Games

[Mathis]

Famitsu reviews:


http://scrawlfx.com/2009/10/bayonetta-f ... 0-ps3-3840

[another Riposte]

http://www.gamekyo.com/group_article10238.html

It would seem Sony and/or Platinum Games will be adjusting the PS3 version for the US release. I don't have complete faith in the translation I found, so someone might need to verify it.

[OneOpossumGame]

Just picked up the 360 version of Bayonetta a few hours ago. I'm three missions in now, if you count the Prologue, and so far, it is awesome. The very first boss fight takes place literally all over the room, as both you and the boss are able to walk on walls. Jumping "up" from the wall in order to hit her while she walks about on the floor is, well, kick-ass. Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry actually feel kinda tame in comparison.

Not sure about difficulty yet. You only have access to Normal and the two Easy modes at the start, so I've of course been playing Normal. On the one hand I haven't died at all; on the other hand I've been getting terrible ranks for some of the fights. So make of that what you will.

One really cool feature is in the shop. Before you buy a new move, you can try it out in a sort of practice mode against a single enemy, so you actually know what you're buying. And you can stay in there as long as you want, messing around and trying out combos.

[icycalm]

Can you return it for a refund?

[OneOpossumGame]

Trying the move out costs nothing. Once you actually buy the move, there are no refunds. You can turn purchased moves on/off, but this seems to exist solely to facilitate challenge runs.

[Bread]

I started the game yesterday and I'm loving it. It's very similar to the Devil May Cry series (I've only played 3 and 4, really enjoyed both), from the controls to the level structure. The basic controls are identical to DMC's layout. The biggest difference is you have two attack buttons: Y and B for hand attack and foot attack, effects determined by equipped weapons. This plus the ability to shoot and dodge mid-combo gives the player a load of freedom in fighting. There are QTE cutscenes and button mashing events to go with boss finishers.

The game is very generous with moves. You start off with dozens (I count 41) of combos, the double jump, enemy bounce, and a ridiculously useful dodge (it slows time when timed just right).

The basic level structure is DMC-like. You progress mostly unimpeded by enemies until it's fight time, when barriers block off exits until you kill everyone. Levels are more linear, more like Ninja Gaiden II or God of War. No map. Less backtracking, or even the opportunity to backtrack, due to various one-way gates and scripted environmental destruction blocking the path behind you.

The levels are more continuous, where DMC's are broken up into smaller rooms, with doors and gates activating a transition to the next scene. In Bayonetta, the levels are (presumably) streaming, you open doors and just walk though. At one point you even step through a gate into another dimension seamlessly. Just a cosmetic improvement, with this subgenre it doesn't really matter.

[icycalm]

Thanks for the impressions. A few corrections:

There are QTE cutscenes

There are QTEs and then there are cutscenes. These are two different things. "QTE cutscenes" doesn't make any sense.

and button mashing events to go with boss finishers.

Not sure what you are referring to, but I would probably call them "button mashing segments".

At one point you even step through a gate into another dimension seamlessly. Just a cosmetic improvement, with this subgenre it doesn't really matter.

Look up the word "cosmetic". What you describe is functional, or at least borderline functional, but certainly not cosmetic.


QTEs aside the game sounds good from your and Opossum's impressions. Then there is also the "perfect" Famitsu score, lol. Those bastards must have been very impressed to give a Sega game a perfect score. Can't even remember the last time this happened. I think I'll be buying it soon.

[Bread]

I stand corrected, the streaming world is not cosmetic. I wanted to say it was less important especially for a linear game like Bayonetta, than a more open one like DMC or the first Xbox Ninja Gaiden. Here I like it because it looks nice.

Would it be correct to say that a cutscene can include QTEs? If so, some of Bayonetta's do, some don't. Basically, if it's an action scene, keep your hands on the controller.

[icycalm]

Here I like it because it looks nice.

No, you like it because it feels nice (because you don't have to wait) -- it doesn't look like anything. Do you understand? There are no loading screens, therefore they can't look good -- because they don't exist.

Would it be correct to say that a cutscene can include QTEs?

