Bayonetta
Sega
Beat-em-up Action
Playstation 4
Ahh, Bayonetta; an instant classic that, apparently, has only been around for ten years. Chances are you already have an opinion on Bayonetta even if, like me, you’ve never played it before. In case you’ve never even heard of Bayonetta though, here’s the skinny: Titular character Bayonetta is a several-hundred-year-old witch whose main interests are kicking ass and looking stylishly sexy doing it. Her main weapons are guns and her magical hair, which also serves as her skin-tight outfit which the camera tends to exploit by doing close up shots of her breasts, crotch, or butt. As you might imagine this led to a fair bit of discussion back in the day over objectification, but I don’t want to get into it except to say this: this game is the epitome of the “as a lesbian I’m delighted, but as a feminist, I’m horrified” joke.
Anyway, the game holds up very well. The visuals aren’t exactly jaw-dropping but that’s far from a requirement for a good game, and they’re definitely not bad. The combat is evocative of Devil May Cry, being based around putting together stylish combos and counters but in a way that feels accessible to both low and high skill players. If you’re like me and not great at this sort of gameplay, you can get by pretty well by using a relatively small part of Bayonetta’s arsenal of kick and punch chains, but if you’re better there’s plenty to experiment and play around with including new weapons that can be unlocked as you progress through the game. I will say that some of the items in the in-game shop seemed very expensive compared to how much of the currency I was earning, but that could just come down again to me not being very good at the game since your ability to chain long combos influences your rewards.
Other than that I’m not sure what else there is to say, given this is a re-release of a fairly well-known and well-received title. Framerate was pretty smooth and loading times were really fast on my baseline PS4. I actually at one point thought that my one minor complaint about the game would be that the loading times were too fast because the loading screens are supposed to be a chance to practice combos and there was no time for me to do that. Eventually, though I realized you could choose to stay in that practice space after it was done loading so it is a complete non-issue, but it was such a first-world problem to have that I thought I’d still mention it because it’s funny.
The Playstation 4 version of Bayonetta is a strong port that can serve as a great way for fans to revisit the first title in the series or for people looking to be fans to try it out for the first time. The best games are the ones that are still good a decade or more after release, and Bayonetta definitely falls into that category.
Bayonetta
Bayonetta is a blast today just as I assume it was when it first released in 2010.
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