There was supposed to be another part after this since I had two last playthroughs after part 4 but thanks to my laziness I ended up finishing the main story of Bayonetta without an update here on the blog. And so, here's to you guys my progress from Chapter X: Paradiso - A Sea of Stars to Epilogue: Requiem.
Chapter X: Paradiso - A Sea of Stars played out like a boss rush. Right at the start of the chapter three Joys immediately greet you.
The battlefield is the same as in Chapter 2 where you face Jeanne in a flashback but there's no Witch Walk this time. Facing one Joy is not that difficult but three of them, oh three of them, I kinda want to give one X to each of them because those ladies are XXX all the way, heck Bayonetta's torture attack is so sexually explicit it looks like they enjoy it, masochists. Shuraba is still my weapon of choice because it's the weapon I've spent the more time with and I kinda have a good idea which combos work best in most situations that said, however, I still managed to get my ass kicked by the trio mainly because the battle stretched on due to one of them splitting into two with the clone having full health, dang nabbit.
Once I got past the three (actually four) Joys the game gives a slight breather on the next verse by only giving you Affinities as you try to complete the cogs to turn the whole earth around creating a path to the next area. But whoops after the last cog gets inserted and the gears start to turn guess who suddenly drops by - Grace and Glory...sheeeeeet. Those two alone made me rage again as if that was their only purpose in the game. I had 3/4 of my health before fighting them and even with all the effort I mustered evading Witch Time had to derp and not activate so what happened? I got pummeled, ended the verse with 1/4 of life left. After those two we get on to another piece of land floating in the sea of stars. The view was amazing by the way, but like the previous chapters the crazy orientation gave me a headache.
Stepping on to the connected piece of land Bayonetta is greeted by Harmonies. These guys were pretty annoying in a way similar to Enchants because they keep distancing themselves from you. To make up for it the torture attack was more than satisfying - a chainsaw massacre, and you can equip the chainsaw afterwards. However, even if the Joys, Grace and Glory, and Harmonies dropped by giving me a hard time they weren't enough to prepare me for the next rush. Immediately after the Harmonies a powered down version of Fortitudo, called Courage, pops out from the void because why the hell not? The powered down version plays similar to the original Fortitudo their only difference being Courage lower health, and it doesn't have the same intensity as that of the boss fight. However, it still hits incredibly hard and I still found myself on the verge of using healing items. After Courage comes Temperance, a powered down version of Temperantia, who also fights similar to its more powerful counterpart but you only need to hit its tentacle arms and face to defeat it.
I would like to see this as the hardest part of the chapter but no, NO, these guys were the hardest part of the chapter:
They're not even required to be defeated to progress through the chapter but in order to reach a chest they have to be used as platforms and one wrong move I fall off and get my health reduced, and so there I suffered my three deaths at the hands of those friggn' boats.
The rest of the chapter didn't get any easier as a pair of Grace and Glory appeared yet again to give neither grace nor glory.
At the very least the last verse of this chapter gave me a fair chance to redeem myself by allowing me to deliver a glorious butt kicking by giving me the chance to activate Witch Time with only minimal damage should I fail.
Sigh, but what is life?
Chapter XI: The Cardinal Virtue of Justice...most.annoying.boss.ever. Yes, the boss fight was epic as the others. But no, this particular boss deserves a special place in SEGA's Sonic Boom testing department. This boss needs to suffer more than what Bayonetta dealt, this boss needs to play Sonic Boom for all eternity!!!
There's a short cutscene and verse before the actual boss fight starts.
It was easy and pretty basic considering the chapter number, and most likely its only purpose was to make the cutscenes more intense.
Like I said, the boss fight was epic but the boss itself was very annoying. First off, it has the face and the voice of a child, an equally annoying creature that spawns from another human. It's laugh is so annoying and the way it rams its head is just so provoking I wanted to throw my controller. Second, it has tentacles in all the wrong places (and don't ask me why I know where the right places are).
Anyway, this boss is the source of all the tentacles that's been popping out in the previous chapters. Cut all the tentacles before dealing with its damn body and the boss fight is over. I really wish that this was the last time I ever encounter that little sh*t but no...sadly, no.
