A Tail of Two demos...
Recently I played the two demos: Bayonetta and more recently Dante's Inferno.
Well I know I have commented on Bayonetta before and I have an updated opinion of it but first lets look at the abomination that is Dante's Inferno.
You know, I'm never against the idea of sharing ideas and kicking them around. Imitation is indeed the sencierest form of flattery. I don't mind if a guy looks at a pose of someone and draws what he sees and adds to it to make it his. What I am against is slapping a piece of tracing paper over a picture and then calling it yours...enter Dante's Inferno.
It's God of War dressed in a crusade outfit. Honestly EA stole every last little thing of Santa Monica's God of War and simply applied it to a classic story that they butchered to hell(no pun). Everything, I mean bloody everything, Dante's run animation, the health pillars and having to mash the O button, the combos, the method of leveling abilities, quick time events...It's like they just took God of War 2 and dressed everything catholic. For this reason alone I have a hard time liking it since it is such a blatent rip off, but I havn't even gotten to what I experienced.
Let me put it this way *yawns*. You start the demo off as Dante during the crusade, when someone decided he would look much better with a knife in his back. Death himself shoes up, Dante says go to hell. They fight, well you actually fight. Some liked this fight but I honestly didn't even flinch. It was easy, AGAIN. The right anolog stick just like God of War is your dodge and in Dante's inferno it's no different except the dodge is a slide and you go across the bloody map. Not only that it's nearly all invincible from beginning to end of the animation so you can spam that and not get hit. Ever. You fight you get Death's sythe after he dies in a very un-Deathly fashion. So you think to yourself "I think I'll go home and I will celibrate by stitching a giant symbol of the crusade on my chest. Yeah that's normal. You go home to find out that in Gladiator fashion they ransacked your stuff and killed your girl rather ineptly as right now one soldier is wondering wear he left his sword the putts. Her and her gratoitis boobig turns spirit form so you can get the boobig in stereo, she mutters nonsence and is taken away to hell. Quick question: WHAT THE FUCK IS DEATH FOR IF HE ISN'T THE ONE TAKING DEAD PEOPLE TO HELL?!? Honestly now he seems like the guy in the office that is so annoyingly useless that you have to have another guy do his job for him. "I'm going to go reaping".."No Ken, Dave's going to do it today.".."But...I wanted to reap people...with my reaping equipment" Death stated pointing to his giant made of bone sythe, "Nope, sorry Ken we are over booked on hours, don't need you this week.." and the boss is off as Death sulks silently in the corner.
So you are off to hell. It is hell.. the gameplay is hell...the pacing is awful, the combat has no power too it, it feels like its made by EA honestly. This guy weilds a sythe the size of himself and he's juggling it about like its a bloody fisher price garden rake.
"Ah" says the sceptical."But you get to choose to save demons or kill them to get holy or demonic and get different powers." "Hey" I respond "Thats what I call a "Dick Move". Honestly what that does is force you to play each exstreme in subsiquint play throughs or you can really cripple yourself and balance it out as you play. And you know they are going to have trophies and achievments for reaching the exstreme of each but I bet you anything you can't do both in the same play through. Thats just annoying design and a cheap method of giving a game replayability.
On to Bayonetta. Now I've got something for the game, its appealed to me in its overall presentaion. The combat is fluid, well paced. The music is stylish and sets a good mood. I don't really like the main character as it might as well be Dante from Devil May Cry in a skin tight body suit and glasses. The game grew on me, which is odd as that usually doesn't happen. The demo proved to be a bit too easy though, but it has a trophy system based on how well you do in a level, suddenly getting the best trophy makes it alot more difficult so it may set a great balance with itself. The skill of the games creator shows as this is the man that created Devil May Cry 1,3 and Okami.
Yes I have heard alot about the hole "Its just boy bait since it's a sexy chick that gets nude every couple of seconds as you fight." True but I think this game was made to appeal to girls too. Sure you have the above but look how she is dressed. The only skin that shows on the oufit is the crease of the back. Unlike other chicks in combat, she's no in a thong or short skirt, she's in something functional. When she double jumps she gets butterfly wings, the difficulty is low for unfamiliar gamers like girls who wouldnt normally play hack n' slash. It's not as over the top with the sexual thing as people make it out to be.
I've been rambling so there you have it. Dante's Inferno is a carbon copy of the God of War games. So why would you settle for budweiser when you can have 15 year old Scotch? Bayonetta is fun, and doesn't take itself seriously, meaning its being a game and thats a plus in my book.