Note:  The following review is based on an imported copy of the Japanese release.  Bayonetta is scheduled for release in North America on January 5th, 2010.

Opening Statement:
I’ll admit, for the last year or so, I haven’t been the most eager to play Sega’s upcoming Bayonetta, a prophesized action epic from Platinum Games (the crazed geniuses behind last year’s Mad World for the Wii) and director Hideki Kamiya (the future legend behind Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe and Okami; pay your respects at the altar).  As I just typed the evidence of its pedigree, I realize that my bull headed and blind prejudice has denied me any sense of excitement for what has turned out to be a concentrated burst of gaming dynamite.  With Bayonetta, Kamiya and Platinum Games have served up a witch’s brew of devilish fun.

Krueger seems like Romper Room and Elm Street ain't so bad.

Facts of the Case:
In the beautiful (and fictional) European villa of Vigrid, a biblical cold war has been brewing between the last few remaining Umbra Witches, the followers of the dark; and the tyrannical Lumen Sages, the keeper’s of heaven’s light.  But all is not as it seems in this skirmish between what we believe to be good and evil; and as this metaphysical secret war reaches critical mass, Bayonetta; a forgotten daughter of the long since destroyed Umbra witch clan is caught in the middle.  She looks like the love child of Janis Joplin and a Barbie Doll, accessorizes with high calibre artillery, and possesses enough kung-fu badness to fill a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.  Plus she’s got thirst for war and an insatiable lust to kill.  Somehow I get the feeling Bayonetta’s going to come out of this one okay.  Though with her antagonists primarily being the seraphic servants of the holy and the divine, I can’t see her growing too popular with the Religious Right.

Every sermon comes with a free bowl of soup!

The Evidence:

During a session of Bayonetta, it is not uncommon to be strolling through a gorgeous hillside garden, having just dispatched a platoon of angelic interlopers, only to have a gargantuan creature emerge from the skies to uproot a building and throw it at you.  The name of the game in Bayonetta is insanity.  Certified, frothy-mouthed craziness that cannot be bargained with, cannot be reasoned with, and will not rest until it has tied gamers across the world’s thumbs in knots.

This is considered run-of-the-mill for Bayonetta.

Kamiya has taken the concepts he developed back in 2001 for Devil May Cry, stripped away the parts that didn’t work, and chipped away at the barnacles that the series had built up in the three sequels that followed.  What remains is a sleeker beast, a diesel-fueled, white-knuckle 200 mph shot of video game awesomeness.  It’s a game where a simple twirl of an analog stick and an attack button sends our heroine into a spinning hand stand, bullets blazing in all directions; where just about every successful combo ends with an enemy being crushed underneath a summoned stiletto heel that is made up from the very fibres of the main character’s costume.  Yes, she loses her clothes the bigger her attacks get.  So nine year old Timmy should probably not get this one for his birthday.

Remember this episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch?

Make no mistake; Bayonetta is not a methodical title in the least, rather a gluttonous action smorgasbord.  The bulk of the game’s combat is spent intertwining a variety of attacks into boundless combo strings.  Bayonetta has four open weapon slots, two for her hands, and one strapped to each heel.  With a separate move list for each weapon type and the ability to link into impressively long striking combinations; the potential attack list is truly labyrinthine.  I guess that’s why the loading screens afford gamers a few seconds to practice Bayonetta’s bottomless barrel of tricks (which can be lengthened with a simple press of the select button while the level loads).

For some reason, Double Dragon II seems a little boring after this.

While combat makes up the lion’s share of Bayonetta, there are short spurts of level navigation to be found in between the game’s innumerable micro-battles with smaller enemies, and title bouts with the indescribably large bosses.  The long slogs through cavernous empty corridors that plagues games of this nature during the PS2 and original Xbox games have been peeled away.  So many great action games that aged like an open bucket of salt beef simply because their length was padded with marathon runs through sparsely populated levels.  While gamers looking for a little more side dish to go along with the prime-rib fighting will probably be disappointed that these segments pretty much consist entirely of carrying keys from one location to another (keys that can used as weapons nonetheless), or using Bayonetta’s Witch Time abilities to complete reaction-based puzzles.   Personally I’m grateful, because gamers who haven’t mastered witch time by the beginning of the game’s third stage will find themselves staring at the game over screen ad nauseum.  The concept itself is pure simplicity.  Dodge at the last possible second before getting waffled by an attack and time slows to a crawl, allowing Bayonetta to navigate an impassable obstacle at Mach speed, or score a few seconds worth of powerful counterattack time in between the infinite enemy onslaught.  What most action games play up as a gimmick, or a mere window dressing, Bayonetta uses masterfully as its main combat mechanic.  This is the John Belushi of beat’em ups.  Larger than life.  And that’s not even getting into the joygasm inducing Torture Attacks.  Naughty little insta-kills that are powered by successfully hitting an uninterrupted string of attacks without taking a single hit.  Fill the bar, press both kick and punch at the same time and witness the devastation.  You can even try to add bonus points with a little button mashing (hip hip hooray for crazy arcade action!).

