Editorials
‘Bayonetta 3’ Lets You Rove Around at the Speed of Sound [Hands-On Preview]
When I sat down to play Bayonetta 3 behind closed doors during the Penny Arcade Expo, the last thing I expected to think was “This is a lot like Sonic Adventure 2.”
It’s not a joke, or an attempt at an insult; the hands-on PAX demo opened with a sequence where the player, as Bayonetta, assumes the form of one of her demons and ends up running a slalom course across the sides of several city blocks’ worth of collapsing skyscrapers. It’s a manic combination between SA2‘s City Escape and a Godzilla movie.
That served to set the tone for a short, curated experience that focused on Bayonetta’s new ability, the Demon Masquerade, as well as showing off a brand-new weapon.
The latter is a comically oversized hammer that also serves as an anti-tank weapon. Up close, you can pound small enemies into the floor like tent spikes; at range, it delivers single powerful bullets. Most importantly, it’s roughly twice Bayonetta’s size in either hammer or rifle mode and it looks like you’re beating something to death with a small mountain.
The real star of the show at PAX was Demon Masquerade, though. I’d seen it in action in trailers before now; it lets you take direct control of one of Bayonetta’s demons, which gives you access to a new set of moves, while simultaneously turning the game into a kaiju fight as seen from ground level.
In almost any other game, Demon Masquerade would be something you pulled out during scripted moments. You’d use it to deal with bosses or get to pull it out at set points in the campaign.
Instead, Demon Masquerade is just something you can do in Bayonetta 3. As long as there’s enough room for your demons to move, you can summon them at almost any time during a typical combat encounter. In fact, they’re meant to be part of your general rotation, as you’re intended to use your Masquerade to break through larger enemies’ defenses.
The two demons that were available for Masquerades at the show were Madama Butterfly, who’s fast and can fly, with a powerful combo that ends in a devastating flurry of teleported punches; and another monster whose name I didn’t get, but which might’ve been Phantasmaraneae. The latter demon is the one who started the demo, with an aerial fight against a massive Homonculi, which was then followed up by a destructive Sonic-style chase sequence across half a collapsing city.
The drawbacks to Demon Masquerade are that each individual summon only lasts a short time before it has to recharge, and that Bayonetta herself is vulnerable while you’re Masquerading. If she takes a hit while you’re controlling your demon, the effect ends immediately. If you’re currently relying on your demon to break a particular enemy’s defenses, that can leave you in a rough position until the Masquerade’s cooldown comes back up.
You also can’t use Demon Masquerade indoors, in what’s a much more common-sense limitation than I expected. Bayonetta 3‘s combat arenas are massive, but she’ll occasionally be forced into close quarters, and that leaves you forced to depend on Bayonetta’s own abilities.
The other big change I was told about at the show, by Nintendo’s representatives, is that Bayonetta 3 marks the point at which Bayonetta and her allies are effectively forced out into the open. In the original Bayonetta, you fought angels, and in Bayonetta 2, you were up against demons, both of which left you one step removed from the mortal world.
In Bayonetta 3, you travel all over the planet – Japan, China, and New York were mentioned – to fight the Homonculi, bio-mechanical monsters that were created by humans. They can be seen with the naked eye, which means Bayonetta herself is fighting them right out in the open, alongside outgunned conventional forces. It’s an interesting step forward from the series, as the peculiar occult underground that Bayonetta inhabits is about to go public.
Another feature Nintendo discussed at PAX was a new 1-button feature, which serves as an effective “story mode” for new players. Bayonetta can once again equip various accessories, and one of them enables a simple combat system where all of Bayonetta’s moves are mapped to just one button. If all you’re looking to do is get through Bayonetta 3‘s story, 1-button mode has your back.
Playing it on normal, however, Bayonetta 3 is, if anything, crazier than the series has ever been before. You’ve got to backflip away from smaller enemies, find a safe space to stand, kill a couple of larger Homonculi to empower your moves, then crush the biggest opponent in a pack with one of your giant demon slaves. It’s all the stylish, combo-focused, elegant violence you’ve come to associate with Bayonetta, now with the additional ability to finish a fight by transforming into a monstrous death butterfly.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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