Bayonetta

"Nonstop Climax Action."
—Game's tagline

Bayonetta is a third person action Beat'Em Up in the style of Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden and God of War, starring the title heroine, a Badass witch with epic hair, guns on her feet, and a fathomless fondness for Camp.

The plot is as follows: Bayonetta is an Umbra Witch, the (almost) last of a clan that pledges their soul to demonic power so they can fight against the angelic beings of Paradiso. Waking up from a five-hundred year sleep and seeking her lost memories, she travels to the European city of Vigrid, whose spiritual make-up is getting uncomfortably close to that of Paradiso. There, she hopes to find the mysterious "Right Eye", the other half of the "Eyes Of The World" broach she possesses. There she meets another Witch named Jeanne who seems to know more about Bayonetta than herself, an Intrepid Reporter named Luka who has a long-lived grudge against her and a seemingly lost little girl named Cereza. Her memories return progressively as she proceeds through the city while kicking a lot of ass.

Its unabashedly sexual themes caused some amount of controversy, but the fact that the game was developed by the formerly dissolved Clover Studios (now reassembled as Platinum Games) and the director of Okami (with which Bayonetta shares a character designer, Mari Shimazaki), Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 2 and Viewtiful Joe piqued the interest of many gamers who might otherwise have taken a more cynical stance on the matter.

The Xbox 360 version received rave reviews, even becoming only the 12th game to ever be awarded a perfect 40 score in Famitsu and the eleventh to receive 10/10 in Edge. The Play Station 3 version has suffered porting issues and has received solid, but not glowing reviews. Spoilers will be marked when possible, but there are still some unmarked spoilers.

Not to be confused with Bullet Witch. Nothing to do with Bayonet Ya either.

