* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** {{Moviebob}}, in his guise as The Game Overthinker, believes Bayonetta is not so much sexually appealing as much as she is ''[[http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/02/episode-32-i-heart-bayonetta.html sexually intimidating]]'', and feels she is unique in this regard.
** There is quite a debate on Bayonetta's sex appeal nature. Is she blatant adolescence pandering, or is she a satire of said pandering? And if it is the latter, does it fall into the DoNotDoThisCoolThing problem?
* AwesomeMusic: The entire freaking soundtrack, but [[AwesomeMusic/{{Bayonetta}} see the page]] for more details.
* CrazyAwesome: The Game.
* CrossesTheLineTwice: Asides from...everything else in the game, there's one cutscene where Bayonetta has just defeated the boss and elects to blow it up by shooting a stream of gasoline coming from a peeing baby angel statue. When it fails the first time, she [[GroinAttack shoots the statue in the spout]]. When the head flies past in the ensuing (huge) explosion, it's crying.
** The first time we meet Joy, cue the gentle laughter when there's a little impromptu dance off. Drop your jaw in shock/horror/hilarity when Joy chooses to finally... ''reveal'' herself. And then the line is tossed out of the window when you perform the torture attack on her.
* CrossoverShip: VideoGame/{{D|evilMayCry}}ante[=/=]Bayonetta is a(n un)surprisingly popular one.
** She is also occasionally paired up with [[VideoGame/GodOfWar Kratos]] and [[VideoGame/LollipopChainsaw Juliet Starling]] as well (the latter is expected, seeing as how Juliet shares so many similarities to Bayonetta it's just not even funny).
* DemonicSpiders: Fairness & Fearless. Grace & Glory. Inspired. Joys. Braves. Kinships. This game is a giant nest of DemonicSpiders that have a shameless disdain for the MookChivalry code.
* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: If you subscribe to the idea that ''Bayonetta'' is a ''satire'' of oversexualized female video game characters.
* EvilIsCool: Baulder. He looks silly, but he's so {{Badass}} and AffablyEvil that he utterly steals the show.
* EvilIsSexy: ''Hoo boy.''
* FanDumb: When it was announced that Bayonetta 2 was going to be made, but would be an exclusive to the [=WiiU=], rather than be glad that they're getting another game, fans sent death threats to Hideki Kamiya and said they would boycott Platinum games if they didn't make an Xbox release. Never mind that in fact, the [=WiiU=] version was practically made possible with Nintendo offering to publish it, and that Platinum Games, as the developer, is free to make another game for whatever platform they want.
* FanPreferredCouple: Some fans don't seem to like the Bayonetta/Luka pairing. Luckily for them, two Bayonetta/Anyone pairings have emerged from the fandom.
** There is a decent amount of artwork featuring both Dante and Bayonetta, often as a couple, and has been around ''even before the game was released''. Not surprising, considering many things. Both characters are the brainchild of the same guy and feature the same sort of gameplay. They could even be considered the DistaffCounterpart of one another, as they are equally {{Badass}} while one fights [[TheLegionsOfHell demons]] and the other fights [[LightIsNotGood angels]], but both are mostly on humanity's side. Even more interestingly, and also featured in fanarts, is that this contrast could lead into them facing one another - which would be indisputably ''awesome'' - but be it OppositesAttract or FoeYay, the chemistry needed for {{Shipping}} would be there, and it would be more than enough. There's arguably a bit of ShipSinking with Bayonetta claiming to not be fond of the talkative type, but then again, her way of treating her talkative enemies is the same way Dante applies to his.
** [[HoYay Bayonetta and Jeanne]] appears to be a popular pairing as well, thanks to their FoeYay-ness. It doesn't help that she (Jeanne) ''resembles Dante.''
* FashionVictimVillain: Jeanne is pretty bad with her red jumpsuit, poofy purple collar, and fuzzy gun tassels. [[spoiler:Balder's dead white peacock stole, single glove, and golden quarter-mask with piercing-attached monocle]] is even worse.
** Jeanne's weird eyelashes are somewhat unfortunate too, and her jumpsuit makes her look almost deformed. For [[spoiler:Balder]], though, this trope probably was intentional.
