I recently played through Bayonetta for the first time and found myself deeply conflicted on whether or not the game's combat was for me. In order to resolve this tension, go through all the game's content, and try and build good habits with mechanics like Dodge Offset, I've decided to try out this restricted Pure Platinum playthrough of the first Bayonetta game. I hope you enjoy, and I'd be very happy if you could comment on and critique any gameplay moments that stood out to you; I'm always trying to improve! To start, I'll be playing through Normal difficulty on a New Game file. This means I'll have to progress through the game in order to gain access to Bayonetta's full arsenal of techniques/weapons, which helps me avoid getting overwhelmed by my options. I'll likely not be using any Accessories, but that's not a hard-and-fast rule. I'll be obtaining a Pure Platinum trophy for every chapter, which if you don't know, means I'll need to finish every Verse in a chapter with a Pure Platinum medal, as well as not using any items or Continues for the whole chapter. The Pure Platinum medal for each Verse requires you to get a Platinum medal in all three categories that are graded: Combo, Time, and Damage. Although the Combo and Time are unique to each Verse, every Verse's damage requirement for the Platinum medal is zero. Further adding to the challenge, I will not be loading from checkpoints/autosaves while clearing a chapter, and I will not be retrying on any Alfheim. This is probably the hardest restriction in this playthrough, since some chapters have a very large amount of Verses, and Alfheims are generally very difficult to do No Damage. My quality standards are very high, so a lot of work (and a lot of resets...) will be put into each chapter to make all of the fights and even the movement between Verses really shine. I'll also be trying to edit out as many loading screens and cutscene skips as I can to make each video flow more smoothly. If there are requests, I can upload the unedited footage to my second channel to provide for proof of my restrictions. With all that out of the way, just like for my full KH3 playthroughs, I'll try and give some thoughts and tips on each Verse in any given chapter, as well as my setup (where applicable). --CHARACTER SETUP-- Weapon Set A: Handguns/Handguns Weapon Set B: Handguns/Handguns Accessories: N/A On a NG playthrough, you only have access to the Handguns in the Prologue, which do not allow the use of Wicked Weaves (WWs for short), which limits your ranged attacks to those using the guns. Even without WWs, however, the attacks in your combo strings that would have WWs with Scarborough Fair still reset the 'diminishing returns' on the combo points from your punches and kicks, so you still want to be doing your bread and butter combos for the most part. Playing with Tutorials on does not allow you to use Bayonetta's Bullet Arts for the first two waves of Verse 1, so you'll have to shoot your guns manually at the start. Furthermore, you don't get access to the Magic Gauge for the whole first Verse, so you can't use Torture Attacks either. However, I believe the combo requirement might be lower, but don't quote me on that. --VERSE-BY-VERSE-- Opening (0:00): We don't have access to the Gates of Hell yet, and even if we did, on a NG playthrough you have zero halos to your name when starting the Prologue. Verse 1 (0:04): As mentioned above, even without WWs, you'll still want to do your combo 'finishers' to reset diminishing returns. As you'll see, I tend to liberally use the drop-kick move in the air since it works very well as a superarmor break on most enemies (although, of course watch out for parries) and it has decent range since Bayonetta has got the legs of a model. I made a mistake at 0:42: don't go for aerial combos with an Affinity in the air, since you don't have access to Air Dodge yet. After the second wave, long taunt to continue your combo. For the third wave, you'll want to immediately shoot one of the Decorations when they get closer to Bayonetta, then continue as normal until the end of the first fight. Once you drop onto Enzo's car, try and jump far away from all of the enemies so you're not blindsided, then just take them out one at a time. Try and launch the Applaud since it's helpless in the air. As long as you can reach a 9.9x combo multiplier on the first fight, there should be no problems with the combo score requirement. Verse 2 (2:56): You can conserve your Magic Gauge at the end of Verse 1 to immediately execute a Torture Attack (TA for short). From there, don't take damage once the slow-motion ends, and don't drop your combo ever. The combo requirement is lax, but won't tolerate a dropped combo if you do your three TAs very quickly. Be sure to check out my blind playthrough of the game: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO1m5mBAYbxQnuKtN2pk4uIxo9HxE-eze. You can find my Twitch channel at https://twitch.tv/beeboycubed.

• published: 21 Nov 2021
• views: 287