Tropes used in Bayonetta include:
  • Action Commands: Torture Attacks, Climax Attacks and playing Hot Potato with missiles. May overlap with Press X to Not Die for some sequences.
  • Action Mom: Cereza may not be her daughter, but Bayonetta protects her like one. Subverted when it turns out that Cereza is actually Bayonetta as a child, and Balder is her father. Then he absorbs the younger Bayonetta and becomes the penultimate boss. Zig-Zagging Trope indeed.
  • Affably Evil: The Cardinal Virtues are generally very polite and respectful when they speak to Bayonetta... certainly more polite and respectful than she is to them.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Bayonetta calls Luka "Cheshire", much to his annoyance.
  • All There in the Manual: Information about various topics in the game are found in literal manuals that you can pick up on the field and read. Plus there's The Hierachy of Laguna that has info on all the enemies in the game.
  • Almost Kiss/Nonchalant Dodge: Bayonetta to Luka, though he was probably the one who thought it was an Almost Kiss.
  • Always a Bigger Fish/Summon Bigger Fish: Part of how Bayonetta defeats the below mentioned Jubileus. To put it into perspective, the demon she summons, Queen Sheba, is as huge compared to Jubileus as Jubileus is compared to Bayonetta.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
    • You face the final boss in a spherical confinement IN SPACE. Not sure how that works... but it's awesome.
    • The Bonus Boss, Father Rodin, teleports both you and him to one of these... likely so his bar won't be ruined during the battle.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Bayonetta literally has to tear some of the main bosses apart to defeat them. Not always "arms", per see, given their Bizarre Alien Biology.
  • An Axe to Grind: Beloveds.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Complete the game on Normal and you can buy Couture Bullets to change your outfit.
  • Animal Motifs:
    • Butterflies all over the place for Bayonetta.
    • Moths for Jeanne.
    • Balder seems to have a peacock theme.
  • Anime Theme Song: MiChi's "Something Missing" for the live-action commercials. The lyrics are a mix of Japanese and English, due to MiChi being born in England from a Japanese mother and English father.
  • Apocalypse How: Balder wants to instigate this in order to reunite the Trinity of Realities, which in turn, would destroy all life in the current universe to do so. This makes this a Class X-5.
  • Action Prologue: Features Bayonetta and Jeanne fighting angels on a broken clock tower that is plummeting off a cliff!
  • Arc Words:
    • "May Jubileus, the Creator, grace you!" This is said by all the Cardinal Virtues Bayonetta faces, and becomes Fridge Horror when you realize they're praying for Jubileus to go easy on her when Jubileus wakes up and destroys the world.
    • "The Left Eye, our treasured Left Eye, will never fall into the hands of another!"
    • "My dear, sweet child."
  • Armed Legs: Guns. On. Feet. The Durga set when equipped to the legs and Odette ice skates cleave closer to usual use of this trope. We don't even know if the leg-mounted Lt. Col. Kilgore tonfas fall under this or a particularly over-the-top example of Pistol-Whipping though.
  • Artistic License Gun Safety: Notoriously bad for this. Firing indiscriminately and wildly while fighting (especially in enclosed spaces) is ridiculously unsafe in itself, but anyone who twirls pistols during punch combos, wields shoe guns that apparently fire themselves and adjusts their glasses with the business end of a pistol is just asking to be killed by misfire.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Most of the bosses.
  • Author Appeal: As Mari Shimazaki stated in her character design blog, "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."
  • Awesome but Impractical: The Moonlight Massacre, a special technique from the sword Shuraba. It is one of the most powerful attacks that Bayonetta can use, but it takes a long time to charge up while Bayonetta stands still, and the red beam of energy can often miss the enemy.
  • Awesomeness Meter: You're ranked either Stone (Enzo), Bronze (Cereza), Silver (Luka), Gold (Rodin), Platinum (Bayonetta herself), or Pure Platinum (Bayonetta holding a purple crescent over her head), depending on how well you did at the end of each chapter.
  • Badass Biker: Bayonetta and Jeanne.
  • Bad Guy Bar: Supposedly, the Gates of Hell is this to the layman; located in a Wretched Hive of a city called the Dump, it is populated by thieves and black marketeers. Only a few - like Bayonetta - know that it's also a demonic weapons market.
  • Bad Habits: Bayonetta dresses up like a nun at the beginning of the game, as does Jeanne at the end of the game.
  • Bad Moon Rising: The full moon in a cloudless sky lets Bayonetta (and Jeanne) use "Witch Walk", and walk up walls.
  • Barehanded Blade Block: Attempted by a monster in one of Bayonetta's Torture Attack sequences... with a chainsaw several meters long. Not at all unexpectedly, it fails.
  • Bayonetta Can Breathe In Space: Jeanne too.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The description of an item you can buy from Rodin states that Cleopatra was a head witch in the Ancient Egypt.
  • Beyond the Impossible: At one point, Bayonetta starts a motorcycle by jamming her middle finger into the ignition switch.
  • BFG: Lt. Col. Kilgore. A set of ROCKET LAUNCHER TONFAS. Quadruple wielded, of course! The in-game description states that this weapon actually contains the soul of the character it is named after. While it probably does more damage than any other weapon in the game, it is unfortunately rather slow.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Bayonetta during the start of Chapter XI, where she cleans house on a flock of angels threatening Luka and Cereza.
    • Jeanne during the Epilogue.
    • Luka has his moments a few times too, usually involving a stolen vehicle of some kind.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Bayonetta's summoning chants, the angels' dialogue/battle cries, and some of Balder's battle cries are said in Enochian, "the language of angels".
    • Throughout the game, there is a lot of text written in angelic and demonic script. For those interested in what it all actually says, here's a guide.
  • Black and Grey Morality: On one side, you have the forces of Heaven, who are not above slaughtering humans and merging realities for their own ends. On the other side, you have the forces of Hell, whose reputation precedes them.
  • Blood Knight: Sure, she has to kill angels to keep demons from dragging her to Hell, but it's pretty clear she enjoys punishing angels a bit too much. Nearly every fight scene begins and ends with a smile on her face (with a few very serious exceptions) and, other than recovering her memories, she states that one of the initial reasons she was going to Vigrid was because the weak angels being sent at her had her bored.
  • Bonus Boss:
    • Rodin. Or rather, Father Rodin, as he calls himself as a boss. Possibly one of the hardest bonus bosses in a hack and slash game ever, expect Bayonetta to get her perky ass kicked a few dozen times before you defeat him. Also might be the best example of this boss in a game like this that isn't really story related. To unlock him, you need to finish the game and buy the Platinum Ticket (costs 999,999 Halos, and defeating him nets you a weapon that is also called Rodin.
    • He is also a Bonus Boss in the second game, where he's just as hard, but this time, he turns into a demon called the Infinite One. Here, unlocking costs 9,999,999 Halos, and again, defeating him grants you the same weapon as the first.
    • A second bonus boss can be fought at the end of Angel Slayer mode. It turns out to be Bayonetta herself.
  • Bonus Level of Hell/Bonus Level of Heaven: The Lost Chapter Angel Slayer that you unlock by completing all the Alfheim challenges. Going through dozens of waves of enemies and insane bosses (fighting two Jeannes on Hard setting being one of the easiest) wouldn't be fun if you could use healing items, would it? Also the difficulty setting starts on Normal and increases progressively, ending with Non-Stop Climax. And if you die, don't expect you can just select "yes" at the continue screen cause there are no check-points: you are expected to do all of it in one shot. Nintendo Hard indeed.
  • Bonus Round: The Alfine Portals lead to arena-like areas where you have to fight a group of foes with a time limit, limited health, and at least one other condition. For example, in one you can only hurt enemies while in Witch Time, in another you must complete 6 Torture Attacks, and another has enemies only vulnerable to Angel Arms. Completing them awards Broken With Hearts or Moon Pearls.
  • Book Ends:
    • The intro ends with Bayonetta calling out to Jeanne, who responds "I'm okay!" They then pose back to back as they plummet off a cliff face amidst falling rubble. After the final boss fight, the two witches repeat this exact dialogue exchange (complete with pose), only this time the rubble is Jubileus' statue fragments rather than rocks, and they are plummeting towards the planet rather than a canyon.
    • The funeral scene in the ending invokes this trope several times:
      • First, the conversation between Bayonetta and Luka. When they first meet, Luka tells Bayonetta that rosemary equates to remembrance, contrasting it with Bayonetta's amnesia. Bayonetta retorts by saying that rosemary is a demon repellent. In the ending, Luka places large bunches of rosemary by the grave and, recalling them as demon repellent, says he hopes they will help her in Hell. After the fake funeral, Bayonetta remarks that rosemary's symbol of remembrance now suits her.
      • On a lesser note: in the Prologue, when Rodin wakes up from his fake funeral, he blasts the lid of his coffin up, only for it to land and break on his head. In the ending's fake funeral scene, when Bayonetta wakes up, she blasts the coffin lid, which again lands and breaks on Rodin's head.
      • And, of course, the nun outfit.
  • Boss-Only Level: Each of the Four Cardinal Virtues resides in these, though one has a few enemies before the boss.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Gracious and Glorious are exactly the same as Grace and Glory, but are faster, more aggressive, more damaging, and you can't normally get Witch Time off of them. Expect to see the four of them a lot in hard mode. Plus they have no problem with breaking out of your combos, while theirs (particularly their midair ones) require equal parts perfect timing and sheer luck to dodge out of.
  • Boss Subtitles:
    • Every time a new type of enemy appears (except Gracious and Glorious, most likely because they are the only enemy that doesn't appear on the two easiest difficulties), it's accompanied with a short cut scene and a Pastel-Chalked Freeze-Frame that gives the name and class of the enemy. Is also used to remind the player to put on an appropriate Oh Crap face when Umbra Witch: Jeanne finally appears after fighting her at least three times prior, and Dea: Jubileus.
    • Rodin. Somebody with a title like "The Infinite One" probably isn't one to be messed with.
  • Bragging Theme Tune: "Mysterious Destiny" is mostly this, although the lyrics are not only about Bayonetta's awesomeness.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: This is the reason Jeanne has it in for Bayonetta for the majority of the game. If the other tropes on this page haven't clued you in, she gets better.
  • Bring It:
    • Bayonetta does a lot of this in different ways. One of her taunts is "Do you want to touch me?" Surprisingly, this is actually a line shared by Another Joe from Viewtiful Joe.
    • "I've got a fever, and the only cure is MORE DEAD ANGELS."
    • Equip Durga on her hands and feet and she lies back and says "Come on!" while spreading her legs wide open!
    • Think Bayonetta's got some good ones? Play as Jeanne. "You muthaFUCKAH!" Then for shits and giggles, equip Angel Slayer.
  • British Accents: Bayonetta and Jeanne are European and both have English accents.
  • Bruce Lee Clone: Quite possibly the only female version of this trope in existence that does it correctly, BAYONETTA becomes this when you give her the nunchuck like weapons, Sai Fung. When you do the basic 5 punch combo, she even does Bruce Lee's Kiai. It's made even more awesome by the fact that the nunchucks have GUNS in them. Crazy Awesome indeed.
  • Bullet Time: "Witch Time".
  • Bullying a Dragon: Honestly, you have to admire Bayonetta's patience for not crushing Luka like some annoying bug for the constant insults and accusations he makes.
  • Butt Monkey:
    • Enzo gets a lot of abuse during the opening chapter. He's also the poster boy for the "Stone" grade, as the award looks like him falling flat on his rear, accompanied by his quip "oh, what a day!".
    • The lowest-ranking angels, Affinities, are the enemy version of this, considering how much abuse Bayonetta gives them during cutscenes (like being used as a surfboard to ride a magma wave).
  • Camp
  • Captain Ersatz: Enzo is basically Joe Pesci.
  • Car Fu: Jeanne's first appearance in chapter two and in her first boss battle.
  • Cat Fight: Bayonetta vs Jeanne, or any Joy angel (as they take a female humanlike form).
  • Catgirl: When equipped with the specified perfume, Durga causes Bayonetta to gain a tail and a pair of cat ears made of flames.
  • Censor Hair: When Bayonetta uses a Climax Attack, her hair takes a Censor Steam shape spiraling around her body. Technically, she's always in Censor Hair, seeing as how the only actually clothing she wears are glasses, gold chains, and ribbons... The rest is all hair.
  • Chainsaw Good: The Torture Attack for one type of flying enemy involves Bayonetta pulling a chainsaw three times her size from Hammerspace. And unlike other torture devices, she gets to keep it afterward, mostly because it's the only one that's an actual melee weapon and because the said enemy doesn't have any weapons to drop. This is both foreshadowed and lampshaded by one of Rodin's quotes when entering his bar: "I'm not putting a chainsaw on your arm."
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Bayonetta's lipstick. Luka tries to trick her so that he can get some camera shots. She later uses it as a bullet to kill Father Balder.
