Game Review--Bayonetta 2 (Switch)

"We may not see our next step.  We may stumble.  We may fall off the path.  But we always move forward.  That is the power of man."
--Balder, Bayonetta 2


Bayonetta 2 improves on its predecessor with its frequent boss fights that outnumber those of the original, vibrant colors, expanded arsenal of weaponry, and stronger story (not that it takes much for a story to be superior to the plot of the first Bayonetta!).  This time, Bayonetta is forced to confront angels and demons, diversifying her enemy types as well.  Here is a sequel that takes the best of its foundation and adds to it in a natural but necessary way.  The lore is explored more deeply, the gameplay includes new aerial fight sequences, and the characterization is at least a little deeper.  Indeed, Bayonetta 2 is one of the best games one could play on the Switch!

Production Values

Early in the game, it becomes apparent that the animations are better and more colorful than those of the first Bayonetta, and some of the boss fights take advantage of the heightened animation detail.  Perhaps because of the superior graphical clarity, the load times are far longer.  This does not mean that the loading times are extreme, as the original Bayonetta's loading periods are rather brief (at least on the Switch), only that someone who moves to the second game shortly after the first should see an obvious difference.  The voice acting complements the better characterization--in the original, Bayonetta herself was one of the only characters to have a somewhat developed personality.  The returning characters certainly benefit from having already been established in a prior game.  Thankfully, newcomer Loki is presented as a fairly complex character by the standards of Bayonetta storytelling, and Bayonetta, while she still commits several fallacies in the sequel, is a more mature character.

Gameplay

All of the combat staples of the previous Bayonetta game return, as do some of the abilities that do not have just combat applications, like Witch Time, Witch Walk, Panther Within, Crow Within, and so on.  There are additions to the animal transformations and weapons, such as Snake Within (which can only be triggered when submerged in water) and a bow that fires insect projectiles.  Undine, a flamethrower said to hold the soul of a former witch of the same name, is just one of the new weapons.  It is easier than ever to obtain the in-game currency necessary to buy more weapons and abilities, so it is possible to obtain many of them during the first playthrough.

In fact, numerous aspects of Bayonetta 2 are easier than those of its predecessor: the boss fights, optional challenges, and quick-time events do not take as much effort as they did before.  Some players such as myself could even complete the entire story mode without dying once.  In the first game, multiple deaths were sometimes necessary to receive a full health bar after passing a save point, as you could not hold more than fixed amounts of a given item.  While there is still a limitation on how many items you can buy from Rodin's shop, you can add any extras found in the levels themselves to your inventory.  This can be very helpful during the more difficult boss fights, not that the bosses offered me as much trouble as some bosses of the first game did.

Story

Mild spoilers below!

Umbran Witch Jeanne visits her companion Bayonetta to inform her that angels and demons alike are becoming more hostile, in contrast to the events of the first game, in which Bayonetta fought angels with the aid of select demons.  Soon after, Jeanne's soul is sent to Inferno when her body is killed--despite her soul separating from her body, she isn't dead in the fullest sense.  She has to be fully absorbed into Inferno before her death is finalized.  Hoping to restore her friend's life, Bayonetta travels to Inferno with the help of a young boy named Loki who has suffered an amnesia not unlike her own after she awoke years before.


Intellectual Content

As is often the case with hack-and-slash games, the collectibles are usually not difficult to spot or obtain.  Still, certain collectibles add lore entries to a notebook accessible from the pause menu.  Several of these are more philosophical in nature than much of the in-game dialogue is, which should not surprise anyone who played the first game and read its collectible documents.  Some describe a God who cared deeply for humanity, and others speculate that humans might be more terrible than the angels and demons they fear.  Since these themes are not directly integrated into the experience of the main story, though, much of the possible depth is squandered.  Even at the end of the game, the characters reference human free will quite a bit, but the largely sudden emphasis on free will after a story driven mostly by visual spectacle and set pieces is too late to amount to much.


Conclusion

Bayonetta 2 is an excellent example of how a sequel can surpass its predecessor by building on the established foundation.  The story might still be quite weak compared to the plots of other games--including hack-and-slash franchises like God of War--but it is an improvement over the first Bayonetta.  At the very least, the exploration of the metaphysics behind the lore, the boss fights, and the weapons are better than ever.  If the upcoming Bayonetta 3 will improve on the mechanics of the second game to the same extent, the trilogy will be one of the rare series where practically everything is genuinely perfected with each release.


Content:
 Violence:  The violence of the first game returns alongside new weapons.  There is no explicit gore, but there are many ways to defeat angels and demons alike, including methods that involve summoning a monstrous entity from Inferno to brutally overpower certain enemies.
 Profanity:  "Fuck" is regularly used by both Bayonetta and other characters.
 Nudity:  This time, Bayonetta's buttocks can be seen in one of the opening scenes, whereas certain parts of her body were strategically covered in the first game.