I guess, but all QTEs are enclosed within cutscenes by definition. By the definition of cutscene -- which no one else other than me has, and which I am going to explain in a future article.

So "cutscene QTEs" is a pleonasm -- i.e. superfluous. So don't use it.

Basically, if it's an action scene, keep your hands on the controller.

What does "action scene" mean now?

This is getting tiring, dude, just stop making up shit.

[OneOpossumGame]

The most annoying thing about the QTEs is that a few of them will kill you if you fail, which can be aggravating when trying to get good ranks.

As far as my previous comments about difficulty, ignore them; at the time of that post, I had yet to fight anything but the most basic grunts. The difficulty started picking up immediately in the next few missions. Assuming you don't use items (which are pretty much the same as Devil May Cry's items) the difficulty is more than sufficient. I just started Hard mode, and I've already died a few times in the Prologue.

enemy bounce,

It's worth noting that jumping off an enemy counts as an attack. With shotguns on your feet, it's quite handy.

[Bread]

I meant an action or fighting cut scene as opposed to a conversation or monologue. Some of latter type are rendered in a flickering film style, with visible film strips and mostly static character models. These ones don't have QTEs.

[icycalm]

I meant an action or fighting cut scene

Also, you can write "cutscene" or "cut-scene" but not "cut scene". "Cut scene" means to cut a scene, whereas the other two spellings are used to designate a specific object -- the cutscene.

And since I prefer "cutscene" do me a favor and spell it this way from now on, so that I don't have to edit every single one of your posts, as I have so far been doing.

[Strifer]

Platinum walkthrough

Some guy on YouTube did a playthrough of the game. He's good at it too, so it's not like you're going to watch some random shmuck stumbling about.

From what I saw, and I saw the whole thing, the exploration aspect has been culled to a minimum. It never takes more than a minute to reach another fight, and things keep moving at a fast pace. It's a godsend compared to DMC4 where sometimes I just had to walk and walk and walk and walk and do those stupid puzzles.

[icycalm]

[icycalm]

[icycalm]

there are definitely some things wrong with Bayonetta, the latest game from Devil May Cry guy Hideki Kamiya (it’s basically DMC 5: You’re a Chick Now) and <s>Clover</s> Platinum Studios. but one idea it gets just right is “Witch Time,” a purple-tinted slow-motion mode that is triggered whenever the player evades an enemy or obstacle at the last possible moment, allowing them to attack enemies wildly without fear of reprisal for a few precious seconds.

it’s not like the idea of the player slowing down time to take out enemies is anything new in action games. In Max Payne and F.E.A.R., though, slow-motion is a limited resource, like ammo, triggered at the player’s discretion, and in Wet, it happens pretty much whenever you push more than one button within five seconds. (don’t play Wet.) Bayonetta’s slow-mo, as it relates to the rest of the game, has more in common with Bangai-O Spirits’s “EX Attacks,” where the number of projectiles you launch at enemies increases with the number and severity of the projectiles they launch at you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xef-x91fczw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi33fDqbrho

(i wanted to find a video that clearly and consisely demonstrated the mechanic besides this back-of-the-box-bullet-point trailer, but no luck yet.)

they’re both risk/reward mechanics semi-disguised as balancing mechanics. to the beginning player, these features offer a welcome relief after a near-brush with death; they initially seem to reward “bad” playing more than good. but soon the player internalizes the games’ rhythms enough to exploit them, recklessly pushing themselves to the brink of danger for a longer-term advantage. it’s a notion that perfectly suits Bayonetta’s titular protagonist, who gleefully provokes her enemies in the game’s campy cutscenes. in both games it’s a good example of how auxiliary mechanics can help guide the player toward a certain kind of experience – in this case, a frenetic, knowingly over-the-top experience filled with dramatic reversals of fortune – in a natural and elegant way.

http://www.aumgn.net/archives/89

[Effay]

Some fuck misses the point of Bayonetta: http://futurismic.com/2010/02/03/we-are ... w-culture/

[JoshF]

Hideki Kamiya started posting videos of himself playing Bayonetta while commenting about the development. Only a couple videos have been released so far, and unfortunately it's in an annoying format.

