Bayonetta 2

More insane and frenetic than the first installment, Bayonetta 2 is a unique action game that boasts a complex heroine, an absurd plot, and an engaging combat system. It’s a game that excels at impressing us with its remarkably bonkers set-pieces.

The story begins when Bayonetta’s dear friend, Jeanne, is attacked and taken to hell by a demon that Bayonetta summoned but has gotten out of control. On her journey to rescue Jeanne, the protagonist comes across a mysterious boy named Loki, who is being pursued by a masked priest. The witch, then, discovers that she needs to save both Jeanne and Loki, who also intends to travel to hell.

Bayonetta remains a bold and fascinating character. Her sexuality is a form of expression, her attacks form a dominant dance, and her dialogues are full of sensual provocations. She seems to exist and act on a strange liminal space between objectification and independence, accepting the lewd male gaze that the camera casts over her, but only to subvert it afterward. With her dominant poise, Bayonetta challenges this masculine gaze, as if she were only allowing it to focus on her.

She often breaks the fourth wall to acknowledge the existence of this gaze, which she doesn’t accept, submissive. Instead, Bayonetta seems to be delighted by it: when she challenges the camera with a provocative smile, she is daring the player to stare back, reinforcing the fact that she is the one in control. It’s is not because the act of sexualizing the female body can be seen as a weapon of male domination that Bayonetta needs to reject her own sexuality to remain strong: she invites that gaze and uses her sexuality as a symbol of self-assertion.

Right in the opening scene, she appears in front of a store called Wonder Toys and the camera places her face covering the letter T, which could easily be seen as a symbol of objectification: she would be the player’s wonderful toy. However, the scene also shows that it’s her employee who is inside the shop trying to buy a phallic-shaped plane and even asking for the biggest one. In other words, the toy is no longer Bayonetta, but hers. In the same sense, when the gallant journalist from the first game, Luka, tries to grab her, his hand passes straight through the witch’s body, which appears to be immaterial: men may want to have her, but Bayonetta is unattainable.

While the protagonist is not complicating the analysis regarding the male gaze, she is busy wiping out angels, decimating demons, and surfing strange flying whirlpools. Bayonetta 2 further increases the series’ level of madness: she fights angels on jets over an urban center, then a monster on a runaway train and ends up fighting a dragon on a skyscraper during a beautiful sunset, and all of this is just in the game’s prologue. There’s a moment around the mid-way point in which she will be dueling against the masked priest inside the belly of an enormous beast, surrounded by rivers of blood, while a gigantic angel confronts an equally gigantic demon in the background. Regarding set-pieces, Bayonetta 2 sets a new standard for the genre.

The same can be said about the combat system, which allows the witch a lot of mobility, while the incredible animation work gives the impression that she’s dancing while finishing off her enemies – sometimes she even uses an opponent’s spear to pole dance. With dozens of combos among the various available weapons, which can be equipped on the character’s hand and feet, the game allows veteran players to have a varied arsenal at their disposal to wipe out enemies in a lot of different stylish ways. Meanwhile, novices don’t need to feel intimidated, since virtually any combination of buttons has some destructive effect. However, knowing the speed, damage, and range of each combo is crucial to improve the score of each battle, which is influenced by the combo used, the time it took to win, and the damage suffered by Bayonetta.

Regarding that last point, Bayonetta’s dodge remains the game’s most fundamental mechanic, stopping time when used right before the protagonist is about to be hit, which leaves any enemy vulnerable for a short period of time – although the game leans heavily on this mechanic, requiring it during certain battles. Meanwhile, a system has been added to the character’s magic bar: if in the first game, it was used only for “torture attacks” – whose comical sadism has Bayonetta slapping an angel’s ass as it’s being guillotined – but now it’s also possible to use it to increase the strength and range of common attacks, which will become able to stagger enemies, including bosses, and it’s a must if you want to get a good score. Another positive point is the absence of quick time events, which in the previous title could ruin a good score in an instant: here, in certain cutscenes, the player is still prompted to press the dodge button, but they’re not punished by instant death if they fail to press it in time.

The story is still far from great, although it does represent an improvement compared to the first one. It boasts more irreverent dialogues, like the jokes involving the masked priest: Loki often refers to the villain’s frequent clash with Bayonetta as a couple’s quarrel – a comparison that becomes disturbing when the antagonist’s identity is finally revealed. The general pace is also improved, with small mysteries being constantly introduced and solved to keep things always moving. But, more important is the fact that the story now takes much less time to be told, since cutscenes during stages are now brief and infrequent, rarely stopping the action for too long.

Moreover, the story also bothers to fix the villain of the previous game, Balder, making him a less one-dimensional and more tragic figure, and even succeeds in creating some interesting narrative rhymes: the theme of duality, for example, is represented by the physical division of the villain, but also by the Bayonetta-Jeanne pair, the union between demon and angel at the climax, and the complexity given to Balder, who previously even divided his face with a mask. In the same vein, the static cutscenes receive special treatment, being marked by the hand of a clock, which reflects the race against time to save Jeanne. However, Bayonetta herself doesn’t have any kind of character arc – a serious problem, since she is the protagonist – and some themes, such as the importance of free will, are simply thrown into the narrative without any kind of build-up, and so fail to make an impact.

On the other hand, the soundtrack, produced by more than ten composers, is just marvelous: it continues to capture Bayonetta’s energetic personality, and some themes are even dynamic, growing in intensity as the fight comes near its climactic moment.

Finally, the game also includes some funny parts, like Nintendo-themed outfits that range from having a comic cosmetic effect – like watching the cutscenes with Bayonetta dressed as Princess Peach or her attacks conjure Bowser’s fist – to the ability to slightly alter the gameplay: wearing the Star Fox themed outfit in the final stage, for example, transforms the normal jet into an Arwing and the controls are modified to simulate those of that classic game.

Bayonetta 2 is an exemplary sequel that enhances the strengths of the original and fixes much of what was wrong with it. It’s a unique action game, whose irreverence and insanity are yet to be surpassed.

March 13, 2020.

Review originally published in Portuguese on February 28, 2018.