    • Also her watch. Telling Cereza to wear it over her heart is what keeps her from being sealed away by Jeanne in the past.
    • The stone that Bayonetta carries for Jeanne, as she uses the power in it to protect herself from an otherwise fatal explosion.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Luka giving a lollipop to Cereza, which pretty much signifies what Bayonetta's favorite sweet is.
  • Cherubic Choir: The background musics of the Paradiso levels are made of this. They are stunningly beautiful and relaxing. There is also the dedicated music for Mook Debut Cutscenes.
  • The Chessmaster: Balder. See Gambit Roulette below.
  • The Chosen One: Bayonetta is "The Left Eye", the darkness that makes up half of Jubileus. Her father is "The Right Eye", the light of Jubileus. Together they make up "The Eyes of the World".
  • Clock King: Witch Time is one of Bayonetta's most useful abilities; by dodging an attack at the right time, enemies move in slow motion for a few seconds, enabling you to set up a stronger attack. This can also be done in some non-combat situations to get past obstacles.
    • The Lumen Sages have a similar power called Light Speed, which they use to slow time from their own perspective to a fraction of its normal pace, allowing them to bypass their opponent's defenses.
  • Clock Tower: The playable introductory scene takes place on a clock tower...as it tumbles from an impossibly high cliff face.
  • Clothing Damage: Bayonetta can do attacks that rely on her own hair, and since she diverts some of the hair she's wearing for these attacks, well...
  • Cluster F-Bomb
  • Colossus Climb: Several of the bosses.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Bayonetta fights dirty. When she stuns an angel, she can use one of her Punish attacks; all are different (she can Slam, Slap, Stomp, Stab, Punch, or even Spank the angel) but all of them amount to dealing damage while the angel is helpless. She can also use a Punish attack to set one up for a Wicked Weave or Torture Attack.
  • Combat Sadomasochist: Father Balder, and how.
  • Combat Stilettos. Which double as guns.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Lava won't hurt Bayonetta without it touching her. She can even walk on it with Fire Durga or Odette equipped to her feet!
  • Cool Car: Irenic.
  • Credits Gag: After Bayonetta defeats Jubileus, she crouches down upon the wreckage of Jubileus as it falls to the earth. The credits roll, but are then cut off by Jeanne appearing and declaring that the falling debris is still going to destroy Earth, provoking a shooting sequence to destroy the wreckage, and thus, the true ending cutscene. As in she literally stomps out the credits.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: The boss deaths and just about all the Torture Combos, but especially on the Joys. Taunt her, then finish with a Torture Combo. See where the spike on the horse is sticking in?
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus/Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: The game involves Heaven and Hell, but calls them Paradiso and Inferno. Plus, angels don't really look or act conventionally, and God is a woman.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: The cutscenes always involve Bayonetta performing amazing aerial maneuvers, one-shotting enemies with her handguns, and performing moves that would put The Matrix to shame.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Get used to Hard Mode, go back to Normal Mode, and have trouble dodging due to changes in timing.
  • Dance Battler:
    • Bayonetta's move "Breakdance" has her do a dozen headspins all while shooting her feet-guns. Then she finishes in a super sexy pose.
    • Joys mimic many of Bayonetta's moves, and thus, follow suit. An entry in the Platinum Games blog even mentions their dance battle motif.
  • Dancing Theme: Several of Bayonetta's attacks involve poledancing and breakdancing. The game finishes itself off with one.
  • Dark Is Not Evil/Light Is Not Good: Witch heroine versus evil angels.
  • Dark Magical Girl: Bayonetta tends to feel like this with her Transformation Sequence at the start of the game when she goes from sexy nun to gun-toting action witch.
  • Dark Reprise: "Blood & Darkness" is one to "Red & Black", signifying that Jeanne's not fucking around anymore.
  • David vs. Goliath: Bosses in the game are often as big as skyscrapers, but Bayonetta is somehow able to body-slam them.
  • Deal with the Devil: How the Umbra Witches gain their powers. The inevitable trade off for all the Crazy Awesome is an eternity in Hell when they finally die.
  • Degraded Boss: The climactic angel fights from the early chapters all return as regular enemies in later levels. You are also accosted by weaker knock-offs of the four Cardinal Virtues after killing their respective real deal.
  • Did Do the Research: The game's angels look pretty bizarre when placed next to their counterparts from other media, but the Bible states that angels spent a lot of their time trying to calm down the people they appeared to. Also, there's one enemy that looks like a locust with a scorpion tail, a sort of creature which is supposed to appear just before Christ's return and sting unbelievers to death. Of course, depending on whether you're drawing from the Bible or from later sources/artists, the accuracy will vary as the modern image of angels (people with wing) came out long after the Bible was written.
    • Also, the language spoken by the angels, and by Bayonetta when she uses magic, is actually Enochian, a dead language that was invented by British occultist John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in the 16th Century. Dee claimed this was an actual language of angels.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Yes, you did, and hard enough that her soul was knocked out of her body and flew all the way from Pluto into the sun. Suplexing a DRAGON certainly qualifies, as well.
  • Difficult but Awesome/Simple Yet Awesome: "Dodge offset" doesn't sound all that complicated: continuing an interrupted combo after dodging by holding the attack button − but in the heat of battle it requires quite a bit of coordination to pull out spontaneously. If you master it though, it becomes extremely useful in situations where you can't use Witch Time (like the Gracious and Glorious fights or the entire Infinite Climax Mode). It looks pretty sweet too.
  • Disney Death:
    • Luka and Jeanne pull this off not once, but twice! On four separate incidents! Cereza does it once too, sharing it with one of Luka's.
    • Bayonetta's at the end as well.
  • Distaff Counterpart: Bayonetta to Dante and Nero of Devil May Cry, Gene from God Hand, and possibly even Viewtiful Joe.
    • Zig-Zagging Trope: The Devil May Cry reboot is being nicknamed Dantenetta in that it's basically a distaff version of Bayonetta: even Dante behaves like a male Bayonetta.
  • Disturbed Doves: Luka's first appearance has this happen - mid-leap - while he is running from a Vigrid security officer.
  • Dragged Off to Hell: First of all, it happens to any boss that you kill: it gets dragged to Hell by a bunch of clawing red arms. The same thing happens to Bayonetta on the game over screen if you choose not to continue. It turns out that all Umbra Witches get this when they die, not just Bayonetta.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Everyone during the Route 666 stage, so much that the musical score is a direct Shout Out to After Burner.
  • Dual Boss: Not truly bosses, but Grace and Glory are usually found together.
  • Dual Wield: Guns. Melee weapons. Chainsaws. You name it, she can double wield it. She can also dual wield twice: once for her hand weapons and once for her leg weapons. Is it Quadruple Wielding?
  • Dueling Games: Released nearly at the same time as another Heaven VS Hell beat-em-up Darksiders.
  • Dummied Out: The 修羅刃 Shuraba katana was actually supposed to have a special animation where the hilt would open and show the beating heart of an Ashura, just like in its description. However, somewhere down the line the animation was never programmed into the katana, although the file still remains buried in the game data.
  • Easier Than Easy: Very Easy/Automatic mode, derided in some circles as "Fap Mode".
  • Easter Egg: The "Lollipop Trick" is something the developers put into the game so players who discovered it could make some difficult battles easier. Simply put, when Bayonetta has a lollipop during a cutscene, the player can mash a button corresponding to the color of a lollipop - for example, on the Switch, B=Yellow, A=Red, Y=Green and X=Blue - and when the cutscene ends and the fight starts, Bayonetta will gain a Buff similar to the one the lollipop provides. Even better, this does not count as an "Item", so it won't deduct from your score.
  • Eaten Alive: Many of Bayonetta's Climax Attacks summon demons that do this to a foe.
  • The Ending Changes Everything: Play this game, and you'll likely see Baldur as a horribly evil man who got what he deserved and whom nobody will mourn or miss; play the sequel, however, and you'll tearfully forgive everything he did.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Every boss. The regular angels qualify too. At least, once their armor cracks away and you see what they really look like...
  • Eldritch Location: Several.
  • Elemental Powers: Each of the four Cardinal Virtues represents an element. Fire, wind, earth and water respectively.
  • Erotic Eating: Bayonetta's Trademark Favorite Food are lollipops.
  • Escort Mission: Some levels have you protecting and rescuing Cereza. They are surprisingly well done and avoid becoming overly frustrating, possibly thanks to being brief (Cereza's regenerating health doesn't hurt either).
  • Everything's Better with Spinning:
    • Bayonetta spins her guns after every attack if you equip any guns in her hands. The Breakdance attack also makes Bayonetta perform multiple windmills while firing off any guns on her feet in every direction.
    • Picking up the staff dropped by angels lets you do a spinning stripper pole dance that hits everything on the screen at once.
  • Evil Is Bigger: Bosses in this game are enormous, and the Final Boss is the size of a planet.
  • Evil Brit: Well, her Evil Twin is also an Evil Brit.
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • Jeanne acts this way to Bayonetta. Balder as well, since he is the Right Eye of the world while Bayonetta is the Left Eye.
    • Also, the Joys seem to be this to both Bayonetta and the Umbra Witches in general. In fact, all of their animations are based on Bayonetta's, to the point of using her Scarborough Fair Taunt as their own, along with using her "finger snap" animation for some moves, the same parry animation, and the same animation while summoning feathers that Bayonetta uses when making Torture Attacks. The first Joy you fight even disguises itself as you to try to lure Cereza away.
  • Evil Is Hammy
  • Evil Knockoff: The shapeshifting Golem can mimic the demons Bayonetta summons throughout the game.
  • Evil Laugh: Temperantia and Sapientia do this.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Played straight with Fortitudo, Temperantia and Sapientia, but bizarrely inverted with Iustitia. The combination of a ridiculously high-pitched and slightly reverberating voice just adds to his creepiness. However, you can hear a deep voice coming from the other heads on Iustitia's body at times when he is attacking.
  • Evil Twin:
    • Aside from Jeanne, the Joy is a literal Evil Twin. Bayonetta reveals her by out-sexy dancing her.
    • Also, Queen Sheba looks exactly like Jubileus. Except much taller.
  • Excuse Plot: Not that the overall story is bad, but the whole deal with Bayonetta looking for a stone that she never even gets (presumably the Right Eye, not like the game ever tells you that) is only there to keep her moving from point A to point B. The story manages to remain interesting due to character interaction and Bayonetta's returning memories. Plus, of course, the several Crowning Moments...
    • The real Right Eye, Balder, knew that Bayonetta was the Left Eye, and probably had found out that she thought her stone was the Left Eye. The Right Eye stone was likely a scheme he cooked up to get her attention.
  • Expy:
    • The final boss is a huge statue representing God that comes to life by absorbing someone. The Savior, anyone?
    • There are also two demons that are based on ones from Devil May Cry: Scolopendra is an expy of Gigapede, and Phantasmaraneae is an expy of Phantom.
  • Face Doodling: Bayonetta does it to Luka. And the markings look pretty familiar...
  • Faking the Dead: Pulled off to absurd levels as, even if a character plummets several vertical miles or is consumed by a fiery explosion, it's pretty much certain they'll be back on their feet in no time thanks to some unseen HandWave-able event (such as Luka's grapple even getting him out of explosions unscathed). Major characters who invoke this include Rodin, Luka, Father Balder, Bayonetta and Jeanne (who merits a mention for not only surviving about seven certain deaths, but for managing to return after the Jubileus fight by using a motorcycle in space).
  • Fallen Angel: The other reason Rodin has you collecting halos is so that he can restore his true angel form if he gets enough of them. His powers are restored for his Optional Boss fight.
  • Famous Last Words: "May Jubileus, the Creator, grace you!" Said by the four Cardinal Virtues during each of their deaths. Balder also says it when faking his death.
  • Fan Service: Most of the game. The lollipops, the gradually disappearing clothing, the ass shots, the dialogue and... it's actually harder to think of what isn't intended to titillate.
  • Fantastic Measurement System: Megatons for Torture Attacks, gigantons for Climax moves, and infinitons for the Final Boss.
  • Femme Fatalons: Durga (or Kali, in Jeane's case), magical claws used by the heroine that give her fire and lightning charged claw attacks.
  • Fighting with Chucks: The Sai Fung (or Tang Lung in Jeanne's case) is an unlockable weapon you can get after completing 100 chapters on Normal Mode. They're very fast and can quickly stun any enemy smaller than a Beloved, but don't do much damage.
  • Foreshadowing: Earlier in the game, Bayonetta asks Jeanne "Who are you? And don't you dare say my long lost sister." At first, Jeanne scoffs, but this becomes Fridge Brilliance when, way later in the Epilogue of the game, you pick up on what Jeanne says: "I am here to reclaim my Umbran sister!"
