Hello. I’m Mari Shimazaki (Shimako), a character designer on Bayonetta.

It seems that the Bayonetta blog is finally underway! Lots of the staff from Bayonetta are going to take turns writing here, so I hope you all enjoy it.

Today is my turn, and for my first post, I thought I would give you some insight into the concept design for Bayonetta.

Truth be told, it was a real struggle to arrive at the final design for Bayonetta herself. In fact, it took a full year! I think what happened during that year is quite interesting, but it is quite a long story, so I’ll save it for another time.

When we started Bayonetta, our director, Hideki Kamiya, asked me to design a character with three traits:
1)    A Female Lead
2)    A Modern Witch
3)    She Uses Four Guns

Designers use these keywords to fuel their imagination as they draw, and after exhausting a few ideas, I arrived at the prototype design below.

(Bayonetta Design Prototype)

Since Bayonetta is a witch, her “theme color” had to be black! The other special part of her design is the long hair wrapping around her body. The hair gathered around Bayonetta’s sleeves accentuates the movements of her limbs.

When a female character appears in an action game, her limbs often seem thin and short. That is why I tried to make her more appealing as an action game character by adjusting her proportions and extending her limbs.

Then I went about finishing up her clothing, which you can see below!

(Bayonetta Final Design)

(Bayonetta Bust View)

This is the final design. :-p

Bayonetta’s long hair is the source of her power, and she normally wears it around her body as a means of adornment and protection. However, once she enters battle, she can use her hair to summon incredibly powerful demons from hell. When she summons these Infernal Demons, she is using all of her power, so she has no time to control the hair wrapped around her body and thus she ends up in more “comfortable” attire. The exciting way she looks in this state is one of the parts of Bayonetta that I love.

By the way, Bayonetta’s beehive was a hairdo that I really wanted to give her, and I insisted on drawing her that way throughout the design process. As she is a witch, I thought that instead of a pointy hat, I would give her something elegant, like a wrap-do… Apparently though, Kamiya-san didn’t really care either way. :-p

There was another thing I added to Bayonetta to make her an even more appealing character…

(Bayonetta’s Face)

Glasses! This was something that Kamiya-san really pushed for, as he was aiming to differentiate Bayonetta from other female characters and give her a sense of mystery and intelligence. Of course, I think it is just because he likes girls with glasses.

Conceptually, we were also looking to make Bayonetta “fashionable,” and I designed her so that this sense of fashion came through in all the little details, not just the glasses.

That is the story behind Bayonetta’s final design. I think I was able to put my feelings into her design, and she ended up a strong female character. So, you’d like to know how she behaves? Or maybe you are wondering what kind of battles will she get herself into? Look forward to playing the final version of Bayonetta and finding out all the answers!

(NOTE: Higher resolution versions of the concept art in this post can be found on the PlatinumGames Inc. Flickr Page)

Hey everyone. Are you hooked on MADWORLD yet? If you aren’t, come back and read this blog after you’ve cleared MADWORLD ten more times. MADWORLD is now available in Europe, so this blog is going introduce some replay goals that will make your MADWORLD experience ten times more fun.

If you’ve already driven yourself mad by playing the game too much, this blog post might not be up your alley; however, for those who are keen to keep chomping at the bit, definitely read this blog and have an even better time playing MADWORLD again.

• Five Sign Impale

MADWORLD’s most famous kill has to be shoving a sign post into an enemy’s head, but did you know that you can impale up to five signs into a single enemy? When I look at some of the gameplay video that users have uploaded to Youtube, it seems that everyone is stopping at a single sign post. That’s just an unbelievable waste. If you use multiple signs, you will earn more points and a higher rating for your attack. Not to mention an enemy with five signs in his head is incredibly funny!

• Impaling a Bull with a Sign Post

Big Bull Crocker is the overbearing guy wearing a bull helmet and charging at you with a double chainsaw. You guys are probably all trying to take him out with Jack’s chainsaw or punches. And I figure that you have all had a power struggle with Bull at least once. After winning that power struggle, Big Bull will stand there winded. That is when you can actually impale Big Bull Crocker with a sign post! He is only standing there for a moment, so your chance to pull this off is small, but you can impale up to 5 posts into Crocker.

I’ll share another tip for dealing with Big Bull Crocker! Get Bull in front of a Rose Bush (Spiked Wall) and attack him. Any attack will do, so give it a try. You can actually impale Big Bull Crocker onto the Rose Bush. Depending on his health, he will either die or be disabled by the spikes. When he is disabled, you can use your chainsaw to cut chunks out of him and send him to an early grave. Give it a try! I love this technique, so impale him with a sign post, plant him on a rose bush, and let the Bull know who is boss.