You were right Dave, she is hanging him.

Items and weapons can be purchased in between levels at Bayonetta’s favourite demon-owned speakeasy, purchased of course with the shimmering halos that have been purloined from the corpses of the angels she left in her wake.  More halos can be scored in the between-level arcade shooting gallery (awesome!!)  With a selection including hand cannons, shot guns, a cursed katana, and a wicked whip with a demonic cobra head at the tip, and the cavalcade of weapons dropped by vanquished foes; Bayonetta is pretty much a wholesale retail warehouse club of destruction.  This game plays like the CostCo of kicking ass.  The fighting is structured in such a way that the battles never seem to go on too long, and we never get that feeling of programmed boredom, where gamers can pretty much predict which wave of enemies will attack next before they clear the room and get a break.  Besides, name me one other game that lets you literally spank prone foes?  Is it a game where the foes hide their twisted, inhuman forms under layers of Renaissance inspired sculpting and cherubic faces?  Ironically, while it’s visually cool to peel of these layers of Paladinesque armour to see the Clive barker inspired grossness underneath, that very graphical effect ties into Bayonetta’s ironically compelling storyline.  I don’t want to spoil any details, but suffice to say there is much more going on in the background than the Witch-slapping the entire world trailers have shown off.

Remember when we were kids, and a katana instantly made a character cooler?

I’ve been told that the PS3 build of Bayonetta, ported over by an internal Sega development team is of an inferior make to the 360 version, developed by Platinum Games.  I’m unable to make any sort of judgment, as I am unable to compare the two until the North American release.  But judging by the amount of fun I’m having with the PS3 version, unless Buddha materializes out of the Xbox 360 when it is switched on, declaring that he has arrived to miraculously free us all from the cycle of rebirth, I can’t see the games being that much different from one another.  It’s a great title on either console.  The presentation values are top-notch, with sublimely detailed character models that animate beautifully (check out Bayonetta’s hip swing when she walks slowly, or her facial animation when she winks or blows a kiss at the end of a large combo string) and appropriately pretty textures.  Watching the ethereal shimmer of her hair when a Wicked Weave attack is unleashed is almost hypnotic.  Effects such as explosions of flame or bolts of lightning make the screen crackle with life, and the game’s soundtrack is an explosive and eclectic symphony of bone crunches, high calibre gunfire, and some bizarre coupling of trippy jazz and rockin’ techno.  I don’t know what to call the feeling I got the first time I wiped out an army of monstrous angels to the oddly enunciated karaoke version of “Fly Me to the Moon” which serves as the game’s defacto theme song, but I do know that I liked it.  All in all the game’s presentation is a perfect wrapping around its sumptuous gameplay.

"Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God"

Rebuttal Witness:
There’s nothing I can really say about Bayonetta that I out and out disliked.  The game is HARD. It’s Geneva Convention violatingly difficult, and that may turn some gamers off.  But those who cut their teeth on, or were honed to a fine edge by the Devil May Cry series should be able to tackle its difficulty with little fuss.  Besides, would you expect a two headed angel-dragon that’s the size of sky scraper to be a pushover of a boss fight?  Man up dawg.

Closing Statement:
Bayonetta is one of the finest action outings I’ve played this generation.  An unstoppable bullet binge that undoubtedly gives all of us brawler addicts our fix.  If this is the sign of things to come in 2010, it’s gonna be one hell of a happy new year.  Put aside some holiday money and save it for January 5th.  You’ve all got a date with witch of a game.

The Verdict:

I wonder if there’s an executive at Sega who was so hung up on the idea of arming a witch with a machine gun that even after the unmitigated failure of “Bullet Witch”, he gave the go ahead on “Bayonetta”, in between 5 ¾ coke lines?  If so, I salute him.

- J

Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (PS3 version reviewed)
Developer: Platinum Games (Xbox 360), Sega (PlayStation 3)
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: January 5th, 2010
Rated: M for Mature