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Bayonetta Retro Review

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When Nintendo announced that they would be including the first Bayonetta with Bayonetta 2, the natural response towards this from people who've never played the series before, having never owned a 360 or PS3, would be to play the first one first and then follow it up with the sequel.  That's not what I did. See, I was already on the Bayonetta 2 bandwagon even before the Wii U port of the original was announced.  So, Bayonetta, the original, comes off to me as more of a bonus than a separate game.  After plowing through Bayonetta 2 a couple times, I was ready to go into the first one, eager for all the Platinum goodness I could get.

Now that I've played through the first one, my thoughts on the first Bayonetta can be best described with this sentiment, “Gee whiz, this game sure was fun!  Now let's play Bayonetta 2.”  Which isn't to say Bayo 1 is bad, just that Platinum polished it up so well for Bayo 2.  For starters, the combat feels a bit stickier than in the sequel.  Combos just don't seem to flow together as naturally.  While it still stands above most combat systems these days, Bayo 2's mechanics trump Bayo 1's in just about every way I can think of, making it the less enjoyable of the two.  And dodging attacks from certain enemies won't activate witch time for some reason.  I know I dodged at the right time, because I can see the game applying the slow down effect that usually precedes witch time, but witch time doesn't activate.  What gives?

And the QTEs are far, far worse than anything I experienced previously with Platinum games.  In Bayonetta 1, they appear very suddenly and offer little opportunity to complete them.  Should you fail,  they may result in a Game Over.

One area where Bayonetta 1 arguably exceeds its predecessor is with its final boss, who is a great deal more awe-inspiring, at least from a visual standpoint.  There's that at least.  To be fair, though, The final boss in Bayo 1 is way easier.  Playing on Normal (the highest default difficulty), I managed to take her down without using any items and only died once to her bullshit OHKO attack.

The visuals lack the vibrancy of the sequel.  This isn't such a big deal, as it just means the game's environments look a little drab with a dull color palette.  Character and enemy designs still look really good, though.  Less good are the framerate issues.  They don't crop up that often, only during busier sequences.  But still, after having Bayonetta 2 run on my screen with next to no hiccups, it's rather disappointing to see a last gen game struggling a bit.  It's nowhere near as bad as certain recent releases, though.

Another problem I had with Bayo 1 was the plot.  While story has never been Platinum's strongest suit, Bayonetta 1's story was especially problematic.  Not only is it bafflingly hard to follow at times, it lacks a goal for the player to work towards.  For the first part of the game, Bayonetta just wanders around a city, accomplishing very little before the plot finally kicks in a few hours later.  Just go through the level, kill angels, and so on.  It's a long time before an evident overarching threat is established, so the early parts of Bayonetta feel a bit directionless.  And even when the main objective finally reveals itself, the game does pad itself out by having a lengthy trek through Paradiso for little reason at all.  To be fair, certain parts in Bayo 2, particularly the flashback sequence, were little more than padding as well, but that at least it served some purpose, even if that reason was simply “show off the Witch Hunts.”

I suppose one might ask whether it's fair to judge Bayonetta based on the standards of it's sequel.  I could say, for instance, that the visuals in Bayonetta are muddy and drab and that the gameplay isn't as fluid, but would that really be a valid complaint considering Bayonetta 2 came out years later on more powerful hardware and had more money backing it?  Perhaps not.  Would Bayo 1 have blown my mind if I'd played it first?  Who can say?  I will say this, though: in spite of not living up to today's standards, Bayonetta is still an incredibly fun game.  The combat is still visceral and challenging and it has enough of that Platinum so that it deserves a spot on anyone's shelf.  It's just not the Bayonetta I'll be playing quite as often now that the sequel has improved everything so nicely.
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