Impressions of Bayonetta
I played the Bayonetta demo yesterday for about 15 minutes. I'll just give a quick impression, since I haven't seen enough to do a full commentary.
The game looks and feels very much like Devil May Cry. Not surprising, as some of the DMC people are behind the game. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on whether or not you like DMC.
The combat feels solid, and the control of the character is well-done. There's a DMC-style boss-heavy mix of things to fight. The dodge function works very well, so you can really do some impressive things. Coupled with Witch Time, which slows time if you do a last-millisecond dodge, you can do some very impressive things.
The graphics are good enough, with decent effects and a passable frame rate. On my PS3, it was running 60 FPS most of the time, but occasionally dropped to 30.
I find it interesting that they chose to give her glasses, but they look cool.
That's as much as I can say in favor of it. Unfortunately, some of the things that bugged me will probably prevent me from playing it further.
For a game that centers on its main character and her looks and style, Bayonetta is not characterized very well. But I don't generally like the characters in action games aimed a the Japanese male 17-24 market. DMC's characters were just as silly in my opinion.
I really dislike having to listen to vocal J-Pop every time I start fighting something. This ruins the atmosphere for me.
The following isn't a game breaker for me, but it is an important feature of the game. It is very consciously mixing sex and violence together. Sure, these things have always gone together, but this game is pretty shameless about it. The title of the demo is "Bayonetta: First Climax," which I thought was just going to be a title. It turns out that many of the verses (scenes are called verses) of the game finish with a boss battle which ends with a hud element telling you to hit two buttons for "Climax."
When you do this, Bayonetta turns her hair into some kind of gigantic tentacle with a dragon's mouth on the end which eats the boss. Somehow when this happens, she ends up nude. Like her clothes are part of her hair... in a magic way... or something. This part, is almost a game-breaker for me because it's just so silly. Also, I get this unpleasant vision of 15-year-old boys viciously bashing away at enemies to get to the Climax to get another shot of Bayonetta nude.
Bayonetta is a very competently made game, even if it is derivative. But it's so hopelessly juvenile that I can't bring myself to play it as a 40-year-old male with a more mature idea of what is sexy.
The game looks and feels very much like Devil May Cry. Not surprising, as some of the DMC people are behind the game. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on whether or not you like DMC.
The combat feels solid, and the control of the character is well-done. There's a DMC-style boss-heavy mix of things to fight. The dodge function works very well, so you can really do some impressive things. Coupled with Witch Time, which slows time if you do a last-millisecond dodge, you can do some very impressive things.
The graphics are good enough, with decent effects and a passable frame rate. On my PS3, it was running 60 FPS most of the time, but occasionally dropped to 30.
I find it interesting that they chose to give her glasses, but they look cool.
That's as much as I can say in favor of it. Unfortunately, some of the things that bugged me will probably prevent me from playing it further.
For a game that centers on its main character and her looks and style, Bayonetta is not characterized very well. But I don't generally like the characters in action games aimed a the Japanese male 17-24 market. DMC's characters were just as silly in my opinion.
I really dislike having to listen to vocal J-Pop every time I start fighting something. This ruins the atmosphere for me.
The following isn't a game breaker for me, but it is an important feature of the game. It is very consciously mixing sex and violence together. Sure, these things have always gone together, but this game is pretty shameless about it. The title of the demo is "Bayonetta: First Climax," which I thought was just going to be a title. It turns out that many of the verses (scenes are called verses) of the game finish with a boss battle which ends with a hud element telling you to hit two buttons for "Climax."
When you do this, Bayonetta turns her hair into some kind of gigantic tentacle with a dragon's mouth on the end which eats the boss. Somehow when this happens, she ends up nude. Like her clothes are part of her hair... in a magic way... or something. This part, is almost a game-breaker for me because it's just so silly. Also, I get this unpleasant vision of 15-year-old boys viciously bashing away at enemies to get to the Climax to get another shot of Bayonetta nude.
Bayonetta is a very competently made game, even if it is derivative. But it's so hopelessly juvenile that I can't bring myself to play it as a 40-year-old male with a more mature idea of what is sexy.
posted by Almo at 9:37 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home