Rose Petal Blood – Bayonetta (Xbox360)

Right has everyone got a drink? Good then let’s begin!

Bayonetta was released in Japan back in 2009 (and everywhere else a year later) with Sega as its publisher and Platinum Games  as its Developer (or Nex entertainment if you own a PS3). I should probably say that to call Bayonetta an”Overly sexualized character ” would be an understatement. Everything about her, from her BDSM attack moves right down to that tiny lollypop she’s always sucking on , looks like something out of a teenage boys wet dream.

Whilst I thought that fanservice would bother me, after about an hour of play I noticed how little it phased me. It was actually  funny watching bayonetta use a spear as a stripper pole as she kicks and shoots anything that comes near her like some kind of  super powered burlesque dancer.

The storyline can be a bit hard to follow at times, but its an interesting story none the less.

Bayonetta is a witch; which in this game seems to mean that she runs around strapping guns to her boots and wears a cat suit made out her own hair…yeah eww. She wakes up after a 500 year slumber to find herself in a stone tomb that’s at the bottom of a lake, and for some reason she has amnesia,brilliant!. Anyway, we then seem to be jumped forward 20 years and join bayonetta again as she searches for a mysterious object known as ‘ the right eye ‘ which apparently will help with her memory loss, but the Angels and Virtues are getting in her way.

There’s also two factions of magic users called Umbrian witches and the Lumen sages who are something to do with this right eye object. There’s also a left eye and together they make the ‘eye’s of the world’ which summon the creator who  apparently can bring heaven, hell and earth together.

I could go on but its more fun if you play it and see for yourselves, and don’t worry if you can’t understand what’s going on right away, the plot gets clearer as the game progresses and until then there’s always good old-fashioned violence to keep you entertained.

While the angels will come at you in swarms like ants to a sugar cube, they aren’t much of a threat and with a few torture moves even the mightiest angel will fall. Even the mini boss battles with an umbrian witch called Jeanne are fairly straight forward. The real challenge is the virtue Boss battles.

With up to  6-7 health bars and a plethora of attacks to beat you down with, the virtues are a force to be reckoned with.

But luckily bayonetta has a few tricks up her own cat suit sleeves; one of which is known as witch time.

Pressing the dodge button just as the enemy strikes is what sets of this particular skill; during which everything except bayonetta comes to a complete stop. Thus allowing the player to inflict some major damage on the enemy without worry of loosing any health points, but don’t get too used to this ability because it only lasts for a short time; so make sure to get out of the way before time returns to its normal state, or you may end up on the other end of a spear.

I’ve mentioned a lot of good points, but no game is perfect and the cutscenes are where bayonetta falls short. The majority of cut scenes are still images pasted to a movie reel animation; and the all the rest are filled to the brim with quicktime events which are frustrating at the best of times. But these ones always jump out at you just as you begin to lose interest, and they give you a minuscule amount of time to react before the game sends Bayonetta hurtling to the ground before making you watch the same scene all over again.

I’m going to stop myself here before I begin to rant. Overall Bayonetta is an entertaining game, the sheer level of sexual innuendo is so bad its funny. The boss battles are challenging yet fun at the same time. While the story is a little hard to follow at first , once you get the basic plot it becomes an immersive tale with some fairly well written characters.

~HeadphoneGirlZ