Gamespot gives Bayonetta 2 10 out of 10!

http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/bayonetta-2-review/1900-6415911/

Oh my god. I haven't seen Gamespot give a 10 out of 10 to any game in a long time. The last time I've seen it, it was for Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the Nintendo Wii.

Wow. Any thoughts on this gang?

It definitely is a rare thing to see Gamespot give out a 10. It's now the 8th game to get the top score. Here's the new list, in order of release so as to show how infrequently they give out this score:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
2. SoulCalibur (August 1999)
3. Chrono Cross (November 1999)
4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (2001)
5. Grand Theft Auto IV (April 2008)
6. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (June 2008)
7. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010)
8. Bayonetta 2 (2014)

@mastermetal777: wasn't too infrequent til about 10 or 12 years ago..no coincidence there

Cool for Bayonetta 2. Just add this to the list of 10 scoring games on GS that I won't be playing, however. If I had the console, for sure I would get it. alas, not for me.

You are not alone.

Very pleased the game is getting rave reviews. More importantly, very happy to see the game is seemingly amazing. I'll be buying a copy on release. Really want to support the game and the WiiU.

Reads the title

*gasps*

I swear, i though Diablo 2 got 10/10 but I guess not. Must of confuse myself with GOTY. Anyway, thanks for the list. Pretty cool that Bayonetta 2 got perfect score.

Damn I'm gonna be broke until Nov. I'm gonna have to wait to get it. Oh well it will give me time to finish the last of us on ps4 first.

i think it's bs, he clearly says the game has no story whatsoever, and it gets away with it... Yet other games get ripped for it and get crappy scores. Am i the only one that spotted that?

I think this is awesome to see. I loved the first game and Bayonetta 2 was the major factor in me getting a Wii U two weeks. It looks like that decision will have been so worth it one week from now. I'm very pumped to get this game as it'll not only be a very possible Game of the Year but also the best action game of all time.

@The_Last_Ride: to be fair, Bayonetta's story is deliberately campy. It's over-the-top because of course it is. It's not trying to be another The Last of Us, Walking Dead, BioShock, etc. If you wanna follow it, expect goofy things everywhere (like many Japanese stories). If you wanna ignore it, you can. The game's combat will keep you satisfied.

@The_Last_Ride:

No, the reviewer says that the game has an absurd story, and that the absurdity works for the game because it leads to weirder and more over-the-top battles.

That's a positive, not a negative.

Ehhhhh......I was watching some video reviews last night, and from what I saw I just don't know if it's to my tastes. I really found nothing special about the first title, tbh. I think because I'm just not very good at these type of games. B2's over-the-top craziness is also not alluring to me either as I prefer a more grounded premise and setting (why I liked Ninja Gaiden when I don't usually tend towards the genre).

It's good to see a 10 again, but as is I'm very tempted to pick this up on the budget when I can. I don't see it as a must-have right now and that's due to my own preferences and not necessarily a statement on the game. I'm sure it's good.......I just don't know if it's for me. Plus, I still have Mordor and Alien to finish. :)

It has a story. It's just so absolutely over-the-top ridiculous that it matches the gameplay.

Not usually the type of game I play, but it does look kinda cool.

Dat seven year gap tho. Also, man GS must have been going crazy in 2008. Two tens in three months!

I think Jeff Gerstmann caught so much flak for his THPS3 review that GS was scared for seven straight years to give a game a 10 again.

i am not calling it a bad game, but why is it that when other games ignore the story mostly don't get a pass and yet this does?

It's too bad only the two dozen people who bought an Wii-U will get to play it.

We just explained it to you. The narrative takes a backseat to the action. The action is what movies the game forward. The story being so ridiculous in its nature accentuates the action. Most games require a serious story because they're set in serious worlds with serious characters. Bayonetta however is far FARRR from serious. A serious story would actually hurt Bayonetta, because then the rest of the game wouldn't make sense.

I haven't played the game, so I can't really judge, but 10.. really? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this game? This game will bring forth a revolution in gaming? Without this game in my collection, I'm not a real gamer?

@m31r3:

This is the eighth game on Gamespot to score a 10. None of those games are perfect, but they were all considered to be all-time classics and among the best of their kind (besides Tony Hawk 3, perhaps).

That doesn't mean that you have to play Bayonetta 2. If you don't like action games, then you probably won't get much enjoyment out of it. But if you do like action games, the reviewer is essentially sayig that you need to play this game, pronto.

