Bayonetta

Dual Wield? Pah. Quad Wield FTW!

Bayonetta’s unique style of death-bringing consists of the ace mechanic, which sees her use her hands AND her feet to wield weapons. The way she unleashes furious combos means she’s like a cross between a B-boy, a gunslinger and a high-class stripper. See…

You can switch your set-up so, for example, you can attach two shotguns to your heels while wielding a sword in your hands. Tap L2 and you’ll go to your second loadout.

Oh, that black cat suit she wears? That’s her hair. She can use her immense locks to not only cover her modesty but to unleash combo ending giant stiletto kicks or hairy punches. Even better, she can use these Weave Attacks – as they’re called – to summon mega beasts that will see off huge enemies via QTEs. Our favourite? The brilliant one where you bash up a golem in the shape of a sphere and then four hands form and play volleyball with it before dropping it, comically, and punching it to bits as you slam the buttons. Sweet.

To be honest, Bayonetta’s QTEs are rather hit and miss. Literally. They’re thrown in quite often during combat but miraculously manage to compliment the flow of the action rather than hinder it. Like the Torture Moves, where you can activate an iron maiden or guillotine to kick an enemy into and cause massive damage. But every now and then you’re instructed to complete them mid-cutscene to, say, dodge a falling satellite and the like. The problem is they happen so quickly that some times you’ll miss the prompt and have to re-run the whole sequence again, which is insanely frustrating.

Big screen hits

One of the later monster battles takes place in the ocean. Bayonetta is surfing around the waves on a piece of aeroplane debris as this giant beast called Sapientia fires missiles and meteors and also springs attacks from under the water. You have to wear it down by smacking its legs then when you summon the Weave monster – a big spider – you have to steer the watery foe by its horns into your Weave’s mouth. Kind of like riding a scary jet-ski.

Some battles involve climbing aboard the giant creature, which is a little bit like Shadow of Colossus. They’re that big and then some.

With such enormous bosses you should expect enormous levels, right? But how about vertical levels where you’re running up a building, or spinning uncontrollably on a rock as you fight? They’re as superbly delivered as they are nauseating. And at times it feels like fighting in an MC Escher painting…