Bayonetta picks up plenty of hypes post E3 and attracted plenty of previously not interested gamers like me to the title. Weekly Famitsu (issue 6/26) gave Platinum Games’ grand looking action game a 6-page “Scoop” recently that comes with an interview with Director Hideki Kamiya and Producer Yusuke Hashimoto.

The discussion starts with the mysterious woman in red, Jeanne (above), who Hashimoto confirms will be Bayonetta’s main rival and has an important role in the game. Kamiya says Jeanne’s design is purposely a direct opposite of Bayonetta’s and since she is not a playable character, the design process was done pretty quick.

The rest of the interview is about the game system. Witch Time is one of the key elements of the game’s system. By dodging an attack just in time, Bayonetta becomes the only character that moves in the game, it’s a system that will determine if players can make through a level smoothly or not. Kamiya says he hopes players can feel the “battle of attack and defense” with the system and will realized that button mashing won’t get them too far. Hashimoto adds that they have fine tuned the difficulty so that it becomes easier to trigger Witch Time. Kamiya also want to prevent players from adopting defensive mentality because this is after all an action game and there is no beauty in defending.

Witch Walk is another key system that allows our heroine walk vertically. Kamiya says they have spent plenty of time on the system in order to make the various stages feel like playground and painting. Hashimoto adds that Bayonetta can also engage battle during this period and it makes the game feels three dimensional. However, there won’t be any puzzle solving elements or gimmicks for the system.

There are times when Bayonetta stand on top of her giant enemy, a situation Kamiya says will make battles more fun compare to just fighting on the ground. But he also doesn’t want to force players climbing to the top of these giant enemies, so they will find themselves on top of their enemies automatically most of the time. Besides this kind of situation, there will be more variations depending on the type of enemies Bayonetta is facing.

Torture Attack gets plenty of attention during E3 and it was designed to allows players to turn the tide of the battle with a special move. Kamiya says this will make battles look beautiful and more dramatic. Players can also summon devil (called Beast Within, above) to fight for them in the game. Both systems are created to further highlight the fact that Bayonetta is a witch and Kamiya says torture is among the first things that come into people’s mind when they think of witch. As for their usage, Hashimoto says it will depend on the type of enemies.

Another trademark move Bayonetta has is switching weapons freely during battles. A system that was created in order not to limit players’ freedom. Kamiya says when designing the game system, it’s never about “what we want to do” but how players will make use of the options they have. An RPG-like weapon (above) was shown in the report and is said to contain the soul of Lieutenant Kilgore, which is also its name. Kamiya says it was not designed based on what kind of weapon Bayonetta will use but more of a representation of her fighting styles.

One of the screens also shows Bayonetta riding a motorbike and although he can’t elaborate any further, Hashimoto says players will be able to move around the stages with it. Finally, Kamiya says he doesn’t want to make a game that’s done after the story is finished but something that players will keep on playing and he has a wild hope the game will has the kind of content that players will spend their entire life playing.

Posted in News on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 12:10 am | Tags action bayonetta kamiya platinum games sega
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