It sucks that so many interesting games are getting released so close together at the end of the year, especially while earlier there was next to nothing to buy for months at a time.

@m31r3: a 10/10 doesn't mean the game is perfect. It's the equivalent of "If you love action games, you should seriously buy this game! You shouldn't miss it for anything!" It's basically one of the very best of its kind.

come on, don't make me sad...

Three of the other games on the 10/10 list have virtually no story, too. A game that relies on story but has an awful one is what gets ripped. Bayonetta relies on its moment-to-moment craziness to propel you through combat sections and crazy-other-stuff sections.

My thoughts are as i said in the other thread "fishy" the gamespot crew clearly has a huge love for Nintendo and i think its more nostalgic then actually being because Nintendo just happen to make 10/10 games.

Look back at most of the games that has gotten a 10 also what game got GOTY 2013 its all Nintendo so i cant help but wonder how much they get paid or how much nostalgic plays a role.

Huh? Nostalgic for Bayonetta? If you were strictly a Nintendo player, this is the first chance you get to play this game. How could you be nostalgic about it?!?!?

Why can't people just accept that maybe this specific reviewer really, really, liked the game and is recommending it? The game is scoring well everywhere, so there must be something to it. If it's not your cup of tea, then it most certainly will not score a 10 in your personal meter, and that's ok.

Agreed. It is hilarious though seeing some people practically trip over themselves trying to find any excuse imaginable to denegrate this game.

@Archangel3371: This I can agree with. Let people enjoy the game if they really did like it enough to give it the highest possible score. I'd try the game out myself if I had a Wii U. I love hack-n-slash action games

Other games get ripped for being repetative, this is the exact same thing...

Not for Bayonetta but for Nintendo itself.

Also i have no problem in accepting this score, however that doesn't mean i cant help but wonder what it is that makes gamespot critics love nintendo so much, its not just this game it was also the case with GOTY.

@Jacanuk: Two words: nostalgia boner.

There was a games journalist a few years ago (Rich Stanton) who wrote about which publishers put the most pressure on journalists.

He straight-up said that Nintendo was the best publisher he's ever had to deal with, since they release games to reviewers early, and don't care at all about the scores. So if he is to be believed, then Nintendo simply doesn't pay for reviews - which makes their achievements even more impressive, really.

They don't. This same critic gave Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze a 6/10, and that was easily one of this year's top games.

Although I suppose they tend to give Nintendo games great scores because Nintendo is one of the very few companies that consistently releases excellent, gameplay-focused, highly polished games, year after year?

A Link Between Worlds totally deserved GOTY. It was a thoroughly excellent game - which played on nostalgia, true (that was kind of the point), but brought something new to the table that by overhauling the classic Zelda structure into non-linear, free-roaming greatness.

Also, you can't say that Nintendo gets preference for GOTY awards. For example, Super Mario Galaxy 2 scored a 10/10 in 2010, and that didn't win GOTY (plus it was better than Mario Galaxy 1, which was GOTY). Hell, Nintendo have only won 5 of the last 12 GOTY awards.

That isn't very convincing. It also sounds like you have a problem accepting last year's GOTY winner.

@mastermetal777: I have two other words, good taste. :P

It's the same principle as story. Repetitive gameplay is ripped when the gameplay is bad, or, at the very least, lacks any sort of variety. The reviewer spends several paragraphs talking about the combat mechanics, which is simply not possible with bad repetitive gameplay.

Like most Platinum games, Bayonetta's mechanics are far deeper than you might think. I've played the demo five times now trying to get higher medals in each section, and I've learned a bit more each time, even though the demo has none of the special stuff that gets unlocked as the game progresses. (And I know from my extensive time with The Wonderful 101 that the combat will get really deep by the end of the game.)

Oh hey.... This reminds me.... The Legend Of Korra is Also being developed by Platinum Games..... I wonderif they can actually pull it.... Especially under Activisions thumb. The previews are very optimistic.

The core gameplay of the original was pretty solid for a DMC-style clone attempt at starting a new franchise, if you could get over the stupid premise and annoying main character. I couldn't, so while I got most of the way through the original I never finished it because I lost interest. The idea that the second game might get a 10 isn't inconceivable to me, although it sucks for non Wii-U owners (i.e. most of the world) if that game is really that good.

