Bayonetta 2 (for Wii U)

How it Looks and FeelsBayonetta 2$57.99 at Amazon looks fantastic. The action is consistently smooth in colorful HD, and every character and enemy is gorgeously stylized. Besides the main character's anime-influenced witch and sage garb, the game's angels and demons feature striking and elaborate models that really show the differences between the denizens of Paradiso (the home of angels), Inferno (the home of demons), and Purgatorio (the realm of humans, and the main setting of the game). Angels are cherubic monstrosities whose baby-like faces, gold armor, and feathery wings are arranged like mythical beasts and cosmic horrors, while demons are red-tinged structures of flesh and metal evoking hellish beasts and sinister machines. Then there's Bayonetta's journalist contact Luka, a regular guy who looks like a stoned rabbi.

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If you've played Devil May Cry or God of War, you'll feel right at home with Bayonetta, once you get used to the speed. This is a pure character action game, an oddly defined video game genre that rose out of classic arcade brawlers and fighting games. You punch, kick, and shoot your way through handfuls of enemies in fairly linear levels often dominated by large and unusual set pieces. Angels and demons aren't exactly vulnerable to bullets, however, so instead of working as ballistic finishing moves, your guns are more like juggling tools and combo lingers between your much harder melee attacks. You can just mash through the game on the easy First Climax mode, but at the normal Second Climax or above modes you'll need to adapt to enemy timing, attack chains, combos, and dodges.
The Way of Bayonetta
This is the first joy of character action games: the swiftly growing and rewarding challenge. Starting off, you can just plink away at enemies, punching them with repeated taps until they explode in a shower of Halos you can collect to get skills and items. Then the game starts to mix things up. Enemies block. Enemies attack quickly. Enemies lie in wait for an opening. You can't just mash to defeat them, so you've got to master additional systems on top of the basic hand/foot/gun attacks, adding to the complexity.
One of the key mechanics, and one of the simplest ways to step up your game, is Witch Time. Activated by dodging at the last moment, Witch Time slows down the action as you rain death upon the vulnerable attacker. A carefully timed press turns a repetitive string of punches into a glorious dance around a once-formidable, now-cumbersome, inelegant opponent.

Add more mechanics, like Umbran Climax mode which uses a magic meter that builds as you fight to enhance your regular attacks into hair-augmented screen-clearing barrages, and you get a fast-paced, deep experience.
Then you beat the game on Second Climax in about six to eight hours, look at the string of Stone, Bronze, and Silver awards you "earned" with your own ungraceful but effective combos through each graded section of each level, and decide you cannot leave things as they are. There's also the matter of all of those treasures in bartender Rodin's shop you weren't able to afford on just one playthrough. You need to step up your game if you want to unlock everything.
More to Do
After you beat Bayonetta 2, you're going to keep playing it. In fact, the game and all of its rewarding challenge arguably doesn't even start until the credits roll for the first time. The initial playthrough is a chance to enjoy the bizarre and colorful plot and get the hang of the controls. Once you've beaten it on Second Climax, you can turn those Bronze and Silver awards into Platinum and Pure Platinums and embrace further challenge with the harder Third Climax mode. All while, you're unlocking entertaining and varied extras like additional characters, skins, and game-tweaking treasures.
For example, you can dress Bayonetta as Link, Princess Peach, Samus Aran, and Fox McCloud from Nintendo's classic franchises; replace her revolvers with swords, whips, and flame-throwers; and learn newer and crazier combos. You can master the optional Musphelheim challenges, portals scattered throughout the game that throw you into small arenas with specific limitations and objectives. So, yeah, you'll keep playing even after the credits roll. And that's not even including going back to the original Bayonetta.

That said, Bayonetta 2 doesn't change a lot in terms of mechanics and gameplay. The new Umbran Climax mode adds some strategic intensity to fights, but Bayonetta 2 is largely the same game in the punching, slashing, shooting, dodging sense as the first. Even if some angels seem familiar, though, most enemies are completely new and pleasantly diverse. Bayonetta 2's similarities to the first Bayonetta (which you can compare directly, as the first game is included in full) aren't detrimental to the sequel in any way. If anything, Bayonetta was so immaculate an action game that there simply wasn't much to add to the formula without making the sequel feel too complex or weird (the Devil May Cry series has engaged in this folly in the past). Bayonetta 2 adds a few pinches of spice and tweaks the flavor slightly, but it's largely the same excellent recipe in an attractive new dish.
Mild Multiplayer
Multiplayer isn't a huge priority in Bayonetta 2, and you won't find any head-to-head combat. However, you can cooperate and compete with others online in Tag Climax mode, which lets you bet Halos that you can get a higher score than your opponent in a series of cooperative missions, working together to kill angels and demons while racking up points with your combo and dodging skills in an attempt to one-up each other. A cooperative story mode or straight head-to-head combat mode would have perked up the online play a lot more, but Tag Climax is still fun.
A Must-Play Action Experience
If you own a Wii U and like action games, you need to get Bayonetta 2. If you don't own a Wii U and like action games, you should consider getting a Wii U so you can get Bayonetta 2. It's that good. Bayonetta 2 is challenging, frantic, entertaining, and extremely replayable, and it earns an Editors' Choice for Wii U games.