Greatness in Half

Bayonetta 2 is a game that nearly never got made and you have to wonder why Sega felt lukewarm about publishing the sequel. It does feel like a lower budget game than the first game for sure, clocking in about two-thirds the length of the first Bayonetta. You could make the case that the first game was a little too long but the way Bayonetta 2 ended left me feeling like THAT WAS IT? Ok the ending was nice and wrapped the story up nicely leading to the events of the first game even if it's way too similar to DMC3 ending.

The story of Bayonetta 2 does not revolved around Cereza, her story arc was done in the first game and here she is just dragged into the thick of things. A bit like how Kiryu story was completed in the first Yakuza and every installment of Yakuza games is not really about Kiryu. I was playing Max Payne 3 recently and I didn't like how the story narrative shifts from the wealthy family Payne was protecting to human trafficking. Bayonetta 2 has the same type of narrative shift, first the story is about Cereza trying to rescue her friend Jeanne and then suddenly, it's about time travelling and trying to get to Fimbulventr. I supposed you can't expect much of a story when the game starts and ends with Bayonetta shopping in a high end district.

The fighting mechanic is very much the same as the first game except now you can use a widespread climax attack instead of one torture attack on a single enemy. It's useful when you are fighting in a big crowd especially if you don't want to waste the torture on the wrong enemy in the midst of the chaos.

Platinum Games are learning from their western counterparts, you can see them trying to create these cinematic interactive experience like the Uncharted games. When you fighting a boss sometimes the background shifts and your summoned is fighting the other summoned in the background. It's frantic and looks really good but having to juggle combos while being distracted by all this is sometimes a bit too much. Go back to the first game that is included in the packaging and you can appreciate some definite graphical improvement.

In the end this doesn't feel like a full fledged sequel to me more like, Bayonetta 1.5. All the players that made the first game great are back but constraints held this one back a bit.