I suck? Too many combos

[Irohen]

Hello, I just bought this game because I loved Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, another Platinum game, and I heard Bayonetta was better. However, I find myself not enjoying it at all. Right now I'm playing on normal and I just started the first chapter, at the train station, and I have no new weapon. The main problem is, there are so many combos that I'm having an hard time learning which one to do and how to chain them. It feels like if I press Y or B just a little too soon or late the combo stops, which is extreamly frustrating I try to take my time learning new combos on ennemies, bit since they're attacking in every direction I have an hard time focussing on the combos I'm trying to do, and most of the time I find myself mashing buttons randomly, not knowing what I'm doing, and it feels unsatisfying and unrewarding. I feel like in MG:R, they flowed way more naturally and were more easy to pull off, plus there was a list of all combos in the menu, which is not the case in Bayonetta. Plus, I find it hard and annoying to do combos in the air to hit flying ennemies and in different directions when they are surounding me. Finally, I find the guns very unnatural to use while doing a combo, I don't know if it's just me that's not using them well. I know there is auto mode, but I feel like it defeats the purpose of the gameplay. I'm really trying to like this game but so far the gameplay is just a pain to me. Does it get better latter, when you gain new weapons? Or do you have any tips on how to get good?

[Kiseki no Hoshi ☆ 奇跡の星]

Honestly the best advice I can give you is try to take it slow. Learn the combat step by step and don't try to get good scores off the bat. Learn maybe 2 combos (they are in the menu, also you can press the back button during the loading screens to enter practise mode where it shows them on the right) then once you're comfortable with those then try to get a grip of the flow for the game. this game is much more about movement and crowd control than revengeance. This game gets better the better you are at it, treat the first playthrough as the tutorial and experiment with stuff and see what you like.

[Jack Trades]

There's a complete movelist in the Select - Files menu and it is MUCH better than MGR's movelist since it even tells you what every combo is good for.

[Kaweah]

I haven't even really even been learning combos. I've just been abusing witch time.

[JH1000]

First of all, here is most of what I am going to write, but in much more detail:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/946346-bayonetta/57542976

1. There is a list of all combos in the menu. It's in the Techniques primer in your files screen. As someone else has mentioned, it is much better than MGR's and much more detailed.

2. You don't need to memorize many. Some are simply more useful than others, and which ones are also depends on your playstyle.The only thing that really matters is that you understand what the combos do so you can use them when needed. For example, you obviously don't want to knock back an enemy with a wicked weave combo finished when you want to keep attacking them. You want to use a combo whose finisher knocks them up.

You have to realize that this game is not about chaining combos together (as is no game I know of tbh). The key "gimmick", if you want to call it that, ist Dodge Offset (There is an in-game tutorial and the link I posted explains everythign about it). If you practice that well then you will be able to do very well in most situations. Of course there are still combos which are absurdly useful compared to others, like PKP because it's the fastest useful wicked weave.

3. You don't have to go airborne to fight flying enemies. Shoot them, use the PKP combo to hit them with wicked weave, etc.

4. No idea what you mean with the guns. They are meant to deal damage at range, but mainly to keep your combo going if you can't get in range quickly enough and don't want to taunt either.

5. The gameplay gets a lot better as you get new abilities and weapons imo. It's also very hard to get good combo score early on if you are new. The more weapons you unlock, the easier it gets to get good combo score while not getting a bad rating for time. Also, there are many abilities which give you a lot more mobility.

Just to make sure you understand: This game is nothing like Metal Gear Rising. MGR is a pretty shallow hack 'n' slash with a lot of gameplay elements from other types of games shoehorned in, and to be honest,I find the final product pretty bad.

Bayonetta on the other hand has a lot more depth to its combat, but you don't have to master it too well to be able to get the best ratings, and especially not to simply beat the game. There are extremely broken weapons and items in this game you can abuse.Of course, you can become really good if you want to, and a really good player will get much higher scores. I'd say the game is between MGR, God of War and other overly simplistic hack 'n' slash titles on the lower end and DMC 3/4 on the upper end when it comes to depth.