PART 1:
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PART 2:
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://s0.videopress.com/player.swf?v=1.02" width="400" height="224" wmode="transparent" seamlesstabbing="true" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" overstretch="true" flashvars="guid=p54jlSD5"></embed>

[icycalm]

Here's Renegade's review of Bayonetta. It's great stuff, but it's not a review of Bayonetta. Read it first, and I will explain after (but look also for my red-colored comments in the body of the review):

http://scathingaccuracy.com/reviews/239-bayonetta

Aight, so. Originally I wasn't going to review this game since it's usually implicit that if I take the time to make a guide for something it's because I like the game. But I've gotten some requests to do it and I guess I have some shit to complain about so what the hell. Let's go.

So being a raging DMC fan Bayonetta was one of my most anticipated games, despite the fact that I wasn't completely sure if it was going to suck or not. There was some bullshit that made me doubt, like what they were saying about the main character getting naked whenever she did some attacks or the inclusion of easy automatic and even very easy automatic, and how it could be played with one god damn hand. I never actually played either of those difficulties but they sound like the most retarded thing ever made. I mean fuck. Let's get one thing straight once and for all for anyone out there making an action game. There are a few things that are FUCKING STUPID AND UNNECESSARY.

1) Easy modes. If you play on easy, guess what. You are fucking missing the point, dumbass. You are playing the wrong type of fucking game. Go play Zelda or whatever.

2) Items. Useless and retarded, especially restorative items [Indeed, first person I've seen to speak out against them. Though they are really only bad if the game allows you to grind for them. In arcade games, which don't, they are fine, especially when grabbing them is in itself a challenge. That's how it should be in 3D titles as well, but DMC1's orb/shop/grinding system set the tone for everything that followed]. Who even uses them? Pussies, that's who. Just take your deaths like a man. Easy modes coupled with items make it so that even a 10 month old baby can beat the game. That might seem like a good thing because, hey, it's inclusive, but in reality it does nothing because these people are most likely to just cheap their way to the end and then move on, probably following the obligatory "Ok game, kinda short though" Again, completely missing the point. Action games aren't about simply playing once to the end. Not for the story (which tend to be universally bad), not for the "experience". Though a case could be made in the case of God of War, which is an action game that leans more towards the "experience" side of things [The distinction is retarded, all games are experiences, and indeed the experience of DMC1 is superior to GoW's or whatever. You are just not sensitive enough to things like environment and level design, as I'll be explaining at the end]. And incidentally, also happens to be the most popular and mainstream, despite being inferior to both DMC and Ninja Gaiden. It's not a coincidence. The reason God of War is more popular is the same reason why action games continue to have stupid and unnecessary things like items [Again you are overgeneralizing based on scant experience. The arcade genres, and especially the shooting genre, is the most pure action genre that exists, and it still features items. Taking out every single item from the game would make the game poorer in variety of actions. You just seem incapable of analyzing when items are being used correctly and when they are being abused, and simply wish to ban them altogether so that you won't have to think. But DMC, for example, is not a pure action game, it has a light exploration/adventuring element too, and if you removed all the items you would destroy that dimension] and easy automatic one-handed modes. Which you could then argue contradicts what I just said about it being stupid and unnecessary. To which I'd respond with fuck you.

But back to the matter at hand. I play Bayonetta and turns out it's pretty good. Oh sure, I was disappointed at how easy it was but it was still pretty good. It feels pretty DMCish, movement is pretty fluid, it does a lot of things well, such as dodging being a single button, being able to do it several times in a row, including in the air, and that cool little "woosh" thing when you dodge an attack correctly.

Incidentally, here's a tip to anyone making a dodge in their game: if it doesn't have invincible frames YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, YOU STUPID FUCKS. If there's something I hate it's games where you dodge things and still get hit anyway. What the fuck is the point of it then?

But yeah, Bayonetta is cool and all, damn solid game, fun, good gameplay, worthy of its DMC roots, etc.

And yet it has some things that are just plain WRONG, and other things that just plain piss me off.

