Game Breaking: Bayonetta

Bayonetta has been out for almost a year, and tons of gamers have fallen in love with its razor-sharp combat and absurd action. But some of you still haven't experienced this over-the-top masterpiece. Whether you're a newcomer or an old pro, this edition of Gamebreaking will help you obtain an unfair edge in Bayonetta. I'll show you how to become ridiculously powerful and infinitely wealthy...and that's just for starters.

The first thing you want to know is this: Anyone can do this trick. Bayonetta can be a difficult game, but that doesn't matter here. Can you mash the Y Button? Then you can win!

Here's the overview: Chapter VII has a boss that you fight repeatedly, racking up about a million halos (the game's currency) each encounter. This is a lot of money. You can use these halos to purchase new moves and items, but more importantly, you can also unlock weapons and characters that you could normally only access by fulfilling certain conditions.

Unfortunately, you can't just start up the game and use this trick right away; you need to invest a little bit of time playing legitimately. Before you begin your ascent to godhood, here's what you need:

1) Reach Chapter VII in the main story
2) Obtain Durga (collect the LP fragments in chapter V)
3) Purchase the accessory Selene's Light

To optimize the trick, you should also check these off your list
4) Purchase the accessory Gaze of Despair
5) Obtain Odette (collect the LP fragments in chapter VI)

Selene's Light costs 100,000 halos. If you don't have that kind of money by the time you reach chapter VII, you can get it easily by using this cool little trick: Start up chapter I, hop on top of the train and double-jump to reach the upper balcony, then destroy all of the benches. For some reason, this causes the train to leave, but you get 10,000 halos if you can jump on top of the train and ride it out of the station.

(See video #1 below for a demonstration)

You can repeat this trick as often as you want; you don't even need to finish the level. Just exit to the chapter menu, hit RB to bring up the sub-menu, choose chapter select, and go to chapter I again. Don't go overboard, though; once you have enough halos for Selene's Light, it's time to graduate to the big leagues.

With Selene's Light equipped and Durga on (in lightning form) on your hands, get to chapter VII. The entire chapter is just a boss fight against Temperantia. In the first phase, mash Y to punch his hands; the goal is get a high combo multiplier, which is why Selene's Light is necessary. It activates Witch Time when you get hit without interrupting your combo, but you shouldn't worry too much about that at this phase. The real fun begins once you've destroyed both arms.

The second phase of the fight has you destroying some nodes on Temperantia's body. On normal difficulty, there are only three. If you want to get the most halos out of this fight portion, you'll want to quickly move from one to the next in order to avoid losing your multiplier – panther form helps with this, as does Odette equipped on your feet. Still, don't worry too much if you lose your multiplier here. After all of the nodes are defeated, your multiplier is wiped clean as you enter the final phase of the battle.

Fighting the head is where you'll get the most halos, since you will probably be able to get your multiplier up to the max 9999x9.9.  If your health isn't in good shape after the first part of the fight, go ahead and die; there's a checkpoint, and since you're not going for a good ranking, the death isn't detrimental. Similarly, if you lose your multiplier at some point in this phase, just sacrifice yourself and restart.

Here's the core of it all: Now just go up and start smashing the face with the Y button. Seriously, it's that easy. You can try to dodge attacks and stuff if you want to, but each time you get hit is guaranteed Witch Time, so there's not even much incentive to play well. After Temperantia's down, you should find yourself with somewhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million halos – not too bad for a six minute fight.

(See video #2 below to watch one of my runs where I net a little over 1.5 million halos)

You won't hit the higher limits of the halo count unless you also have the Gaze of Despair equipped, since that accessory gives Temperantia way more hit points, extending the amount of time you have to build your combo. If you don't have the Gaze of Despair yet, one bout against Temperantia using the same strategy (even without the Gaze) should still boost your bank account enough to afford it.

So, after you grind the fight a few times, what do you do with all of the money? For one, you can buy all of the additional moves and healing items you want. But there's even more to buy than meets the eye.

Nothing up to this point has been cheating. Obtaining all of those halos is just a way to exploit the game's normal mechanics. To see what else you can get with those halos, you're going to have to cheat a little. You'll have to go to chapter 2 and play through to verse 3. You'll be in a town plaza that has three pay phones (two are near each other against a wall, and the third is against a pillar). By standing in front of these phones and entering specific codes, you can unlock weapons, items, and characters that you'd normally have to satisfy difficult conditions to obtain.

I'm not going to go through all of the specifics here. I recommend checking out the cheats on gamefaqs if you want to see the list of exactly what you can get an how. However, there is one item that I wholeheartedly recommend: the Climax Bracelet.

Remember how, in the video of the Temperantia fight, all of Bayonetta's attacks were giant wicked-weaves? That's normally a special treat reserved solely for boss fights. When you wear the Climax Bracelet, your attacks do that all the time. It's...totally awesome.

You can also unlock Jeanne as a playable character (though you'll have to start all over from scratch with her), along with the sweet lightsaber weapon, Pillow Talk. Be warned: many of the things you unlock will make the game way easier. But if you were concerned about making the game easier, you wouldn't be trying to break it, would you?