Chapter XII: The Broken Sky takes place in, yep you've guess it, the sky. But not in the way you might think. A long cutscene plays before the first verse of the chapter and it's important to pay attention to the cutscene as there's a very mundane and random moment between Cereza and Bayonetta yet it plays an integral role in the last couple of chapters in the game.
Luka has vital information about a certain gem that could might as well be part of what is called the Eyes of the World. According to him a - or more accurately, the - jet going to Isla del Sol is the only way to get near whatever this gem is and so this is where the chapter plays out, inside a jet. Yeah.
The cutscene concludes with Luka falling off from the jet right after Cereza falls off into the unknown. Bayonetta enters the jet in hopes of finding Cereza there, and while she does find her it's not until the second to the last verse of the chapter. I'm going to skip a lot of verses here because the obvious highlight of this one is Bayonetta vs. Jeanne round 3 and I shit you not this is surprisingly more intense than the previous encounters both in cutscenes and actual battle.
I was able to match up well against Jeanne this time around thanks to Selene's Light, and a longer magic gauge and health bar. I also found it easier to activate Witch Time this time around as I found Jeanne's actions more predictable except for the part where she rides her motorcycle, that part was crazy. When the fight is over a cutscene is triggered before going back to Bayonetta searching for Cereza. The two reunite in verse 9 and Cereza acts as a following AI again but this time Bayonetta needs to carry her for the two to progress.
The action was still the same in most parts but on the last verse electric water rushes up the sinking jet prompting me to hurry the heck up before we get fried Bayonetta du Cereza.
Chapter XIII: The Cardinal Virtue of Prudence oh god this boss fight. This counts as the last main boss fight against all the Cardinal Virtues (there's only four out of seven here) featured in the game and wow was this the most explosive and best experience out of the four.
A cutscene starts off this chapter with Luka now flying a helicopter and uses it as a means to get Cereza out of danger. Bayonetta stays in the ocean and faces off with Sapientia, the Cardinal Virtue of Prudence. Here we go. Movement was a little restricted since Bayonetta was surfing towards the enemy and the environment was in favor of the boss.
The main target in the first part of the boss battle was its legs, and there are a lot of them (six, I think). The legs were weak and broke easily but getting a nice clean combo to hit requires you to be really fast so Witch Time was essential. I remained loyal to the Shuraba in this boss battle as using the stiletto covers some considerable distance to get close to the enemy however the combo chains with the Shuraba derped a lot thanks to the slippery surface. Luckily the last part of this boss battle was simply a road to victory, a little rocky yes but when Bayonetta climaxes and rides Phantasmaraneae you'll know you have this boss at your mercy.
The chapter concludes with a hilarious cutscene.
Remember the start of the chapter? Luka carries Cereza to the helicopter using his hidden wires. Well, the whole chapter, the whole boss fight occurred from start to finish between the time Luka lifted off from the sinking jet and before he enters the chopper, that fast. Bayonetta even beat him to the chopper.
Chapter XIV: Isla del Sol, this is easily one of the best chapters in the game. As the current progress of the story goes it's pretty obvious now that Isla del Sol is the main stage for whatever catastrophic finale Bayonetta has in store. But we're not just flying there, oh no. You think a cutscene is enough to cover that, hell no...NO!
The first two verses plays out pretty similar to the motorcycle madness in Chapter VIII: Route 666 only this time Bayonetta is riding a missile, yes a missile turning verses 1 and 2 into my favorite kind of shooter, a rail shooter sequence. I enjoyed the novelty of this verse considering how it departs from hack-and-slash yet again but it kinda stretched out for far too long with pretty much a repetition of the enemies.
What makes it kinda tedious is the swarm of enemies from all directions prevents any possible quick dodges without having to use the actual dodge button. You can't just move away from the danger via the analog stick because the movement is slow and the attacks are fast, dodging is effective, however, but the dodge animation is barf inducing. If you dodge an attack, whether successful or not, the whole friggin' camera does a barrel roll and I had to do it a lot of times. The only effective way to deal some considerable damage is via missiles but these requires magic orbs, and to build up the magic gauge I still had to suffer through dealing minimal damage while dodging attacks - sometimes I don't even know if my shooting hits or not.
Thankfully this whole chapter wasn't all about the rail shooting part as two verses was already enough. What pushed this chapter to greatness was the epic 4th round of Bayonetta vs. Jeanne.
