Bayonetta review 2023

During the creation of the witch, the leading PlatinumGames artist examined elite models on the covers of glossy magazines – he tried to understand whether there are women with the long legs that Hideki Kamiya wants for her heroine.

The output turned out to be perhaps the sexiest video game character of all that you saw. It is not surprising that the authors tried to squeeze the maximum out of her beauty.

The cut-scene directors skillfully pick up the heroine’s forms and try to show her to the maximum from all sides – both in combat episodes and during peaceful dialogs. The abundance of small parts is amazing no less. When landing, butterflies fly out from under the witch’s feet, and her shadow always casts characteristic wings, emphasizing once again how diligently the authors worked on the heroine.

As opponents – rebellious angels

In the story, Bayonet wakes up after a 500-year dream and tries to find out more about her past, destroying the Paradiso angels against her on the way. The opponents’ design is made in the appropriate style: it is dominated by white colors, painted ornaments and catchy shades.

Opponents in the game are divided into several types – from minor henchmen to mini-bosses with unique attacks. During the first meeting, the game beautifully presents each adversary with a spectacular cut-scene and recording in a bestiary.

Bosses are made in the best traditions of Japanese games – they are large, beautiful and memorable: for example, a huge statue of an angel with dragon limbs or a giant leviathan, with which a witch fights in the middle of the ocean. The meeting with each takes place in several stages, during which Bayonetta must reset not one (and sometimes not two) health strips. In the end, as a reward for the player, the witch invokes a huge demon – right from her costume. At such moments, you need to hysterically hammer on the button to get more points.

There is even a local analogue of Virgil from Devil May Cry 3. Bayonetta will meet with Jeanne several times, another witch who first tries to kill her, and then saves her. She has the same tricks as the main character, and with every skirmish her arsenal is replenished.

The gameplay still causes goosebumps

The gameplay of Bayonetta is very similar to Devil May Cry. And no wonder, because its game director was the legendary “bald of Platinum” Hideki Kamiya – the father of DMC and the entire genre of slashers. When working on Bayonetta, Kamiya, as it seems to me, threw himself out of himself all the creativity and added to the game in general everything that he could not realize before: absolutely fierce dynamics of battles, unique weapons and bosses the size of skyscrapers.

You can experiment with the local combat system endlessly. The witch has an extensive arsenal of non-conventional (even by today’s standards) weapons. Almost every kind of it can be put on both hands and feet. For example, if you put on skates, the witch will glide, and not just run, but should arm herself with a whip – you can pull on opponents, meeting them in one gulp of shotguns mounted on their legs.

In addition, in Bayonetta for the first time there was such a feature as time dilation when successfully dodging an enemy strike. He pressed the dodge button at the last moment – and the witch can smash the whole crowd in no time. This mechanic motivates taking risks and breaking into opponents with fire in their eyes and a thought in their head: “Well, come on!”.

There is nothing in Bayonetta for which slashers do not like

When developing Kamiya took into account all the criticism that has accumulated to him from the players. Did Dante have useless firearms? Bayonet’s guns do much more damage, and she has a whole series of tricks for them. For example, she can dance a break, shooting everyone around, and if you spin the stick 360 degrees and press the button to hit the legs or arms, she will start to shoot around, and you just need to set her direction. In addition to pistols, Bayonetta has shotguns and even rocket launchers (yes, they can also be attached to studs).

Ever wanted to scale? After each combination of Bayonetta, a huge arm or leg appears that grows out of her costume (leaving only the most intimate places covered). Lacking spectacular boss finishes? When the cherished moment comes to click on the Climax combination (this is the local Fatality), Bayonetta’s costume literally slides from it, turning into a huge demon that tears the unfortunate into pieces.

However, some things in the game are frankly furious. For example, there are levels in it where developers forcefully tear a player out of a battle carnival and force him to control a motorcycle or fly a rocket, shooting opponents, like in some kind of scrolling shooter. Why this was done is incomprehensible. However, there are few such moments in Bayonetta.

More content than it seems

Like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta motivates to play not only effectively, but also effectively. For mixing combinations, regularly changing weapons, using the environment and evasion, the game increases the reward after each skirmish and rewards currency that can be spent on new tricks, costumes, weapons and accessories. The latter are expensive things, but they can fundamentally change combat tactics and gameplay. For example, with one of them, the witch will learn to summon doubles, repeating all her movements.

In addition to battles, other interesting things can be found at locations. At each level, there are secret places with valuable objects like pieces of vinyl records (weapons are assembled from them) or health strip magnifiers. You can set out to find and go through all the secret missions that require maximum ingenuity from you. For example, hold out in the air for more than a minute or kill powerful opponents with a limited number of strokes.

After passing the storyline campaign, the game does not end. An increased level of complexity opens, an album with concept art and other chips like additional costumes. If you liked the action game so much that you want to beat the game again, this will be a great addition.

Separately, about difficulty levels. If you do not want to bother with memorizing combinations, then the game makes it possible to enjoy a beautiful action, even without it. At easy difficulty levels, auto-combos are automatically turned on: it is enough to hammer one button and the witch herself will write incredible pirouettes.

***

Bayonetta has stood the test of time. Its gameplay and the variability of the combat system are still unparalleled – even ten years after the release. Few modern slashers cause the same dopamine flow to the brain as Hideki Kamiya’s work.

Bayonetta is akin to elite wine from a closed plantation. In ten years, she only got better. In the modern world, which is ruled by censorship, the pretense of everything and everyone and the desire to please everyone, Bayonetta seems to be that very island of calm, where you can relax from all this nonsense.

Unlike the creators of Warcraft III: Reforged, PlatinumGames did not fundamentally change the game – it only tightened the resolution and added the coveted 60 FPS. The graphics because of the ability to set 4K became better, but it is unlikely to compete with monsters like God of War or Marvel’s Spider-Man. But the game does not need this – it takes out due to the visual style, special effects and gameplay, verified to the millimeter. However, in one PlatinumGames still upset – after ten years, it was possible to add the Russian language.

Rating: 9 out of 10.