I finished the game for the first time last night and I wanted to put my thoughts in. I don't want to come off as negative because overall I definitely enjoyed it and look forward to hard mode and beyond and I can definitely see how this game would click with some people and be their favorite action game.
First I should describe where I'm coming from. As there are many types of action gamers and everyone wants something a little different. I'm a DMC fan. I love DMC3 to death and Nero's half of DMC4. I've played through DMC3/4 many times and 100%'d everything in the games. I also like NG very much, but it doesn't feel very replayable to me so I finished NG, finished NG Black, and finished NG2 once each and was done with them. I think because the games are so lengthy, have a few awful bits and have some bad bosses it keeps me from wanting to replay them. I'm not a big DMC1 fan. It's a great game with nice atmosphere, but the gameplay is too plain for my liking.
Basically before I went into Bayonetta, my action game ranking was DMC3 > NG > DMC4 > NG2 > DMC1 > all other action games.
I'll start off with what I thought was very well done:
-The combat. Very good and always fun. So much joy in fighting and a lot of options.
-Witch time. Interesting system that has a lot of neat uses (like frozen water spouts)
-Enemy types. For the first half of the game when they kept introducing new enemies every other battle I couldn't believe how varied the enemy set was. Though the 2nd half was mainly mix-ups of the enemies from the first half (and bosses), I thought it was a solid group of enemies with a lot of variety in their attack patterns and weaknesses.
-The graphics were gorgeous (x360 version). I'm playing Dante's Inferno now and :lol Bayonetta makes it look like a PS2 game.
-The controls are great. Being able to dodge while continuing your combo is rad. Everything feels super responsive.
-Lots of meat to the game in terms of replayability. All the hidden things, the ability to replay levels (like DMC) and multiple difficulties should give it a good amount of hours.
-Loved the music.
-Voice acting/writing was hilariously bad in a good way
Things that didn't sit well with me
1.the entire level design structure. The levels were like "fight 3-5 enemies!" -> walk -> cutscene -> "fight 3-5 enemies" -> walk -> cutscene. There are several things I didn't like about this:
a. The action always felt too short. The combat is pure fun and what makes these games great is fighting, fighting, and fighting. So when 3-5 enemies pop up and I kill them in 20 seconds and that's it...I'm left wanting more. I really didn't enjoy the split up verse aspect of the battles. My favorite level in the game was climbing the tower simply because it had so many fights. I wish this game had a mode like Bloody Palace in DMC4 where I could just fight non-stop.
b. Too many cutscenes. REALLY too many cutscenes. When I beat the game I was surprised my clear time was under 4 hours when my save time was 8-9 hours. I'm guessing the clear time doesn't include cutscenes. In that case FIFTY PERCENT OF MY GAME TIME WAS WATCHING CUTSCENES. holy shit! For an action game that is ridiculous. Sure you can skip them on future plays, but it really drags down the first play experience. I can't count the number of times an enemy shows up in a cutscene and I have my hands on the controller edging to fight the new monster and I'm sitting there waiting and waiting for the cutscene of Bayonetta fighting the monster (which I'm supposed to be doing!) ends so I can actually start battling. It's not even like the cutscenes were great aka. DMC. The cutscenes had style and were ok, but they went on too long and the action choreography is nothing special for most of the time.
c. Too many non-cutscene cutscene sequences where it takes away control from the player. When replaying levels I constantly have to hit start, move down to skip, and hit A to get back to playing. Sometimes if there's a qte or something it won't even let me! It's not a huge deal, but honestly replaying the levels doesn't feel as quick and smooth as it should be like other games where you just blow through the level and every time a cutscene pops up you hit start right away and you continue on fighting. Basically I just want to keep playing the game and not be constantly taken out of it.
tl;dr - my problem with the philosophy behind the level design is that everything felt like small bites instead of a constant orgasm of pure action bliss for 10-20 mins straight. Obviously the opposite end of the spectrum is endless waves which gets boring, but I'd like to think you can strike a middleground where satisfying combat does not go on too long.
2. The levels. When I first started playing the game and you were exploring the train station and the Vigrid city I was really excited to be playing an action game with actual LEVELS. Because as much as I love DMC, the game does not have much level design. It's mainly just a bunch of fight arenas. NG has level design but their levels suck. Otoh games like God of War/Rygar eschew deep combat design for long and varied level design. I was hoping Bayonetta would be the game with BOTH. A game that had NG/DMC level of deep satisfying combat and lots of varied and big locations to go through. Well about 4-5 chapters in when they game started repeating the same areas but with a different graphical flair I realized that was not going to happen. The game feels pretty lacking in level variety. I swear that little quaint cafe square type area, or the vigrid fountain type area makes up the majority of the game. I actually feel like the locations were so repetitive it was basically DMC3 budget-ish. I mean the game isn't that long and if you take out the boss fights and vehicle parts, there just aren't a whole lot of unique levels. Would have liked more.
