Tips and Tricks

[mcphersonator]

There are lots of nuances to the combat in Bayonetta, and lots of systems at work that perhaps the new player wouldn't be aware of. I don't claim to be an expert at the game, but I do have a ton of experience! I thought I might arrange and share some of this knowledge and also create a topic where others can contribute (perhaps this can be stickied?) I'll try to add videos where necessary. So, here we go.

Skipping Cutscenes
Quick one first - skip cutscenes quickly by pressing RT and Back at the same time (on a 360 pad, that is. The equivalant on your preferred control method should have the same effect.

The Combo System / Farming for Halos
Learn the ins and outs of the combo system and farming will never cross your mind. High scores = ridiculous halos, so follow these tips to top the leaderboards and clear out Rodin.
1. Keep the combo going. There's about a 5 second cooldown after your last hit to an enemy. Don't do anything and your combo ends. So keep it going with weak gunfire.
2. Pause the cooldown. Somethings you don't want to damage an enemy with gunfire, or one simply isn't there to shoot. During these times, you can pause the countdown with a long taunt (hold the taunt button down) or with Shuraba's charged attack.
3. Angry enemies = more points. Taunt an enemy and they turn orange (enraged.) Wear the Gaze of Despair and all enemies will be enraged. Your combo counter will go up 50% faster.
4. Use angel arms. Kill an enemy with a torture attack and they'll drop their weapon. Pick it up and use it against them for crazy points. Each weapon has 2 attacks - usually a light assigned to Punch, and a heavy (often 1 use) to kick. The polearm and bow heavy attacks are my favourites.
5. Use Witch Time. You probably try to anyway, but notice the points boost. Use your devistating angel arm heavy attacks against enraged opponents in Witch Time for mad gains.
Good to know: The combo multiplier goes past 9.9! It just doesn't display it.

See the attached video for all of these things put into action. Keep an eye on the combo counter during certain circumstances and note the halo gains at the end. It's by no means a great show of skill on my part but demonstrates all these things nicely.
https://youtu.be/zSCOljh1QzU


Staying alive
Your HP will always drop to 1 before it falls to 0. So if you have 2 or more HP, no single attack will kill you. With this knowledge, the value of the accessory Pulley's Butterfly becomes apparant. A single taunt replenishes just a tiny amount of heath, but it's enough to let you take the next hit, no matter how hard it is. Observe.
https://youtu.be/V383J0q0RCI

Avoiding penalties
Notice the skulls that come up on your end of chapter results screen when you've died? Perhaps you didn't die, but are seeing skulls anyway? A whole skull will reduce your end ranking (Platinum, Gold, Silver etc.) by 1, so if you're aiming for Platinums you do not want to die. Or use items.
Yeah, each item has a 'skull value,' and using them will add a portion of a skull to your results. The bigger the item, the bigger the value. Unfortunately these portions are rounded, so if you use enough items that resuts in more than half a skull, the game will take it as a whole and reduce your rank.
The upside is that they're rounded down, too, so less than half a skull will be disregarded and your rank will be intact. 2 small lollypops is about all you can get away with using to not be penalised.

Take a breather
A nice thing about this game is that enemies won't attack you from off-screen, meaning you never need to suffer an attack that you honestly couldn't see coming. Use this to your advantage if you need to by simply not looking at your opponent. Notice how Fairness always walks into shot before attacking but instantly uses its long range attacks when I'm locked on.
https://youtu.be/jwo4iFYC6IQ

Fight gracefully and gloriously
The only enemies more annoying than this pair are their big, witch-time disabling brothers. The otherwise weak Kulshedra is awesome against them, though. Grab the electric one with a cowgirl spin (hold back+punch) in close proximity to the fire one, then pick up the claws and finish the lightning dude off. Just watch. This is also a great combo-boosting move to use in a crowd.
https://youtu.be/npKoTi7yO2Q

Angel Attack
Probably the least fun thing in the game, but useful for boosting your health and magic (from the blue witch heart and gold moon pearl, respectively.)
The best way to get points is to aim for headshots. It'll kill the big guys in 1 and give you 5 points. Kill another angel with another headshot for another 5 points and a 10 point double kill bonus. That makes for 20 points per pair of kills. The special 10 point angels only come around every 2 or 3 kills, so you can't exclusively hunt them.
Having trouble aiming? Position your cursor, keep it still and let the angels fly into the sights.


