Hair today, guns tomorrow

You only need wander down an inebriated British high street after closing time to see just how perilous a pair of high heels can be. But Bayonetta, the titular star of this action blitzkrieg, elevates the art of deadly footwear to an all time high. She is, after all, perhaps the first girl to lace a pair of shotguns to her ankles.

Not only that, she's also the first Sarah Palin-lookalike to take on the heavenly host using a cat suit and a demon-possessed hairdo - not to mention anti-heroine of the first game to come from Japanese master game designer Hideki Kamiya since the magnificent Clover Studios closed its doors.

"Take on the heavens using a cat suit and a demonic hairdo."

Dante's Dad returns

For his re-entry to the joyfully over-the-top third person action genre, Kamiya has drawn the very best elements from his first game, Devil May Cry, and combined them with cherry picked ideas from Ninja Gaiden, God of War and even Super Mario Galaxy. But this is a game more than the sum of its disparate parts, one that combines a firework explosion of animation with jaw-dropping imagination, combat, set pieces and monster design.

In Bayonetta, the sultry witch who cuts her way through archangels with rare ease, gaming finds its strongest, most capable female lead. As you tap buttons a flurry of screen-flitting, balletic moves spill from her torso. Lithe and strong, she buzzes and back flips around enormous androgynous bosses like a deadly mosquito.

She strings together combos of air and ground attacks, one moment pulling out a sword, the next cart wheeling across the ground firing bullets from the weapons strapped to each of her limbs. It's a dazzling spectacle, the sort to remind us why we first started playing videogames in the first place.

Tough, in more ways than one

But this is no mere button masher. Chimes that sonically build up to connection signal enemy attacks. After a few hours of play you begin to hear the rhythm of combat and respond accordingly. A brilliant loading screen, that allows you to execute anyone of the huge litany of Bayonetta's moves (and have each one ticked of the collectable shopping list) encourages experimentation and, at anything above the easy difficulty level, you're going to need to block, parry and counter everything thrown at you if you're to traverse the road to victory.

Dodging an enemy blow at the last moment triggers Witch Time, a state that consigns all enemies to gloopy slow motion while you continue to line up ever more dazzling attacks as they stutter. The game's rules are simple yet work together with rare efficiency, while the sheer spectacle of the visuals - showing Bayonetta surfing, flying, summoning giant fists and esoteric guillotines before sprinting up crumbling buildings - makes these fight sequences the most beautiful and terrifying yet seen in games.

"The story is expectedly bonkers but the execution is enjoyable."

Time to hit the shops

An upgrade shop allows you to purchase new guns and a spattering of fresh moves but, crucially, almost all of the tools you'll need to get through the game are available right from the off. That said, for the dedicated there are numerous top tier items that will require multiple playthroughs to afford. Still, no matter how good your armoury, nothing will helps you get through the game so much as a mature understanding of the battle system, which encourages the sort of showboating that's ideal for the YouTube generation.

For those with eyes to see, Bayonetta makes numerous tributes to both Clover and Sega's games of yore, from its missile-riding Space Harrier turn, to a constant machine gun volley of God Hand references. While these features are little more than a wink to those in the know, they demonstrate Bayonetta's appreciation of its genre's history - something that goes a long way to explaining its subsequent mastery of it.

It's a stylish package too, treading a thin line between elegance and perviness in its cutscenes. The story is expectedly bonkers but the execution is enjoyable, mixing humour and schoolboy boisterousness with occasional, fleeting moments of tenderness.

The result is an action game of startling confidence and competence, unashamed of its outrageous silliness, a celebration of the impossible only made possible by virtue of its chosen medium.

Witch Time
+ Balletic fighting system.
+ Stylish, imaginative set pieces.
+ Outrageous story and setting.

Ditch Time
- Too many cutscenes.
- Irritating voice acting.
- Relatively high difficulty.