3. The bosses. While I thought the early bosses (aka, actual normal enemies) were great, I'm not a fan of the big bosses. The boss fights felt like God of War style bosses. Big epic encounters that are more a puzzle than an intense duel. What I love about DMC and NG bosses (well most of them, there are some bad ones) is that they feel like awesome 1 on 1 matches. Fighting Agni and Rudi in DMC3 or the Minotaur or the first fire beast of DMC4 or Doku in NG or Alma gives really intense and exciting adrenaline rushes like no other game experience. That is the true moments of action gaming imo. Outside of the Jeanne fights (which were great), none of the other bosses do this and so I felt they were cool looking but gameplay-wise I'm not very interested in replaying them.
4. The mini-games sections. I thought the bike, afterburner, cannon shooting stuff was silly and fun but each time those sequence went on about 2x as long as they should have. While I was laughing and enjoying the afterburner sequence, when verse 1 ended and a 2nd verse showed up I did a double take and went "what?". Seriously, there should not have been a 2nd verse, it had already outgrown its welcome by the end of the first.
5. The QTEs. I'd never really cared about the arguments of qtes in action games until now. In the past with games like God of War the qtes didn't feel like they got in the way that much because at least for normal enemies they tended to be optional and for bosses they tended to be used at the end after you already won the fight. I don't mind the torture attacks because again, they are optional but I greatly disliked the multiple qte sequences in the middle of boss fights. When I fight a boss I want it to be an intense match to the death between the two of us from start to finish. The breaking up of the fights with qte sequences where I get to watch her spin her hair and stuff was not my thing at all and I dislike the qte sequences during actual levels mainly because I can't skip those cutscenes on replay.
6. The combo strings. This and the next point aren't flaws but come down to personal taste. I hate combo strings. I think they are the worst and most vile things in fighting games and action games. I hate Tekken because of this. I have bad memory and I do not enjoy sitting around memorizing 20 different strings and what the difference in the attack is if I do PPPKP or PPPKKP. VF is my fighting game of choice and I love how my combos/attacks in that are more like "well after I float him from my B,DF+P I see he's at waist height for a few seconds so my F,F+K move will probably juggle him". I play DMC the same way. I think of how I can link individual short input (ie B,F/F,F/K,P) moves and then try them out and create my own combos. So right from the start Bayonetta being all about dozens of strings was not my cup of tea unfortunately. Even by the end I tended to just learn a few I liked for each weapon (short ones) and alternate between them. Just don't like them darn strings.
7. The weapons. For me personally, the weapons in Bayonetta lacked personality. I felt like the weapons in DMC and NG were a lot more diverse in their attacks and their movesets. When I play NG and pull out the nunchucks their move list has absolutely nothing in common with the scythe. In bayonetta I felt like whether I had claws on my feet or guns on my feet or bazookas on my feet or skates on my feet, my sword combos of PKP or PKK or PPK were pretty much the same give or take some speed and power differences.
tl;dr on the last two points - I loved the combat, but it felt a lot less varied and unique to me than DMC/NG. I know there are a million moves and potential combos, but they all kind of blend together for me and don't feel as distinct and fun to pull off as "I'm going to do move A -> combo it into move B".
8. The difficulty. Not really a complaint because I'm sure Hard will be adequately challenging, but normal on this was way too easy. Especially after I bought the parry accessory which meant I didn't even have to dodge and got even longer witch time. I criticized DMC4 for being too easy on the standard difficulty as well (and NG2 after you got the scythe) so it seems that "normal" difficulty on action games in general has been dumbed down this generation.
I do think though that the parry accessory is amazingly broken. The timing window is just way too large. In SF3 I suck at pulling off parries because the window is fairly small. In here anytime I see an attack headed my way I just push toward them and parry it and it works!
Overall - as much as that sounds predominantly negative, I actually really love the game :lol The combat is insanely fun and satisfying and the enemies are great foes to fight again. I will definitely be playing it for another few weeks on the higher difficulties. I actually think some of my qualms (most of them?) are because all the hype (partly by Kamiya's trash talking) that this would be the greatest action game ever made and destroy everything else that has come before it. Which it might do for a lot of people! But it just didn't do that for me =P I feel like the game took DMC combat in DMC3 style short levels and mixed it with GoW style boss fights and QTE sequences. Which in theory sounds like the ultimate game because it combines the two styles of action gaming. But for me, the only things I like from GoW style action games (and I do like them!) are the level designs and set pieces. So my ultimate action game would be DMC combat with GoW levels and DMC3 bosses. And this isn't it, but then I can't put blame on Kamiya for not being able to read my mind :lol
Still, I think this is another gem on the Kamiya list and a definite improvement in every way over his last 3d action game start (DMC1). I'd give it a 9/10 and on my Kamiya ranking it'd go: VJ (10) > RE2 (10) > Okami (9.5) > Bayo (9) > DMC (9).
So on my action games ranking it'd go DMC3 > NG > DMC4 > NG2 > Bayo > DMC1 > all other action games.