  • For Want of a Nail: More like "due to the presence of a nail" here. Simply witnessing Bayonetta fight inspires Cereza, such that she does not fall into the Despair Event Horizon during the Witch Hunts, is never sealed by Jeanne, fights alongside her for five centuries, and gains the power of the Left Eye, enabling Bayonetta, in the present day, to defeat Jubileus.
  • Full-Contact Magic: Umbra Witches know how to shoot with both hands and feet, how to summon demons with their hair, how to summon Wicked Weaves to take their enemies down, and how to kick angel ass stylishly.
  • Future Badass: Cereza, who's actually Bayonetta as a child.
  • Gainaxing: Not much from our heroine, but it happens with the Joys occasionally, including during the Torture Attack.
  • Gambit Roulette: The entire twisted plot and most of its equally as twisted backstory turns out to have been one massive scheme perpetrated by Balder, in order to unite the Eyes of the World and thereby resurrect Jubileus.
  • Game Breaking Bug: Route 666 has collision detection issues. Near the end, when you are forced onto a side route, you MUST jump a gap with no indication, then NOT JUMP a later one. failing either of these will result in you clipping through the bridge and taking damage from falling... before making you run through that section again.
  • Gameplay Roulette: The gamplay is rather regular in the first twelve chapters, save for a brief passage in chapter 6 where you must fight a few angels using a lightpole, and the motorbike section in Chapter 8. Then you fight a boss on a surfboard, ride said boss to lead him to the giant spider you just summoned (Chapter 13), shot your way through a Space Harrier-like level (Chapter 14), fight a mini-boss with a defense turret, have a platforming section, outrun a fireball (Chapter 15), and have to direct a lipstick-bullet into the penultimate boss' forehead (Chapter 16). Then in the Epilogue, you get another motorbike section (where, in the first part, you run towards the camera). Finally, after maiming the Final Boss, a mini-game makes you send its soul into the sun while avoiding to crash into a planet, and you have to destroy its body while falling in the middle of space.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: The game is hardly subtle, but ask any S&M enthusiast about "the horse", and those torture scenes with Joy and Bayonetta take on a whole new meaning.
  • Giant Foot of Stomping: Bayonetta can summon these as combo finishers.
  • God and Satan Are Both Jerks: True, but...
  • God Is Evil: ...Jubileus is the bigger jerk.
  • Godiva Hair: Bayonetta's Sexy Backless Outfit is actually made of her Prehensile Hair.
  • The Gods Must Be Lazy: One of the rare inversions of this trope. Not only are God and Heaven active and sending down mooks, but the forces of Hell only show up for finishing moves.
  • Gorn: The Torture Attacks definitely qualify.
  • Guest Fighter: In Anarchy Reigns.
  • Guide Dang It:
    • The Alfheim portals often (but not always) require backtracking through entire portions of a level, as they appear only after you get past a certain point or have done a certain action, without any indication whatsoever. One of them only appears if you shoot a specific trash can. And a few Alfheim challenges can let you clueless; like staying in the air 30 seconds with nothing to help you but an aggressive and uncooperative pair of Grace&Glory.
    • Finding all the crows that carry the Umbran Tears Of Blood without a walkthrough is quite a feat. Not only are they ridiculously difficult to spot and sometimes perched in the most uncanny places, their location changes depending on the difficulty mode, and some can only be acquired after you finish specific Alfheim portals.
    • Good luck trying to obtain all the weapons, by cheating or otherwise. One of them, the Sai Fung, can't even be obtained through the cheat phone that you could normally use.
  • Guilt Based Gaming: Choosing "No" on the 'Continue?' screen causes Bayonetta to be dragged screaming down to Hell by multiple demonic hands.
  • Gun Fu: Guns. On. Feet. Including shotguns on feet. Including rocket launcher tonfa on feet. Sometimes she does all this while poledancing.
  • Guns Akimbo. Both in her hands and strapped to her feet, just to screw with the trope some more.
  • Hand Cannon: While Jeanne's guns are just big semi-autos, artwork and renders show Bayonetta's Scarborough Fair pistols are gigantic break-open manual loaders that look to take rounds in the 4-gauge range. She never breaks them open because that wouldn't be awesome. She does open one of them, but only at the end of the boss fight against Balder, and loads it with the lipstick Luka used as bait earlier, making it a literal Chekhov's Gun.
  • Harder Than Hard: Non-Stop Infinite Climax mode, which is well, harder than Hard. Also, Witch Time is disabled. Have fun!
  • Heel Face Turn: Jeanne.
  • Hell-Bent for Leather. Bayonetta's leather catsuit is not (technically speaking) leather, it's actually her own hair and witch magic. Which dramatically damages the sexiness for those who think too much about what clothing made of tightly-wound human hair would actually feel like.
  • A Hell of a Time: The lore and cutscenes say that Bayonetta and Jeanne, being Umbran Witches, made a Deal with the Devil and will one day be Dragged Off to Hell. But they, and Rodin, don't seem too concerned. Especially in the ending.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The Lipstick that ends up embedded in Balder's forehead was apparently a gift from him to Bayonetta's mother, given to her when he was putting his plan in motion. Engraved on lipstick in demon-text: BALDER & ROSA, 19.3.1394, WITH LOVE UNTIL THE END OF TIME. And then, when he's actually killed, it's by getting crushed in Jubileus' eyelids, since he can no longer control it after Jeanne pulls Bayonetta out of the other eye.
  • Holy Halo: The angels, of course. The number of layers and elaboration of the design depends on the sphere of the angel in question. Jubileus, naturally, sports the most impressive one of all.
  • Hood Hopping: The level "Route 666".
  • Hot Witch: And not just the title character.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Let's see... Bayonetta is dressed in outfit that has even less space than a Spy Catsuit to carry things, given's it's made out of her hair. Yet by the end of the game, she can amass enough weaponry to become a virtual one-woman army.
  • The Immodest Orgasm:
    • Bayonetta moans sensually early in the game when Affinity angels slash off her nun costume, before revealing her true outfit.
    • The Joys whenever you use a Torture Attack on them.
  • Impossibly Cool Weapon: Bottomless Magazines, Absurdly Sharp Blades, ice skates (that work off the ice), bullet-firing nunchaku, rocket launcher tonfas, snake whips, Laser Blades, element shifting claws, and a shape-shifting angelic weapon.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Balder does this after tossing Luka through a window. He tops it of by chuckling at his own bad joke: "It looks like my plan has gone right out the window."
  • Infinity+1 Sword: Pillow Talk, which is basically a giant Laser Blade, is the strongest weapon in the game. You can only acquire it after completing the game on its highest difficulty, Non-Stop Infinite Climax Mode. Alternatively, you can enter Up, Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A at a certain area to unlock it.
  • Informed Flaw: For someone so afraid of their fate, Bayonetta sure doesn't show it.
  • Inspector Javert: Luka: he blames Bayonetta for his father's death is certain she's some sort of evil sorceress; this view starts to change about halfway through the game.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: The first boss Fortitudo is a giant angel with two dragon heads. Why? Because dragons are awesome.
  • Intrepid Merchant: Rodin stays at the Gates of Hell bar for most of the game, but Bayonetta can frequently access it via portals that appear in several locations.
  • Invisible to Normals: Angels normally inhabit Purgatorio, an in-between dimension where they can influence the mortal world, but cannot be seen by mortal inhabitants. Bayonetta can enter and leave Purgatorio, freely in order to fight them, and when she does so, she is also Invisible to Normals.
  • Item Crafting: Bayonetta can find ingredients in the environment and mix them up to make healing and attack/defense buff items.
  • Jiggle Physics: Just look at the Joys' chests during the Torture Attacks against them. The game only indulges in the jiggle-closeup if the Joys haven't been significantly flayed by Bayonetta's attacks.
  • Karmic Death: Whenever Bayonetta uses a Torture Attack, she conjures up a weapon that was used to execute Umbral Witches during the Witch Hunts; in effect, she's using Paradisio's weapons against them.
  • Katanas Are Better: Bayonetta's Shuraba is one of the most popular weapons among players, doing decent damage with sweeping range and enabling a variety of combos.
    • Jeanne's equivalent is called Angel Slayer.
  • Kill It with Fire: This is how Bayonetta finishes off Temperentia.
  • Kill Sat: One gets used against you in the fight against Balder. It even malfunctions and falls out of the atmosphere after a while, but still tries to kill you.
  • Last Chance Hit Point: Even though it's never explicitly stated to be in effect.
  • Laser Sword: The most powerful weapon in the game is Pillow Talk (Bloody Moon in Jeanne's case); unfortunately, in order to unlock it, you need to finish the game on Nonstop Climax Mode, meaning you're not likely to need it anymore.
  • Leitmotif: Parts of "One of a Kind" are reused in many of the game's tracks, especially near the end of the game.
  • Lethal Lava Land: Most of Chapter 3, after Fortitudo unleashes a fiery cataclysm on Vigrid. Not only does this make for hazards that can harm the heroine, but enemies become scorching hot and impervious to non-magical attacks.
  • Levels Take Flight: The level in Ithavoll Group's huge cargo plane, with even a listing camera during the fight against Jeanne.
  • Living on Borrowed Time: There's a reason you're dragged kicking and screaming to Hell if you choose not to continue after being killed.
  • Loading Screen. Widely praised, as it allows you to practice moves as the game loads new levels.
  • Lolicon: A Beloved falls for Cereza. It even cries and tries to reach out for her just before getting killed off by Gomorrah.
  • Luck-Based Mission: A minor example, but getting the "Touch it and it will really hurt" Tear of Blood (counter-attacking 3 times in a row with the Moon of Maha-Kaala) is basically this since, neither in the game nor in the manual is there any indication on how counter-attacks work. You actually have to counter with a pixel perfect timing, like when you activate the bat form, but most people will just succeed by chance, without knowing how the hell they did it.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Balder.
  • Macross Missile Massacre:
  • Magic Is Evil: The source of all that Crazy Awesome magical power Bayonetta employs? Selling her soul to the demons of Inferno, most of which are genuinely evil monsters, which means all Umbra Witches suffer for all eternity. Since Bayonetta is apparently no longer mortal, she has to kill angels or risk damnation. Declining a continue in the Game Over screen causes a bunch of reaching hands to rip through the ground and pull Bayonetta, struggling and screaming, into Inferno.
  • Magical Incantation: Bayonetta has a lot of cool phrases (spoken in Enochan, mentioned above) she uses when using Torture Attacks and Climax attacks, like "LEVITHMONG!" ("Beasts of the Field") for the Iron Maiden attack and "AVAVAGO!" ("Thunders") to summon Gomorrah.
    • Naturally, Jeanne has a different set of them, replacing the two above with "EMNA OL!" ("I herein make you") and "OXEX RACLIR!" ("To vomit weeping")
    • Father Baldur does this too, with phrases like "MADZILODARP!" ("Stretch forth, God, and conquer") to activate the Kill Sat weapon.}}
  • Male Gaze: Practically the entire freakin' game. In some cases, literally.
  • Mama Bear: Bayonetta, even though Cereza is not her actual daughter.
  • Marathon Boss: Jubileus. You fight her for a while and take away a bit of health, then avoid fire balls in a lava field, then ice balls in an ice field, then thunder balls in the middle of a freaking hurricane, then fight her directly again for a while, then bond her with your hair and take away the last of her health, then punch her from Pluto to the sun while avoiding to crash her into a planet. And finally, you have to destroy what remains of her body. Geez. The whole process will take a good ten minutes even for the best players, and likely twice as much the first time.
  • Marathon Level:
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Rodin shares his name with the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin, and also runs a bar called "The Gates of Hell", which was also the name of one of the real Rodin's greatest works.
    • Subverted with Balder. In Norse mythology, Balder is the god of light, innocence, and the son of Odin. He is good and just. In the game, Balder is a dishonest entity who only wants to resurrect Jubileus.
  • Meaningless Meaningful Words: Balder spends his (very long) introductory cutscene talking nonstop without actually saying a whole lot. Jeanne is guilty of this as well due to her fondness of ranting about the Left Eye of the world, though not to the same degree.
  • Mega Corp: This seems to be the case with the Ithavoll Group, which is unique in that it's also a Corrupt Church. Supposedly it was once a medium-sized IT company which has grown so powerful it owns two private cities, the walled enclave of Vigrid and the far more modern Isla Del Sol nearby, along with their own military base and an Evil Tower of Ominousness three kilometers tall. Many believe the CEO is a descendant of the original Luman Sages, but this is inaccurate; Father Baldur is one of the original Sages.
  • Meganekko: Bayonetta and Cereza.
  • Mook Chivalry: Of the Ninja Gaiden kind. [1]
  • Mook Debut Cutscene: With dedicated music too! Only Gracious and Glorious don't have one.
  • More Dakka: Bayonetta has guns on her feet. Lampshaded in the opening, as Rodin is tossing her pistols:

