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BAYONETTA An Action Game by Hideki Kamiya |OT|

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semiconscious

semiconscious

Member
Riposte said:
Bayonetta is comedic and has tongue-in-cheek moments, but it is not a full-on parody. It is a legit videogame story in a videogame world. It is a superhero story which knows its ridiculous, but doesn't sell the story short for a sake of another joke. EDIT: I think the proper term is "self-aware".
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yeah, i think that, more than anything else, is the reason some people can't get into bayonetta - it keeps periodically reminding you that 1) it's a video game, & 2) you're sitting there playing it. & this seems to really rub people who demand/need a certain amount of 'immersion' in their games the wrong way...

depending on how well i feel it's done, i'm willing to go either way - i don't need to take a game seriously to enjoy it. but there're definitely some that do...
 
K

Koralsky

Member
Riposte said:
Bayonetta is comedic and has tongue-in-cheek moments, but it is not a full-on parody. It is a legit videogame story in a videogame world. It is a superhero story which knows its ridiculous, but doesn't sell the story short for the sake of another joke. EDIT: I think the proper term is "self-aware". Self-aware stories fit marvelously in videogames(e.g. Portal 2).
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Well said Sir, very well said
 
R

Roto13

Member
Melhisedek said:
How bad is this one on PS3? I've heard some really bad stuff about it :(
I mean I want to experience this game but don't want to be put off by technical and performance problems
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After the patch that allows for an optional install that fixes the load times, the PS3 version of Bayonetta has no serious problems.
 
5

54-46!

Member
JoeFenix said:
This game feels just as fresh today as it did the day it came out, an absolute classic.
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It was.. one year ago?

Roto13 said:
After the patch that allows for an optional install that fixes the load times, the PS3 version of Bayonetta has no serious problems.
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Well, there is the framerate issue.
 
J

JoeFenix

Member
54-46! said:
It was.. one year ago?


Well, there is the framerate issue.
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Came out in October 2009 in japan, so 18 months. I just meant that I personaly popped it back in recently and it felt amazing still.
 
V

VisanidethDM

Banned
semiconscious said:
yeah, i think that, more than anything else, is the reason some people can't get into bayonetta - it keeps periodically reminding you that 1) it's a video game, & 2) you're sitting there playing it. & this seems to really rub people who demand/need a certain amount of 'immersion' in their games the wrong way...

depending on how well i feel it's done, i'm willing to go either way - i don't need to take a game seriously to enjoy it. but there're definitely some that do...
Click to expand...

It's not that. It's more that it goes like "Ok, now I'm gonna remind you this is a game and all this is silly by doing something stupid, dumb and embarassing, and actually falling flat on my face while doing so".

Bayonetta is not self-aware, it's simply bad at being bad (while DMC was good at being bad).
 
V

VisanidethDM

Banned
Kaijima said:
The problem with the comparison to DMC, is that DMC was trying to be cool and funny for you, the player. To simplify, DMC jumps up and performs a freeze-frame brofist with the player.

Bayonetta is "stupid" instead of brofist-campy-cool, because the game and the character are smirking at the player. Not with them.

FYI, the writer of Vanquish has in fact stated that yes, it is a parody and a tribute to tons of overused tropes. Given how Platinum's designers seem to be thinking, I don't think it's overanalysis to see Bayonetta on a few layers of laughing both with-and-at the player, and the assumption of the player's likely foibles and biases.

I can accept it as satire and girl-power-takeover extreme and also not feel "ashamed" about my tastes. Bayonetta the character, is damned cool. An extremely stylish, thoughtful design. Probably one of the most detailed and unique character designs of the generation.

Of course, part of what makes the character so cool, is the built-in parody factor. (Things can be legitimately cool on their own level, yet still have an element of parody. The two states are not mutually exclusive.)

I dunno, some people have said they hate the debate over it, yet here we are a year later still examining it. Bayonetta is definitely not forgettable in any way, and Platinum sure accomplished some mission or other with the full package.
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Which is what didn't work for me. It's like watching a guy telling a joke that's not funny, and having him smirk at you nonstop for 6 hours. There was no "so good that it's bad" quality, nor any worthy parody value, it was just terrible, terrible stuff that can't be excused for not taking itself seriously. Bayonetta is no Viewtiful Joe.

The reason we're still talking about it today is that Bayonetta was probably the best game in its genre, and yet it was tainted with assets so bad that they made it a pain to finish the game. If I had to pick a word to describe it (much like someone else used self-aware) it's embarassing.
 
R

Risk Breaker

Member
VisanidethDM said:
The reason we're still talking about it today is that Bayonetta was probably the best game in its genre, and yet it was tainted with assets so bad that they made it a pain to finish the game. If I had to pick a word to describe it (much like someone else used self-aware) it's embarassing.
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What assets are you talking about? And what is it that makes the game embarrassing for you? Is it the visual style with butterflies and flowers and vivid colours? The pop music? The lollipops? The two times in the game where you hear moaning or Bayo's tits and ass and the
occasional "being naked but not really"?