** Oddly enough, Bayonetta can get in on the fun with the d'Arc couture bullet, which puts Bayonetta in a [[PaletteSwap black version of Jeanne's dress]], and it's sexy all of a sudden.
* FetishFuel: Pretty much everything about Bayonetta is fetishized.
-->[[WebVideo/ZeroPunctuation Everything Bayonetta does is fetishized. She wears glasses, sucks on lolipops, uses BDSM techniques as special attacks, and occasionally all of her clothes fly off and hairy monsters appear]].
* FetishRetardant: Maybe it's the beehive hairdo, maybe it's finding clothing made of ''hair'' less than appealing, etc.
** It's odd that Bayonetta's proportions and actions can end up so amazingly over-sexualized that she can become largely unsexy. Sort of like a sexy version of the UncannyValley: she's too sexy to be taken seriously, but not sexy enough to overpower the ridiculousness.
** Speaking of proportions, her head and torso are of normal proportions, but her arms and legs are freakishly long and skinny for a character rendered in a semi-realistic fashion. She's like a hyper-sexualized female version of [[TheSlenderManMythos Slender Man]].
* GameBreaker: The Durga-Kilgore glitch.
** Let's put it in perspective: The second-best halo-farming method in the game only nets around 1 million halos per run, and can take upwards of 4 minutes each. The Durga-Kilgore combo? not only does it blow that 1 million out of the water with [[UpToEleven upwards of 13 million]] ([[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts Take That, Adam Smith!]]), It also [[{{Cap}} maxes out the combo score]] in a lot of the scenes.
** An officially recognized gamebreaker is the Climax Bracelet, normally unlocked by obtaining every achievement/trophy AND collecting every crow on one save game. Equipping the accessory invalidates any score made on a level where the accessory was equipped. When you can [[RankInflation Pure-Platinum]] the penultimate boss without a sweat using something, you know it's a game breaker.
* GoddamnedBats: The Decorations and Enchants are this, sort of. Although they are not the worst examples.
* GuideDangIt : The Alfheim portals often (but not always) require {{backtracking}} through entire portions of a level, as they appear only after you get past a certain point or have done a certain action, without any indication whatsoever. One of them only appears ''if you shoot a specific trash can''. And a few Alfheim challenges can let you clueless; like staying in the air 30 seconds with nothing to help you but an agressive and [[CaptainObvious uncooperative]] pair of [[DemonicSpiders Grace & Glory]].
** Also, finding all [[RavensAndCrows the crows]] that carry the Umbran Tears Of Blood without a walkthrough is quite a feat. Not only are they ridiculously difficult to spot and sometimes perched in the most uncanny places, their location changes depending on the difficulty mode.
** Good luck trying to obtain all the weapons, by cheating or otherwise. One of them, the Sai Fung, can't even be obtained through the cheat phone that you could normally use.
* GoodBadBugs: You can save at least 2.8 million halos (and a lot of effort) by spending 5 million halos to unlock the Climax Bracelet before finishing Normal Mode and then use it to finish off Normal mode. The game will give you a total combo score of 9999999 and a total time of 00:00:00, unlocking the Bracelet of Time with no additional effort.
** And again, the Durga-Kilgore glitch, but one can debate if this is really a glitch or if it was deliberate.
* HolyShitQuotient: Most, if not all, of the cutscenes will have you saying 'Holy shit' about as often as you say 'What the HELL is going on? And why is it so AWESOME?'
** The first ten minutes of the game will lock the visual cortex of your brain into visual overload, but it's [[CrazyAwesome so awesome you won't care.]]
* HoYay: Between Bayonetta and Jeanne, thanks to some rather...''[[HoYay close quarters]]'' [[HoYay style fighting.]]
* InternetBackdraft: Occurred when Sega announced that the games would be region-locked for all releases. They quickly ate their words and claimed that it was a misunderstanding and that only the Xbox360 version is region-locked, as a result of the resulting threats of boycott.
* NarmCharm: Par for the course.
