There's definately some strategy to that. Some of the weapons whilst having a significantly smaller set of moves do make up for it in terms of damage. The horns especially are devastating.

By the way is anyone else having a real bitch of a time getting those sodding birds with the Umbran tears of blood? There's one on the steps just after you face Grace and Glory that flies off to the left out of reach. I still have not been able to snag that one. I'm obviously missing a trick. Grrr.

I heard one of them you need to trigger WT in order to snag it... o_O

I just realised I have a section of health still missing from my second health bar as they should both be level?? I have found all chests and completed all portals tho...

Will be looking that up in the guide tonight!

What about the gates of Hell did you buy any witches hearts there? Not sure whether the ones you purchase are in addition to the chests or take the place of hearts you would have found in a chest if you see what I mean.

There are heart pieces to collect during the Space Harrier level too - Torture Attacking the angels when the action goes side-scrolling makes a heart appear.

I'm missing the final bit of energy myself too, I gave up trying to find it.

LOL, its not like I need it - if my health goes into the second bar I tend to restart anyway...its the principle of the thing, theres prinicapalities here!!! TBH, I like the way it looks so I'll leave it!XD

Tonight Jeanne is getting her head kicked smooth off!!!!!!!1111111111ONE

Got to get an early night tonight, so no Bayo for me . I'm better at the game in my dreams anyway.

Stumbled upon a nice looking sequence against the Beloved last night. If you afterburner kick your way towards them then hit kick again you can fly right up over their head doing a fair few hits on the way and then somersault down their back connecting a couple of times on the way down. Very very basic technique, but looks quite cool and I bet it's possible to work a load of variations around it.

On the last Platinum on Normal and its that Jeanne fight and the Space Harrier bit. A screen of shining trophies and then one big fat stone one spoiling it all...bah!

This guy is too much....

(let me know if you want me to write-up what he's saying) - Although all this stuff I put into the "Advanced" section of the guide....he's a million times better than me at explaining it T_T

Would be nice to know how he is doing all that canceling.

Seconded. How the hell is he doing that. I can juggle a bit, was playing with AIR PPPKKK last night for example, but seriously how is he doing this. I notice there's a strange sort of witch glyph thing that appears, a bit like a parry, which seems to allow him to chain on another combo string. O_o [edit] ah no, it's not that, he's cancelling something mid chain before the final kicks and then somehow that's resetting her.

OT, but I'm still looking for Chapter 1 Verse 3. I've rinsed that level for goodies now, including the moon pearl fragment, red raven and the witch heart piece that's oh so cleverly hidden up high, but I still cannot figure out how to get to verse 3. My whole thought process is it's something to do with tripping the alarm when you leave the station platform and there might be a way through the green security gates undetected. However I could be barking up the wrong tree entirely. Please don't give too much away, but I'm thinking if I can get through without tripping the alarm then the big gates (near the Gates of Hell portal) might be open for business?

When you are just about to leave an area that you can't go back to you should stop and retrace you steps...

0:22 to 0:35 PPPKK Loop
Tagging an attack button onto any combo chain where that button with not activate the next move in a pre-set sequence will reset the combo back to hit 1 of that button. So in this case PPPKK is reset back to the starting P by hitting P after the 2nd K. As Bayonetta does not lose height during this sequence you can repeat PPPKK > PPPKK > PPPKK without breaking the flow.

0:35 to 0:52 PPPPK Loop
There is no P pre-set input after the K of PPPPK, so hitting P during the rapid striking K will reset the sequence back to the initial P. In the same way as PPPKK, you can repeat this combo without losing height and flow from each repetition without delay.

0:52 to 1:08 mixing between PPPKK and PPPPK Loops.
Mixing between the 2 different Loops gives your air combos more flava, try switching weapons between loops to add even more variety to the sequence.

2:09 Witch Float (enemy step/jump cancel)
Pressing Jump near an enemy's body will trigger a completely fresh jump using the enemy as a platform. You have 2 jumps available, jumping off the ground reduces this count to 1, jumping again (butterfly wing effect) reduces the count to 0. Jumping off an enemy's body will set the jump count to 1 (initialises at 2, but 1 is used to jump off the enemy). From here you can begin a new sequence from this fresh jump while fully able to activate the 2nd butterfly wing effect jump when you like. So the sequence from 2:12 goes;

Uppercut.
Jump. (count at 1)
Uppercut.
Jump. (count at zero)
- Hits Jump again at the top of the 2nd Jump to jump off the enemy *Witch Float* (this resets the count to 1)
PPPKP.
Jump. (count at zero)
Witch Float (count at 1)
PPPKP.
Jump. (count at zero)
....this goes on to infinity.

Once you've got this down, you can mix between PPPKKP and PPPPK Loops too. Try mixing in different weapons and throwing After Burner Kicks into the action too.