Bayonetta: Guns!... Guns!... Guns!... Guns!... Guns!... Guns!... Guns!... GUNS!

  • Ms. Fanservice: Bayonetta's the head of the National Organization of Ms. Fanservices.
  • Murderous Thighs: In an early cinematic cut scene, Bayonetta uses her thighs to catch a ride on an Affinity, while shooting countless numbers of them out of the air, then using said thighs to spin the Affinity she rides it into the ground.
  • My Future Self and Me: Bayonetta and Cereza.
  • Mysterious Animal Senses: It's implied that animals can see into Purgatorio, or at least sense the presence of someone in Purgatorio. Cats, understandably, don't seem to spooked by Bayonetta (seeing as she's a witch). Crows and doves, on the other hand, will flee if you get too close. Crows are naturally associated with darkness and, thus, witches. There are 50 specific crows in the game carrying Umbran Tears of Blood which you need to get the Clamax Bracelet. Bayonetta herself can transform into a crow, and one of Bayonetta's Climax Attacks involves summoning Malphas, a giant crow demon.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast:
    • Obviously Bayonetta. A bayonet is a large knife that attaches to the end of a rifle to make a spear for melee combat.
    • Thou shalt shit their pants upon merely hearing the name of Father Rodin, the Infinite One.
  • Names to Trust Immediately: Overlaps with Fluffy the Terrible with the names of the angelic enemies such as Beloved and Inspired. Of course, the more good and angelic the name sounds, the stronger an angel you're dealing with and the less you (their enemy) should trust them.
  • Naughty Nun: How Bayonetta appears in the beginning of the game.
  • Naughty Tentacles: The name of one of the achievements.