If that's what makes the game painful for you, you wouldn't be able to play 3rd Birthday either because Aya moans every 2 seconds, DW7 because there are fighters with giant tits and bouncy physics, Dissidia because of Tifa's ridiculous bust size and again bounciness, Nier because Kainé is almost naked and bad mouthed, Lost Odyssey ditto, DMC4 ditto, Valkyria Chronicles ditto... Hell, I would have to get rid of half of my collection if I found that kind of thing embarrasing. I don't know, when you are a videogame player you usually learn to have an open mind and broad taste about this kind of stuff. What's your problem with Bayonetta exactly?
 
V

VisanidethDM

Banned
Risk Breaker said:
What assets are you talking about? And what is it that makes the game embarrassing for you? Is it the visual style with butterflies and flowers and vivid colours? The pop music? The lollipops? The two times in the game where you hear moaning or Bayo's tits and ass and the
occasional "being naked but not really"?

If that's what makes the game painful for you, you wouldn't be able to play 3rd Birthday either because Aya moans every 2 seconds, DW7 because there are fighters with giant tits and bouncy physics, Dissidia because of Tifa's ridiculous bust size and again bounciness, Nier because Kainé is almost naked and bad mouthed, Lost Odyssey ditto, DMC4 ditto, Valkyria Chronicles ditto... Hell, I would have to get rid of half of my collection if I found that kind of thing embarrasing. I don't know, when you are a videogame player you usually learn to have an open mind and broad taste about this kind of stuff. What's your problem with Bayonetta exactly?
Click to expand...

My problem is that most of those games either pull off oversexualized heroines to try and please me (in which case I just shrug and ignore them), or they genuinely manage to pull off their tongue in cheek stereotype. Bayonetta wants to be taken seriously.

DW7 just goes "here's some tits", no strings attached. It's dumb, I loathe it, but it's just that. A flaw you can live with. The Witcher goes "have some softcore porn stuff, bro!". I'm like "I can live without it, thanks", and look past it.

Bayonetta instead is like "here's some tits and ass, BUT NO, it's not what you think, it's a satire dude! I'm winking at you! WINK WINK!". It pretends to be smart, and it's not, at all. It's got plenty of flaws in terms of presentation; the cutscene style is one of those "stylish throwback" abortions that we could safely live without; the monster design is ridicolously overdone, and no, I won't accept "that's the point!" arguments, unless the point of the game was looking terrible, in which case, mission accomplished; the music is inconsistent when it's good and horribly mismatched when it's not, and like the cutscene approach, an artsy solution that doesn't have the legs to live up to its premise.
There's plenty to say, and yes, many many games have similar flaws, but almost none of them is as pretentious as Bayonetta. My beef with the game (which I still love in terms of gameplay) is that on top of having some absurdely bad presentation, it tries to act like it's actually smart.
 
L

Ledsen

Member
I love the visual design in Bayonetta, the enemies in particular. The whole statuesque/angelic thing works great. Certainly more memorable than the enemies in many other similar games.
 
V

VisanidethDM

Banned
Ledsen said:
I love the visual design in Bayonetta, the enemies in particular. The whole statuesque/angelic thing works great. Certainly more memorable than the enemies in many other similar games.
Click to expand...

I agree on a conceptual level, but I think the result was incredibly overdone.
 
R

Risk Breaker

Member
VisanidethDM said:
My problem is that most of those games either pull off oversexualized heroines to try and please me (in which case I just shrug and ignore them), or they genuinely manage to pull off their tongue in cheek stereotype. Bayonetta wants to be taken seriously.

DW7 just goes "here's some tits", no strings attached. It's dumb, I loathe it, but it's just that. A flaw you can live with. The Witcher goes "have some softcore porn stuff, bro!". I'm like "I can live without it, thanks", and look past it.

Bayonetta instead is like "here's some tits and ass, BUT NO, it's not what you think, it's a satire dude! I'm winking at you! WINK WINK!". It pretends to be smart, and it's not, at all. It's got plenty of flaws in terms of presentation; the cutscene style is one of those "stylish throwback" abortions that we could safely live without; the monster design is ridicolously overdone, and no, I won't accept "that's the point!" arguments, unless the point of the game was looking terrible, in which case, mission accomplished; the music is inconsistent when it's good and horribly mismatched when it's not, and like the cutscene approach, an artsy solution that doesn't have the legs to live up to its premise.
There's plenty to say, and yes, many many games have similar flaws, but almost none of them is as pretentious as Bayonetta. My beef with the game (which I still love in terms of gameplay) is that on top of having some absurdely bad presentation, it tries to act like it's actually smart.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't really think Bayonetta pretends or tries to be smart, and I personally don't consider it a satire either, nor a pretentious game. Just my view though.

