5/5
I missed Bayonetta back in 2009 because I didn’t like how the main character looked. Videogames are mostly visual artforms, and if you don’t like what you see in front of you, you probably won’t like interacting with it either. The game was directed by Hideki Kamiya, though, so it remained always in the back of my head throughout the years. Kamiya directed the original Devil May Cry, so he knows what he’s doing when it comes to action games, specifically 3D brawlers. In 2020, I finally decided to give the game a try. And I’m glad I did. It’s such a fast-paced game, with so much action and so many cool moves. The enemy design is amazing, and Bayonetta’s hair-powered special moves are incredible. She can summon huge monsters with her hair to finish off her enemies, in a fatality-style move. The action is crazy, too. Right at the start of the game we fight a bunch of enemies while falling from a skyscraper, enemies spawning non-stop. The whole style of the game is ridiculous, in a good way, and I wouldn’t expect anything else from a game made in Japan (we already know how weird their art can get). The story is uninteresting, and perhaps even silly but I hardly noticed it amidst all the wild action on display, so it didn’t bother me too much. I wasn’t exactly playing the game for the story anyway. I just wanted to kill beautiful monsters. The environments are cool, too, and some of the music is awesome. I also liked how she can slow down time after a perfectly timed dodge. It feels amazing to control Bayonetta and I felt that whenever I was hit by an enemy it was totally my lack of skill. The combos are done in a dial-up manner, like in Ninja Gaiden, as opposed to Devil May Cry’s more specific inputs, but in no way is that a bad thing, since you can string moves from your equipped weapons on the fly, and thus create insane combos. And you know, Bayonetta’s look even started to grow on me. Her walking animations, for example, were expertly done, and highlighted her sensuality perfectly. Unfortunately, for some reason, I stopped playing the game halfway through, having clocked in around 6 hours of play time. I should play this game again one day, from start to finish.
The Stillest 