Like I said earlier, the difficulty. It's completely out of whack. It's just not balanced correctly. Normal is far, FAR too easy. Probably even easier than DMC4, if that's possible. Hard is also too damn easy. And even Nonstop Climax isn't that tough to beat either. Then on the other side of the coin, getting all pure platinum on nonstop climax is fucking ridiculous. It's not balanced at ALL. On one hand, if you don't know how to beat the system it's practically impossible. And on the other hand, if you do, it suddenly turns into not that big of a deal. So what the fuck, Platinum Games? You need to strike a good fucking balance with the difficulty, not this bullshit where you have no challenge on one side and then on the other it's just completely retarded.

And on that note, the chapters in this game are TOO. FUCKING. LONG. I swear to god some of them can be 30 god damn minutes long. What is that shit? Say I'm trying to Pure platinum a long chapter, then say I get gold someplace close to the end because I didn't do enough combos. I then have to redo the whole 30 minutes or whatever the shit it was? Fuck you. When are developers going to fucking learn that the sweet spot for redoing shit is 10 minutes tops? Having to redo more than that becomes really damn frustrating. And that's exactly why unless you're some kind of legendary gamer (who also happens to be a retard for putting up with something like this) you're basically forced to beat the system as I said earlier rather than play in an ideal way. After all, who could be asshole enough to legitimately go 30 minutes without ever getting hit on so many chapters? Especially because... [This entire paragraph, though not completely mistaken, at least in specific cases, nevertheless contains a great deal of wrong. He is essentially asking for action games to have a 10-minute level time cap, i.e. he wants them to work more or less like arcade games. And why? Because he only cares about the score and not about the integrity and variety of the game's flow. If the designer wants to set up a dramatic, heart-pounding action scene a la Apocalypto that goes on and on and on and whose entire point is to drain you and bring you to your knees, Renegade will not allow it because it will interfere with his quest to max out all the little numbers...]

Some enemies have downright questionable design. Look. Just get pure platinum on chapter X on nonstop climax, look me in the eye, and try to tell me Kinships aren't retarded enemies. I'll kick you in the dick. Because you're lying. Then to a somewhat lesser extent we have other enemies like Joys who have some attacks that are SO fucking fast that sometimes you just can't fucking react to them. Then add to this that you're fighting 3 at the same time, and that chapters are so fucking long and...yeah.

And you know what? Most people will never even notice these problems because of another questionable design feature in Bayonetta: witch time. Basically, when you're playing on normal and hard, whenever you dodge most attacks, you'll activate a sort of time stop for a few seconds wherein you can do whatever the fuck you feel like, destroy enemies without fear of retaliation, etc. Now, don't get me wrong. Witch time is fun. But on the other hand, having witch time is like playing on easy automatic. Everything, and I mean everything becomes a joke with it. Enemies can't move, they can't parry your attacks, they can't do SHIT. All of the retarded enemies I mentioned above become laughably easy with witch time. Which brings me to a sad conclusion: the game was balanced for witch time. It's the only fucking explanation. And that also leads me to conclude that witch time shouldn't even exist. If you're going to balance the game (and I'm using this term loosely here because I'm not sure if enemies being helpless counts as balanced) around something and then take it out later, you might as well not have it in the first place [Wrong advice. Taking a special out impoverishes the repertoire of moves. Correct advice: Do not take witch time out and balance the harder difficulties accordingly, i.e. make the opposition even more ferocious].

Next, Bayonetta also has some downright stupid design choices when it comes to inputs. Certain moves overlap for no god damn reason which results in you doing a move that you didn't intend to do. The biggest offender is mapping panther within and crow within to the fucking dodge button of all things. HOW FUCKING RETARDED CAN YOU BE. This results in you accidentally turning into a panther or crow all the fucking time when you only wanted to dodge, which is annoying as all fuck and takes a long time to get used to. At least you can disable the crow move. No such luck for panther.

