too foolish to get out of her way. Plus, she’s got a pal named Rodin who runs a bar on the edge of hell and pays good money for angel halos. I find it rather funny that Bayonetta has been released just after Assassin’s Creed 2 and just before Dante’s Inferno… with this sequence of games we can sit back and enjoy the complete classic Italian Renaissance Triptych: Heaven, Hell and Tuscany.

Actually, we don’t know quite where the little European town of Vigrid is supposed to be located. The architecture has a definitive Antoni Gaudi look, with dripping sand castle walls and brightly-colored mosaic tile floors (this, by the way, delighted my wife, who is a big fan of all things Barcelona). The environment through which Bayonetta fights her battles continuously outdoes itself in sheer colorful splendor. The later levels set in Paradisio are particularly inspiring, reminiscent of the mental images I always held for certain Outer Planes in the Dungeons and Dragons Planescape mythology (think floating islands in Limbo or the Astral Plane). The level design is also mathematically pleasing, as Bayonetta often forces the player to reorient themselves on different rotating surfaces with variable gravity. It is more the pity that the soundtrack didn’t offer a similar aesthetic sense. When not playing “Fly Me to the Moon” incessantly (I can only assume this to be an oblique reference to the popular anime series Evangelion) the music most resembles the sound you’d get if our Middle School had a brass band. It would have been really nice to have had these divine adventures accompanied by a more inspiring orchestral suite.

Despite its peculiarities, Bayonetta is a pretty accessible gaming experience. There is a nice variety of difficulty levels, all of which can be toggled at any time. The character herself has a seemingly endless variety of moves, allowing a button-masher like me plenty of success while also rewarding a more agile player with complex options and strategy. In addition to sporting revolvers with infinite ammo on each wrist and ankle, Bayonetta can acquire swords, whips, claw-like hands and other lethal weaponry. She is quite a weapon herself, with an array of kick and punch combinations, as well as magical hair. Yes, Bayonetta’s hair is multi-purpose, making up her clothing when not in use, but also often speeding away to form giant arms and feet that smash enemies in a gothic Castle of Otranto fashion. Bayonetta can also summon titanic hair demons to finish off climactic boss battles, or smaller “torture” attacks that put small fry angels into uncomfortable medieval scenarios. Bayonetta can also transform into various animals for brief periods of time, including a black panther that leaves dark flowers in its Okami-style wake. Did I forget to mention that Bayonetta can also walk up walls? Even without all the superpowers, Bayonetta manages to stand tall as one of the most powerful, independent and mature female characters yet to appear in the video game medium. With her magical abilities intact, she’s pretty much unstoppable.

I haven’t yet mentioned Bayonetta’s most impressive power, both from a utility perspective and in terms of game play. This is her ability to slow down time. Every instant you manage to dodge an attack at the last possible moment, Bayonetta is awarded with a few seconds where she can move and everything else is frozen in time. This “Witch Time” allows the player to try out different combos and unleash devastating attacks on enemies. A brilliant device, the time stop ability gives little much needed breaks in an otherwise chaotic action sequence. The ability is also used to bypass some obstacles in the game.

The angels themselves deserve a bit of attention. While named after various virtues and often cast in a heavenly light, the angels themselves are depicted as impressive but militant alien beings. Enormous giants with baby cherub faces, two-headed dragons with upside-down faces in place of torsos, and bird-beaked minor angels are all suitably weird and inhuman so as not to evoke much sympathy as you trounce them. Like the world that comic book legend John Constantine inhabits, Bayonetta’s reality is one where humans are the best thing going… the divine and the demonic are remote outsiders with no strong connection to the reality of human experience.

There is a great deal of replay value in Bayonetta once the main quest is complete. There are many items, weapons and moves to collect, and players can try to hone their scores on each level and subsequently be awarded with better trophies for their efforts. Cut-scenes are great to watch, but also skippable once you’ve seen enough of them. There are little challenges scattered throughout the game as well, like catching elusive crows and finding secret battles or specific challenges (there’s a hard one where you have to defeat two angels and you are only allotted like 10 kicks and 5 punches). This being said, many gamers may play just for the sights and sounds, and thus be done with the game as I was after a 10-15 hour single play through of the storyline.

Bayonetta has a lot going for it, and may constitute the start of a successful new franchise. It has likeable characters, interesting ideas and a lot of background world-building. However, it is also very strange, and there is some question about how much the weird aesthetic sense will appeal to a general gaming audience. Here’s hoping that Bayonetta is able to taste of the lollipop of success, and that further adventures will develop for her in the years to come.