Bayonetta 2 launching in 2014 on Wii U
It is still pretty weird that Bayonetta 2 is a Wii U exclusive but hey, not weirder than a game where a witch fights angels with her gun-heeled shoes and giant legs made of her own hair. It'll launch in 2014, Nintendo confirmed during its E3 briefing today, and a new trailer with gameplay snippets shows it's certainly every bit as delightfully odd as ever.
It is still pretty weird that Bayonetta 2 is a Wii U exclusive but hey, not weirder than a game where a witch fights angels with her gun-heeled shoes and giant legs made of her own hair. It'll launch in 2014, Nintendo confirmed during its E3 briefing today, and a new trailer with gameplay snippets shows it's certainly every bit as delightfully odd as ever.
But why Wii U? Bafflingly, only Nintendo was really interested in helping bring out a sequel to one of the world's finest action games. "Would Bayonetta 2 not exist without Nintendo? The answer is yes," maker Platinum Games' executive director Atsushi Inaba told Polygon in September 2012.
Let's not dwell on the past! Watch this wonderful new trailer:
-
Shacknews
replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Bayonetta 2 launching in 2014 on Wii U.
It is still pretty weird that Bayonetta 2 is a Wii U exclusive but hey, not weirder than a game where a witch fights angels with her gun-heeled shoes and giant legs made of her own hair. It'll launch in 2014, Nintendo confirmed during its E3 briefing today, and a new trailer with gameplay snippets shows it's certainly every bit as delightfully odd as ever.-
Awriiite; finally get a chance to watch it.
So right off the bat, it seems like the combo map for Bayonetta is mostly carried over, as I heard the voice bark sequence for a few familiar combo moves. And the combo / score meter on the right-hand side is maintained. But it looks like there's additional mechanics, like "umbran climax", as well as Gomorrah (the hair dragon) swiping in at the end of some combos.
I was afraid I wouldn't like Bayo's new hairstyle, but after seeing it in the video, I LOVE IT. Also, Jeanne riding on a fighter jet is a nice homage to original storyboarding in the first game where Bayonetta was riding on a jet (which I believe was changed into the section where she's riding a cruise missile). And I just thought of it: Bayonetta has short hair, while Jeanne has long hair now.
Just from core game mechanics, from the exhilaration that IS the gameplay of a third-person hack-and-slash game, and from the hints of the original game's storyline that are shown in this trailer (along with directions that it could potentially go), I like what I see.-
Combo moves identified:
P = punch (triangle on PS3, Y on 360)
K = kick (circle on PS3, B on 360)
- = pause (between moves; this changes to an alternate combo position)
36 seconds: Pistol moveset: PPPPP ("I've had ENOUGH.... of your games!")
41 seconds: Katana moveset: PPP-P (not quite sure on the fourth one, but I see fists) (this seems to have a new wicked weave finish... new weapon?)
45 seconds: Pistol moveset: PPP-P ("Flock off!") (this leads to a new wicked weave finish where Gomorrah eats the target)
Once you memorize the barks, you know exactly where you are. Consistency is key in building a user interface, and I am VERY happy that Platinum maintained this consistency, as it's going to make it real fun for veterans of the first game to play through this. -
-
In the first game, Jeanne has a hair outfit, despite having short-cropped hair. Apparently the umbra witches can grow their hair at will, and channel their magical power through it. So I guess that would make it a "witch mullet"? :-P
Also, Bayonetta's character designer, Mari Shimazaki, designed this year's "Racing Miku" version of Hatsune Miku that's being used by GoodSmile Racing: http://img.goodsmile.info/cgm/ecommerce/goodsmile/images/large/41677cd9a45e196cf725c8cf8b7cf9c5.jpg -
-
That's how Jeanne's outfit worked. You'd see gray hair streaming from the back of her head and disappearing into a magical ring into the ether, and reappearing as a giant fist or foot.
-
-
Yeah, though at the same time there was the amazing outfit, the choreography, the saucy attitude, the steely determination; all those things that made Bayonetta as a character very special. I mean, Lollipop Chainsaw had crotch shots, but it didn't have any DEPTH.
Leigh Alexander's original story on Bayonetta as a strong female character is gone due to a website change, but she linked to this blog post: http://obligatoryspiderqueen.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/b-i-t-c-h-bayonetta-in-total-control-of-herself/
The male gaze is there. It’s undeniable. But there’s also something a little different. Her proportions are superheroic and her breasts are only as big as her head because her head is small in proportion to her body, an artistic decision that’s often used on male characters to make them more imposing but is seldom employed for female characters. This exaggeration actually gathered a lot of complaints from male gamers who thought it reduced her sex appeal. Her outfit is skin tight and cleavage exposing but it’s also incredibly detailed and high concept. Her earrings, echoing both the shape of a cat and a high heel and the celestial ornaments hanging from her sleeves speak volumes about her personality. Most hypersexualized costumes say very little about the character wearing it, feeling more like generic stripper-wear to me but I really believe this costume suits this character as an individual. And what’s more, I find this costume stylish. I would love to own such a costume. Bayonetta’s visual design is by Mari Shimazaki and was more inspired by haute couture runway fashion than by strip club apparel and it really works for me.
And as a character, there's not that much depth in dialogue, but through a lot of the delivery, I can detect an air of maturity (she's supposed to be 600 years old, after all) along with the saucy attitude toward the angels, as she deals out tons of destruction. And at the same time, she's almost always smiling calmly. That sums up a lot of the reasons why she's one of my favorite video game characters.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The first game had its E3 trailer at E3 2008, and released in Japan on Halloween 2009 (and the rest of world in early January 2010). From the Kamiya videos, they had to restructure a few chapters during that time, and ran into cases where they were constrained by the 360's memory limits. The second time around will hopefully have less of those kinds of challenges, and Kamiya said that they were working on storyboarding a potential Bayonetta 2 back in 2011 and early 2012, before Nintendo signed on to fund it.
My guess: Halloween 2014.
-
-
Also, "some sort of a 2 player mode" confirmed: http://www.siliconera.com/2013/06/11/bayonetta-2-will-have-a-2-player-mode/
And Wii U touchpad screen controls: http://www.siliconera.com/2013/06/11/you-can-play-bayonetta-2-with-the-wii-u-gamepad-touch-screen/ (though these seem to be iPad-ish casual controls; hardcore gamers would want to stick with controllers with buttons)
2-player co-op seem like a logical step, considering that the storyline has 2 witches with the same moveset (in the first game, you could unlock Jeanne and play as her, though you could only enter Witch Time as Jeanne if you dodged slightly after getting hit)
-