The other biggest offender is the move where you supposedly have to spin the stick once and then punch to go into a shooting spree. Except it's more like half a spin, and this results in you accidentally going into this move all the god damn time when all you wanted to do was turn around and punch. What's more, this move is COMPLETELY. FUCKING. USELESS. I swear to fucking god its only purpose is to piss you off. There are others but these two are the biggest ones. Now my question is this. HOW did you not notice these mistakes when you were testing the fucking game? It's baffling. This isn't some obscure thing. Anyone who just fucking plays the game can see that mapping these moves to those commands is a bad design choice. So I just can't understand why it's there.

Next, the loading times in Bayonetta are atrocious. Now, I'm a patient guy so I can take this kind of thing, but I'm just throwing that out there, if you play this game you WILL spend a lot of time just waiting.

Then again, maybe that's just on the gaystation 3. Who knows. Among other problems the PS3 version has, such as dumb framerate, worse graphics and whatnot. That being said, it's not that bad. The 360 version is noticeably superior but the PS3 problems aren't really enough to be a deal breaker. Take it from me. It rarely pissed me off.

But speaking of that, what REALLY pisses me off about this game is Bayonetta herself. What we have here is quite possible one of the dumbest, most facepalm inducing characters of all time.

First of all, no, Bayonetta is NOT pretty [She is in a kind of bitchy manner]. Shut the fuck up, Shepton. There is absolutely nothing about Bayonetta that doesn't piss me off. Her face, her personality, her voice, her accent, her unnecessarily slutty behavior, every single thing that comes out of her mouth is retarded. Now, it's always been tradition that the main character in DMC is a little dumb and cheesy [I wouldn't say that for 1 and 3 that I've played. I don't see the dumb at all. As for the cheesy... at most maybe a few lines of dialogue, I guess.]. But Bayonetta takes this to such fucking extremes that it becomes nauseating.

This, of course, permeates to the cutscenes, which are SO fucking bad that they are actually unbearable to watch more than once. Contrast this with the cutscenes in DMC3, which are dumb, cheesy, over the top, and yet still very well done, entertaining, and even legitimately funny at times.

And then, as if Bayonetta wasn't terrible enough, they throw a fucking whiny-ass child in there. FFFFFFFFFFFFF. Now, as you all know, if there are three things I hate in this world, it's:

1) Kids
2) Pets
3) Women with attitude

And Bayonetta has the gall to have two of these at the same fucking time. It's no wonder I can't stand the cutscenes. The only characters that don't suck (Rodin and Enzo) are only present at the very beginning of the game and at the very end. Thank fuck for the ability to skip cutscenes. Oh and the story also sucks. But that's to be expected in this genre. [Nonsense. Why, which genres have better stories? Adventure games? JRPGs? Please. What do you expect, Marcel Proust? I don't know about Bayonetta, but scores of action games have decent anime-level stories and settings that get the job done perfectly, and I don't see any reason to expect them to "suck". It's not about the "story" anyway, but about the cohesiveness of the setting, and the settings of, say DMC and NG are perfectly cohesive. If they had Marcel Proust-level narratives so that YOU wouldn't think they'd suck, that's precisely when they'd suck -- they'd make the gameworld look absurd]

Still, who cares about the story and the characters right? [Everyone, even you, considering you spent a couple of paragraphs castigating the protagonist and the cutscenes] That's not the point of these games [Then we'll get a Bayonetta 2 hack made just for you with green wireframe graphics and a plot that will feature nonstop everything you hate to the max: whiny female kids spouting dialogue from your nightmares, in a setting made by copy-pasting images from random Google image searches, and we'll see how you'll like it then]. The point is the gameplay, and sure, I may've bitched about a lot of things but truth is Bayonetta is still a great game, still a lot of fun, and chances are good that there won't be a better action game for a while. Unless God of War III pulls out a serious rabbit out of its hat. Which I doubt. So Bayonetta gets my full recommendation.

Final Verdict: B+
Final Playtime: Unfortunately the playtime clock glitches out at 99:59:59. I'd estimate it at somewhere between 130-150 hours though.

