Bayonetta is my hardcore action gaming “comfort food.”
After completing Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and the Damned, I had some gaming time before Bioshock 2 would be delivered to my door. I didn’t want to get into anything too lengthy, so I figured diving right into The Ballad of Gay Tony would be an optimal choice since it would allow me to close the book completely on the GTAIV universe and move on. Unfortunately, after playing the first couple of missions, I realized that I needed a break from the GTAIV world. I needed a game with just better gameplay in general.
As I recently lay in bed one morning, I came to the realization that I had to go back to Bayonetta since it was the game that defined what good gameplay is in this generation. Those of you that have read my review of Bayonetta know how much I enjoyed the game. It’s most likely the best action-adventure game I may have ever played within the last several years. So when I was growing tired of the lack of enjoyable gameplay in the GTAIV universe, who did I come crawling back to so that I could remember how much fun playing games could be? Bayonetta of course. And Bayonetta greeted me with open arms.
Before “retiring” Bayonetta to my collection, I had beaten the game three times – once on Normal, Hard, and Infinite Climax. Unfortunately, with Infinite Climax, I took the easy way out and beat the game using an unlockable item that trivialized the hardest difficulty in the game. Using this item negated any uploading of level scores for Infinite Climax onto the Leaderboards, but when I originally beat it, I figured it was probably too tough to beat without it so I didn’t care too much.
I had two goals in mind when I popped Bayonetta back into my 360: to update my Normal Leaderboard scores and to beat the game legitimately on Infinite Climax difficulty. My Leaderboard scores on Normal difficulty were laughably noobish since it was my first playthrough of the game. On my Hard playthrough my total completion time was half the time that my Normal playthrough was, so I knew I had to do a better job with the Normal scores. I also figured playing through Normal would be a good way for me to reacquaint myself with the game’s wonderful combat engine in order to tackle the second (and much more difficult) goal: beating it on Infinite Climax legitimately.
I tore through Normal like lightning, beating the game in 2 and a half hours. Talk about fast! In a way, the Leaderboards for Bayonetta’s missions made me think of Mirror’s Edge Time Trials, but were far less frustrating. They even made me think, “Maybe this is why racing game fans love playing the same track over and over to beat their best time.” I’m not much of a racing game fan, but I know there are racing fans out there that study tracks, trying to shave seconds off a turn, etc. Bayonetta is this action gamer’s race track. I love it and can keep playing those levels like a racing fan driving those tracks.
After getting through Normal as an appetizer, I jumped into Infinite Climax difficulty and surprisingly, was able to make my way through the game. I actually wondered why I wussed out initially, as I was certainly experienced enough in the game to have developed the skills needed for beating it. On Infinite Climax difficulty, there is no Witch Time, the levels are populated with more difficult enemies, and they do more damage. Fortunately, with the amount of time I had put into Bayonetta, I didn’t realize that I had already been passively training for it. Every technique to dodge, counter, etc. that I had been taught in earlier difficulties got put to the test on Infinite Climax, but I’ll quote Lt. Willy from Starship Troopers: “Remember your training, and you will make it out alive!” I did make it out alive, and amhappy I accomplished my second goal.
Still, I missed Witch Time, since it is not present on the hardest difficulty, so I started playing through various levels on other difficulties to get some better scores. In the midst of playing them, I unlocked a new nunchuku weapon named Sai Fong, which was Bruce Lee’s nickname as a child (Small Phoenix). I looked up what it took to unlock this weapon, and it required beating over 100 levels in Bayonetta. Each playthrough is 18 levels, so going by that I’ve already gone through the game more than 5 times. I honestly don’t remember the last single-player game that I’ve enjoyed going through this many times. Of course, not many games can be beaten this quickly, but even games like Modern Warfare 1 & 2′s campaigns that are 5-6 hours long – I wouldn’t dare play them over and over again. If Bayonetta had twice the number of levels, I think I would still keep replaying this game. Something about Bayonetta’s combat just has me fully enjoy being a gamer when I play this game.
Now that I’ve accomplished both of my goals for Round 2, I am about ready to retire Bayonetta for a second time. But based on the amount of enjoyment I still got out of playing through Bayonetta two and a half more times this “round”, I have a feeling that there will also be a Round 3. Good gameplay just cannot be put away and forgotten. Even right now I’m thinking how much fun I’d be having if I just went through Bayonetta one more time…
Wow – it sounds like Bayonetta must be a pretty good game to still be fun after so many playthroughs. I played the demo and didn’t think too much of it, so I figured I would skip this one and wait for God of War 3. Now I’m not sure – maybe I should rent this one if its a short game.
So do you plan to get Dante’s Inferno after this? The reviews are lacklustre I’d say. I thought the demo was cool, but it sounds like the fun factor drops off as you go through the game. I’m actually thinking about getting the PSP version of Dante’s so I can have another good action game on the PSP. I think I would be more forgiving if the PSP version is only “ok” as long as it provided some good action on the go.
But Bayonetta? I heard they released a patch to fix the PS3 loading problems. Hmmm…
i played both the Bayonetta demo and the Dante’s Inferno demo. what’s funny is that I didn’t think Bayonetta was that amazing from the demo, and thought that Dante’s Inferno was pretty good from the demo. Yet reviews for the retail versions of both seem to indicate the opposite!
From the demo, I thought Dante’s Inferno played similarly to God of War (at least, what I could remember back on the PS2), but reviews seem to state that it’s too short and lackluster. I was never a huge fan of God of War anyway, but with God of War 3 coming out in less than a next month, it might be better to wait for that.
I’ll probably end up grabbing Dante’s Inferno on the cheap sometime in the couple of months, just because it’s a genre I enjoy – and with a cheaper price later, it will justify its shorter length and scope. One thing I dislike about portable games is often times the developers don’t design the game in such a way that it can be easily portable. Meaning, infrequent save spots, no suspend state mode, etc. I’d hate to be playing something like Dante’s Inferno on the subway and then I get to my stop but I can’t save the game since I haven’t completed the level, etc. But, I guess people manage.
Bayonetta will always be good, whether you play it before or after God of War 3, so it’s really up to how long your backlog is. What I am expecting is that God of War 3 will have a more coherent storyline but a combat engine that doesn’t quite deliver as strongly as Bayonetta’s. Of course, I could be wrong so we’ll just have to wait and see!