Games / Game Reviews

Review: Bayonetta 2

By Sean Booker
December 2, 2014 - 23:56

Bayonetta 2’s hyper sexualised, wonderful pacing starts on a high note and doesn’t let up once. The insane spectacles found in every cutscene make it rewarding whenever you finish a fight. The combat is stylish and easy to pick up making it simple for anyone to pull off some awesome moves. This is punctuated by a wonderful amount of detail found throughout the game along with the vast degree of unique content to explore and witness. This game is absurd and fun and will constantly surprise you with enjoyment.

The story is pretty loose with Bayonetta. In order to save your sister from The Gates of Hell you must partner with a boy who fights with mystical cards and can turn into a flying squirrel. As a magic, leather-clad witch you will jump, flip, shoot, shoot and shoot your way through angels, robots, demons, dragons and whatever other crazy enemy the game throws at you. It’s not really important why you’re doing all these crazy battles because just watching them unfold is more than enough.

The game is at its best during the cutscenes. One after another the game will throw spectacle after spectacle your way that easily rival some of the craziest, anime-influenced fight scenes I’ve seen in a video game. The game is full of them and each one will improve on the last. I was quite shocked with how crazy and exciting some of these moments were and how the game continued to ramp up. When a cutscene begins it feels like a reward for playing through the last section.

This excitement continues with the game’s easy and fluid combat. There is a huge degree of depth to the combo system as you control Bayonetta’s arm and leg attacks separately. You can also equip different weapons to each body part that will change up how she attacks and the moves she can pull off. As they get longer and grander your character will begin to summon in monsters to help attack and this lends itself nicely to the excitement that the following cutscene will surely capitalize on. Despite this level of detail to the action it still ends up being quite easy to control and pull off. The fighting focuses on dodging at its core and doing so will slow down time for your enemies. This allows you to easily pull off some good moves over and over. Repeating this enough will even fill your special meter to allow for even more devastating attacks. If you ever feel unprepared for the enemy you can focus on dodging in order to gain an edge. The combat is large and exciting and its ease of use can allow anyone to pull off some great visuals.

Not only are the attacks exciting and varied but the game itself has a ton of different content throughout. As mentioned, there are various weapons to unlock and each will change the combo system based on which limb they’re equipped to. You can also purchase a ton of different accessories and costumes to wear that will affect how you perform. The enemy design is also fantastic and constantly changing. Not only are the bosses different but every chapter will showcase several new enemy types. It will be rare to find any repeating opponents. The amount of hidden collectables are varied and will even unlock further challenges to be used in different modes of the game. Along with these, and all the various difficulties to play campaign on, you can definitely put a good chunk of time into Bayonetta 2. There are a lot of different ways to play through the game and the amount of unique content is incredible and welcomed.

Completing parts of the story will unlock new missions in the two player co-op. It is great to see that you can also play online with others. A nice iteration is the ability to start up one of these missions with a computer player and have a human ask to join in while you play. Unfortunately, this mode is mainly just a series of timed combat challenges which isn’t very exciting. It does add more to play through but combat by itself isn’t the best part of the game. This is kind of a nice bonus to have as opposed to something to look forward to.

It is exciting when such an enjoyable game continues to hold that feeling the whole way through. The combat is fun and exciting and the differing weapons and ease of use will keep everyone interested in how the combo system works. Enemies look great in both detail and design and are constantly changing throughout the whole game. You are then presented with some incredibly crazy cutscenes that show off this stylish action incredibly well. From start to finish Bayonetta 2 is wild and a ton of fun.

Rating: 10 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12