Bayonetta (PS3)

10 dollars meant I decided to go ahead and buy Bayonetta.  I originally planned to play it whenever I went back to Japan.  I still don't know when that's going to be.

Even if I had played it in 2010, it wouldn't have even been mentioned in my favorite games of 2010 (still writing the fukubukuro).  Hell it's not even my favorite witch game.  DEATHSMILES DEATHSMILES DEATHSMILES.  Bayonetta doesn't have you fight a giant photorealistic cow.  Most of the bosses finished with me thinking "I'm glad that's over" and when I inevitably fought them a second time, "Well this time it's shorter."

I've got to compare it to two other action games, Ninja Blade and Bullet Witch.  First I think NB and BW might as well have taken place in the same universe.  I'm going to hold that dream too.  Both of them are just about 5 spectacular hours long.  While people complain about the QTEs in Ninja Blade, the entire point of the game is the QTEs.  If you fail a round, the game rewinds briefly you might take a tiny bit of damage, and you get to try again.  It wants the player to win, and it doesn't want you to feel bad about losing.  Also almost always has you pressing buttons if there is cool stuff on screen.

Bayonetta uses QTEs in the worst way possible.  They are haphazardly thrown around and so inconsistently used that you don't know when you're just going to watch a cutscene and when you are going to get a QTE to "dodge" or "jump".  More that "dodge" in QTEs is Triangle and Circle together, and not R2 which is dodge in game, another nice point for Ninja Blade.  Even late into Bayo, you'll watch 30 seconds of fighting wondering "when is this boss fight going to start?" 

The worst part of the QTEs is, if you fail it is instant game over, and Bayo makes you feel bad about getting a game over.  A red skull and crossbones flashes on the screen, Bayonetta's body lies full and center, and you'll get a skull for every death each chapter.  I've never liked games that hammer home that I died.   I know I died.   It's why I hate Jak and Daxter and love Jak 2 and 3.  The most fun I had with Bayo was when I spent about an hour on one of the bonus missions, which really should have been separate from the main game, like Godhand.  In the bonus missions you have a set amount of times you can get hit, and if you die it just drops you right before the mission started.  Dying, internalizing my mistakes, and trying again was great.  It didn't kill the momentum like the main game did.

Playing Bullet Witch is like making your own cutscenes.  One of the reasons I love it so much, is that a giant floating brain threw a flaming bus at me which I cartwheeled by.  I then summoned a tornado which kill the brain and destroyed most of the city street I was on.  The camera is always focused on Bullet Witch too, and I really don't know what the hell the camera was trying to do in Bayonetta.  I got used to it, but that doesn't mean it was good.

In Bayo you can be in dangerous environments without danger, half the stages take place on frozen in time falling debris that won't let you make a bad jump, and if you do make a bad jump you have to fight the camera and Bayo's weird jump to get back to safety, but you'll probably take the 1/10th damage and spawn back at the beginning.  In Bullet Witch I had to take down a giant flying serpent that was trying to destroy the plane I was on.  I had to combat it, the blowing winds, and the ability to just fall right off the ship.  Winning that battle felt like I had done something. 

Bayo has a map screen before each mission, in which a little girl places a Bayo figure on the map.  Then it loads.  Then it lets you start the mission.  Like the Devil May Cry series, and really way too many games, Bayo has a poor sense of progression.  Bayo even has amnesia and doesn't really know what she's trying to do or where she's going for most of the game. 

Bayo didn't get better than the demo, but it didn't get worse either.  It just sort of exists, it's a game I have played.  It's not Bullet Witch.  It's not Godhand.  The director, Kamiya, does love Space Harrier (<3<3<3<3)  enough that there's a Space Harrier level, but you can't change the controls to non-inverted.  But But But...Outrun music?  Nah, just go play Bullet Witch.