So, not a word about:

1. Moves (I mean the total number/quality/variety, which is the no. 1 aspect to consider in a game such as this, and what, above all, set DMC1 above all its far inferior predecessors. You say not a word about this)

2. Setting

3. Level design

4. Boss fights

5. Graphics

6. Music


You in no way reviewed the game: you reviewed some specific aspects of its mechanics -- in great detail, to be sure, and it was extremely illuminating; but for all we know from your comments the entire game might be taking place inside a single bare room, while enemies keep rushing you, and everything is depicted by black and white wireframe graphics with bleep-blop music a la PC speaker from the '80s, with no bosses to break up the monotony of the popcorn enemies and while you only have at your disposal, say, 3 or 4 moves. And that's all I had to say about that.

[icycalm]

The Google image randomizer example I got from zinger in one of the autism threads on Shmups. It's really great: every time someone tries to pretend they are above aesthetics you give them that and if they have any brains at all it will shut them up.

[icycalm]

Played half an hour of this. I was laughing at how terrible Renegade's review is. It's like he played another game. It's so bad that I don't have the slightest doubt the IGN review will be better, never mind the Edge one. He talks about only perhaps 10% of the game, and even that 10% he bungles. I think by the time I've reviewed this game we'd be hard pressed to salvage 5-10 sentences out of his pathetic attempt at an evaluation. It seriously throws into doubt my respect for him. Perhaps I should play a few more of the games he has reviewed before I post any more reviews of his.

About the game, the only thing I am seriously miffed about so far is that the highest difficulty it allows me to select is Normal. Jesus fucking Christ what possible justification can there be for hiding the higher difficulties from me? They think they are doing me a FAVOR by FORCING me to replay the game several times, because they've been convinced by aspies that replaying games is a good thing lol. I think I am going to have to start thinking about downloading saved games from other people in order to unlock the higher difficulties. And perhaps the day will soon come when I won't be able to play a game until someone has hacked it and increased the difficulty. Jesus fucking Christ with these people.

So does anyone know how I can get someone else's saves on my machine, and what happens with the achievements business?

[kini]

I found this:
http://www.360haven.com/forums/showthre ... 360-a.html

I guess they use a USB storage device to transfer the saves.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/storage

Here's a Bayonetta save:
http://www.360haven.com/forums/showthre ... c-usa.html
https://rapidshare.com/#!download|420p1 ... r|2135|0|0

You can also get saves using Modio. I'm looking at the Modio saves now and the descriptions say they unlock achievements.

[icycalm]

I am finally playing this for reals (on Normal; it seems decently hard and I really don't want to use someone else's save file if I can avoid it), and have cleared the first two chapters, but I've hit a pretty serious snag and I am starting to hate the game. Basically, there's way too much shit to collect in the levels. Way too many breakable props that give you rings, items, etc. And not only that, but after every fight, ALL the breakable props in a level THAT YOU'VE ALREADY BROKEN magically reappear. In fact, you take five steps away from something that you've broken, and when you turn around it's magically there again! In DMC you could only grind in the secret stages, here you can grind everywhere! It's nowhere near as efficient as in DMC though, so I don't consider doing it, but even if I don't grind at all, and if I only break each prop ONCE per level, it still takes me a hell of a lot of time to go through a level. And then I die on the boss, am asked if I want to "Continue", refuse, and then have to do the whole fucking thing all over again. I don't mind redoing the FIGHTING, of course, which is awesome, but the fucking exploring, breaking and collecting OVER and OVER and OVER again is driving me fucking nuts, to the point where I can only bring myself to try a level once every few days. At this rate I'll never beat the game!

So I am considering using the continues. Did you guys who have played this use continues? What are the downsides to using them? And how many do I get? In DMC you had to buy them, if I remember correctly, does it work the same way here or are they free? I absolutely love this game apart from the collecting thing, but I am afraid that if I don't use continues I'll either never finish it or, if I do, I'll come to hate it.

[Tain]

I used continues. You get infinite. The only penalty for using them is that you get a lower rank and earn less cash at the end of the chapter.

[icycalm]

Just finished the third chapter. It's a great game, but not as great as DMC. "DMC on steroids" -- in both the good and bad aspects -- would be a fair description, but who else can see the bad aspects besides me?