A few days ago, I got a hold of a copy of the Platinum Games title Bayonetta. Now, as a gamer, I've never actually played a work that Hideki Kamiya or Platinum Games were directly involved with. I have played Devil May Cry 3, but that was a game that came a few years after Kamiya had already moved on, and though I would like to play Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance for more experience with Platinum, I'm settling for this.
The reason I say settling is due to the port I chose. Any of you who are aware of anything Platinum Games should be able to predict this next statement. I got the PS3 port. Now, many of you who are aware of the history of the first Bayonetta game are likely aware that the PS3 port is easily the worst version of this game, purely because, well, as Hideki Kamiya said himself, they initially intended to only put it on PC and XBox 360 and were requested by SEGA to put it on PS3 at the last moment. The port itself was an afterthought, it was rushed to meet a deadline and they either didn't have the time, manpower, experience, or some combination of the three to make a competent PS3 port of the game within the time frame of the other ports. More than likely, I'm betting on time for two reasons: reason number one, there are a few publishers that are notorious for having strict, unrealistic deadlines for a lot of their projects, and it just so happens that SEGA is one of them. The other reason is because many developers are unwilling to do what Bethesda does and give a Sony Port around a year after the other ports so the game can work properly.
That taken into account, my only hope for this port was that it would have a 60 fps framerate. I knew it would have some pretty bad loading times, which I went into the game knowing about ahead of time but all I really wanted was a sturdy framerate so I could play the game at the pace and intensity Kamiya wanted. As a result, almost everything of what I'm about to say is going to have nothing to do with porting issues; almost. I do want to talk about the loading times just a little bit because it ties into a complaint that I have with Bayonetta that I think Devil May Cry handles better. And the reason I'm bringing up Devil May Cry is because Hideki Kamiya started that series and Bayonetta is a game that he made in response to Devil May Cry 4.
Now, despite what you or I may have heard, the length of the loading times is not the issue. Generally, when I got to a loading screen that went from one section of a mission to another, or one mission to another, the loading time I got out of the transitions was around 30 seconds and, just for comparison, Skyrim, on this same device, can have loading screens that last upwards of 2 minutes. So, is 30 seconds bad? By itself, not really, as long as there are enough lengthy sequences of uninterrupted gameplay, I think some 30 second loading screens can be forgiven.
My problem is actually with the number of interruptions. When I first booted up the game, I got through the first mission and, ignoring some issues I have with the controller mapping, which I've just decided to accept for the moment because this is Platinum, and they are one of the kings of never giving you customizable control schemes; the other is Nintendo, anyway, my problem is that in this one mission alone, I was bombarded with cutscenes that interrupted the flow, item drops that started loading screens before telling me what the item was and what it did, and then put me back into the game so I could play it proper.
In the first mission alone, I suffered through ten total interruptions before the mission was finished and, without those interruptions, the mission lasted around 5 minutes. That means, on average, I got some interruption from cutscenes or item drops every 30 seconds. Remember, these are things that I assume are present in all versions of the game, not just the gimped-ass PS3 port.
Getting back on track, let's talk about the characters a little bit. Bearing in mind I've only played through the first mission, I'm only going to be talking about characters that get enough focus in that time that I can make accurate judgment about their characters. So I won't be talking about Jeanne because she barely has any screen time at all during this mission, and Luka and Cereza have not been introduced yet. So this character analysis is going to be focusing mostly on Bayonetta, Enzo, and Rodin.
Okay, let's get this out of the way, Enzo. Enzo is annoying and he takes up half of these cutscenes. He's introduced relieving himself on Hideki Kamiya's grave, or at least a grave marker that has Hideki Kamiya's name on it, and considering Kamiya was the lead designer of this particular game, I only have a few assumptions: either Kamiya hates himself, which I doubt, he thinks Enzo would do this if the two got to know each other, more likely though I still don't think that's the kind of thing that runs through Kamiya's mind, or whoever made this cutscene hates working with Kamiya and the man himself had nothing to do with it, which I think is the most likely.
After that I have to suffer through around a minute or two of Enzo running his mouth and listening to his crude vernacular and disrespectful attitude the entire time I'm watching, and I just don't see the point of this character. Enzo even says himself that he can't see any of the Angels that Bayonetta and Rodin have to deal with, which makes me wonder why he's even in the cast to begin with.
Of course the reason he's in the cast wouldn't be a major question if Enzo were a likeable character in even the most remote regard but he isn't. Based on the first mission, here's everything Enzo does: he complains a lot, he gets captured for like a few seconds before I go after him, he gets picked on by Bayo and Rodin, and then he drives home complaining some more, then he passes out in a bar that I assume belongs to Rodin, just considering the fact that he's the one serving the drinks and there's nobody else around to indicate that they would have ownership of the establishment. All of this stuff could've been handled without Enzo. That is to say, Enzo has no valuable function as a character.
Let's break it down: the angel that kidnaps Enzo goes over a cliff, then flies away as he drops Enzo on the car. You could easily remove this moment by having the angel just fly off and then skip right to the next cutscene. If you really want to keep the car, you can have Rodin drive it. Then more Angels attack and Jeanne is introduced and has a quick line. Enzo has no function for this entire scene and, once again, if you really need the car to keep this scene as intact as possible, have Rodin drive it. Then we get to Rodin's bar and, after Bayonetta leaves, for reasons I assume will be elaborated upon in the next mission, Rodin comments that the payment for Bayonetta's drinks will go on Enzo's tab. This could've easily been rewritten as Rodin just giving Bayonetta drinks "On the house." The two of them seem to have a comfortable enough relationship with one another that Rodin would do this for Bayonetta even if it costs him money in the long run.