In the guide I use PPPKKP > Witch Float > PPPKKP as the exercise. There's a load more stuff in there you should check out when you get the chance. There's also a completely different way to get the same effect using Durga (you see this during the opening combo of our trailer) - I haven't seen anyone using this yet so I'll leave that for when you read it in the guide. I'll write the rest of what he's saying in a bit.

That in itself is totally sick. I'd not realised that at all! I've been finishing my airborn moves typically with a kick to to the ground, but this just opens up the door for lots of nasty deviance. I felt I was missing something from the airborn combat and you've just put one extra piece of the puzzle together for me.

Still no news on the Guide . Is anyone getting any joy from any of the online outlets?

Witch Float sounds totally sick too, but I'm a million miles away from being able to do anything like that. How gererous is it on range to activate the platform jump off an enemy? Do you need to be at a precise point for it to work properly? I almost want to go back to using pure Scarborough so that I do minimal damage and maximise the available enemy health to practice this stuff on

@Spags thanks for the advice. Am I right in assuming that I need to have completed Verses 1 and 2 before I can get to verse 3? i.e. do I need to backtrack before hitting the big round elevator platform? Or is it one of the points of no return before that? If it's underwater or in that key pit, I'm going to kick myself, because I've checked there, but probably not after activating the elevator. >_<

I wont be able to tear this shit up until Friday, but it will be torn! I haz the whole day off!!!1ONE!!!11111

I'm terrible with combos - I've only just started using the sWord PP*PPP combo >_< Thats after 70 hours too...shameful shit!

Prepare for kicking!

Another fat heap of guides were delivered to the distributor yesterday, places should have enough stock now and I'm sure you'll get yours shortly.

The Witch Float is surprisingly versatile, it only requires that you be within range of the enemy you want to jump from. As long as you're next to or above an enemy in mid-air it will work. You aren't committed to any animation but as a basic rule; look for the little puff of dust at Bayonetta's feet upon activation - this is a clear cue that it has worked. A good way to train yourself is to perform the PPPKK Loop but flick your thumb from Jump to Punch between each repetition, you should see a puff of dust each time you get it right. Best place to train is the Tutorial during the Vestibule (use the training dummy Affinity they give you).

I hear you about Scarborough Fair, for well over a month I didn't use anything but. I was so happy with the way Bayonetta was I wanted to understand the system more before I layered extra weapons onto it. With Scarborough Fair alone she's beyond what you get in other action games.

Sheeeeeeet TT_TT

@Saur, probably a RTFM question, but how do you get the training dummy up?

I have to confess I couldn't resist taking a sneaky peak at Hard mode. That my friends was a massive mistake. G&G TWICE in the bloody prologue! I took heavy damage in the first verse and then died in the second. It's just monsterous. The whole experience was total fear from start to death.

You know during the Vestibule where you get the Punch and Kick tutorial? They give you a little Affinity to kick around during that scene, so don't skip past the Kick Tutorial. The Affinity keeps re-spawning and just stands there so you can use him as a training dummy.

DOH yeah forgot about that. What would have been real nice is if you could have dropped a dummy into the loading screen practice room. That is one feature I would have loved to have seen. Slightly gutting that you have to go back to the tutorial to practice properly as the drop in loading training is genius, but you can't get the full experience without something to spar off.

Tell me about it...

That would have been brilliant, it's so weird they'd not include something like that especially when the combat mechanics were designed via guys sitting there and fighting an endless army of enemies. I wanted to try and find this test room they used, I found one which is just an empty room which allowed us to turn off all graphics except the character (made for some GORGEOUS screenshots). Nothing else though ;_;

There are really good places to train in-game though. Grace and Glory army when you get to the first circular area in the Lost Holy Ground (Verse 2 I think), or any Alfheim which throws a bunch of Affinity/Applaud/Ardors at you - I'm well happy to camp out there and experiment. You also get a Fairness/Fearless pair right at the start of the Tower To Truth, I stayed there for ages too and got to know these enemies.

Yeah I really hate fairness/fearless' breath attack. If I get caught I can sometimes waggle out of it in time to parry their charge. If you can stick in close to them then you can force their short range attacks, which with practice are relatively easy to dodge.

G&G are my most feared enemies though. I've still not got a comfortable pattern down with them. I especially hate the way they can spin attack directly from getting up from a knock down. That alone makes me try to keep distance and then it all goes to shit really. You have to be in there up close to get the hits. I think I'll take your advice and just try to dodge/parry my way for a bit whilst taking note of their attack patterns.

Good tip on the Alfheims, the torture attack ones let you play as per normal, so they're probably good places to practice.

I think it's one of the Alfheims on Chapter 2 which is a damn good one for training, it's all regular minions then a pair of Beloved to finish.