About the flaws... I'm not a fan of the monster design (what I like are the "human" characters), the cutscenes you talk about are a cheap way to save some costs (I guess) and I didn't think anything about them. Now I simply can't agree with what you say about the soundtrack. Some boss themes you can't really hear because of all the shit happening, but the rest is brilliant. Whether you like the style or not is subjective though, but while I DID think that using Fly Me to the Moon would feel wrong, pretentious or embarrasing before I played the game, I ended up liking it.

I'll repeat that I loathed the concept of Bayonetta when it was announced because all you read was "OMG SHE IS NAKED AND ONLY USES HER HAIR TO COVER HER SEXY AND BIG ASS AND TITS" and nothing about the actual game. Then came the dance videos and crotch closeup gifs... But when I decided to play it and saw what lied underneath all that I didn't care and found it pretty fun. Something similar could be said about Nier. If I had only listened to the general press saying that it was a "dmc or god of war", "there is a scantily clad hermaphrodite in the game OMG" and "it's pretentious because it tries to cover too many genres and there are walls of text in the game!!" I'm sure I would have thought it was stupid. Fortunately I had to play it because I had to review it and I could see what it really was about.

So the point is that, even though some of the most vocal fans of Bayonetta insist that it's to be taken as a satire and that everything is intented to be taken as a parody, I like to think for myself and I don't think that's true. It's not a social experiment, it's a bloody japanese videogame and that's the way they make them :p
 
V

VisanidethDM

Banned
Risk Breaker said:
Well, I don't really think Bayonetta pretends or tries to be smart, and I personally don't consider it a satire either, nor a pretentious game. Just my view though.

About the flaws... I'm not a fan of the monster design (what I like are the "human" characters), the cutscenes you talk about are a cheap way to save some costs (I guess) and I didn't think anything about them. Now I simply can't agree with what you say about the soundtrack. Some boss themes you can't really hear because of all the shit happening, but the rest is brilliant. Whether you like the style or not is subjective though, but while I DID think that using Fly Me to the Moon would feel wrong, pretentious or embarrasing before I played the game, I ended up liking it.

I'll repeat that I loathed the concept of Bayonetta when it was announced because all you read was "OMG SHE IS NAKED AND ONLY USES HER HAIR TO COVER HER SEXY AND BIG ASS AND TITS" and nothing about the actual game. Then came the dance videos and crotch closeup gifs... But when I decided to play it and saw what lied underneath all that I didn't care and found it pretty fun. Something similar could be said about Nier. If I had only listened to the general press saying that it was a "dmc or god of war", "there is a scantily clad hermaphrodite in the game OMG" and "it's pretentious because it tries to cover too many genres and there are walls of text in the game!!" I'm sure I would have thought it was stupid. Fortunately I had to play it because I had to review it and I could see what it really was about.

So the point is that, even though some of the most vocal fans of Bayonetta insist that it's to be taken as a satire and that everything is intented to be taken as a parody, I like to think for myself and I don't think that's true. It's not a social experiment, it's a bloody japanese videogame and that's the way they make them :p
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It's a very respectable opinion. I felt like the devs wanted me to think the game was more than it actually was, but if you didn't, well more power to you.

As a small clarification, just to be sure: just because of the gameplay, Bayonetta could be called "Hannah Montana's Tae Bo's adventures", star Bobby Kotick as your love interest and take place entirely in the shit mountain demo level of DA2, and it would still be fucking amazing.
 
R

Retro_

Unconfirmed Member
Well, I don't really think Bayonetta pretends or tries to be smart, and I personally don't consider it a satire either, nor a pretentious game. Just my view though.
Click to expand...

I always thought it was the fanbase that gave the game that quality moreso than the actual game.

I just think they made girl dante and rolled with it to be honest.
 
Riposte

Riposte

Member
I really don't like when people call Bayonetta's "lighter" songs pop music. Its trying to capture a cabaret-style(also choirs here and there and a strong focus on piano), which I guess is still pop music, but conjures up an entirely different image. Misterious Destiny is probably most (modern) poppy song, but the rest are basically jazzed up videogame themes. And of course, you got all the heavier songs.

EDIT: Then people go as far to call it Jpop. LOL.
 
R

Risk Breaker

Member
Riposte said:
I really don't like when people call Bayonetta's "lighter" songs pop music. Its trying to capture a cabaret-style(also choirs here and there and a strong focus on piano), which I guess is still pop music, but conjures up an entirely different image. Misterious Destiny is probably most (modern) poppy song, but the rest are basically jazzed up videogame themes. And of course, you got all the heavier songs.