These two ladies had every reason to kill each other in this fight. Of course Jeanne had her own reasons to push Bayonetta, but Bayonetta's main drive comes from the implied death of both Luka and Cereza. While the boss fight against Jeanne didn't offer anything considerably new to the table the environment, the event and the revelations that it brought further pushed the story both forward in terms of the current events, and backward in terms of Bayonetta's forgotten past. I do feel like it was a little rushed since Jeanne's revelation to Bayonetta was brought out then and there without any warning however based on what has been happening since the prologue I should have seen it coming.
The chapter ends with Bayonetta escaping an onslaught of missile explosions leaving Jeanne on the rooftop where they fought. Just as she was about to carry on with her journey Luka, carrying Cereza, comes out from an elevator, safe from any harm and greets Bayonetta.
Chapter XV: A Tower to Truth, calling it, this is the hardest chapter in the whole damn game. THE HARDEST CHAPTER, and I mean it. But was it any fun? Of course, this is Bayonetta it's a hell of a lot of fun, but as much fun as I found in this chapter, it is also equally difficult. Forget about all the rage I felt on the previous chapters, all the rage belongs here and it deserves it.
A Tower to Truth starts off with a cutscene where Cereza calls out to her daddy. Bayonetta chases after her but she quickly lost track of her. To progress through this chapter, Bayonetta scales the Ithavoll building where almost every angels from the past chapters makes a return. Everyone from the minor enemies, Affinities, to the hard as hell pair, Grace and Glory. But it doesn't end there, oh no, they're just starting. Mini bosses also return such as the Joy, and if that's not enough there are also the previous bosses. As if to make the difficulty jump from 'normal' to 'f*ck it I'm dead again' they had to bring back Fortitudo, Temperantia and that effin' child Iustitia. I thought, I really thought it ends there, right after dealing justice to justice, heh, but no. What greeted me after the boss fight with Iustitia was a confusing platforming stage via Witch Walk. First of all, I understand that those face down yu-gi-oh looking cards are the platform but where does it all lead to? Where should I go? And why the hack are they suddenly vanishing?! I don't know how many times I fell either to the pit or back to the start of the platforms but I spent a crazy amount of time just, and health getting to some place I have no clue about. When I did land on the appropriate spot a Golem appears and so boss fight again. But, no that Golem was the least of my problems as the final, oh thank god, the final boss fight against Prudence was not as hard as I expected it to be.
I did have to run for my life when the fire literallychased after Bayonetta and while it did almost consume her Panther Within was fast enough to get through the last stage before the chapter ends. Agh!
Chapter XVI: The Lumen Sage, finally he appears the character hidden in the shadows who loves saying "My dear, sweet child..." with his annoying voice over and over again.
The story takes a big leap during the first cutscene revealing every detail in all of the important plot points since the prologue. We learn here that Cereza is in fact Bayonetta from a different time, and the last of the Lumen Sages, Father Balder, is her father. He reveals that the Eyes of the World are not exactly jewels or gems but instead the Left and Right Eyes are within a person from the Umbra Witch clan and Lumen Sages, respectively. This Lumen Sage, who also has a striking resemblance to Christopher Walken, claims to be the Right Eye of the World, while Bayonetta is the Left Eye. Together they complete the Eyes of the World needed to resurrect Jubileus however there's one problem, the Left Eye has not yet awakened in Bayonetta and so a boss battle occurs presumably to fulfill the intentions of Father Balder and ultimately resurrect Jubileus in order to reunite the Trinity of Realities and allow Paradiso to rule. Aside from the plot revelations, he also reveals that he was the one who killed Luka's father, and almost did the same to Luka if not for Bayonetta's interference.
This boss fight is a textbook example of how a penultimate boss fight should be done. It pulls out all the stops, testing you if you've played the game enough to survive the onslaught.
The space given to you is really small, and the clear advantage here goes to Father Balder because, well, he friggin' flies. This boss fight was also so friggin long it has two loading screens. The first part ends when you think the whole fight is over.
Bayonetta summons Gomorrah to devour Father Balder but the sheer strength of the Lumen Sage overwhelms the infernal demon, gets back to full health and moves to part 2. The second round against Father Balder was obviously much harder but at least if you die you restart exactly at the second round not at the very beginning. The fight ends with Bayonetta shooting a gamer-guided lipstick bullet towards Father Balder's head.