• Use Enemy Lures

When you are in the Station portion of the first stage, there is an attache case in the area. The one that says “CASH” on the front. If you pick that up and throw it, all the money inside will fly up into the air when it hits the ground. The enemies who see that will lose all interest in Jack and head straight for the cash to gather it up, forming a pack of enemies all in one spot.

Throw the cash onto the train tracks and get all the enemies to gather there! A few moments later, a train will come blasting through the station and smash through the cash loving horde, wiping them all out.

There are the sorts of ways you can use the attache case cash to raise your kill efficiency and take out lots of enemies. In every stage there is a lure item, so once you find them make sure to take advantage of them.

• New DeathWatch Challenges!

Everyone is interested in the story, so they clear an area and move on to the next to see what will happen. However, MADWORLD may be a linear game, but you can revisit areas that you have completed.

Sure, playing the same stage the exact same way is OK, but it won’t stay fresh for long, so we’ve included extra missions. Each area has a different mission, with up to four missions added in one stage. As the missions change, it will give you a different sense of urgency in each area to complete the mission, so you really should give those stages another shot!

There are other things I’d like to add, but for now, I suggest checking out the MADWORLD strategy guide that is on sale in stores now. There is lots of great art featuring Jack and the enemies from MADWORLD, so everyone should own their own copy!

So here is your last bit of INSIDER INFORMATION!

In the 2nd stage area known as Bistro La Lusty Geisha, go to the tempura area and try to place as much tempura as you can on the plate in a single go, then ring the bell. You will find something well worth your efforts!

Hello everyone around the world. Welcome to the PlatinumGames website! I’m Hideki Kamiya, director of Bayonetta.
If you’ve taken the time to visit this site, it probably means you’re more than a little interested in Bayonetta, right? Some of you probably came looking for information about Bayonetta, but there isn’t that much out there and you’re on pins and needles waiting to know more. Well, it isn’t too long now until Bayonetta is on the shelves, so we are going to lead up to that date by giving you all the information you desire on the site. So, make sure to keep visiting us here!

Of course, you’re thinking, “Shut up already and tell us about the game!” Well, as part of our plan, we won’t just be releasing screenshots and trailers (trust me, we will put those out too!). I also want to use this site as a blog alongside members of the Bayonetta team. (That would make this the first post of said blog.)

I haven’t changed my way of thinking about games. I still feel “if you want to talk about a game, you have to play the game.” However, beyond playing the game, I think this blog can become an important source of information for gamers. Lately the market has been flooded with sequels, but I think that is simply because you can buy a sequel and feel safe in what you are buying. Don’t you agree? Plus, there are definite advantages to sequels. You already understand the concept thanks to the previous title, and the media tends to cover sequels more than other games, so you’ve got more information at your fingertips. Yet, it is within that environment that the staff here at PlatinumGames decided, “Let’s make original games!” Now we are working hard towards that goal; however, as we are a new company, we don’t have anything in the bank that we can just use to make to crank out a game. We can only make original titles, right!? (LOL.) Of course, we’re not facing backwards towards the past, but instead, whether it be an original game or a sequel, we are totally dedicated to making one thing – Fun games.

But to get back to the point, even though we are unsympathetic to the sequel-flooded market, I am aware that we as game creators need to recognize our responsibility in creating the situation. No matter who you are, getting your hands on a kusoge sucks. (By the way, kusoge is Japanese slang for a crap game. Try using it in your everyday lives.) Once you’ve been burned a few times that way, you start wanting to head for the safe route. It is because there has been no lack of disappointing titles that we have invited this situation upon ourselves. The staff here at PlatinumGames wants to make games that serve as proof that “you can trust what we say as creators.” This is how we arrived at the creation of a place like this site. We feel that communicating with you is an important way in getting you interested in what we do.

There are also cases where a game isn’t a kusoge, but it wasn’t exactly what you were looking for, so you feel burned by the experience. This is why we want to be completely upfront with what we are making so there are no hard feelings or misunderstandings. For instance, with Bayonetta, we would hate for someone to think it is a heartwarming tale and then buy the game to discover it is really a sadistically hard game (I hope…) where you play as a witch who laughs as she destroys angelic enemies.