* NintendoHard
* PortingDisaster: The PlayStation3 version of the game is inarguably inferior. Platinum Games handed over the code to Sega for the finalization process on that platform, which lead to noticeably reduced frame rates, poor textures, extremely intrusive and long loading times, and other technical issues.
** However, the [=PS3=] version later recieved a patch that allows you to install the game to the [=PS3=]'s hard drive, largely cutting the loading times. However the other most glaring issues with frame rates and textures remain unaddressed.
* ScrappyLevel: For some, the rocket ride section goes on just a ''bit'' too long. Combine this with the fact that [[GuideDangIt the game never tells you how to un-invert the camera,]] and well...
** To top it all off, after you complete the segment, you have to fight [[spoiler:Jeanne for the last time, and harder than ever.]]
** The double Kinship fight. Dear God, those fuckers take BulletHell to a whole new level. It takes a good level of Witch Time skill if you don't wanna be pelted by ''a dozen missiles at the same time''. This is somewhat alleviated by the fact that you can actually board the kinships and smash their wheelhouses, and their corpses remain as a platform to board the others.
** The beginning of chapter 8 and the "disapearing platforms" part in chapter 15 also qualify on [=PS3=], mainly because [[GameBreakingBug the framerate operates a breathtaking drop in these two specific parts]].
* TheScrappy: Enzo
* ScrappyMechanic: Out-of-body fights. They're tolerable in the story mode, where you're given tools to wail on angels with and Cereza isn't constantly in danger, but when they're made an Alfheim challenge, you have to leave your body behind to fight; that won't stop the angels from going after it anyway (which will hurt your regular lifebar), unless you waste one of your two accessory slots on an item that forces Angels to attack you... but also makes them ''stronger''.
** That very mechanic forces you to use a ''lightpole'' to fight Affinities while protecting Cereza, since they are not in the same dimension. Not only is the "weapon" painfully slow, it slips out of your hands if you stop to dodge an attack. Granted, you can use [[spoiler:[[SwissArmyWeapon Rodin]]]] to attack them directly but the thing is [[BonusBoss not exactly]] [[NintendoHard easy]] to get...
** The mini-game to send Jubileus into the sun isn't so bad in Normal mode. In Hard and Climax mode however the planets are much harder to avoid, and failure is counted as a death, which can completely ruin an otherwise perfect score. Considering how long and difficult this fight can be, this is frustrating to say the least.
*** Insta-Death Quick Time Events in general, because it's sometimes damn near impossible to know exactly when to push Square button, and each death counts against your score.
* {{Scrub}}: One of these may come out in video comments to signal that using the Kilgore glitch is cheating and that if you do it you're not really skilled.
* {{Squick}}: Joy's Torture Attack. Completely gratuitous and kind of unsettling.
* TearJerker: [[spoiler:Balder's "murder" of Luka. Bayonetta just kind of lays there for a while after that diving leap to save him, which is kind of weird: I mean, this is Bayonetta we're talking about, she can shake off attacks from angels with no problem and she, what, twisted her ankle all of a sudden? And it's not some gratuitous fanservice of her laying on the ground, seeing as how most of the time she's down is spent focused on Balder: we get exactly one shot of her getting up that lasts all of two seconds, and it doesn't even focus on her butt or boobs. Then it hits you: she's trying to process what she just saw. Seeing Bayonetta, of all people, just smacked in the face like that...damn...]]
** The scene where Bayonetta [[spoiler:lays little Cereza down to rest, says to her, "It's okay, sweetie, the nightmares are over now," and then starts singing ''Fly Me to the Moon'' to her.]] Also doubles as a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
** On your first playthrough, it's practically impossible to hold back tears during the scene at the end where [[spoiler:everyone believes that Bayonetta is dead.]] But then when [[spoiler:she comes out of her coffin alive and remarks, "Next time, put me in a coffin with some air holes and less maggots!",]] you won't be able to stop laughing.
* ThatOneAttack: Jeanne's ''goddamn'' missile during the third fight! The QTE requires a hyper-fast reaction time and failure causes ''a lot'' of damage.
* WastedSong: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF49ZCjXygo Battle For The Umbra Throne]] only plays during the flashback fight with Jeanne, and it's [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome EPIC]].