-Byshop

I dont disagree that Nintendo release some good games but when a exclusive small platform gets this much attention and high praise in most cases from the media. i cant help but wonder if there isn't anything behind it. It might be that Nintendo still focuses on the kid in all of us and since most of the critics today are about that age where they grew up with Nintendo, particular in the states. It hits closer to home, not to mention that we are probably dealing with gaming critics who value gameplay more than story or exclusivity over broader appeal

In regards to GOTY my problem with that is that a GOTY in my opinion should be a game that has hit home with the broadest stroke of gamers, Nintendo is not a broad platform, its as i said a small almost exclusive platform where most who end up with it are either twitch-streamers who earn a living or adults who have grown up with earlier games/consoles and therefore have a nostalgic reason to buy into Nintendo's games.

Anyways in the end it doesn't matter, only a few will play it. And Nov is coming soon where bigger and more broad games will come out.

i played Vanquish and MGSR: Revengeance. Those games were repetative except for perhaps the bosses. i would claim Destiny is the same. Nobody of the reviewers even finished the raid when they reviewed it.

I don't think it was that game that got him a lot of hell. It was the K&L review that got everybody up in arms about videogames and their reviews. The whole Gerstmanngate incident is the reason why I stopped aspiring to be a videogame journalist in the first place. I won't allow my voice to be dictated by ads from developers that try to promote the game big time on websites. It's cruel and unfair. A reviewer's job is to simply tell the facts and be honest and Jeff got that right on both counts. Unfortunately, they screwed him over. Oh and before you ask, I don't believe a word from the editors about that whole thing being a "big misunderstanding". Such bullshit.

I agree about Vanquish. Kevin VanOrd thinks Vanquish is one of the best games of all time, so I played it and was totally underwhelmed. The Wondeful 101, however (which is in a lot of ways a total carbon copy of Bayonetta), has a TON of variety. Too much, in fact, as some of the sections are just bad. But it's far from a simple corridor brawler with a few boss fights.

But even if it is repetitive, that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed. Animal Crossing is another repetitive game that gets praised. So is pretty much any puzzle game ever created. One of my favorite games of all time, Tetris Attack, is the same exact thing every single time.

If the gameplay is awesome, you WANT to repeat it. There's no quantifiable way to show the difference between a fun repetitive game and a bad one.... You just know when you play it. Even though I didn't like Vanquish and can't understand why people can play Animal Crossing for so many hours without being bored, clearly they enjoy it. It's not like they're lying about the fun they're having.

i agree, i am don't disagree with any of that. But there is no consistency, there are several games that are so called repetative. But they are fun, yet they get bad reviews? I don't care about the score really, but it's the consistency i have an issue with. You praise Bayonetta for not having a story, and you bash Destiny... Where is the logic?

Maybe it's the fact that Bayonetta is going for crazy incoherence and nails it, while Destiny is going for epic seriousness and fails? I don't know, I haven't played Destiny, but that's kind of the sense I get from what I've heard.

Also, those two games were reviewed by different people. And they're totally different kinds of games. Like I said before, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has virtually no story at all, but people actually praise it for that because it focuses more on what you came to the game for. People come to Bayonetta for the craziness of the situations and the slickness of the combat, and both of those things seem to be top notch. Going back to Destiny, people expected a stronger story from the makers of Halo, so they were disappointed.

Destiny has amazing lore, the story is just there as a tutorial. It's just like an mmo, who also get away with no storytelling aswell. It's a deep FPS rpg that has great gameplay

I have to jump in here. Why do I keep reading in these posts that the review said there was "no story"? There's nothing in the review that says the game has "no story". It says a few things about the story such as how the story cuts you into the action right off the bat, or how

The story stitching it all together is utter nonsense, but fittingly so, because its absurdity serves as way to push you into ever more outlandish battles.

I'm not sure where the claim that there's no story came from.

Oh, he caught a lot of hell for THPS3. It was just Kane and Lynch that cost him his job.

Wait......ummm....... the raids were just released to the public last week. The reviews that went up came out a few days after the release and the raids weren't available to anyone at that time.

How? It's not its focus, unlike other games that flaunt it at you.

Obviously havent played Bayonetta 2 (duh) but it's not exactly a strong/worthy critique if a game doesnt depend on it. Whereas a story driven game that does depend on narrative should be rightfully critiqued if the narrative is a big part of the experience and just ends up being poor/unfullfilling.

Bayonetta 1's long cutscenes were probably the only thing i disliked about the 1st game, really. For just breaking some of the momentum and often its tone. This one seems to break away from that and puts in place more eventful gameplay scenarios.