Thing to remember with parries is that they are completely independent of status and animation, even if you are stunned after Fairness screams you can still parry regardless of whether you shake out of it or not. As long as you dodge just after the scream begins you'll be fine for the rest of it, parry back it's fireballs to boost the multiplier.

One extra thing I've picked up since writing the guide for these enemies is that the Fairness/Fearless weight changes. When they collide with something and become dizzy, they become a hybrid of "Lightweight". They act as Lightweight as far as launching them is concerned, but they don't get held in place when you attack them with an air combo. So they can be launched with just a normal Uppercut, someone have a go at holding them up with Sai Fung if you get the chance, I haven't tested this yet.

Y Halo Thar!1

OW! That hurt.

\o/

I'll pop up a review on Amazon once the book comes through. Can't wait to actually hold this thing.

OLD!!!!1

LOL

....now he's mixing Weaves together.... O_O

- and the gravity-bending shit? WTF is this I don't even

LOL at the failure screen at the end, magic!!

I started toying about with chaining WWs together using the back, towards P move (Tetsunako it might be called) and I thought I was super cool... turns out I aint even slightly hip the worst part about this is that I am now away from my machine until Monday night. All I can think about is trying this new stuff out. I was using <>P after a WW finisher and thought it was awesome because the timing gap between the WWs was next to noting, but this has blown that right out of the water, lol at my ignorance!!

Also, WTF does he do right at the end of the video with the sword O_O madness!!

He's weapon switching to allow for the animation cancel, like he switched weapon on the final K of PPKKK, this allowed an instant Heel Stomp > Tetsuzanko. It's sick! The switched Heel Stomp connects at exactly the same time as the final K of the combo, then tag a Tetsuzanko onto it and you've got 3 Weaves all kicking off at once.

What he did at the end was genius, he fully charged the Shuraba beam attack then offset it with the Umbran Spear. Would never in a million years have thought of that! XD

So, the Tetsuzanko is the final part of this dance, nice. I have the timing of that down so just need to try and work out this weapon switch cancelling heel stomp thing... think I will probably end us just sticking with the 2 WWs, hehe. This guys stuff is rock 'ard though!!

Sharubas beam attack??!! I haven't done this by accident yet, how do I unleash this??

With Shuraba just stand there and hold Lock-on - Bayonetta will draw a hell gate with the sword, hit P when it's fully charged and you'll fire a beam. Also another thing about the final K of PPKKK I noticed is that he weapon switched and fired a shotgun blast as soon as the K animation activated and still got the Weave.

I want to be home with Bayo in my hands right now

The animation for the hell gate drawing and beam execution is manky, love it!!

Yay for the first time in my life I'm in a thread about a game with some serious heads and I can totally understand what you're all talking about . Execution of that seems on paper simple. Will have to give that a shot on my next session.

Was testing out the whole aerial PPPPKPPPPKPP.... etc recurring thing last night. It's absolute magic. Not tried to switch between different combo chains yet, just getting used to floating up there. Can't quite get my fingers around witch float, but it will come eventually.

That cancel from weapon switch is amazing O_o The final weave animation on PPKKK is a long one, so being able to cancel out of it and still get the WW is very cool. Plus not figured you could offset with the Umbran Spear. Will need to try that too. So much still to learn

Oh and I finally picked up Kulshedra last night after 30+ hours of gameplay, what a blind git I must be as the missing piece was just sitting there in broad daylight. >_<

That weave mix up is beautiful. What a genius thing to come up with...I hope he is still gonna keep bring it with new stuff.

I spent some time this morning just jumping off enemies trying to get used to it, the range is pretty wide but I chose a WT portal to try it out in so didn't get much time to play around.

Gonna look into what can be done with the crow form in a bit - I love days off!!1

Spags, Saur is right there's a good Alfheim for training on Chapter 2 (the one on top of the little bridge between 2 buildings that's just 'defeat all enemies'. That's where I tried out some of the aerial shenanighans last night.

At the moment my biggest problem is taking hits. I've still not got many of the enemy attack timings down and tbh having to face a mix of enraged and normal enemies makes matters even worse as you have to contend with 2 different sets of timing simultaneously. It's almost better to have the whole lot enraged from the start with the Gaze of Dispair.

I've been away from Bayo for the week, for reasons I won't depress you all with, but I've just watched that last vid Saur posted...how the *fuck* do you dodge offset the Shuraba beam attack into Umbran Spear? :S Surely that required holding lock-on and double-tapping it at the same time? My mind is blown.

Been away all weekend so was delighted to get ripped into some Bayo tonight, god I missed her. Messing with the infinite aerial juggles and its wondeful. Also, mixing in the Tetsuzako after every WW for maximum damage and it working a treat. Noticed that the delay between a string of Tetsuzakos is next to nothing so think I might start toying around with Tetsuzako juggles, OH DEAR!!

Quick one... what kind of times are manz clocking in on Jeanne 1 cause I just bust a PP on her in 34 seconds and was quite impressed with myself, hehe. I think I can shave about 10 seconds off it but gonna need to push things right to the wire, hehe.

I'm not getting anywhere near 34 seconds on Jeanne 1. What weapon set are you using?

Guide arrived yesterday . It's lovely. Not started to read it, but looking forward to some schooling.

I've not been able to convince a single person of the awsum of Bayonetta, which is bloody depressing.

One question. In the guide it says you need to complete the game on Normal in under 3 hours to unlock some such. I assume that all I need to do is get my chapter times down one by one until the total chapter time is 3 hours as opposed to go through the whole game in a continuous run?

I'm pretty certain you just have to get your Chapter times down, then the item will become available. I can't remember the exact way the unlock works but it's been covered in the guide. It's a good item too, it's like Dante's Quicksilver Style in DMC3 in that you can stop time manually.

I'm around the 30 second mark for Jeanne 1 too, put up some really simple meths for the guide for this fight too. It's all about your distance to her, different ranges trigger different behaviours.

Clearly I need to RTFG

Since I'm stuck at work though does the guide include the 'rules' for the umbran spear? It strikes me that you can't always US to an enemy, but the exact rules for when you can and can't aren't clear to me.

Nope - there's no catch other than you need at least 1 orb of Magic in the meter. You can Spear 'out of' any animation which usually cancels via Jump or Evade. The Magic Gauge fill rate is variable, we weren't able to get the exact value applied to the gauge for each attack (because Platinum did not document it!) but we've got as far as we possibly can. The section on Scoring in the Combat section of the guide has masses of crazy shit you would never have thought of.

Ah I've probably been running low on gauge and then putting a failed US down to some other factor. Silly. Will read the scoring section with much interest...

Just Scarborough Fair mate, you cant change the weapons for that fight. I threw in a Tetsuzako after PKP and her health gauge started crying. The dual WWs at the end just rip her to pieces. I made sure to keep my distance right so she would keep doing her ground-to-air afterburner as you get a nice stagger window to abuse if you dodge it BOOM!!

I am gonna be ordering my guide later this week, its an essential purchase!! Not just for the tips and incredible work that has went into it but I now feel that it is part of the real Bayonetta experience, hehe. I can't even imagine the amount of stuff some people will have missed out on by trading this masterpiece in.

Picked up Odette yesterday. Super Bayonetta Galaxy HO!

Tetsuzako you can basically get out ontop of another weave. It's absolutely brutal . Managed to scrape my way through Vestibule on Hard last night too (Gold). Still don't feel man enough for the challenge of Hard. Think I'll spend a bit more time in Normal hunting down the remainder of the Angelic L.P.s and Alfheims.

****WARNING****

THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED

Just a Platinum?

I'm sorry, but WTF just happened??!!

Yes WTF was all that?

In noob news I managed to Platinum Chapter 1 on Hard last night, which was nice G&G causing very few problems. I feel I can read them a lot better now. Don't feel like I evolved my combat at all last night. I'm going to have to swat up using the guide as I'm more or less at the peak of what I can do without some hand holding.

Grace & Glory are brilliant enemies, they're such bastards until you suss out how they've been built.

There are lots of behaviours which are set in stone. Like if you knock one over, it will attack as it gets to it's feet (Witch Time chance).

They attack directly after blocking one of your strikes too, the Joy angels do this too and it's an exploit you should take note of when playing Hard Mode. The easiest way to make use of it is to keep striking until one of your hits is blocked/deflected, then evade the counter-attack which follows the block to activate Witch Time.

Grace & Glory are really open to sweep attacks, they can't block them at all (ground or air). You can actually trap them in an endless loop of PPPKP, mix it up with PPPKK.P and PPKP to make it interesting, but regardless of how you do it they can't escape. Also, when fighting these enemies in a group, make sure you target Grace first. Their attack routines are based on proximity - so if you single out Grace, Glory will hang back in the distance and use it's ground shock attack. Have Durga (Electric) equipped and you'll be immune to the shock attack and free to deal with Grace without risk of interruption.

360+K with Durga is another one which makes a mess of Grace & Glory, I put this in the guide too - can't remember what I wrote but it does cover exactly what hit of the move seamlessly cancels into another repetition. If you keep it going without gaps they can't escape, you can do this until they die and even trap 3 of them at once. There's some aerial combo stuff in there too, the key to scoring aerial combos against them is to let them 'fall' into your combo rather than chase and aim directly at them.

One last thing; if you Parry, they will Stagger - it's guaranteed. So if you for example want to freeze one with Odette; parry an attack then immediately counter with 360+K. Do this twice and the freeze is yours.