Next we have Rodin, who is a pretty likable character, and though there may be a few black stereotypes within his personality and demeanor, for what he is, I actually think he's pretty cool. Also, the pile of guns he brought that he keeps throwing up to Bayo during this cutscene was pretty amusing. It will never beat any of the comedy in Jak and Daxter, but the silliness of just how many guns he brought when, in all likelihood, getting ahold of four-eight much higher quality, and longer lasting guns would probably have been less expensive. Maybe I'm thinking about this too hard, though, so let's talk about Bayo herself.
Bayonetta was honestly a little disappointing. She is a very likeable character and she does seem to have the "Done this so long I don't care anymore" attitude that is pretty entertaining but I feel like I'm missing a lot of the character's charm. Though to be fair, it may just be because the choreography in the cutscenes I saw is really not great.
This is another thing Devil May Cry does well that Bayonetta struggles with. When Devil May Cry has cutscenes, there are far fewer of them, they get to the point faster, and the ones that feature action feel much more impactful overall. Bayonetta's choreography is a bit stilted and lifeless. It doesn't put as much attention on the curves or the nudity as I was lead to believe by many of the haters, which I don't think impacts my experience too much but a lot of the attacks didn't feel like they had any weight.
Other than that one scene where Bayonetta and Jeanne are on opposite sides of a wall that is flying and spinning through the air which was pretty amusing, there was nothing in the cutscenes that stood out to me as anything other than just standard movie fighting.
That said, the saving grace is the gameplay itself. To be honest, I don't think the game has the 60 fps framerate that I wanted. The reason I say that is because, whenever I was button mashing to deal combos, I would do a pause combo completely by accident and, when I would pause intentionally to use a pause combo, the input latency caused the input to start a completely new combo that starts with the input I just hit. I have no idea why this is but it's a thing.
Even so, the attacks feel gratifying enough that even when I mess up a combo, I still feel like a badass. That said, I do have two particular problems with the controls and how they're explained. First is the dodge roll, the second are the torture attacks. The dodge roll suffers from poor explanations. You see, the controller options tell you that the dodge roll is R2. And it is true that that does initiate the dodge roll, the analog stick is the key. You have to have the analog stick pointed in the direction you want to dodge, and press R2, or hold R2 then press the analog stick in the direction you want to go.
The best comparison I can think of for this is that this is actually the dodging method used in Ninja Gaiden. However, L1 did more than just perform a dodge. If you held L1 without moving the analog stick, you would perform a block. If you held L1 and press Square or Triangle right as an attack was incoming, you would perform a parry. Yes L1 and the analog stick performed a dodge but, if you held it and missed the timing on the stick flicking, you would still be relatively safe because your block could protect you.
Bayonetta, essentially has the idea that Ninja Gaiden has for the dodge rolling mechanic, which is a start, and it is easier for me to perform than the dodge roll in DMC3 but that doesn't put it on the same level as DMC3. DMC3 did have the regular dodge roll from the previous two games but it also had the Trickster style that does what Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta dodge roll does with the press of a button mixed with the analog stick. And because it happens independent of lock-on, it still works even if you don't have a block.
Bayonetta doesn't have a block, which means that every dodge needs to be performed properly, which is incentivized with Witch Time but Witch Time is a bit tricky to pull off, you have to be a little bit specific with the timing. Not saying it's bad, just saying it's going to take some time to get used to. But Witch Time by itself is not a replacement for a block, especially since the roll by itself doesn't seem to have any invincibility frames either. I even tested this by performing a dodge into an opponent as they were attacking and I still took damage.
But the dodge roll could have been resolved better with a better explanation rather than having a rework of the controls. Conceptually, it's still closer to what I prefer than Devil May Cry is but it's not perfect because there's no block.
The bigger issue is the Torture Attacks. Torture Attacks take up the Magic Meter (approximately 3 slots), they have quick time events, and they are performed by pressing Triangle and Circle at the same time. Basically, these are Ninja Gaiden Ninpo with QTE's, right down to how to activate them. Yeah, the ones I saw were okay looking, they were well animated and pretty fluid in terms of how you could activate them but considering that every enemy I'd come across so far is just incredibly squishy anyway, the only way I could see these Torture Attacks being utilized regularly by me is if certain segments require their use, like say, boss fights.
I'm only assuming they're necessary for bosses because I have yet to see one boss fight clip of anyone playing this game that does not use torture attacks.
As I said in the title, this post is merely a first impression. I'm going to keep playing and hopefully get out a proper review. In terms of my first impression, I'm hanging on because I know there's more but to be perfectly honest, other games I've played grabbed my attention much faster and interrupted the gameplay less. The intro was just kind of slow is all I'm saying.
Stay tuned, let's hope I get another stroke of thoughts to write about soon. I only say that because I feel like I'm running dry on things to discuss. Will I come up with something new? Find out next time on After-Thought Reviews! For those of you wondering, you're supposed to read that in the voice of the narrator from DBZ and with the Faulconer soundtrack playing over it.
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