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I was pretty bummed out when I heard that Bayonetta was delayed for the North American market. Platinum Games' previous title, MadWorld, was a thrilling black-and-white-and-red gore-fest, and their previous games (Viewtiful Joe, Okami, Godhand) which were produced under the name Clover Studio, were all fantastic. Needless to say, this Osaka-based team, which was disowned by Capcom, knows how to make a killer game. Lucky for me, I've been able to snag a demo of the PS3 version of Bayonetta. Now the game's delay stings much worse than before.
Hit the link for the full preview.
First, a caveat. As I stated, I played the PS3 demo. Platinum are developing the game on the 360, while Sega, the publisher, have been handling the PS3 port. The rumor mill has been claiming that the PS3 version suffers from sub-standard graphics and framerate issues. While I haven't played the 360 version, I can say that the PS3 port features graphics that look only marginally better than a PlayStation 2 game. The framerate is slow and unsteady, jumping between 20 to 30 frames per second, especially during cinematics. Hopefully Sega will be able to clean up their mess before the US version drops early next year.
With the bad news aside, let's get to the good parts. The gameplay of Bayonetta is simply awesome. It's fast, aggresive, and highly stylized. I've heard people claim that Bayonetta is a rip-off of Devil May Cry. Well, guess what - many members of Platinum worked on the original Devil May Cry. And if you ask me, Bayonetta is more fun to play than Devil May Cry. While the camera and controls aren't quite as tight, Bayonetta's combo engine is much more interesting. In Devil May Cry, it was pretty difficult to pull off most combos, which made the engine seem limited. Improvisation wouldn't get you anywhere. But with Bayonetta, I was alternating between punch and kick buttons and throwing out all sorts of different combos, which ended with punishing blows from the main character's transforming costume. Plus, once you get a bad guy in position, you can pull off a "torture" combo by following the on-screen button presses. One, for example, Bayonetta will summon an iron maiden, kick the enemy into it, and snap the spikey box closed. In another, she tosses the enemy into a guillotine, beats the crap out of him, and then pulls the rope, severing his head. Yikes! Like in God of War, boss battles seem to end in quick-time events. The two I played ended in Bayonetta's suit turning into a giant dog's head and devouring the boss like a Snausage.
As for Bayonetta's moves, she can run, double jump, wall-jump, shoot, punch, and kick. She can also jump out of harm's way at the last second, which triggers a short bullet-time sequence, allowing her to get in some extra attacks. If she jumps from a high enough spot, her landing causes a pink shockwave to eminate, knocking over close-range enemies. In the demo, she could go hand-to-hand or use a sword. Also - and this is another innovation upon Devil May Cry - she can pick up weapons of defeated enemies. One of the most interesting mechanics of the game is how manually aiming Bayonetta's guns works. Rather than just zooming in to an over-the-shoulder view, the player must make a quarter-circle motion with the left analog stick from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock. This causes Bayonetta to do a handstand and start shooting her high-heel-guns. This is when the camera zooms in and the player has to rapidly tap the circle button while aiming with the left analog stick. This is more complicated than just zooming in and holding down the shoot button, but it looks great and is more involving on the player's end, giving the process a feeling of accomplishment and more meaning than the standard zoom method.
After playing this demo, I'm more pumped than ever for Bayonetta. It's definitely going to be a day-one purchase for me. For now, though, I'll be brushing up my comboing skills and counting down the days until Bayonetta hits the shelves in January. I hope Capcom are facepalming out of regret for killing Clover Studio.
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