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Review

Review: Bayonetta on PC

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Several years have passed since the release of the first Bayonetta, the spiritual successor of Devil May Cry by Platinum Games, the studio made by the same people who once worked at Clover Studios. Bayonetta was an amazing game, beloved by most critics and users who actually played the game on either Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Sadly, the game didn’t sell really well, and the sequel for this game happened because only Nintendo chose to believe in the project, producing it themselves. While we will probably never see Bayonetta 2 on PC for this very reason (even though we can probably expect a remastered  version on the Switch, since this new console is actually selling well compared to the Wii U), SEGA and Platinum Games finally decided to listen to their fanbase, who wanted a porting of the game on their PC.

We actually love the Bayonetta series. we owned the game for Xbox 360, rebought it for the Wii U and now I’ve had the chance to play it on PC as well. And the first thing I’ve noticed, after not picking up these series for a long time, is that the gameplay is still amazingly good. Really, the only game that manages to surpass the combat system of this game is the sequel itself.  You can do various combos with your punches and kicks, and also add some occasional shootings, and you’ll also be able to unlock several different kind of weapons (my personal favorites are the swords, because we like to get close and personal to my enemies). We won’t bother getting into the details of this game too much, because you already know what this game is and what is it like. And if you do not: what rock have you been living under? Is it comfortable enough? We guess it is, and will just say this to you: buy this game, since it’s obvious you never played it before. For all you other peeps who know about the game, maybe even still own it for their other consoles and want to know “is it worth it to buy it again?”, we’re here to try to answer their question as faithfully as we can. But before we do that, we need to get into the technical stuff.


Usually, what a PC user is scared when it comes to video games (especially portings) is not only if their potato machine is able to run it well, but also if the company itself did a good job in adapting it to the different hardwares or they didn’t bother and released something just because they could do so. Well, let me reassure you all, with a few simple words: this is the best edition of this game ever made, and the performance doesn’t suffer at all. In fact, it’s even improved! The loadings are almost non-existant now, it supports 4K (if you have a PC who can actually run it, it should be worth it) and it’s also able to run magnificently on almost every pc out there, even if it’s not the best around. As long as you put the right settings and resolution, your game should be able to run flawlessly without any lag or graphical incidents, on a magnificent 60 frame per second. And being an action game based mostly around combos, you really need every little frame you can get. It’s really obvious that the Platinum Games developers put all of their heart into optimizing this game for every PC and hardware they could think of, and they did a magnificent job. It’s also notable that they used an higher resolution for fonts in the menu as well, so you won’t be seeing that “blurry” effect you usually see in these kinda products.

Even though this type of games is best played with a controller, they also tried to keep in mind that for some sections you might prefer to use a mouse and keyboard without any hassle. For example, you can access the menus freely by using the mouse, and also aim better on the fps minigame that happens whenever you finish a level. Usually games are not that permissive, so this is a welcome feature, even if it’s a little one.

For the most technical of gamers, you can also set the vram usage, MSAA and also if you want to activate HDR or not. The maximum resolution possible is also an astounding 5.120 x 2.880. Of course, use the settings that are best suited for your PC, don’t overdo it and you should be ready to kick some angel and demon butt. Another thing that should be noted is that you might notice a blurry effect after changing the settings, but this should be easily fixed by immediately restarting the game.

Conclusion

So, to finally answer your question: is it worth buying this game if I never played it? We answered that before, but we cannot stress this enough: YES. BUY. IT. NOW.

Now, for the other, more important, question: is it worth buying this game IF I ALREADY OWNED/STILL OWN IT? Well, that depends mostly on you. As we said, this really is the definitive, and improved, version of the game. It depends mostly on you: you won’t find any new stuff here, so you’re not buying a new product. Then again, maybe you don’t use your 360/PS3/Wii U anymore and just want to play it on a hardware you can use everyday. If that’s the category you fall in, then don’t think about it too much and just buy it again, you won’t regret it. If you’re still on the fence, lemme remind you that the game only costs about 20€, so it’s also at a low price. If that’s still too high for you, then you may want to wait for the steam sales or a discount of some sort, and only then grab it. We also made a comparison video between the Wii U and the PC version, you can check it out in our video below:

We’re really glad to see some developers taking seriously PC portings in 2017, this isn’t something you see everyday. Obviously they’re not new games, so there’s less work to do and more easier to earn some profit from new gamers, but most developers didn’t put the care in the optimization that Platinum did. And for that, as a gaming community, we are truly grateful. There’s also another reason to tempt you and buy this game now: if you do, you’ll get a 25% discount when you order the Vanquish PC edition, another porting from yet the same guys. Let’s hope it will be as good as this one is. But considering that SEGA also made a pretty good Valkyria Chronicles port before this one, as we pointed out in our review, so chances are that we should be safe and sound.

The season of the Witch Hunt is open once again!

Bayonetta
Genre: Action-Adventure
Systems: PC (also on Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3)
Price: ca. 20 Euro (Steam)
Developer: Platinum Games (Nier: AutomataMetal Gear Rising: Revengeance)
Publisher: SEGA

This game was provided by the publisher for review purposes, check our review policy for details.