Is this “Naive Angel Mode” for Bayonetta 3 really a good idea, a mode that prevents Bayonetta from stripping down? It stems from a good intention—to allow people to play the game without worrying about the partial nudity shown— and it’s been widely welcomed online (having a choice is always a good thing, of course), even though I also think Bayonetta 3 isn’t the first game to offer such an option (it’s mainly the first major production to do so—correct me if I’m wrong—but in any case, it’s a hot topic right now involving one of the industry’s major players).
But the underlying point is that this is the same kind of accessibility issue a game faces regarding its difficulty level, the fact that a game, for example, doesn’t offer an easy mode like Sekiro, making it difficult for some people to spend time on it to the point where they complain about not being able to fully enjoy the game—except that here, well, it touches on gender, a debate as old as time and therefore subject to preconceived notions about women who “shouldn’t do this or that or be portrayed in such-and-such a way.”
Bayonetta is a video game series featuring the protagonist of the same name. Bayonetta is a witch who, among other things, has the ability to summon monsters through her hair (the monsters are essentially held in check by her hair). So far, so good—everyone can breathe easy. Except that Bayonetta’s unique feature is that her outfit consists of that very same hair… And so Bayonetta more or less strips down when she summons monsters, depending on the power of the attacks and the size of the monsters. It’s gimmicky, it’s cliché, it’s very “the sexualization of video games” and all that, but that’s what makes it charming—no pun intended.
Whether you’re a fan of this “concept” or not, we’re dealing here with a discerning audience that’s fully aware of the content offered by the Bayonetta games, so it shouldn’t be an issue in the first place… But it becomes one when you want to expand the audience to include people who don’t share the Bayonetta vision.
PlatinumGames was pretty teasing when presenting this mode; the Twitter message is clearly, “You who are frustrated by seeing bare legs and more if you’re into that, you’ll be able to play without having to justify yourselves”… But as a result, isn’t the addition of Naive Angel Mode a bit hypocritical given the game’s universe itself? Because Bayonetta stripping down is actually just one part of the whole picture—there’s all the physical violence behind it with the executions and gore, the verbal profanity, and not to mention all of Bayonetta’s suggestive gestures that go hand in hand with her stripping down in the first place (unless they’ve simply run out of them… ) and for all of that, there aren’t actually “modes to turn them off.” Isn’t that a problem? I mean, isn’t that a bit stupid in the end?
It’s always about sexuality—having to treat people like children who are too shy to look at a pair of buttocks (or even a pair of legs!) just to avoid confusing what falls under the realm of eroticism with pornography, accusing the medium of being “weird” rather than acknowledging that a medium doesn’t have to appeal to everyone. And worse, tomorrow we’ll have these same people defending the idea that Bayonetta stripping down simply no longer serves any purpose: “See, it doesn’t change the experience, so why should we accept this sexualization of women?” For me, it’s a double-edged sword, because in the end, it simply proves the critics of sexualization right—and not just with the Bayonetta series, but we could generalize this to other games as well.
It’s censorship disguised as an accessibility option, and let me tell you: Playing in “Naive Angel” mode is like not understanding—or even refusing to accept—what Bayonetta is fundamentally about. You may not have played the previous two games, and if you did and found them annoying, Bayonetta 3 might not be for you, even with this mode—frankly speaking (and alternatives with the same type of gameplay do exist).
