- Classy English lady
- Clothes made of hair
- Angels, demons, hair?
- I need this game in my life
- INFINITE CLIMAX (heh) -
What is it?
Bayonetta 2 is the most recent instalment in the spectacle fighting, or Third person 3-D action game, series from Platinum Games who are responsible for some fantastic games such as Madworld for the Wii, the original Bayonetta, the underrated Vanquish and Metal Gear Rising. Despite the rocky performance of the first game it was well received and people loved it for how over the top the fighting was and the character of Bayonetta herself, but even with that Sega had no intention or desire to put out a sequel, flash forward a few years and out of nowhere Nintendo of all people announce that they will be funding development for the WiiU exclusive sequel and I found a huge reason to buy a WiiU.
Story
You're an Umbra Witch, you kill angels and demons. OK moving on..
Alright alright more depth etc. The game begins with our leading leggy lady Bayonetta out on a little shopping trip in the city with her stocky Italian-American walking cliché of a friend (or at least what passes for a friend in her mind) Enzo Ferino. On his merry way to acquire presents for his children Enzo is nearly run down by a lady on a motorbike with outrageously long hair, this turns out to be Jeanne (Bayonettas former rival turned ally) who arrives to update Bayonetta on the situation in Paradiso (that's Heaven to you and me). Once that's done she disappears and Enzo resumes his toy quest, whilst doing that a fighter jet comes down to street level and heads straight for him and yes it really does change that quickly. Cue Bayonetta who arrives just in time to punt the jet skyward and begin her assault.
Skip forward a few fights with Angels and an appearance Jeanne to save our arse and it looks like things are wrapping up so we summon a giant Demon from Hell to finish things off at which point things go a bit awry as it breaks free and begins to terrorise the city, during this fight Jeanne gets hit so hard her soul comes out and is dragged down to Inferno and THIS is where the story begins as we embark to rescue her soul and shove it back in her body. Along the way you'll encounter a couple of returning characters as well as some new faces and a fair amount of throwbacks and nods to the first game, there's a lot more to the story than just a rescue mission but going into detail about that would ruin the fun were you to play it for yourself, also it's worth noting that I only covered the first 15-20 minutes of the game so there's that.
Gameplay
Hey, did you play the first Bayonetta? Did you like it? Good because it's more of the same with the punching and the kicking and the giant fists made of hair and the spanking, oh the spanking. Anyway. You move from chapter to chapter completing a varying number of verses (the biggest variation is whether you find all the bastarding verses or not), during which you'll find portals to the Muspelheim where you must complete a task using a given set of rules such as don't touch the floor as well as portals to the Gates of Hell where you'll find the lovable Rodin (pronounced Rodaaaan for some reason) peddling his overpriced wares in exchange for your hard earned currency. You earn Halos for every enemy you kill and more based on your overall performance throughout the chapter and these can be spent on various things such as: new weapons, restorative items, trinkets to alter gameplay, new moves and costumes of which there are many including some special Nintendo ones such as Peach and Samus.
As I mentioned above you can buy new moves from the shop to expand the already huge combo list, however I ended up going through the game only buying one extra move and I'm pretty certain I could have done without it. While the combo list is big and varies with every weapon fights will always devolve into hammer as many buttons as possible and cool shit will happen which isn't really that bad when you think about it. The only place this tactic fails to work is in the games Tag Climax mode aka co-op. Here you and a friend (or random person) choose 6 different scenarios and compete for score and ultimately more halos to spend on more costumes, these scenarios are unlocked as you progress through the story and there are 52 total cards to unlock however some cards do have secret conditions that need to be met in order to unlock them such as completing the game on a higher difficulty.
Graphics
The game is gorgeous and runs at a glorious 60fps in 1080p and definitely helps show what the WiiU is actually capable of as opposed to something like Mario 3D world (which was also great). The environments are beautifully rendered if a little repetitive but where the game shines is in Paradiso and the Inferno because it's here that the artists have more license to essentially go nuts and over the top. Paradiso is what you would expect in that it's very regal and bright with lots of use of white, yellow and gold and if I'm wrong about that just put it down to being colourblind.. Inferno really stands out and everything about the environment feels oppressive and like it wants to kill you and the enemy design amplifies that feeling of terror and dread that you would expect to find in a place called the Inferno. Monsters in this game are a sight to behold and it's clear that as much effort went into designing the small flying ball angel things as it did into the giant hair demon dragon and it's not like there are a small amount of enemy types, as you progress through the game each enemy type seems to evolve and continuously get bigger and more of a pain in the arse to fight.
Also, get used to that creepy baby face that's on the angels because you'll be seeing it constantly, in your nightmares..it haunts me.
Audio
Boasting an absurd 183 tracks the Bayonetta 2 soundtrack is pretty damn epic, that's really the best way to describe it, when you're fighting a giant bone snake you want something suitably amazing musically to accompany that scene and make it even more over the top and that's exactly what the soundtrack accomplishes, they even throw in a cover of Moon River. The sound design is pretty flawless and whether you're slicing and dicing with your swords or hammering something to death every hit feels good, it's not even annoying when you're skating around with chainsaws for shoes. Hellena Taylor also gives a fantastic performance as Bayonetta and perfectly delivers the characters hyper-confidence throughout the game.
Yay/Nay?
Bayonetta 2 is a fantastic game with incredible characters and gameplay to match and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, but it does have it's issues. The biggest issue of all is that it's essentially just more of the same, you can buy this game bundled with the original and if you played through the first and jumped straight into the second you'd probably wonder if you'd forgotten to change discs. There's also what I consider to be poor design within the co-op mode in that you're limited to one set of weapons for all 6 scenarios as opposed to the two sets you can utilise in single player and you can't change your character or weapon loadouts without quitting out of co-op which means you then have to start the lobby over again. It's a small thing I know but it seems like an oversight to me and it became annoying when I would unlock a new character mid game and have to finish all 6 scenarios, change character and start a new set of 6 not knowing if I would even like the character.
However even with those few issues it's not even close to being a deal breaker, even with the repetition I wouldn't call this a failing because at the end of the day if you enjoyed the experience the first time then having the experience all over again with some changes is fantastic. If you loved the first Bayonetta then you'll no doubt love this one as well, if you love spectacle fighters then you'll probably love this as well. I loved it to the point that I went from start to finish in two sittings and have already started over again on a harder difficulty with a different character. If you have a WiiU this is definitely what I would call a must buy game, I'd even say it's a good reason to buy a WiiU.