So, there's some things. I hope somebody finds something useful! Now what pro-tips do you guys have?

[Setnaro X]

Learn to dodge offset. That's the one thing I always tell new players to master. It helps out a lot in the long run. By properly dodge offsetting, your combo no longer gets reseted, which allows you to throw out wicked weaves much more constantly as well as properly positioning yourself around enemy territory without disrupting your combo setup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOVVmm4KOm4

[Ramirez]

Another tip I would actually recommend too is to play around with your weapons a bit once you unlock them. Each and every weapon has some sort of unique trait to it that you may not notice when trying them out, such as Odette freezing enemies with bullet climaxes, or being able to pull enemies in with Kulshedra. These traits can even be extremely helpful for certain types of enemies and make fighting them much easier. Also by understanding your weapons you may be able to find a weapon you originally hated that you actually really enjoy using.

[mcphersonator]

Originally posted by Ramirez:

Also by understanding your weapons you may be able to find a weapon you originally hated that you actually really enjoy using.

VERY true. It's easy to just rely on Shuraba but a bit of experimentation can make the game a whole lot more fun. I thought Kulshedra was useless - then I discovered the cowgirl spin.

[Ramirez]

Originally posted by mcphersonator:

Originally posted by Ramirez:

Also by understanding your weapons you may be able to find a weapon you originally hated that you actually really enjoy using.

VERY true. It's easy to just rely on Shuraba but a bit of experimentation can make the game a whole lot more fun. I thought Kulshedra was useless - then I discovered the cowgirl spin.

I had that exact same situation, I rolled Shuraba and Odette for about 90% of the game when I first played on Xbox 360. Once I wanted to go into Hard and Infinite Climax I started to love Kulshedra because of the pull it could perform.

[mcphersonator]

Originally posted by Setnaro X:

Learn to dodge offset. That's the one thing I always tell new players to master. It helps out a lot in the long run. By properly dodge offsetting, your combo no longer gets reseted, which allows you to throw out wicked weaves much more constantly as well as properly positioning yourself around enemy territory without disrupting your combo setup.

Ah yes, I agree with this too. Is there even an explanation of dodge offset in the game itself?

[Setnaro X]

There is, but it requires looking it up on the book of movelists, and it isn't documented very well, which is odd because there is an achievement that involves having the dodge offset quite a few times.

[Catbus]

Good thread.

Just wanna point out that you only need to hold RT when you hit Back to skip cutscenes.

[mcphersonator]

Originally posted by Catbus:

Good thread.

Just wanna point out that you only need to hold RT when you hit Back to skip cutscenes.

Ah, I didn't realise this. Will edit now - thank you for pointing this out.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by mcphersonator:

Fight gracefully and gloriously
The only enemies more annoying than this pair are their big, witch-time disabling brothers. The otherwise weak Kulshedra is awesome against them, though. Grab the electric one with a cowgirl spin (hold back+punch) in close proximity to the fire one, then pick up the claws and finish the lightning dude off. Just watch. This is also a great combo-boosting move to use in a crowd.

I can not get this move to trigger. If I told RB, all I get are the uppercut and the forward curvy snake attack. If I don't hold RB, all I get are grabs that bring me to them and them to me. What is back relative to? The camera? Bayonetta? Bayonetta's position to the targeted enemy?

EDIT: Okay, figured it out. You hold back after your whip has made contact. You also need to be in witch time if they still have their armor or else they'll resist it.

[mulisk]

The easy grace & glory kill is worhtless. They're almost never in position for it to even work.

[Setnaro X]

Maybe this video might help(?). It's not the best tutorial for fighting against Grace and Glory but it does demonstrate certain things folks aren't aware you can do against them.

https://youtu.be/8IqFDmjli7c

[Hawthorne]

Necro but imo worth pointing out: in case anyone reads it and is as confused as I was, when the OP says "Pulley's Butterfly," s/he actually appears to be referring to the "Star of Dineta."

[Tankor Smash]

Originally posted by Anonymoose:

Necro but imo worth pointing out: in case anyone reads it and is as confused as I was, when the OP says "Pulley's Butterfly," s/he actually appears to be referring to the "Star of Dineta."

Thank you!