At the first sight of flashy camerawork or stylish design, fans and critics alike have been known to whip out the phrase “style over substance.” It’s one we’ve heard time and time again; sometimes its apt, other times it seems forced. Stylization can make you an auteur or an amateur, it just depends on your discipline.
No game dangles this prospect before the player more than Bayonetta. Garish costumes, sexy attacks, and innuendos aplenty can be found in the campaign. Hell, it’s probably harder to find something “normal” during your quest. So, with this in mind, is Bayonetta “style of over substance?”
No; asterisk.
If anything, Bayonetta is “style in the way of substance.” All the pizzazz and panache you encounter on your journey certainly makes for a fun and memorable experience, but it often distracts from the gameplay on a fundamental and mechanical level. Nothing game breaking, of course, but said flair ultimately had an adverse experience on my playthrough.
At its core, Bayonetta is an action hack-and-slash that wants players to string together combinations of attacks against groups of enemies. Punches, kicks, and dodges are your main tools, but gunplay and magical attacks can help fill the spaces in between. There is a lot of depth to the combat, but it’s something I struggled to fully explore because I could so rarely keep up with what was going on.
Generally speaking, I like a nice stable camera. Lock it down, keep it consistent, and only move it when necessary. Steady visuals allow the player to keep track of their character and input commands with confidence. Bayonetta, in its mission to “stylize” the combat, features a camera that is constantly rotating around. If the player gets too close to a wall, the camera may even do a 180 and cut to a reverse shot in order to avoid getting cornered.
Reversing the shot, of course, reverses the controls too. Players aiming to Bayonetta’s left will suddenly aim to Bayonetta’s right without warning. Suddenly that dodge away from an enemy’s attack turns into a jump right into it. Yikes.
What’s more, later game enemies are either huge or fast (or sometimes both). Huge enemies, when far away, are manageable because arenas are typically large and will telegraph their attacks fairly clearly. On occasion, however, you may find yourself getting lost when things take “dramatic” turns. In the Tower to Truth, a fight with a massive beast in an elevator shaft becomes a mere guessing game, as the camera is so tight to Bayonetta that the telegraphs happen off-screen and your dodges are based on intuition and rhythm, rather than any on-screen cues.
Fast enemies are even more problematic, as charges towards the player are easy to dodge, but hard to track. When a player successfully dodges an attack, time is slowed down as a reward, and that’s where you get most of your attacks in. This falls apart when monsters blow past the player and the slowed down time is spent rotating the camera in an attempt to figure out where the enemy went.
These issues would be rendered moot if the game offered one simple feature to the player: the ability to remap the controls.
Your right bumper is your lock-on, but must be held for you to remain locked on. Your right trigger is your dodge. My index finger can’t do both at the same time, so I’m either locked on, or dodging, but never both. Meanwhile, the left bumper is a taunt…something I literally never used the entire game. Had I been able to swap the two, tracking fast enemies and adapting to rapid camera movements would have been far more manageable.
Likewise, the right trigger dodges attacks, slowing down time, but double-tapping the trigger unlocks your “beast within.” This move that transforms you into a fast-moving cougar (ha), but it doesn’t slow down time. When acting deliberately, it’s not impossible to restrain your index finger to one flick, but in the chaos of battle, it’s easy to accidently button-mash your way into a beast and mess up your dodges entirely.
Nintendo has never allowed players to remap anything, so it should come as no surprise that one is expected to adapt to their controls. That being said, Nintendo’s controls are usually buttery smooth, so its jarring to have these types of problems to begin with.
Couple these control quirks with quick time events that show up frequently, without warning, demand near instantaneous inputs, and have merciless fail states, and you’ve got yourself a combat system that is a struggle to overcome.
There is an excellent combat system at the heart of Bayonetta, it’s just tied up in a web of quirky controls, distracting camerawork, and a slavish devotion to “style.” Part of me wonders if that’s a result of aging…after all, the game is eleven years old. It’ll be interesting to see how, or if, the sequel addresses this issues.
We’ve broken down how Bayonetta controls, but it’s high time we break down Bayonetta as a person. The overt sexuality of the game is perhaps the most memorable aspect of it, but where does it fall on the spectrum of misogyny and feminism. I’ll be honest, as a straight, white, cisgender male, I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that.
Luckily, my lovely girlfriend was at my side the whole game. Let’s check in with her.
There is no “right” or “wrong” way to interpret a character, of course, but a common test for character sexuality is this one: does the character want to have sex or do you want to have sex with the character? In other words, does the protagonist have a clearly defined sexual preference? Do they have a “type?” Is it clear exactly why that character is pining after their partner? Or is the character framed as sexual because it will titillate the viewer?
Per my girlfriend, no amount of tongue-in-cheek humor or design choices can erase the fact that Bayonetta seems overtly sexual just…because. Bayonetta has no sexuality, she’s just sexual. Her sexuality isn’t used by her in any meaningful way. Our protagonist never uses her body to empower herself or hoodwink villains. She is merely sexual because, per director Hideki Kamiya, the game’s themes are “sexuality” and “partial nudity.”
Which, like, okay?
Rather than debate what “theme” means (because that ain’t it, chief), I would counter that the “theme” of the game is rooted more in destiny and predetermination. The story is rooted in the idea of why Bayonetta exists, what is expected of her by the powers that be, the fear and loss associated therein, and how she chooses to take control of her destiny. This entire story plays out and not once is Bayonetta’s sexuality used to further this plot or explore her decision making or characterization. In this regard, Bayonetta’s sexuality is, at its core, style divorced from substance.
Bayonetta’s sexual nature has no relevance to the rest of the game, from both a story standpoint and one of gameplay. It could be removed entirely, and the gears would turn without interruption. It is, almost literally, window dressing for an unrelated experience.
Bayonetta is not broken, in neither story nor gameplay. It ultimately feels like the first pass at something that could have been great; an experiment that just needed some further iterating. The clear commitment to a fast-paced and fashionable action game feels more clumsy in execution than anything else. While I wanted to love the game, it certainly feels a little less than perfect.
What would be perfect though? If Lady Gaga played Bayonetta in a movie adaption.
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