Review: Bayonetta 2 is more of the glorious same

Expansion packs are the great lost art of the digital age.

Those breathtaking stop-gaps that added new characters, campaigns and, most importantly, tens of new hours to the games we loved as less internet-endowed beings. Diablo, Command & Conquer; these were the masters of the shivery hinterland between 'same old game' and 'sequel'.

Which brings us to Bayonetta 2 - Platinum's unexpected, Wii U-exclusive follow-up to the last-gen action classic. Years after the original, we have a game that performs the same tricks as its predecessor, but adds new modes, new weapons and an extended story. It even includes the original game as part of the asking price if you plump for the special or First Print edition.

It's an expansion pack in all but name.

The simple fact is that almost nothing has changed. This is very good news. Bayonetta's dazzlingly fluid combat, as much about knowing when to dodge-cancel moves as how to perform them, returns, as does its peculiarities. Extending minutes-long combos using pistol burst punctuation in much the same way we used manuals in skating games; studying the intricacies of weapons and the implications of weapon sets.

That and Witch Time, the gaudy slowdown awarded for dodging attacks at the last moment, all require your attention. It's among the greatest action combat systems ever committed to disc, and legitimately masterful stuff - but it's not Bayonetta 2's only strong suit.

A reinvented set of weapons fit the archetypes of the previous game - Bayonetta's trademark pistols get a makeover, the katana becomes a pair of scimitars, elemental claws become fire-and-ice moonboot-things - but offer almost totally new (gigantic) movesets, requiring that even the most experienced players relearn how to succeed at a high level.

The storyline gets a similar treatment. While it remains borderline incomprehensible (and, perhaps, even more badly acted), it's a sillier rendition than even the first. It's a Christmas tale for a start, with the tumultuous battle between Inferno and Paradiso ruining Bayonetta and the now-friendly Jeanne's festive shopping trip when the latter gets her soul punched out by an escaped dragon.

That's not to mention demon weapon salesman Rodin turning up in a Santa costume to chuck Bayo her equipment as she speeds past on a jet fighter, or the fact that you're told that the god you punched into space in the first game wasn't even a proper god, just some crude amalgamation of Norse mythological figures who happened to have created everything.

Even the first game's ludicrous, recurring cover of Fly Me To The Moon on the soundtrack is replaced with an even more ludicrous rendition of Moon River. You can see this game growing by what it leaves out, too. Almost all of the original's instant-reaction-instant-fail QTEs are ditched, not to mention its heavier focus on puzzles.

Hashimoto's seen Bayonetta for what it truly is - a magical action game - and focused almost entirely on that central element.

That's never clearer than when you see the new Umbran Climax mode. While building your magic gauge still allows you to perform Torture Attacks - grisly, over-the-top finishers - it's now better put to use as a timer for Bayonetta's new-found ability to push every one of her attacks up a notch.

Regular attacks become flurries of summoned demon limbs, while combo finishers create gigantic portals, as your Alruna whips reveal their true essence as Baal, Hell's premier evil toad or some such excellent nonsense.

"The simple fact is that almost nothing has changed. This is very good news."

These attacks are a neat way to ramp up the scale of some of your battles, and work nicely to amp up the tactical nature of the game's new airborne scraps (which see Bayonetta sprouting an entirely different set of wings to her usual butterfly set and attacking from afar), but they have a tendency to hit whole crowds of smaller enemies at once, rather reducing the need for the flitting, one-on-one precision Bayonetta was so good at enforcing.

They speak to the game's biggest problem - its lack of pacing. For all his insane bluster, Kamiya's always been a master of gameplay tension. Bayonetta was packed with chapters that had you fighting waves of regular combatants, punctuated by glimpses of huge, yet-to-be-seen bosses or off-kilter sequences (remember riding a motorcycle up the side of a rocket flying to the moon? Those ones), before yet more waves and a climactic boss fight.

Each one was a tiny narrative arc told almost entirely in punches and semi-acceptable nudity. The sequel, however, prefers a more direct approach - it's a shorter game as a whole, preferring one-on-one combat, with far more chapters that consist entirely of a single boss fight.

Some of those sequences are incredible: an underwater battle against Valor, an angel that wields its own face as a shield, features some beautiful animation, as individual sword swipes part the torrent and leave you hanging in a vacuum.

The overall design of the game owes as much to the abstract, neon skyscapes of Ninja Theory's DmC as it does the first game's grandiose European architecture. It feels as though the designers, understandably, simply couldn't wait to show off what they'd made, sometimes to the detriment of the game itself.

But that punchier style also leaves room for the game's one true innovation. Tag Climax is an online (or AI-assisted) co-op mode that lets you replay tens of the game's battles as a pair, offering both a perfect training ground and, with the addition of a betting system, awarding the player with the highest point score extra Halos to spend in the shop.

It's a creative solution to existing problems, solved by adding even more to the game - which speaks to the philosophy behind the project as a whole.

We didn't need a Bayonetta sequel, we needed this gracious evolution of style and execution, an injection of loving new content into a game that always felt as though it deserved more, even after we'd rinsed it clean. It might be an expansion pack, but it's quite possibly the best one ever made.