I don’t want to get into a spouting off some sort of sales pitch… “My game is awesome. Buy my awesome game.” Instead, I want to tell you about who is making our games, and what they are thinking and feeling when they make them. I want to express our true feelings, free of pretension, in hopes that it gets the point across. I want you to trust and believe in us in hope that at the very least, someday you will want to play Bayonetta. I don’t mind if you play it once and decide you want to buy it or you don’t want to buy it. I’m confident in my creation. (But, of course, if you play it and like it, I’d love for you to buy it!) Buy it or not, I really want you to at least give Bayonetta a try. Naturally the next thing you must be thinking is, “Then hurry up and let me try it!!” Hehe… Sorry, but I can’t help you there.

I think I might be losing my bearings here, so allow me to change course. Since this is the first post in the Bayo-Blog (I just picked that name myself), I thought I would share a bit of my feelings in regards to Bayonetta as a character.

I’ve said this all over the place, but the impetus for Bayonetta came from a chat with my producer, Yusuke Hashimoto, where he said, “I’d love to see another action game by you, Kamiya-san.” Right after our chat, I wrote my first draft of a design document for a 3D action game, and that is when I decided to make the main character a woman. When the team looked at the design doc, there were apparently a few people who were uncomfortable with the choice. “It will be hard to relate to her,” they said. “It will be a hard sell.” There were plenty of reasons to feel that way, and perhaps it really is hard to connect a female character with hardcore battle action. But to me, that gap was the attraction. I also had a less reasonable, but still valid, reason for selecting a female lead character. I already feel a sense of accomplishment as I feel I have already done what there is to be done vis-à-vis creating male characters.

The first male character I created was Leon in Resident Evil 2. In Resident Evil 1, the main character, Chris, was a bit of a blunt, tough-guy type. So in RE2, I wanted to change it up and make Leon someone with weaknesses, but ultimately a man who was on the ball. To be fair, I am more of a fan of a character like Mikami’s Chris, but since he got to make Chris first, I decided to go in a different direction. I went with a character that wasn’t really my “type.” However, now that I look back at how things turned out, it is surprising to me how popular Leon ended up being. In Resident Evil 4, he actually ended up being really cool looking guy, and I fell in love all over again. LOL.

The next male character I created was Dante from Devil May Cry. Devil May Cry started off as a game in the Resident Evil series, and I always planned for the game to be jam-packed with action, thus I went with the concept of a “gritty badass show-off.” (Actually, I just thought of the ‘gritty badass show-off’ bit right now…) I had been thinking of making a lead character in that vain for a while, but within what was thematically a horror game, it didn’t seem like something I could pull off. Yet, in Devil May Cry the theme is Stylish Action, so I had free rein to put my own spin on the lead character (and the game) as I saw fit.
Oh yeah… Just to add another descriptor to how I perceive Dante… He is a character that you would want to go out drinking with. Basically, he isn’t just a show-off to be ‘cool’. He is the kind of guy that will pull some ridiculous, mischievous joke and that will endear you to him. I wanted to make him feel familiar to people.

Next was Joe, the titular character from Viewtiful Joe. Viewtiful Joe was a comical game, so Joe himself is brimming with playfulness. He seems to be a naturally fun-loving, unassuming laid-back hilarious dude. Dante was sort of like that as well, but Joe is most likely the more narcissistic of the two. No matter where he is, he is the star of the show, and he can’t help but having fun behind the star… I really enjoyed making him the star, as well.

The last male character I want to touch upon is Issun in Okami. He isn’t a playable character, not to mention you don’t really see him during gameplay (LOL), but I think that people who have cleared Okami realize that he was a great main character. Conceptually, Issun is a childish character who manifests this immaturity in his extreme perversion and foul mouth; however, he is also a good-hearted, loyal, and compassionate figure. As Okami is an adventure game, Issun holds a special place as the character with the largest number of lines I have ever written, and as you move through the game, I think he is also the most fleshed out of my characters. Among all the characters I have created, he is the only character that hasn’t been used by another creator, and even now, he is a character whose story I feel I’d like to continue some day.

Oh… This seems to have gotten longer than anyone is actually going to read! Well, there you have it. Those are the reasons why Bayonetta is a female character.

And with that I would like to bring to a close the first entry in the Bayo-Blog by one Hideki Kamiya. The next post will be from Bayonetta’s character designer, Mari Shimazaki. She will have plenty to say, so look forward to her post soon.

I’ll be on the look out for places to join in the fun, and will be contributing to the blog now and then, so look forward to that and keep reading the Bayo-Blog! (Again with that name I just picked!)