There are videogames that elevate the medium, perhaps not to the level of art, but to something approaching respectability. The gleefully dumb Bayonetta is not one of them. The third-person action game, published by Sega and developed by the Japanese studio Platinum Games, revels in its own trashiness as much as a Robert Rodriguez movie does.

Despite the rave reviews it has garnered (90% on Metacritic), Bayonetta is not for everyone. Hideki Kamiya — designer and director of Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe — has once again crafted a game with tough gameplay, wacky art design and numerous retro-game references that is clearly meant for the hardcore.

Its horrendous voice-acting and the shockingly poor dialogue make Bayonetta feel like a relic of a bygone era — especially when compared to what Western developers have achieved with recent games such as Uncharted 2 and Mass Effect. The art design and story are often embarrassingly adolescent, though the game does try to deflate criticism with a self-aware sense of humour.

At the centre of the game is Bayonetta, the character. Equal parts Chuck Norris, Devil May Cry’s Dante and 1980s Madonna, she’s a member of an ancient clan called the Umbran Witches that is involved in a centuries-old struggle with a faction called the Lumen sages. (Trying to understand the finer points of the confused story is futile.)

The hyper-sexualised nature of Bayonetta has sparked off heated discussion among those given to over-analysing their pop culture. She has implausibly long legs with guns strapped to her stilettos, uses lollipops for power-ups, and speaks in a sultry British accent. Many of her combat moves look like they’d be more at home in a strip club than on a battlefield.

She minces into battle, one hand on hip, taunting her enemies with jibes like: “Do you naughty little angels need a spanking?”

Her hair wraps around her body to form a her tight catsuit. It unravels in some combat moves to form gigantic fists and feet to pound enemies, with only a few strategically placed strands to preserve her modesty. The moves she uses to finish bosses off are called “climax attacks”. If you’re looking for good taste, you won’t find it here.

For some, the seemingly invulnerable Bayonetta is a post-feminist icon for the gaming industry (she was designed by a female artist, if that makes a difference). Others question just how empowered she can be, considering that the objectifying male gaze spends so much time lingering on her shapely buttocks. To her credit, Bayonetta would probably saunter over to the debaters and silence them with a roundhouse kick. That’s girl power for you.

The real star of the game — aside from Bayonetta’s assets — is the elegant combat system. It takes equal amounts of inspiration from Devil May Cry’s mixture of ranged and melee attacks, and from Ninja Gaiden’s complex combos and evasion moves, and adds a few flourishes of its own. Controls are smooth and fluid, and mastering combat is deeply rewarding.

The boss fights are the highlights of Bayonetta. Taking inspiration from God of War 2 and Shadow of the Colossus, they’re multi-stage battles against enormous foes, some of them as big as an office block. A few surprisingly fun vehicle levels and some basic platforming inject a degree of variety into the game play.

The game offers difficulty levels from “very easy” to “non-stop climax” to cater for differing levels of player skill. Bayonetta is not nearly as gruelling to finish on the “normal” difficulty as the Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden games, since health, damage and invincibility power-ups are readily available.

But Bayonetta isn’t really a game to be played as a journey from beginning to end — it demands that you revisit levels to earn halos (the game’s currency) to buy new moves and items, and to improve your ranking.

The Xbox 360 version of Bayonetta runs crisply, with only occasional screen tearing and frame-rate drops. There are some technically impressive moments when Bayonetta finds herself running through levels that are collapsing around her and animations are uniformly fluid and excellent throughout the game.

Bayonetta is as good as most of the reviews say, but with some caveats. Your ability to enjoy the game hinges on two things: your ability to look past (or embrace) its presentation and your taste for Japanese action games in the mould of Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. — Lance Harris, TechCentral