"Tentacles! Why did it have to be tentacles?"

  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Probably justified by Bayonetta slowly recovering her memories as the story progresses, and thus her magic becoming more flexible. Her method of hot-wiring a motorcycle is pure Rule of Funny, however. And oddly enough, Jeanne won't summon a demon in her fights unless Bayonetta's already used it on a boss.
  • Nintendo Hard: While the game is actually easier for new players to get into than most entries in this genre, that doesn't mean you can get lazy on Normal. Even after Normal is finished, the jump to Hard difficulty is staggering. A boss fight example: Jubileus. Oh so very much. Rodin is worse. Much, MUCH worse. You can even make the game harder with the Gaze of Despair item.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: When Cereza is captured by a Joy disguised as Bayonetta, if you take too much time to save her, the Joy takes Cereza away, and you will have a Game Over screen with Cereza's doll on the ground instead of Bayonetta. And to expand on the Guilt Based Gaming entry above, pick "No" at said Game Over screen and not feel like a total scumbag for doing so.
  • Noodle People: Bayonetta, especially notable in scenes with Cereza copying her cool pose, the latter having proportions of a porcelain doll. In one scene where the two are standing side-by-side, it is made clear that Cereza's height goes up to Bayonetta's knees.
  • Number of the Beast: Route 666, where the heroine can be Squashed Flat if she isn't careful.
  • Oh Crap:
    • Luka is extremely fond of this. For the most hilarity, watch his face in Chapter 14. "Oh, fuck ME!"
    • The Joys' reaction to an incoming Torture Attack.
    • Quite a few players probably had one when they first summoned Gomorrah to eat Balder, only for the latter to kill the former like it was nothing.
    • Sapientia when you summon Phantasmaraneae. Look at him run!
    • Jubileus has a brief one before she gets punched by Queen Sheba.
  • Older Than They Look: Virtually everyone.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: There's lots of it during the boss battles. Makes the fight more satisfying too.
  • One-Hit Kill:
    • The final boss Jubileus has a somewhat nasty one with vacuum-like properties, although being ejected out into space would probably do that you.
    • On Route 666, if you end up in the wrong lane and run into an oncoming semi, even witch powers will not save you from instant flaming death.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: Little King Zero. Get hit once? Lose your entire health bar. Get hit a second time? Die.
  • One-Winged Angel: Balder.
  • One to Million to One: Bayonetta can shatter into bats upon getting hit, negating the attack.
  • Orgasmic Combat. Practically the Trope Codifier.
  • Our Angels Are Different: Bayonetta's foes are warrior angels with marble skin, gilded armor and ornate halos. Beat on them a little bit and the facade cracks away, revealing horrible monsters with dripping bodily fluids, exposed muscle tissue and bizarre eyes where they probably shouldn't be.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Bayonetta. Jeanne comes fairly close too.
  • Polite Villains, Rude Heroes
  • Power-Up Food: The powerups all come in lollipop form.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: "Don't fuck with a witch."
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • While Bayonetta doesn't precisely avoid profanity, her vocabulary remains clean more often than not... especially around Cereza.
    • Jeanne, on the other hand, has quite the mouth on her. Unlock her, and you'll find that she curses in almost all of her taunts. Perhaps to fit with her more (mostly) serious attitude?
    • A better example would be with Luka. When Bayonetta told him to look at something, he looks up from Bayonetta's chest to see missiles heading towards their helicopter.