Should you miss, it's an instant game over, but if it hits then that's it for this Lumen Sage (for now).
After the mentally stressful boss fight we are treated to another cutscene where, not surprisingly, Luka is still alive. Bayonetta says that it's not yet over as she still has Cereza in her arms. She enters a portal to the past and there she lays Cereza to bed telling her that the nightmare is over.
Now this is where the story takes a sudden turn. Remember the mundane moment between Cereza and Bayonetta back in Chapter XII: The Broken Sky that I told you guys to pay attention to, well here is where it plays its role. Back in Chapter XII Bayonetta takes Cereza's most important treasure, her Umbran Watch, ties a ribbon to it and tells Cereza to always keep it close with her. Cereza has been wearing her watch as a pendant since then and when Bayonetta returns Cereza to the past it effectively changed history. In the original past of Bayonetta, Jeanne seals Bayonetta away so that the Lumen Sages cannot get her and the Left Eye. But in the new history that Bayonetta accidentally made, her Umbran Watch that she wore as a pendant prevented Jeanne from sealing her and thus Bayonetta was never sealed, she never lost her memories and she chose to fight alongside her Umbran Sister.
For this reason, The Left Eye also awakens immediately in the present. Father Balder rises up again, carries Bayonetta to the statue of Jubileus placing her in the left eye while he enters the right, thus reviving Jubileus, the Creator.
By this time I'm pretty sure the game assumes that you've played enough of the game to know what kind of surprises it has in store. Oh you think a character is dead? Nope.
Chapter X: Paradiso - A Sea of Stars played out like a boss rush. Right at the start of the chapter three Joys immediately greet you.
Once I got past the three (actually four) Joys the game gives a slight breather on the next verse by only giving you Affinities as you try to complete the cogs to turn the whole earth around creating a path to the next area. But whoops after the last cog gets inserted and the gears start to turn guess who suddenly drops by - Grace and Glory...sheeeeeet. Those two alone made me rage again as if that was their only purpose in the game. I had 3/4 of my health before fighting them and even with all the effort I mustered evading Witch Time had to derp and not activate so what happened? I got pummeled, ended the verse with 1/4 of life left. After those two we get on to another piece of land floating in the sea of stars. The view was amazing by the way, but like the previous chapters the crazy orientation gave me a headache.
The rest of the chapter didn't get any easier as a pair of Grace and Glory appeared yet again to give neither grace nor glory.
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| that circular platform below has two statues which allows for infinite Witch Time, tee-hee |
Chapter XI: The Cardinal Virtue of Justice...most.annoying.boss.ever. Yes, the boss fight was epic as the others. But no, this particular boss deserves a special place in SEGA's Sonic Boom testing department. This boss needs to suffer more than what Bayonetta dealt, this boss needs to play Sonic Boom for all eternity!!!
There's a short cutscene and verse before the actual boss fight starts.
Like I said, the boss fight was epic but the boss itself was very annoying. First off, it has the face and the voice of a child, an equally annoying creature that spawns from another human. It's laugh is so annoying and the way it rams its head is just so provoking I wanted to throw my controller. Second, it has tentacles in all the wrong places (and don't ask me why I know where the right places are).
Chapter XII: The Broken Sky takes place in, yep you've guess it, the sky. But not in the way you might think. A long cutscene plays before the first verse of the chapter and it's important to pay attention to the cutscene as there's a very mundane and random moment between Cereza and Bayonetta yet it plays an integral role in the last couple of chapters in the game.
The cutscene concludes with Luka falling off from the jet right after Cereza falls off into the unknown. Bayonetta enters the jet in hopes of finding Cereza there, and while she does find her it's not until the second to the last verse of the chapter. I'm going to skip a lot of verses here because the obvious highlight of this one is Bayonetta vs. Jeanne round 3 and I shit you not this is surprisingly more intense than the previous encounters both in cutscenes and actual battle.
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| that water behind Bayonetta is the electric water |
Chapter XIII: The Cardinal Virtue of Prudence oh god this boss fight. This counts as the last main boss fight against all the Cardinal Virtues (there's only four out of seven here) featured in the game and wow was this the most explosive and best experience out of the four.
The chapter concludes with a hilarious cutscene.
