Cheap Deaths and Crappy QTEs

[LWRabbit]

Okay, this is my first time playing Bayonetta. I just heard people rave about it over the years and thought I'd give it a try since it came to PC.

First - WTF is even going on, storyline-wise? I like to think I'm pretty good at understanding convoluted stories - but ... but ... WHAT is going on? And I guess, should I even care? A big part of why I play games is for the story - the gameplay has to be good too, but story is what keeps me going.

I'm a little over two hours in, somewhere in Chapter 2 or 3 I think, and besides some basics - Bayonetta is the 'last witch', a survivor of a war between light and dark witches, some kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love child between the two, and she has amnesia - I don't even know. And angels are evil. I think.

The whole thing has so far felt like the developers dropped acid and got locked in a room with only the edgiest of 1990s Image comics and porn to survive on.

All which I might grudgingly come to terms with if it wasn't for all the cheap deaths and instant kill quick time events. The game is really showing its age with all the 'Press X' not-to-die crap. The timing on some of them is so fast that you have to KNOW they are coming. It's like they exist just to destroy your score at the end of the level.

And then there is all the times you have to run away from the camera to avoid instant-death, like the lava that chases you. Again, you have to KNOW what is front of you from trial and error, because the game will be damned if it will show you ahead of time.

And finally, the combat feels kind of repetitive and stuttery (from a game flow perspective). Does this get better as you unlock new combos and techniques? Because right now, it's all just 'dodge to activate Witchtime, perform a combo (often knocking the enemy out of reach), repeat until your magic meter fills, activate Torture, repeat ad naseum'. The camera is often an enemy in combat as well. I've died several times now because the camera hit one of the barriers of an area that are invisible until you get close, and the enemies proceed to gang up and knock the ♥♥♥♥ out of me while I try and get to a position where I can free myself.

TLDR:
Those with experience, can you convince me to keep playing? Because I'm seriously debating setting down the controller on this one.

[Marusame]

basically get gud, Bayonetta is a classy chick, dont just mash wildly you got to caress the controller a bit but also keep a good firm grip on the buttons but not too hard. The story is actually really good and you CAN follow it even though yes its a bit ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ which is all of the fun of it. I wouldnt have this game any other way. And yes, its a near perfect 10/10 game.

[KF9999]

Първоначално публикувано от LWRabbit:

So tell me this - my biggest problem with combat in Normal difficulty was my attacks knocking enemies back out of my range, forcing me to run after them to continue attacking. But in Easy difficulty, Bayoneta seems to lock on to enemies and her attacks home-in on them, making the flow of combat feel considerably nicer. I'd like to go back to Normal difficulty, but is the lock-on and attacking homing something I missed being shown how to manually do on Normal?

In easy difficulty, you start with an item equipped that enables automatic mode. It's probably using the homing attacks(Stilleto, Heel Slide and one that unlocks later) that you can buy in the shop, not sure if you need to buy them beforehand. You also unlock something a bit later that makes closing gaps much faster too.

[SinglePoorIan]

Първоначално публикувано от Morton Koopa Jr.:

Първоначално публикувано от The Cheet:

Play Nier: Automata instead.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/524220

Not even the same type of game, but okay.

I should have specified that I was referring to the OP. They want a story rich action rpg which Nier has.

[flappyjackz]

Първоначално публикувано от LWRabbit:

Първоначално публикувано от Morton Koopa Jr.:

.....

As for the tone, game's kinda campy. It is meant to be goofy. But it does have a serious story. That fusion may be particularly odd, but that tone as you've seen established so far is pretty much on target.

.....

Frankly, the most jarring thing for me back in the day was the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ quasi-stopmotion cutscenes.

Yeah, the quasi-stopmotion cutscenes do add to the weirdness. If it was like that all the time, you might get used to it, but the fact it keeps switching back and forth is jarring. And I realized that I missed a significant part of the story set-up by htting a button when the game loaded up. Apparently the intro cutscene actually plays before the main title screen, so if you hit a button, say, to get to the main graphics menu and adjust resolution, like I did, you miss it.

I'm going back through the game's opening chapters on Easy, looking at it as an arcade game like Flappyjackz suggested, and that makes it a lot better. Though now it is too easy ... I keep getting Platinum medals and trophies. Le sigh.

