Bayonetta: Characters and Storyline

Ever wished your librarian was hot and kicked ass?

Bayonetta is shaping up to be one of 2010's hottest action titles - no mean feat for a game that's scheduled to hit the shelves just eight days into the year. With all this action about to burst forth on your TV screen, we thought it might be a good idea fill in a little of the backstory so you can hit the ground running... Be warned, though, this article is packed full of story spoilers, so if the narrative of Bayonetta is something you want to discover while playing it, don't read any further!

Bayonetta, the star of the game that lends it her name, is a badass librarian-looking (well, the glasses give her an exaggerated Japanese version of an English librarian look, at least) chick who fights demons using four handguns at once (yep, she has some mounted to her legs), with all sorts of other weapons hinted at in the various media that has been released thus far.

She's not restricted to mere weapons of myth destruction, as she can also shapeshift into various beasts or use her hair (!) to devastating affect. Add in the tight leather clothing and a physique that just won't quit and you'll find there's not many fetishes that aren't catered for here. The video from TGS used a through-the-legs crotch-pan to hint that the sexual references will be overt and that Bayonetta's sexual minx visage is also no accident.

Bayonetta (the game) is set in Vigrid, a fictional city in Europe. The story goes that the twin magic factions of Sages and Witches have been wiped out, with just one survivor - the titular (teehee) Bayonetta. Awoken from a slumber at the bottom of a lake ten years ago, Bayonetta has no idea who she is - all she knows is that she has kickass magical powers and a sense of style that far exceeds the normal.

Bayonetta isn't alone on her journey of looking good in tight clothing in as many perilous locales as possible - several sidekicks and supporting characters help to flesh out the story and keep things moving along.

There's Enzo, the loud-mouthed informant-come-damsel in distress who talks big but needs to be rescued a lot. Then there's his friend Rodin, the arms dealer that actually starts off dead but then, Monty Python-style, gets better. Luka, a journalist / stalker, believes Bayonetta killed his father and won't let her out of his sight.

Not all of the supporting characters are adults, however, with a suspiciously Bayonetta-looking child named Cereza appearing to twist things up, and the last of the sages, Father Balder, making an appearance just when you thought the sages were all dead.

The story of Bayonetta is a complicated affair, told with a level Japanese flair that, if confusion did damage, would probably kill anyone who heard it (and maybe a few people who were standing nearby). When we get our grubby mitts on the full game, we'll don our asbestos suits and see if we can't distill some more of it in the review. Stay tuned over Christmas (reading NZGamer is, after all, the perfect thing to do with a belly full of turkey and egg-nog) for our full breakdown.

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