EDIT: Then people go as far to call it Jpop. LOL.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know, I was precisely thinking of Mysterious Destiny as it's one of the songs people complain about the most

And I'm glad to hear that more people think like me, Chopperman.
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
Roto13 said:
Two verses have low frame rates. Big deal.
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The framerate is pretty consistently about half of what it is on 360. I don't think it should keep people from playing the PS3 version if that's their only option but let's not try to distort the facts.
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
I stopped playing it due to the framerate. It was just too bad, couldn't handle it. Shouldn't of bought it. I really wanna play it.. but it just bugged me too much.
 
ToyMachine228

ToyMachine228

Member
Finally got Bayonetta this past week and started it last night. I know it's a Kayima game, so there'd be similarities to Devil May Cry, but I didn't expect this many similarities down to the menus, items, visual style and the works.
 
Boss Doggie

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Eh I think someone is taking Bayonetta way too seriously to come out with those sort of reasoning.
 
J

Jintor

Member
A reminder that Platinum's Kamiya Commentary run is ongoing on their blog.

I don't think Bayonetta pretends or tries to be smart or pretentious. What it does do is treat its ludicrous premise as something they (the game developers, not the players) are taking seriously, but with a tongue planted firmly in cheek.

It's "this would be cool" game design taken to the nth degree.
 
P

Pakkidis

Member
The game has some of the best enemy design's I've seen this generation. Also has some of the best boss battles as well.

Couldn't stand the story/plot or characters. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
 
S

Sofo

Member
Since it was bumped, loved it from start to the end. With my fiancé we 100%'d it minus some silly crows (one is in an Alfheim portal that we forgot to get ._. ). Speaking of Alfheim portals, those were a pain but damn if it didn't feel great completing them!
 
R

Roto13

Member
hey_it's_that_dog said:
The framerate is pretty consistently about half of what it is on 360. I don't think it should keep people from playing the PS3 version if that's their only option but let's not try to distort the facts.
Click to expand...
It's not so low that a normal, well-adjusted human being is going to be bothered by it, though. It's not a serious issue.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Pakkidis said:
The game has some of the best enemy design's I've seen this generation. Also has some of the best boss battles as well.

Couldn't stand the story/plot or characters. Just wasn't my cup of tea.
Click to expand...

The angelic enemy motif is actually relatively fresh for games. Demons have been run into the ground for supernatural enemies.

Plus the art direction is quite creative with its angelic/holy visualization, since the angelic host in Bayonetta is conceptualized as being very inhuman - just with a human motif on their costumes, armor, and masks.
 
F

Fimbulvetr

Member
Kaijima said:
The angelic enemy motif is actually relatively fresh for games. Demons have been run into the ground for supernatural enemies.

Plus the art direction is quite creative with its angelic/holy visualization, since the angelic host in Bayonetta is conceptualized as being very inhuman - just with a human motif on their costumes, armor, and masks.
Click to expand...

You could argue they're just being faithful to the religion, since angels were originally supposed to be portrayed as very inhuman before someone came around and prettied them up for the general public.
 
S

Sir Ilpalazzo

Member
palpabl_purpura said:
It's only notable in 2-3 verses, unless you are a framerate whore. And if you say, "I'm not a framerate whore," then welcome to your coming out party.
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I never paid any attention to framerate before I played the PS3 version of this game (and I played Shadow of the Colossus and No More Heroes). It's definitely very noticeable and problematic in this game.
 
H

hey_it's_that_dog

benevolent sexism
Roto13 said:
It's not so low that a normal, well-adjusted human being is going to be bothered by it, though. It's not a serious issue.
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Some people aren't normal or well-adjusted and have a right to know what they're getting into.

palpabl_purpura said:
It's only notable in 2-3 verses, unless you are a framerate whore. And if you say, "I'm not a framerate whore," then welcome to your coming out party.
Click to expand...

Wanting a fast action game to run at 60fps (the framerate it was designed to run at) is not being a framerate whore.
 
C

Curufinwe

Member
Roto13 said:
It's not so low that a normal, well-adjusted human being is going to be bothered by it, though. It's not a serious issue.
Click to expand...

Not everyone is accepting of a poor frame rate in an action game as you are. Having low standards is not the same as being well-adjusted.
 
ToyMachine228

ToyMachine228

Member
Enjoying the game for the most part so far, it's smooth as hell and the combat is great, but the music...Not feeling the music. Very generic and...Sega Genesis like. It kind of reminds me of a Sonic game.
 
TriniTrin

TriniTrin

war of titties grampa
Giolon said:
I want Bayonetta 2 w/ co-op. Player 2 can be
Jeanne
.
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Gotta say Co-op doesnt sound like a good match for Bayonetta (does everything have to be co-op?) But Shaolin Monks was good so it could work.
 
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