So tell me this - my biggest problem with combat in Normal difficulty was my attacks knocking enemies back out of my range, forcing me to run after them to continue attacking. But in Easy difficulty, Bayoneta seems to lock on to enemies and her attacks home-in on them, making the flow of combat feel considerably nicer. I'd like to go back to Normal difficulty, but is the lock-on and attacking homing something I missed being shown how to manually do on Normal?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to suggest playing on easy cause that's pretty much autobattling. Something I should mention is that for a good chunck of your first playthrough bayonetta moves in (relative) slow motion. knocking enemies back (should only happen with certain attacks) out of your reach will be great later as enemies get alot tougher. You'll also be able to close the gap between you and any enemy on the screen in like a second. it's one of the things like most about bayo, everything is super fast and fluid. You can knock the enemy back out of your reach and then double tap the evade button which turns you into a panther which allows you to run 3x faster. when you get to the enemy hit the doge button again or an attack button and you turn back into bayo and start wailing on him. You should try some YouTube videos showing off this games combat. once you unlock all her moves and it all gels in your brain it can become addicting.
Another piece of advice: use all your halos to unlock techniques. Don't buy any items or anything until you have all of them. you can get healing items in the level. don't worry about dieing. each death really kills your score but that doesn't matter yet. try to look at your first play through on normal as an epic tutorial.

[Setnaro X]

Първоначално публикувано от LWRabbit:

the combat feels kind of repetitive and stuttery (from a game flow perspective). Does this get better as you unlock new combos and techniques? Because right now, it's all just 'dodge to activate Witchtime, perform a combo (often knocking the enemy out of reach), repeat until your magic meter fills, activate Torture, repeat ad naseum'. The camera is often an enemy in combat as well. I've died several times now because the camera hit one of the barriers of an area that are invisible until you get close, and the enemies proceed to gang up and knock the ♥♥♥♥ out of me while I try and get to a position where I can free myself.

In short, yes. The game does get better when you start unlocking new moves, some of which you can only unlock by progressing through the story (i.e. Panther run, Umbran Spear, etc. etc.). The game's combat is only as fun as you allow it due to its openness. I recently made a combo video which showcases how much fun the game can be when you are in absolute control, and I still play this game today, even now with the PC version. Can't wait to make a new combo video using PC footage.

Here's my combo video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpNNmba0TY4

There's also tons of advance techniques that the game won't really dwell much in, but it's stuff that many action game fans have long since discovered. If you want to learn more about Bayonetta's mechanic, here's a video created by one of the players who was involved in writing up the official Bayonetta guide book. It has Hideki Kamiya's blessings.

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

[眠る岩]

"A big part of why I play games is for the story - the gameplay has to be good too, but story is what keeps me going. "

Then you probably shouldn't have gotten it in ithe first place; and if story is a big part of games for you, then I suggest SERIOUSLY forgetting about video-games completely and start reading books. I don't mean this as an insult or anything, you're wasting your time with a medium where the very best stories would be considered barely mediocre in literature. There's a world of entertainment you'd like that you're missing out on.

"The whole thing has so far felt like the developers dropped acid and got locked in a room with only the edgiest of 1990s Image comics and porn to survive on."

This is pretty much exactly why people like it, including me. The combat system and stylishness is what draws and keeps the fans in. Try to master it and have fun. If you don't, then drop the game I guess. (I suggest looking at combo videos on youtube to get an idea of what you're missing)

[Setnaro X]

I'm not one to play video games for the story, but if a person wants to, you can't tell them they're wrong for it. I'm no bookworm or anything, but if a story is entertaining and engaging no matter what medium its presented in, it makes the overall experience very enjoyable. Stuff like Nier Automata's storyline would be impossible to tell through a movie because of the way it breaks the 4th wall with the player in order to prove a point around the way it tells a story.

Bayonetta's storyline is extremely confusing, but there's definitely a lot going for it. Since the game was designed for replayability, playing it over again after beating the storyline starts to make more sense.

[Shi_Wei_Li]

On easy the game is automatically combo-ing for you, you can actually do all that stuff in the normal mode you just have to know the actual inputs to do it. This is a pretty high skill-cap game with a lot of technical depth if you want to sink the time into it. I'd suggest starting with the pistols and realizing that you can hold the buttons at any moment to convert any melee attack to ranged. Then notice that if you dodge while holding the button that you don't actually loose your place in your combo (this is called dodge offset).

Notice how some of those combos end in giant hands and feet? Those are called Wicked Weaves and they do buckets of damage and have no range limitations. Meaning a Wicked Weave is probably the most important thing to get in the game and it doesn't care how close or far away you're standing. Take a look at the most basic Wicked Weave which is Punch Kick Punch. You should be able to hold punch (dodge while holding the button) hold kick (dodge while holding the button) then punch and still get the wicked weave. Once you learn that basic skill of dodge offset the combo system completely reinvents itself in terms of what is possible.

That's just the tip of the iceberg too... look up a combo video if you want to see some real insanity in terms of how skilled you can get in the game.