Bayonetta 1 Let's Play by Hideki Kamiya [FULL WRITEUP]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wDRSdGLKmGaw8xGBjPIsFVY50s9QRF6TMXTvtososOw/edit

Provided by Mikekob. A fun read to be sure and gives some nice insights in the design!

There's some really cool notes in there like:

Oh, a little trick. You can change what lolipop Bayonetta is eating in event scenes by holding down the button corresponding to the lollipop color before the scene starts.

Here’s a story about the combat in Bayonetta. If you notice, Bayonetta never, uh… We built Bayonetta so that she can never get knocked down. It doesn’t just apply to Bayonetta. I’ve been particular about this since Devil May Cry. Dante never gets knocked down either, at least in the Devil May Cry I made. The purpose is to keep play flow uninterrupted. In early development we actually did animate Dante falling down when he took damage, but it was… it’s the reason I don’t put blocking in my games, either. I never want the flow of the game to cease. If you get knocked back, we animate it so you always flip back up.

Right, Grace & Glory. Like I said before, these guys were complete from a relatively early stage of development. When we first build the primitive versions of the enemies and load them up with all the attacks we’ve come up with. They’re ridiculously strong. They were so tough that it became impossible to win if you put two or three of them on screen. We set it up so that while you’re fighting one, the other will take a hint and not do much. Taking the time and effort to create control systems like that is what makes for fun, strategic enemies. Here I am talking big, when I didn’t have anything to do with the actual programming. This is the kind of stuff that really turns Don-san on. He is another guy who puts everything into building deeply fair enemies that give the player a good challenge.

For instance, some games will read and respond to player input. We call that cheating. His algorithms never, ever do that. And there are no chaotic situations, when enemies are just going crazy and the player has absolutely no idea what’s going on. We work very hard on balancing offense and defense to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Nice stuff. Makes kamiya games more clear now. Not enough talk on game design in most places these days.

Is this recent from kamiya?

It's pretty old. I believe it was made even before Bayonetta 2 had started production or was even pitched as he mentions it a few times that he would love to make the game.