Bayonetta Demo

Since I'm reviewing demos now I thought I'd add my two cents on the Bayonetta demo as well.

Scanning the amazon forums I found many review saying Dante's Inferno was totally badass and amazing and people couldn't wait to get their hands on it while Bayonetta is a Devil May Cry clone that was too frenetic and not fun at all.

Perhaps my brain works differently. Perhaps my view that complexity in a game makes it better is completely wrong. But until then I will just have to take it that everyone on amazon is insane and blind.

First off, yes, Bayonetta is a Devil May Cry clone. It's made by the same people, and why change a formula that works? For those unfamiliar with the series, the gameplay is managed mostly through very flashy and very frantic gameplay with lots of hard-to-do combos on hard-to-beat enemies. You gain experience beating enemies and then use that experience to gain new combos that do more damage or upgrade health, etc. There's nothing new, at least in the demo, except for a special "Witch Time" feature that slows down enemies when you dodge an attack at the right time. Oh, and the nudity. Basically Bayonetta uses her hair as clothes so when she summons a badass hair monster from the aether to chomp on a boss baddy...she basically gets naked, though mostly covered by strategically swirling hair. There's also a new feature where in certain areas you get to walk on the walls. While this provides some interesting thought processes about how to fight, it mostly is just a pain trying to locate an enemy that's flying around on other walls as well.

Okay, with that covered, I've got a big spoiler alert for those who didn't notice. DANTE'S INFERNO IS GOD OF WAR. BUT LESS INTERESTING. At least in God of War you were required to kind of switch things up and use combinations of grabbing, light attacks, and heavy attacks, and they all flowed well together. Dante's Inferno says bugger that and massively overhauled the light attack and underhauled the heavy attack and introduced a long range attack (the beaming cross that shoots out of your hand) that can be spammed to your delight and gets rid of most stuff before it reaches you. Oh and there's magic too, but at least in the demo it's kind of useless.

Bayonetta, on the other hand, keeps much of the badassery in Devil May Cry and doesn't dumb it down for you. There is an easy mode where you can just press "attack" and it does the combos for you (kind of like Dante's Inferno on any difficulty) but otherwise there are some really fun moves you can pull off, and the more difficult ones are appropriately flashy and full of impact.

The one thing I can hand Dante's Inferno on a platter is the graphics. They're just plain beautiful. However, Bayonetta still carries its own style that, while not as detailed, is still nice to look at.

Finally, the really sad thing about Dante's Inferno is it's based off of such interesting characters who go through hell listening to other really interesting characters. The game decided that was rubbish, robbed them of any personality besides anger and sadness (or Vergil's just being mellow) and then let you go carnage-happy with a scythe. Bayonetta actually has a personality. In the little bit of gameplay we don't get to see much, but it's enough to tell that she's FUN. And a little sassy.

We'll see what these games are like come release day, but from what I've seen I know which game I'd rather sit down to.

The Bayonetta Demo gets a 7/10.