[Den]

Bayonetta's style of combos is a little different from the likes of Revengeance and Devil May Cry. In MGR and DMC, you have a couple simple combos and a set of core moves that you all link together. You use whatever to keep close and stay on the offensive.

In Bayonetta's case, she has the same sort of core moves, Stingers and Launchers and all that, and a long list of combos, but they are secondary to Bayonetta's dramatically superior mobility. Bayonetta is fast, her attacks have great reach, and Bayo has very little downtime in her animations, all of which can be canceled out of at any instant. Her large array of combos are there for style, increasing your Score and to mix things up when you want to try something different.

The core of Bayonetta's fighting style is to finish an individual combo to get to the Wicked Weave attack at the end. In this, you have to learn and get good at the crux of the combat system that will allow you to reach the end of combos and not have them be interrupted - Dodge Offset.

https://youtu.be/NOVVmm4KOm4

Rather than learning all of the combos, focus on a select few moves and get into the habit of holding down the button after each attack. The follow up attacks on all of your gun weapons put out a lot of extra ranged hits (or in the case of the shotgun which you'll get soon, very strong shots that stagger enemies easily) and set you up to perform Dodge Offset.

Learn Dodge Offset.

[Lars]

Don't try to learn each combo!

Get a feel for how certain attacks connect. The combo list is just a big (incomplete) list of the possible ways to connect your different moves. You're not meant to memorize it.

You'll notice that many attacks end with Bayonetta saying a certain phrase or doing a certain move. Every time she is in a certain state, you can always branch out of it in the same way regardless of how you got yourself into it.

[Setnaro X]

You don't need to memorize every combo in the game. For that matter, you don't need to memorize any combos at all. It's all a matter of learning how her attacks flow, making sure you're able to complete a combo. I've been watching many current let's plays, and I can't begin to tell you how often I see people button mashing and dodging so often they never actually perform wicked weaves. You can stick to a basic combo for bread and butters, but mixing up combos and changing the time between attacks can go a long way towards building a better score overall. Even if you're not in it for the score, it still helps to learn advanced techniques like Dodge Offsetting because it can overall help you stay safe among even the toughest enemies. The whole idea with Bayonetta is to make good use of her gunplay intertwined with her physical attacks. So rather than button mashing and hoping things go well, take it slow and hold down your attack buttons in order to extend each damage before doing the next attack.

[Subzero]

Combos in MGR and DMC are rather limit and straight forward, so it's easy to memorize all. But then every player pretty much use the same style to play.

As for Bayonetta, don't try to memorize every combo. There are too many variance.
Besides the usual punch+kick combination, it also vary when u wait a little in between, or hold for charge attack in between.

Just find a few combos that you prefer to deal with the situation (single/group/flying enemy).

Also, no need to chain combo or air combo, it simply doesn't work like DMC.
Dodging is more important.

p.s. For me, the sword and lighting claw (on leg) can be quite OP with simple combos.

[digitalis]

This is a nice primer of technique / mechanics by someone who wrote for the official guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqzztvoVngY

[AlienRenders]

I've read all the comments and watched that video and others. I'm with OP. I still don't get it. The funniest comments are those that say you don't need to remember the combos, you just need to get to the end of the combo for a wicked weave. Ummm... how do you get to the end of a combeo without knowing said combo? If you're just button mashing, I'm not interested. And no, not all combinations of punch kick will produce a combo.

Also, I really don't understand the timing after you do the first kick in a combo. Punches are no problem. But after the first kick, the timing is all over the place. And I tried looking at visual cues, no go. And yeah, you can hold the button down in case you want to do a Dodge offset, but that's not the issue. Doing a straight up combo where you press the button ONCE for each time it appears in the combo is challenging when there's more than one kick. I could mash the next button until it activates, but I hate playing like that.

Short story, how do I not button mash?

[Charly Charly]

Originally posted by Vorlath:

I've read all the comments and watched that video and others. I'm with OP. I still don't get it. The funniest comments are those that say you don't need to remember the combos, you just need to get to the end of the combo for a wicked weave. Ummm... how do you get to the end of a combeo without knowing said combo? If you're just button mashing, I'm not interested. And no, not all combinations of punch kick will produce a combo.

