Zitat von Monocle
Okay, I just spent half an hour playing through the tutorial and the Vestibule (falling clock tower stage). Now I'm in the first room of the city. I've been playing around with the combat system up to this moment, and I have to tell you, I'm completely floored. The variety and responsiveness is like nothing I've experienced in an action game. I can say right now that with this game Kamiya has taken a massive leap toward perfecting the genre he created with the original Devil May Cry. Some miscellaneous observations:
- Nearly every move can be jump canceled as in DMC, but Bayonetta does one better: in many cases, the jump comes out without canceling the attack. Serious advanced applications here, but to state it simply, the ability to evade and attack simultaneously means that your offensive momentum doesn't have to stop for anything. Bayonetta's combat system is unparalleled in its fluidity.
- Bayonetta has a wall jump that can be performed before or after her butterfly wing jump. This means that if you're near a wall you can squeeze in two jump cancels without touching the ground or seeing even a second of recovery animation.
- All the text I've come across is in English. Nice. (I'm playing the 360 version.) And speaking of text, there are tons of places in the background that can be checked for text descriptions like those in the original Devil May Cry. I love details like this.
- Bayonetta can perform her dodge in the air, which everyone already knows from various gameplay videos. What I hadn't heard reported is that she can do more than one—as many as you want, in fact, until she touches the ground.
- Speaking of the dodge, the only move I've found that it won't immediately cancel is the falling aerial kick. Everything else, even the huge motherfucking chargeable sword slash of doom, can be halted immediately at the touch of the dodge button.
- The aforementioned aerial sword slash can be charged indefinitely, allowing Bayonetta to remain suspended in the air until a hapless enemy wanders underneath her blade. Naturally, while suspended you can freely change the direction you're facing.
- The 360 degree rapid fire mode is freely cancelable into nearly anything else, just as I was led to believe from a clip I saw last month. You can even go from hands 360 mode to feet 360 mode (not vice versa, though).
- Almost every move can be charged. Besides conferring the obvious advantage of extra damage, this offers the secondary benefit of letting you tweak the timing of most any combo. This has some important applications, one being you don't have to worry about missing the strongest hits of your attack strings; just delay the first one or two hits prior until your targeted enemy comes into range, then pummel it with the big hit.
- Touching the ground in the middle of many air combos will not halt them. Bayonetta will finish them without skipping a beat, unless you want her to start a different combo, in which case all you need to do is hold the gun button for half a second.
- The closest comparison to Bayonetta's combat is that of the original Devil May Cry. The inputs function in much the same way, involving rhythmic taps as much as momentary delays between inputs to initiate different combo branches. Gameplay is also similar in the way you can cancel out of most attack animations with a jump. The main difference is the responsiveness: Bayonetta moves lighting fast. With very few exceptions, you have complete control over her even during the times you'd expect a recovery delay.
The is the action game of the generation, folks. If you're a fan of the genre, pick up Bayonetta on day one, no excuses. If you don't understand what's so great about the combat, play a few different action games then return to the demo. PlatinumGames deserves all the support it can get for this brilliant title.
...