Gameplay
Sure, a game’s visuals may be nice, but if a hack ‘n slash game doesn’t perform well, it won’t matter how good it looks. Broken gameplay is still broken.
If you have played any of the other God of War games, you will feel right at home with this the third game in the series. Honestly, they did not change much when it comes to the actual fighting. The grab moves worked. The blocking and dodging both fit well again. Changing weapons was fluid. Everything about the game felt like God of War. Granted there wasn’t much room, or need, to improve the well oiled mechanics of the series, but at the same time, I did get that sense of deja vu.
With the previous God of War games, I enjoyed creating combos and causing havok. At the same time, I was saddened that there didn’t seem to be any expansion to the combo system. While only being a demo, it should be a no brainer to show off any new combos in the game. Since I saw nothing new in the demo, I have a feeling that there won’t be any new combos in the final release. That said, I could be completely wrong.
On the other hand, the execution moves were as brutal as ever. The developers have managed to keep the focus on the action and have kept the quick time events that defined the series. Each face button has been moved to its corresponding location. When the square button needed to be pressed, it flashed on the left side of the screen. The sense of deja vu, at least when it came to the controls, serves GoW III well.
With Bayonetta, the opening fight scene was spectacular. The entire first part of the demo was staged on a falling clock tower. You were literally fighting enemies on bits and pieces of a clock tower as it was plummeting towards Earth. When a piece was about to break, Bayonetta would leap gracefully onto the next piece. The transitions between battles were simply spectacular.
Combos in Bayonetta also seemed more complex than in God of War. While it was daunting at first, there was a tutorial mode that allowed the player to practice each move. The tutorial allowed the player to scroll through a list and whenever a combo was executed successfully, a tally was made. Granted most people won’t spend the time to memorize all of those combos. However, the option was there to practice and see results, which I appreciated. If you didn’t use the tutorial, I’d imagine you might not even notice, as almost any combination of button presses resulted in a rather spectacular assault on the heavenly beasties set against you.
Another feature that set Bayonetta apart from God of War was “Witch” time. Whenever the player dodged an attack at the right moment, time slowed down, which allowed Bayonetta to wreck havok on the enemies, which were frozen in time. As there was no block command in Bayonetta, it was vital to learn how to dodge attacks properly. Another incentive to the timed dodge attacks was that each dodge filled your magic meter, while getting hit, depletes the meter. A full magic meter allowed Bayonetta to perform “Execution moves” on any of the normal enemies. The two I saw threw one enemy in an Iron Maiden, and another into a guillotine. To top that, the execution of the larger enemies were even more satisfying. There was only one finishing move shown in the demo, but that blew away anything God of War has shown for that size enemy. The execution consisted of a giant monster created out of Bayonetta’s hair. It essentially crushed the enemy in its jaws. It was very well done and it didn’t hurt that you got to see an almost naked Bayonetta while the hair reformed around her. Nope. Nothing wrong with that.
Honestly, at this point, I’m more looking forward to Bayonetta than God of War III. While I’m sure God of War will deliver, it hasn’t really shown me anything new. Bayonetta, on the other hand, has given me new joys to look forward to in the hack ‘n slash genre.
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