Also, I really don't understand the timing after you do the first kick in a combo. Punches are no problem. But after the first kick, the timing is all over the place. And I tried looking at visual cues, no go. And yeah, you can hold the button down in case you want to do a Dodge offset, but that's not the issue. Doing a straight up combo where you press the button ONCE for each time it appears in the combo is challenging when there's more than one kick. I could mash the next button until it activates, but I hate playing like that.

Short story, how do I not button mash?

Well I'm not very into hack'n slash games but Bayonetta was AWESOME.

Its not an easy game let me say, I don't agree with the others that say not to learn combos, actually I say you should learn 3 or 4 basic combos and also learn to use them with dodge offset, I can't tell you how much usefull and fun it gets when you get the grip on your first 2 combos and the offset.

Button mashing isn't gonna make you to the end of the game, at first it works but later it only gets you killed.

As for the timing, its easier to get that when you're using the dodge offset since with the pistols stop firing, that's when you should press the next button.

[Jelly Belly™]

Just spam PKP, its a good and nice combo, especially when using sword

[Lars]

I mean I guess you have to learn what moves can be strung together, but I just don't see it as memorizing a huge list of inputs that I have to recite for given situations.

Just as a random example. If an enemy is airborne, I know I can either rocket kick it, whip it, shoot it (with X, holding Y or B out of a combo I'm already doing, or bullet climax), jump towards it, or spear into it - and probably a bunch of other stuff I haven't learned yet. If I choose any of the options that put me next to it, I know I can follow up with "a bunch of punches" for a basic damage move, or I can do two punches and a kick to set up a new "fork" in deciding my next move.

Depending on which route I go I've now knocked it either away from me or underneath me, and I can choose to knock it back up with a punch if I'm currently hovering in the PPK pose, or I can land on it with another kick. If I've launched it again with the punch we're now both floating a little away from eachother while they are off-balance. I can choose to let them fall to the ground while I do other stuff or I can use any of my moves that would allow me to dart over to it without losing or gaining too much altitude.

I've seen people say that this game is too hard because they could never memorize a big continuous combo like that, but the longest combo in that whole 'flowchart' is probably PPKP, and even that I don't consider a standalone combo and more like "PPK to begin hovering, which allows you to then choose between a launch or descent".

It's learning how the different maneuvers can interact that's the meat of the game for me, and I never feel like I have to memorize long combos as much as get a muscle memory for a bunch of tiny ones. I never felt hampered because I didn't know any combos after I had learned PPPPP, and just felt more pro and awesome every time I found a new way to lead into or follow up from it. I pretty much finished the game on normal using just PPPPP and a bunch of yellow lollipops and couldn't wait to go back and try to improve.

[Subzero]

Originally posted by Vorlath:

I've read all the comments and watched that video and others. I'm with OP. I still don't get it. The funniest comments are those that say you don't need to remember the combos, you just need to get to the end of the combo for a wicked weave. Ummm... how do you get to the end of a combeo without knowing said combo? If you're just button mashing, I'm not interested. And no, not all combinations of punch kick will produce a combo.

Also, I really don't understand the timing after you do the first kick in a combo. Punches are no problem. But after the first kick, the timing is all over the place. And I tried looking at visual cues, no go. And yeah, you can hold the button down in case you want to do a Dodge offset, but that's not the issue. Doing a straight up combo where you press the button ONCE for each time it appears in the combo is challenging when there's more than one kick. I could mash the next button until it activates, but I hate playing like that.

Short story, how do I not button mash?

Here is the tips, try this: YBY (punch kick punch)
This is a short combo to trigger wicked weave. And if equip with sword, it's probably the most OP attack (due to its damage+accuracy).

Also, if u have claw equip on foot, u can hold B (after the first Y), it does charge attack (knock back effect), then continue with Y to finish with wicked weave.

If u want a fancy one, do YYYBB, it does sweep enemy leg, often interrupt humanoid enemy.

There are also some moves to purchase with halo. Some maybe useful. Just don't expect every move is good for you.

[Subzero]

Btw, to switch fire claw to lighting claw, do a spin (left stick) and claw attack.

Fire claw charge attack will only set bomb trap.
Lighting claw charge attack is the instant lighting explosion.