Luka: "Oh, FUCK me!"

    • To Temperantia:

Bayonetta: I feel like a fucking celebrity in this town.

  • Press X to Not Die: Not too many, but Quick Time Events can show up rather suddenly, often subtly. It can often take a few deaths before you even notice it.
  • Promoted to Unlockable: Jeanne can be unlocked by completing all the chapters in Normal with Platinum trophies. She's a bit faster, but takes more damage, can dodge indefinitely without pausing (Bayonetta is wide open for a second after 5 consecutive dodges), her wicked weaves do more damage, and Witch Time is much harder to use: she can only activate it by activating Moth Within (like Bat Within), which requires pixel-perfect dodging the exact moment an attack hits... but if successful, Jeanne will gain double combo points during Witch Time as opposed to the 1.5x points that Bayonetta earns. And needless to say, she can't do any of the crazy things (such as doing multiple wicked weaves in a row or summoning demons mid-fight) her boss equivalent does.
  • Pummel Duel: Between Bayonetta and Jeanne in all their fights.
  • Purple Prose: Balder's introduction monologue would be twice as short if he expressed himself with simple words. Even lampshaded by Bayonetta.

"Could you dispose with the riddles and tell me what these sodding eyes actually are?"

  • Quest for Identity: Bayonetta has remained assleep for the last 500 years and has nearly no memories of her previous life.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: Subverted, as it is more the heavens that are enraged against her. Bayonetta just enjoys kicking angelic ass.
  • Rank Inflation: You're ranked with Stone (lowest), Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Pure Platinum (highest) depending on how fast, how high the combos, all the verses, whether items were used, and how much damage taken at the end of every chapter.
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: With giant hair fists. It seems that this is a recurring trope in Clover/Platinum Games.
  • Rasputinian Death: Bayonetta subjects most regular angels to humiliating defeats, but she saves the most powerful and cruel attacks for the Cardinal Virtues.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Played with repeatedly, then ultimately averted.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Grace and Glory.
    • After Balder fakes his death and activates Bayonetta as the Left Eye, he gets a vibrant blue aura while hers is blood red.
  • Refuge in Audacity: The director stated in an interview that the development team kept cranking up the sex appeal until someone told them to stop. Given the team in question, it is entirely probable that the game is meant as a particularly over-the-top parody of recent action games that rely on sex appeal. Then there's the combat....
  • Rewarding Vandalism: Smash up the scenery for materials and halos!
  • Rule of Cool: Though it usually defers to the below.
  • Rule of Funny: Several examples throughout.
  • Rule of Sexy: Do we even have to explain?
  • Running Gag: Enzo's car getting smashed up.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Jubileus is female, despite her masculine-sounding name.
  • Save Scumming: The game auto-saves after every verse, and often saves in the middle of a verse, or even in the middle of a boss fight. Since getting Pure Platinum medals requires you to never take damage, one may find themselves quitting and reloading a lot.
  • Scary Black Man: Rodin. Seriously. This is a guy who can do Badass Drink Mixing and make it look awesome, take down the nastiest of demons to make into weapons of dark magic, and even hit angels for home runs. And if you give him a special item, he becomes Father Rodin. In this form, he is considered to be so powerful that even JUBILEUS HERSELF feared him.
  • Scenery Porn: Through the second half of Chapter 15, you get to see Isla del Sol from the top of a very high building.
  • Sculpted Physique: The angels have this, at least to begin with. Specifically, note what Temperantia looks like at the end of the fight.
  • Sequence Breaking: In Chapter 3, you can spare yourself the effort of picking up the magic hourglass in Paradiso by flying directly over the Broken Bridge near the end. Normally lava geysers hit you if you try to do that, but a yellow lollipop is enough to protect you. That also means you can literally skip the last five verses of said chapter.
  • Sequential Boss: Fortitudo, Temperantia, Sapientia, last-round Jeanne and the True Final Boss all qualify due to their multi-layered life meters.
  • Serial Escalation. Constantly. When you have characters like Joy making this sort of entrance, its awesome even for Crazy Awesome. Each boss fight is crazier and more insane than the previous one. The sheer volume of bosses and mini bosses is practically inconceivable and it only gets more awesome as time goes by. Special mention goes to the Mirror Match battle with Jeanne where you spend half the fight duelling atop an armed missile after it's been launched, and the final boss battle where Bayonetta takes on God herself in a floating cocoon in outer space! Devil May Cry may escalate the action, but Bayonetta accelerates.
  • Seven Heavenly Virtues: Four are used as antagonists: Fortitudo (Diligence), Temperantia (Temperance), Sapientia (Wisdom) and Iustita (Justice).
  • Sexy Backless Outfit: Of the backless dress made of hair variety.
  • Sexy Spectacles: Invoked. To the point one can purchase her glasses. They're quite expensive.
  • Sexy Walk: Bayonetta swings her hips and arches her back a little when she walks normally.
  • She Fu: Expect to be doing acrobatic backflips a lot since it's the standard dodge, and it triggers Witch Time! She can even do this in mid-air!
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: Onyx Roses (or Garnet Roses in Jeanne's case) are one of the first LPs you can find, but they're only slightly better than Scarborough Fair.
  • Shout-Out: So many, it deserves it's own section.
  • Skyscraper City: Isla del Sol is basically hundreds of skyscrapers disposed around one that must be something like a kilometer high. See Scenery Porn above.
  • Sliding Scale of Realistic Versus Fantastic: While the game is infamous for being safely placed on the absurd side of the scale, any Willing Suspension of Disbelief is long dead and buried before the conclusion. For example, while the plot starts with guns in shoes and hair demons, they seem pretty feasible when Bayonetta is murdering her father with lipstick to save her past self, before going on to punch God's soul into the sun in the final chapters.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Rodin smokes cigars after lighting them by producing a flame with his thumb.
  • Sophisticated As Hell: "If you get in my way, I will... how do the Americans put it? Oh yes. Bust a cap in yo' ass."
  • Spiritual Successor: To God Hand (in terms of general insanity) and the original Devil May Cry (in terms of gameplay).
  • Squashed Flat: In a rather bizarre moment in level 9 with the Golem, Bayonetta can be flattened like a cartoon character.
  • Stable Time Loop: Bayonetta's entire personality is based on subconsciously imitating herself from what she remembers when she was Cereza, before she was sent back to her own time (though she remembers it as her mother). It seems Balder's generally vague plan involved engineering this time loop to occur, so circumstances revolving around Bayonetta's sealing 500 years back will change, resulting in her memories being retained in the present.
  • The Stinger: During the credits, you play through 3 verses. Two are from earlier moments in the game. The last one picks up right where the cutscene leading into the credits left off. You have a hidden time limit, and failing to complete the verse during it results in no medal. It actually counts against you to fail these verses, as they are scored as part of the last chapter in the game.
  • Stripperiffic: Bayonetta uses her hair as clothing and to summon demons. And since she cannot do both at the same time, her clothing vanishes during her summons.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Story-wise, most boss fights are really spent just softening the angel up for a proper mauling by whatever ravenous hellbeast Bayonetta summons with her hair. She averts the danger of the demon turning on her by the fact that she's as good as theirs anyway.
  • Summon Magic: Forms a major part of Bayonetta's attacks, both as Torture Attacks (where she can conjure up iron maidens, chainsaws, guillotines, and the like), and as a Finishing Move to take out particularly strong angels and boss fights by summoning up higher demons and eldritch abomination-like creatures.
  • Super Mode: During some plot specific sequences, Bayonetta will let her hair down. This will have the effect of making all of her attacks Wicked Weaves, which are normally finishers to her combos.
  • Suplex Finisher: In the opening cutscene, Bayonetta slams about five or six angels into each other, then suplexes all of them simultaneously, causing their heads to explode.
  • Swiss Army Weapon: The last weapon you are likely to get, Rodin, that you earn after beating the Nintendo Hard Bonus Boss is a set of gold bracelets that can take the form of any angel weapon depending on the combo you do. One of these angel weapons is itself a Swiss Army Weapon in a smaller extent: a large bow that can separate into a pair of Whip BFS.
  • Talk To The Fist/Bullet/Boulder/Car/Etc: Bayonetta LOVES doing this to the Cardinal Virtues... sometimes multiple times in one conversation!

