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Bayonetta demo now available on Japanese PSN, impressions

09.10.09

Much has been made about Platinum Games handing off development of the Playstation 3 version of the eponymously named Bayonetta, the upcoming Sega published action game starring the sexy librarian and witch of the same name. People "in the know" are calling it a step down from the Xbox 360 version technically, which is just the sort of comment that always stirs up the fanboys, but now I, and anyone who owns a PS3 and has a Japanese account, can see first hand just what sort of game the PS3 version is, and coming away from the demo, I feel as though rumors of it's poor technical quality have been greatly exaggerated .

Bayonetta takes place in what the game calls "a world of light and dark," where there are ghostly shadows of regular people walking around, but the only beings you can interact with are demons and witches. In practice it looks and plays a lot like a mixture of Devil May Cry and God of War , where the landscape is populated by translucent civilians that will run away from you if you shoot at them, but that you and your bullets pass right through. There are two types of cinematics that explain the story: there is the film reel that is almost still frame, but while characters mouths don't move while they talk, certain things will flutter in the wind, and then there is the in game cinematic which has full movement and looks quite a bit better. I'm not sure why they use both, as the latter is far more interesting to look at, but it gives me the feeling that there was some budgetary constraints that necessitated this cut back, and that is kind of a bummer. The voice work is quite good, and entirely in English despite being a Japanese demo, although at one point when there were two witches talking, it sounded very much like one person was doing the voice and not doing a great job of hiding that fact. Bayonetta sounds appropriate, if not a little older than she looks. It's not an overly feminine voice, but it's definitely a woman's voice. The music in Bayonetta is most noticable during fights, and definitely fits well with the action. It's a little more j-pop than the heavy metal or orchestral soundtracks that action games seem to go with these days, and I think that's great.

Source: Examiner.com