My Jimmies Are Still Rustled Over Bayonetta 2 Reviews
I went on record recently to state that Bayonetta 2 isn’t a perfect game. The statement could’ve been construed as premature considering I admitted to not having played the game yet. Which is bullshit. You don’t need to eat shit to know you won’t like it.
Being Wii U exclusive and not owning a Wii U it made reviewing the game a difficult task. Well, Rejoice. I got to spend some time with it recently on a friend’s console and I stand even more adamantly behind my assertion that this game is not perfect. It’s an easy statement to make since so much of the game is just copy-pasted from the first. Entire set pieces and landscapes are given a next gen face-lift and revisited. Offensive levels of self-reference are rampant in Bayonetta 2.
Of course what sort of asshole am I if my main complaint about a game is that “it’s not perfect?” A correct asshole.
There’s a problem with cult games becoming popular. When they’re simply cult games it’s easier to receive and have an honest opinion about the game. As soon as something achieves cult status it’s difficult to sift the shit from substance. How much of that game’s success is just kids trying to fit in?
Bayonetta was a flawed game. It had some of the best gameplay I’ve experienced in a Beat ’em Up. It ranks up there with one of my personal favorite Beat ’em Ups of all time, God Hand. Bayonetta’s interesting gameplay was marred by technical flaws across every other spectrum of the gaming experience. Bad voice acting, unbearable AND unskippable cutscenes, one dimensional characters, a purposely stupid plot that tells you it’s being purposely stupid and so that makes it okay. No that doesn’t make it okay, Bayonetta, it makes it lazy. And congratulations on being willfully stupid.
People are trumpeting praise for Bayonetta 2 at such a high level that it comes off as insecure. It’s like they’re trying to convince themselves of how good it is because they missed out on the first one. Reviewers and consumers become star struck by the cult status of a game. When they get a second chance at it, they develop a vendetta to prove they have good taste. That takes away from the honesty a game review deserves.
Bayonetta 2 is a Lazy Sequel with worse controls sold under the guise of cult status. It goes beyond simply repackaging and reselling you the same game again at full retail price by choosing not to improve on the weaknesses of the first game and instead rubs your face in them. The gameplay is good. It was in the first. But I wasn’t impressed by the whole of the experience in 2010 and I’m even harder to impress a second time. Folks who are impressed I assume weren’t invited to the party before and are just trying to hang with the cool kids by being obnoxious about the second.