"Ugh, another talkative type..."

  • Talking Is a Free Action: Zigzagged. The heroine is safe in a cutscene, but the player had to be ready the second it stops to prevent her from becoming a sitting duck.
  • Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Bayonetta and Jeanne.
  • Tennis Boss: The flashback encounter with Fortitudo in chapter 1 can become this once you get the Moon of Maha-Kaala (which allows you to deflect attacks). If you send his fireballs back at him instead of using your bullets, the fight can be ended in a few seconds.
  • Theme Music Power-Up:
    • "Fly Me To The Moon" starts playing whenever Bayonetta is commencing with ass kicking. In the Cardinal Virtue fights, the boss music will be replaced with a more triumphant theme once you get them down to their last life bar.
    • There's also the songs for climaxing on larger mooks and finishing off a boss.
  • Theme Naming: The quartet of pistols Bayonetta starts with are named Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, herbs that are named in the folk song "Scarborough Fair". The set of guns themselves are named Scarborough Fair. Same goes for Jeanne's set of pistols named "All 4 One", with the individual names being Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan.
  • Third-Person Seductress: Taken Beyond the Impossible. Quite possibly a parody of this trope since pretty much anything Bayonetta does that is supposed to be sexy usually comes off as completely hilarious instead.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Y'know, Luka, it's a really good thing that Bayonetta likes you. Otherwise, calling out the person you know killed your father, while she's armed and you're not, in an isolated area with no potential witnesses for miles around, would have shortened your lifespan considerably. And so what if it would prove everything you said about her? You're still dead. No witnesses also means that no one knows who actually killed you.
  • Torture Technician
  • Town with a Dark Secret: Vigrid is a closed community with very tight security; the only entrance is via a single rail line, and getting a ticket requires a long and arduous screen process. It's not know what government jurisdiction it's under, but in truth, it's run by the Ithavoll Group, which in turn is run by Father Baldur; the secrecy is due to his goal of awakening Jubilex and starting the apocalypse.
  • Troperiffic: The game is basically a love letter to action game tropes, both retro and contemporary.
  • Turns Red: All enemies and bosses do this when you taunt them, which causes them to attack faster and hit harder.
  • Underboobs: Bayonetta's "Queen" outfit.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: Chapters 8 and 14, the first of which is a freeway chase, the second of which is a Shout-Out to Space Harrier. Also note that the boss battle of Chapter 12 takes place entirely on open water, with your only platform being a scrap of metal that you ride around like a surfboard (and much faster than your usual movement or evasion speed, at that).
  • Unflinching Walk: Unless you purposely make her run, Bayonetta constantly acts like she's on a catwalk, even after a massive amount of destruction has taken place.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Reading the bestiary is bound to confuse any player who cares, since almost every one of your enemies is described as a glorious and benevolent protector of good. This is quite at odds with the blink-and-you'll-miss-it hints that they originate from human sacrifice, or their callous disregard for human life. Somewhat justified in that the bestiary is written from the perspective of the church of Laguna, and therefore it would only make sense that they be described as benevolent beings. This also plays into the theory that Bayonetta is a Villain Protagonist.
  • Vanity License Plate:
    • The plate on Jeanne's motorcycle reads "01 QTJ" (Cutie J).
    • The license plate on Enzo's car reads "ED N EDNA". The reason for this has not been officially confirmed, but some parts of the fandom speculate that "Ed and Edna" are the names of Enzo's kids.
  • Vapor Trail: The title character slams a tanker into Temperantia by way of another angel and creates the leak via a fountain statue that pisses the gasoline all over the poor bastard for that extra sadistic touch. It doesn't work. When the fire goes out after a brief second, Bayonetta just heaves a sigh and does it the "boring" way.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential:
    • In an otherwise goofy, lighthearted spectacle fighter, the Torture Attacks are rather wince-worthy in their sadism and don't look like they would be particularly out of place in God of War. Particularly jarring because they go without any comment whatsoever.
    • While you can't directly interact with generic human NPCs, due to Bayonetta being on the Puragotrio plane, you can still make them freak out by destroying objects near them.
  • Visible Sigh: In a scene after Temperantia is defeated, a Fearless is just missed being hit by a falling streetcar. It puffs out a cloud of white vapor in relief. Then the streetcar tips over on it.
  • Visual Pun: Balder was killed in the blink of an eye.
  • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Jeanne. While earlier angel foes have totally predictable patterns, she doesn't. Moreover, she is a Perfect Play AI, blocking everything unless her own attack leaves her off-guard. So, this fight serves as a crash course in dynamic dodging and using Witch Time.
  • Wall Crawl: The "Witch Walk" ability allows Bayonetta to walk on walls, ceilings, and some bosses, but it can only be used during a full moon or when Bayonetta lets her hair down during certain fights.
  • Wasted Song: Battle For The Umbra Throne only plays during the flashback fight with Jeanne, and it's EPIC.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Everything Bayonetta does is sexy and awesome. Every. Single. Thing.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Most of the first game takes place in the walled enclave city of Vigrid, which is somewhere in Europe; exactly where is hard to say. The name suggests Scandinavia, but the pre-Renaissance era architecture suggests Italy or Germany.
  • Whip It Good: Both hair whips and the magical whip Kushedra (or Vritra, in Jeanne's case). They do meager damage, but have incredible reach.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Jeanne.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: "Tentacles! Why did it have to be tentacles?"
  • The Worf Barrage: You know the climax techniques, the super Finishing Moves that kill bosses in the most brutal fashion imaginable? Yeah, they don't work on Balder. He kills them instead.
  • World of Badass: Every single character in the game is badass in their own way. Bayonetta manages to kill angelical asses without losing her temper, Luka is capable of pulling Big Damn Heroes moments despite not having any superpowers, Jeanne is among the few opponents capable of making Bayo lose her temper and truly offering a life-or-death combat to her, and Balder is the only living being who can survive a Climax attack from Bayonetta.
  • World of Ham
  • Wretched Hive: Hell's Gate a.k.a. "The Dump", pulls double duty as both this and the game's shop. Luka even calls it "A Wretched Hive of scum and villainy."
  • You Killed My Father: The reason that Luka initially pursues Bayonetta. It turns out that Balder was the one responsible for it.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Done twice. The first time, after you defeat the apparent final boss Father Balder, he comes back to life and imprisons Bayonetta in the body of Jubileus, setting up a Downer Ending until Jeanne pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment, setting up the fight with the real final boss, Jubileus itself. After you beat Jubileus, the credits roll, only for you to realize that you're not done yet, and you have to destroy Jubileus' physical body to prevent it from crashing into the earth. What's so awesome about the last part is that Jeanne LITERALLY STOMPS the credits!

The shadow remains cast!

  1. ↑ Meaning, non-existent.
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