Chapter XIV: Isla del Sol, this is easily one of the best chapters in the game. As the current progress of the story goes it's pretty obvious now that Isla del Sol is the main stage for whatever catastrophic finale Bayonetta has in store. But we're not just flying there, oh no. You think a cutscene is enough to cover that, hell no...NO!
Thankfully this whole chapter wasn't all about the rail shooting part as two verses was already enough. What pushed this chapter to greatness was the epic 4th round of Bayonetta vs. Jeanne.
Chapter XV: A Tower to Truth, calling it, this is the hardest chapter in the whole damn game. THE HARDEST CHAPTER, and I mean it. But was it any fun? Of course, this is Bayonetta it's a hell of a lot of fun, but as much fun as I found in this chapter, it is also equally difficult. Forget about all the rage I felt on the previous chapters, all the rage belongs here and it deserves it.
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| looks normal |
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| nope, fall back! fall back! |
Chapter XVI: The Lumen Sage, finally he appears the character hidden in the shadows who loves saying "My dear, sweet child..." with his annoying voice over and over again.
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| he's actually being punny here since Luka got thrown out of the window |
This boss fight is a textbook example of how a penultimate boss fight should be done. It pulls out all the stops, testing you if you've played the game enough to survive the onslaught.
After the mentally stressful boss fight we are treated to another cutscene where, not surprisingly, Luka is still alive. Bayonetta says that it's not yet over as she still has Cereza in her arms. She enters a portal to the past and there she lays Cereza to bed telling her that the nightmare is over.
Epilogue: Requiem
All I can say for this chapter is BEST.BOSS.FIGHT.EVER. Really, I'm not joking. I'm not even overrating it. It is indeed that great, I shit you not.
With Bayonetta sealed within the left eye of Jubileus who are we left to play as to save her and the world? Well ain't it obvious? Jeanne, of course!
The segment playing as Jeanne was short and it played almost similar to that of Route 666 where you play riding a motorcylce. There is a short segment where you rush towards the left eye of Jubilues to free Bayonetta but that was also short lived as well. Once Jeanne frees Bayonetta, Jeanne is presumed dead, again, and is left in the sidelines for a while. Jubileus starts to react to its missing eye and here the fight begins.
This boss fight had a lot of branching requirements before we got to the actual life bar of Jubileus. First off is its hair with faces, then its arms, then its body but then it's unclear which are we supposed to attack again. But that's the fun part, you have to go all out just as this particular boss let's it all out as well. Jubileus' attacks are lethal. It's easy to recover from one punch but a barrage, not so much. It also has one very lethal attack that when it hits Bayonetta ages backwards and turns into a young Cereza for a short time, however in this form Cereza can only walk and not dodge, and shucks she walks so slow it's a free hit to Jubileus every time.
When a considerable amount of damage has been dealt, Bayonetta will climax forming a bridge to Jubileus' face.
This is the most stressful part of this boss fight because if you went up with low health (which was what happened to me) it could spell out a game over. In my case Jubileus was down to her last life bar so I had to rush the combos, chain every single hard hitting attack I could mash into the pro controller until, oh yes, Bayonetta climaxes one more time summoning Queen Sheba. And my god, just look at the size difference.
If you thought Jubileus was big then I'm pretty sure you guys would've also worn the same expression I had once Queen Sheba was summoned and thrashed Jubileus in to a Big Bang Bonus.
Queen Sheba knocks the soul of Jubileus out towards the sun but it was up to me to control Jubileus' direction.
If she hits a planet along the way, she stops and its an instant game over. However, if she is successfully directed to the sun, a cut scene will trigger and basically everything else was a breather. Jeanne will reappear and helps Bayonetta destroy the remnants of Jubileus so that it won't harm Earth. The cutscene that plays is reminiscent to the first cutscene in Records of Time. Afterwards the credits roll and I'm done!
I'M DOOOOONE!!!
Now I know what you guys are thinking - plot holes. There's a lot of them when history suddenly changed such as Luka and his father. If Bayonetta was never sealed, then Luka's father never would have found her and thus would not have died, but I still need research on this part of the game, so I can't be sure just yet. When a considerable amount of damage has been dealt, Bayonetta will climax forming a bridge to Jubileus' face.
Queen Sheba knocks the soul of Jubileus out towards the sun but it was up to me to control Jubileus' direction.
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| Queen Sheba |
I'M DOOOOONE!!!
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