Bayonetta personifies everything that makes Japanese Video Games distinctive and exciting; i.e. it’s bat shit crazy. Not like Devil May Cry, where you can wipe out a hoard of 30 or so enemies in a matter of seconds; or the God of War type insane where little old Kratos can kill a titan 1,000,000, times his size; nor is it like Ninja Gaiden, where enemies smugglebin bags of blood packs under their clothing, no, Bayonetta isn’t any of these because it is infact all of them

rolled into one big package, with a porn magazine and the lyrical content of a Lady GaGa album added for good measure.

But of course, being slightly bonkers is to be expected; the Hack n’ Slash genre is celebrated for being over the top, with 100ft tall bosses and weaponry twice the size of a regular human coming as a standard. Bayonetta keeps to this standard, but it also sets a benchmark for sheer lunacy. Bayonetta’s suit for example is made of her hair, which completely bizarre in itself, disregarding that it canalso turns into a giant demon that chews up angelic beings like they were sponge cake. It’s pretty damn hilarious the first couple of times you see it, given the different variations of demonthe enemies reactionsto it. Let’s be honest, Bayonetta really doesn’t take itself seriously at all; but that’s the way Platinum Games, and Director Hideki Kamiya propositioned the game, as a pastiche of the genre that Kamiya helped popularise.

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This is reflected in the story; or lack of. There is a story of course; it’s just not particularly interesting or well told. Bayonetta is a pretty uninteresting character, and the supporting cast don’t really do much apart from be generally annoying. It’s quite testing actually as if it was told properly; the story could have been rather compelling. It has an interesting lore about it, and some of the ideas were actually quite good. But as half of the story is told though still images, you can’t help but think that Platinum didn’t care for the story; so why should you? Maybe if it was all in cut scenes that don’t look half as good as regular cut scenes, I would have cared a little more.

The anatomically incorrect protagonist is quite a looker herself, and Platinum Games obviously like to play off this with her sexy posh English accent, boob/butt shots a plenty and her dominatrix style get up. And it’s actually funny for the most part; imagine what Devil May Cry did for action and scale, but with sex. There are some moments where some of the content does get a bit questionable though; take one section where one enemy emits what can only be described as angelic vaginal light while basically masturbating on the floor (bear in mind this is a game rated 15 by the BBFC). These moments can get rather awkward if you have someone watching you play the game.

Bayonetta can somewhat disorientating to play at first, as it feels like a sequel to a game that never existed. It does play very much like Devil May Cry, but more refined and easier to play; it’s essentially the game that DMC4 should have been. It has the grandiose scale, graphics and design of say, Uncharted 2 or God of War 2; something that builds on an already tried and tested formula that was already brilliant. And Platinum Games most certainly deserve props for this, as they have made a game that is almost perfect to play.

The combat has a fluidity about it that makes it so much more fun to play than the competition, the reliance of dodging almost has a rhythmic quality to it in the vein of Batman: Arkham Asylum; and it isn’t your usual Hack n’ Slash, you can’t just button mash your way though, you need to think fast otherwise you’re dead. There’s also a nice amount of weapons that Bayonetta can wield on her hands and feet, most of which are unlocked by finding EP’s (as in Extended Plays) and exchanging them at the store; the rarer the EP, the crazier the weapon. I ended up the game with a Katana/Ice Skate combination, which was about as awesome as it sounds.

As per genre conventions, you have to combine punches, kicks, bullets and jumps to defeat enemies. It’s fairly standard in that respect, but what sets Bayonetta’s apart from the competition is Witch Time, a bullet time-like effect which is implemented so well it doesn’t feel like a gimmick: when an angelic creature attacks, dodging at the last second allows time to slow down, enabling you to unleash acavalcade of devastation. Dodging and using Witch Time as much as possible is essential to progressing through the game as the AI is no fool, the angels don’t wait around like they’re in Assassins Creed, they want you dead, which is easily accomplished if you don’t have your wits about you.

Even if you do have your wits about you, the latter stages of the game can fell remorseless, as the standard grunts are slowly substituted with the bigger and harder enemies. It doesn’t get to the point where controllers are thrown, but it can get frustrating nonetheless. If you are accustomed to the genre, you should be able to get though the game without much hassle; it’s just people like myself that have only played Devil May Cry and God of War that will have problems when you run the gauntlet that is Chapter 15. There are also some arbitrary vehicle sections that feel totally out of place, most notably the Space Harrier throwback. They break up the pacing of the game and feel totally unnecessary, which is a shame, as the rest of the game is simply incredible.