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Bayonetta 2 is a very good action game. As was Bayonetta. There’s one key difference, however. One embraced the more standard controllers found on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The other can only be played using the Wii U controller. Can you see where this is headed?
Bayonetta 2’s biggest hurdle is that it’s very difficult to play on Nintendo’s screen-based gamepad. While I’m not a seasoned veteran of the genre and would never claim to be so, due to how Platinum have been forced to map out the buttons may prove to be a slight hurdle, even to those who have poured more hours into the original than they like to admit to.
Aside from the face buttons – which can replicate the experience as it was previously – other techniques have been awkwardly shifted around the controller, the dodge button in particular not feeling all that comfortable. There was no word on if you can map the buttons as you see fit (surely that would be an option) but Nintendo’s solution is to utilise the touchscreen instead.
Obviously the main purpose of this is to try and reach out to the wider audience who may be terrified of Bayonetta’s unforgiving ways, but it waters down events too much. Jumping is achieved by swiping upwards, moving by clicking where you want to go and attacking a giant dragon, for example, requires tapping on its head like you’re trying to crack a safe with your stylus. To be fair it is oddly satisfying (although credit there has to go to the Japanese studio given just how animated our heroine is)and does succeed in making Bayonetta 2 incredibly accessible. Your mum could play this and actually progress. That doesn’t solve the problem where the old guard is concerned, however, and there’s a chance it simply won’t live up to the heights set previously because the brains behind it have been forced to adapt to the tools put in front of them.
Bayonetta 2 looks a little worse for wear, too. Much has been made of the power differences between all three consoles, but there’s certainly an argument to be made that the Wii U exclusive lacks the shine of the previous iteration. It’s not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but when you’re battling it out with a giant ‘thing’ on the back of a speeding train and it’s difficult to truly take hold of what you’re seeing you have to be a tad disappointed.
As it sounds, though, Bayonetta 2 has lost none of its edge, hurling bosses at you that are taller than skyscrapers and creating creatures that are surely weirder than anything you could conjure up in your own imagination. It’s still eyebrow-raising too, Bayonetta often stripping down to her knickers and the gore even more absurd that it was before. This may be on a Nintendo console, but the usual stereotypes associated with that are nowhere to be seen. If anything it’s even more risqué.
Platinum have also introduced a two-player mode, one that presumably includes the revealed new female running buddy so there’s plenty to keep an eye on here. Whether it can actually be the game some people are hoping for, however, is a different matter entirely.
Oh, and Bayonetta cut her hair. Great…
