This definitely lived up to my predictions from two years ago. Never bet against Hideki Kamiya, because everything he touches is solid gold. Actually, make that platinum. ;)
There's no question that this is one of the finest beat-'em-ups ever made, rivaled only by
God of War and
Viewtiful Joe. I hesitate to declare a "best" because they all have their advantages.
Bayonetta has the best fighting system, cutscene panache, and BY FAR the best boss fights.
God of War has much better level design and BY FAR a tighter, more effective story.
One touch I really enjoyed in
Bayonetta was
the references to all the previous Clover/Platinum games, some incredibly subtle. Stranger than that, it uses remixed music from many old Sega arcade games! (OutRun, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, After Burner) The music is great overall, too, especially the grand religious tracks with organs, pianos, and choirs.
Kamiya's games always have superb grand finales and ending sequences. I won't write it here, even under spoiler tag, but describing the ending of
Bayonetta allows you to write possibly the most absurd sentence ever conceived in the English language.
And the extra happy end to this whole story is that
Wiggles was wrong.