I wasn’t planning to like Bayonetta, with all the attention it was constantly getting all last year from the gaming journalist world, I was getting very sick of the very mention of her name — or maybe I was justjealous. I was determined to hate Bayonetta, since I was not fond of the overly pretentious and lack-of-substance Devil May Cry series, I ended up tolerating it while I went through the game, and I even liked it a little at the end. One of the sole reasons I play video games is because of the story — the immersion, the experience, the plot — all of those things, I live on those things, it is like liquid gold that surges through my veins, like coffee in the morning, like the drug I was never addicted to back in college, and I knew that Bayonetta was going to be devoid of those essential elements that floats my boat — its plot is totally nonsensical, and it has as little substance as its Devil May Cry brethren, but it makes up for its shortcoming with style. Calling it stylish is perhaps an understatement; as a matter of fact it is flooded with its own unique style of sexiness.
Yes she is saucy with impossible long legs and curvature that is covered by a skin-tight dress which is not really her dress but her hair (I think), and the hair erupts out like a raven volcano into huge titans that smash opponents in ridiculous finishing moves that put Final Fantasy summon sequences in shame, leaving her naked with just enough lines of hair conveniently covering her vital parts, leaving this at a PG13 rating. And she wears thick black-rimmed glasses and speaks with classic British accent, like a royal librarian who was just on the cover of Playboy without actually taking her clothes off. She may get you guy’s testosterone surging, but what I like about her is that I can identify with her strength, toughness, confidence, that she can act like a complete ass while kicking uber asses.
I am not going to talk about gender roles here because it is sooooooo cliche, and we try to avoid anything that has to do with cliche. At the end of the day, Bayonetta is fun, it is immensely fun — its story doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t try to, nor does it have to. Bayonetta is all about comboing enemies with her insane amounts of moves which can be easily pulled off but pressing the different combination of 2 buttons, something even I can do with ease. And mastering the game is easy — learning how to last-minute-dodge and constantly going into Matrix-ish bullet time and whooping some more angel or demon asses, whatever they are.
Did I mention how great Bayonetta’s sound track is? Every time I hear “Fly Me To The Moon”, I practically convulse with joy. Bayonetta isn’t going to be the favorite game of this upcoming decade, but as the first new game of the decade, it isn’t so bad. It is what I would call, the Final Fight of this generation, enough said.
