You probably noticed recently that Respawning has been bombarded with reviews of Devil May Cry 5, and whilst I have now played the game – I was on holiday when it initially came out so was not able to play the title.
However, Switch in hand, I was able to scratch the itch by diving head-first into Platinum Games’ Bayonetta 2!
I was a big fan of the original Bayonetta when it released for the Xbox 360 so I was quite excited to dive back into the world of angel killing, hair witch badassness of the sequel, however I worried that the game would fall into a lot of the original game’s pitfalls where the combat would become a little repetitive and the enemy design felt a little uninspired towards the end. This was not the case however as the game is a vast improvement on the original with the introduction of many more summonable demons, as well as some demons going rogue and becoming enemies giving much more diversity to the things I could kick to death with the game’s infamous gunshoes.
The mention of the gunshoes really nails home what Platinum Games want to achieve with Bayonetta 2, which is to simply make a game which is super flashy and fun to play with loads of style – Something that Platinum has a long-proven track record of achieving and something they achieve in swathes for Bayonetta 2.
The game looks GORGEOUS on the Switch as well, with the environments and character designs looking so stunning that it distracted me from what I was killing a couple of times; admittedly I played the majority of the game in the Switch’s handheld mode (On a bus or an Airplane – God bless the Switch), but I did try it out on the main living room TV and I felt that the game looked equally as beautiful whether I was on the smaller or bigger screens. The update to Bayonetta’s character design was a refreshing change from the original as I felt her new design suited the cocky, DMC-esque main character style they were trying to achieve.
One of my main issues with the first game was that I felt there wasn’t really anything at stake with the story as the game attempted to try and force us to believe that Bayonetta was a super badass woman who kicks people with gunshoes, but was also a scared, vulnerable character at the same time. In the sequel, however, it takes the stakes and puts them on a different character (I won’t spoil it TOO much), allowing Bayonetta to undertake a heroic, cocky role but with the stakes feeling far more real than the first one.
Overall I liked the general story of Bayonetta 2, and I won’t spoil too much here, but it was just one of those stories in games that exists to get a character from point A to point B for a reason, and doesn’t OVERLY take itself to seriously… But allows players to become as invested in the lore as they wish through the game’s monster and lore diaries featured in the game. One niggling point of the story, however, is that Bayonetta is constantly followed by this annoying little shit who speaks in the worst British(?) accent I have ever heard, and keeps calling Bayo “Love”; I hate him so much, but he’s so easy to ignore that it didn’t really impact my enjoyment of the game too much.
Music in the game is something that I found exceptionally satisfying as well, however if you have ever played a character hack’n’slash game similar (DMC for example), then it’s the same generic mix of Metalcore riffs when you’re fighting and melodic atmospheric music when in story, rying to build the world around you.
I had an absolute shit-ton of fun with Bayonetta 2, and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has a Switch – IN FACT I had a lot more fun with this Switch exclusive (Let’s forget the Wii U) than I had with Capcom’s Magnum Opus that is Devil May Cry 5, although in the end I did LOVE that too… But you only need read one of Respawning’s other 32 reviews on the matter to see why.
I give Bayonetta 2 a: