Bayonetta for PS3 - as bad as everyone says?

With my recent purchase of FFXIII my urge to get Bayonetta on PS3 has been temporarily curbed. My question to everyone:

There have been a lot of reports and reviews claiming that the PS3's version is vastly inferior to the 360's. How true is this really? I've heard there is a patch on PSN that covers the loading issue, so that shouldn't be a problem anymore. Are the rest of the problems minor graphical issues? Does anything render this game as unplayable as the console-war gits claim?

Minor pieces of info which may help: I only own a PS3 and I do not own a TV that supports HD.

There's a patch for the game now so it's just slight graphical differences, no more long load times.

Bayonetta was developed from the ground up for the 360, to take advantage of its particular strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, PlatinumGames was not involved in the porting process, so the PS3 version seems to suffer from more than just minor graphical differences and loading issues.

To my understanding, every single graphical decision that was made with the game was so that the game would run at a constant 60 frames-per-second. To the game's creator, Hideki Kamiya, this was a point that he was unwilling to budge on for any reason. To him, action games are just not "tenable" if they are not 60fps. All of the reports claim that the PS3 version has taken a severe hit in terms of its framerate.

Eurogamer's Digital Foundry goes super in-depth with the differences, but the biggest thing holding the PS3 version back is that terrible performance level. He shows several scenarios where the 360 build is running at 56.0fps and the PS3 is running at only 36.0 or lower. That's a pretty huge downgrade in speed and responsiveness.

Here's the link to the full article: Face-Off: Bayonetta | DigitalFoundry

Hopefully that's helpful in forming your decision. I only currently own a PS3, but I'm actually holding off on Bayonetta until I purchase a 360. The graphical differences (such as muddier textures) don't really matter to me. However, the framerate is something that affects gameplay and the game's overall impact. The game is all about speed and responsiveness, and that is something I am most definitely not willing to sacrifice.

This issues of loading times have been fixed as some others have pointed out.

Now, I haven't played Bayonetta on 360 so I'm not making an informed opinion here. But my experience of Bayonetta on PS3 (finished it once) was perfectly fine. The only places where I could visibly notice frame lag was in the final level (this bit with glowing vertical panels that you have to Witch Walk up) but that was it.

Boss battles were fine as were normal battles. One of the most important things for you to be able to do when you're playing Bayonetta is accessing Witch Time consistantly. This involves hitting R2 the moment before you get hit. If frames were a big issue, I wouldn't have been able to do it as often as I did.

I'm not saying it's as good as it is on 360. Though I haven't played it on the XBox, I don't doubt that Bayonetta plays slightly better on the system it was designed to be played on, but my experience of the game is that all the 'Bayonetta on PS3 bashing' going on is grossly exaggerated as the drop in graphical quality and frame rate is not relevant in the vast majority of instances in the game. Those videos in the DigitalFoundry link above show a clear difference, yes, but that is at 30% speed. If you played those at 3x speed, you wouldn't notice a thing.

What Alucard has said about the frame rate affecting gameplay can be argued both ways. I found that I was able to execute everything I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I never had a "omg! I DID dodge that!" moment whilst playing the game. But then again.. numbers don't lie and I can't deny that the numbers show that when I press a button, Bayonetta performs the action slightly later than she would've on the 360.

Anyway.. if it came down to it. I definitely wouldn't buy an entire new console just to play a 'real' game instead of a port. So I'll stick to my PS3 version, thanks.

lol And it's a comment like that which suggests I need to shut up the purist inside of me and just rent the damn game already! XD I am a pretty terrible purist though, and I always bristle when I hear the word "port", however.

They patched it and both versions are pretty much identical now.

But before that patch the slowdown during cutscenes and climax attacks was terrible.

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Originally Posted by Alucard von Elru

lol And it's a comment like that which suggests I need to shut up the purist inside of me and just rent the damn game already! XD I am a pretty terrible purist though, and I always bristle when I hear the word "port", however.

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Well if you're buying a 360 for more games other than just Bayonetta, that's cool. Maybe you should wait then.
But if it's just for Bayonetta, that might not be so bright. It's a great game, but considering the hype that was generated about it before release, I'd say it only just hit the mark. The way the story was told was the big let down. You don't really get what's going on until the very end.

Also, funnily enough, I never experienced slowdown in climax attacks and cutscenes before the patch, though I did have massive loading times.

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Originally Posted by Alucard von Elru

He shows several scenarios where the 360 build is running at 56.0fps and the PS3 is running at only 36.0 or lower. That's a pretty huge downgrade in speed and responsiveness.

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To be fair, 30 frames per second seems to be an industry standard. At least, I know Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 run at 30fps and they're the best graphically not on a PC. Although, I can understand that with an action game like Bayonetta or its spiritual predecessor of DMC, it is pretty important. The 360 version also seems to have more shades of colors.

If it's anything like the demo, though, the game seems fine on PS3. Bayonetta isn't really pushing any envelopes graphics-wise.

Well I played Bayonetta to completetion on the PS3 and played an hour or two of the 360 version. The biggest differences between the two versions is the frame-rate. There are times during the PS3 version where it is borderline unplayable (the opening is a good example). For most of the game though, its fine. The weaker graphics and longer loading times definitely hinder the PS3 version but its really no big deal as the gameplay is what makes the game.

I dunno what Mo-Nercy is on about as I loved the game and felt it lived up to my expectations. Its really just an amped up DMC game, which is all it needed to be. Up there with DMC1 and Ninja Gaiden.

PS3 Bayonetta is tearing-galore, but apart from that it's pretty ok. The actual rendering doesn't "look" too bad, but a drop in FPS by over 30% is definitely a big difference. This also increases the controller lag on your system, making it harder to react fast. Thats why fighting games almost always do their best to run at a stable 60 fps.

The performance and graphics are slightly superior on the 360 version. If you have a choice get it on 360. If you don't, the PS3 version is far from unplayable.

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Originally Posted by Mo-Nercy

Well if you're buying a 360 for more games other than just Bayonetta, that's cool. Maybe you should wait then.
But if it's just for Bayonetta, that might not be so bright.

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I'll wait then, and thank you for the comment. BioWare and Valve refuse to give my PS3 the love I need (Mass Effect series, Portal 2), so I'll count Bayonetta in the 360 column. ;)

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Originally Posted by Yeargdribble

The performance and graphics are slightly superior on the 360 version. If you have a choice get it on 360. If you don't, the PS3 version is far from unplayable.

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Yeah, I rarely buy 360 games but I did so for Bayonetta (I think the last one before that was...Lost Odyssey). I played both demos beforehand and the PS3 version's demo was...pretty bad with the framerate drop.

If I didn't have a 360 I'd of bought the PS3 version though. The game would still be a lot of fun. :)