I went through chapter six from beginning to end. I found huge monsters, protected an annoying child and didn’t have to sit through too many cut scenes. The flow of the combat is just right and even rubbish old me is able to build combos and feel like I’m actually fighting, not just mashing buttons.

I also can’t help be charmed by its silliness. I know some people have commented that they’re embarrassed to play it, because of the sexy cheese filling, but I have no such qualms.

Sexy Cheese Filling

It’s absurdly wonderful and a very, very special game indeed. I’m actually very glad that I can’t afford many console games these days, because there’s less chance of a game being left unplayed and I do want to give Bayonetta the time it deserves. I’ve only put in six hours so far and it’s not nearly enough.

(And, yes, I got another Stone medal at the end of the chapter – I’d managed to miss out one of the verses. Oh, and I died about a million times. Well, six or seven. Something like that.)

I also used my new 360 controller, which came as part of a bundle. It’s not as nice as my old controller, with horrible, rough seams where the two halves of the controller meet, but it seems okay.

Now, though, I’m stuck on another mini challenge where I have to kill two big enemies with, I think, ten punches and seven kicks. That’s just not going to happen, I don’t think. I’ll try again a couple of times next time I play, but I think I’m going to have to leave it until I’m much, much better at the game.

In some sad news, though, Bayonetta broke my thumbstick last night. I was playing the game and a chunk came off the the left stick on my controller.

Luckily I’ve got a spare, but that controller has been with me through thick and thin for many years. (As you can tell from the dust and dirt built up on it.) Still, it’s not completely unusable now, just a bit annoying. It can be a guest controller, I’m not going to throw it out.

Bayonetta’s a more friendly game that I expected, it actually seems to want you to play it. A lot of games, especially of this type, seem more like tests of skill that you have to endure to prove that you’re worthy, Bayonetta just lets you play. It doesn’t make things especially easy, but it does at least recognise that not all of us have lightning fingers and superhuman reaction times.

I love it. A lot.

(Let’s not mention the part where I got stuck last night because I’d forgotten a technique the game had told me about a few days ago. The problem with playing for half an hour here and there is that it’s easy to forget the tutorial stuff that happened days ago.)

My only real problem is that I’ve only got stone medals so far. Okay, so I’ve only completed two chapters, but both of those have given me the lowest ranking. It’s quite upsetting, as it feels like I’ve been doing rather well.

I fear I’m missing something, though, because I checked my friends leaderboard for the prologue and I did well in terms of time, but was bottom by a long, long way when it came to my combo points. Hmm. I’ll have to see how I do at the end of chapter one.

I have a feeling that this game will really start to shine in a second play-through, when I’ve got myself properly set up, know what I’m doing and can skip those cut scenes without worrying I’m going to miss something important.

(The first part of the evening was taken up by Mystic River, which is a fine movie but not close to the brilliance of the book, and then the first two episodes of Glee were on E4. I’m very much looking forward to seeing more.)

Of the half hour I got to spend with Bayonetta, I’d guess that twenty minutes was cut scenes and about ten minutes was gameplay. Though that feels overly generous – it certainly felt like I hardly got to touch the pad. Oh well, hopefully I’ll actually get to play it more tonight.

I hope the full game doesn’t disappoint, because I wouldn’t normally buy a game for full launch price, even with “extra” money. I’m having it sent to the office, not home, so I don’t get it until next week, though, so I don’t play it until I’ve played a lot more Assassin’s Creed 2.

(I wasn’t that great at it, mind. I died a few times during the demo and ended up with Stone rank overall, despite getting some platinum medals along the way.)

It’s all very, very silly. You’ve got guns attached to your boots, you can turn you hair into stiletto heels and iron maidens and you can pick up angelic trumpets that act as shotguns. It’s videogaming filtered through a fever dream that’s been sped up to twice its normal speed – and probably quite brilliant, though it’s hard to tell.