Devil May Cry only aimed at idiot teenage boys. Oh wait...
Oh hell, I'll rant for a while, why not?
Bayonetta is an attempt to make the ultimate male fantasy game, clearly. The entire game is based around showing action shots of the female lead and the (identical motion capped) female antagonist, prancing about in skin tight suits spread their legs and flashing their crotches at the camera. There is some plot involved, but it's your typical anime run of the mill nonsense.
I don't think I've felt myself less drawn into a game since... Well, Devil May Cry. I can see why some people love these games, they are fast paced brightly coloured eye candy explosions of action booby jiggling, but with no substance, no subtext, and certainly no subtlety.
The plot was lost on my after a short while as I realised I'd seen it before, it's the same story (with even the same twists) as Devil May Cry. The characters are all mainly irrelevant, compounded by a startlingly awful set of voice acting.
Bayonetta herself is the ultimate Mary-Sue protagonist, which generally puts me off any movie/book/game immediately, and I found her entirely unlikable. But I am of course not in the target demographic, admittantly. It just seems that someone finally noticed how incredibly homoerotic Devil May Cry was, and tried to reverse it by making the most over titillating game ever conceived. It's a nice idea, as we all know sex sells, but it doesn't work. Bayonetta isn't sexy in the least, she looks like a catwalk model with Sarah Palin's head in a diving costume. All the supplementary characters are exactly what you'd expect from any anime. Charismatic love interest, hard drinking, hard swearing tough guy, wimpy wisecracking sidekick. That's it.
I was so bored by the end of the game as soon as I killed the final boss I actually skipped the ending. I just didn't feel the urge to see it. Especially because I know damn well what was going to happen. There will be a big explosion in the sky with lots of people 'ooing' and 'ahhing' and Luka will stare listlessly into the sky and everyone wil think Bayonetta is dead, then she'll fall from the sky like a shooting star, probably with butterflies falling all around her or some bollocks, and she'll open her eyes and kiss him. Then we'll cut to some time later, and all the characters including the angsty anti-heroine will be together again, sharing some joke, and angels will attack and someone will say 'Here we go again!' and Bayonetta will point her guns at the camera in a big splash shot.
Was I close?
The worst thing about this game was the music. Oh god the music. I hope you like your J-pop remakes of tired old lounge music, because you get the same single one over and over again in every cut scene and every fight scene, right up to the final boss battle. Is it a coincidence it also happens to be the same song used in several popular anime shows? I think not.
In summation, if you're above the age of 14, or female, this game will make you laugh at it's absurdity. Physically it's not a BAD game, it's just sandwiched between so much flash and pretension that you barely see it. Apparently there is fair reply value, in collection more junk and going for a higher rating in each subsection of each level, but I never felt the draw or the urge to go for it.
Here's to the two or three inevitable sequels. Sigh.