At times many aspects of an original design are lost in the final product. Creating an enemy the player not only understands, but one that generates an emotional response is a lengthy process of trial and error. Through PlatinumGames development blog you begin to see the emotional attachment felt by the designers for their monsters and their efforts to get it “just right”.

One animator likens Bayonetta’s enemies as his children, secretly rooting for them during battles. However he still maintains the necessity for balance,

“As an enemy animator, I want everyone to be able to enjoy anxiety-packed, exhilarating battles; however, that doesn’t mean I can just go around making enemy attacks super-hard as a prank. If you have an enemy that has nothing going for it other than powerful attacks, all that enemy will do is cause stress.”

Going further back to the concept phase of an enemy, producer Yusuke Hashimoto speaks about his initial idea of having the enemy monsters as divine angels, wanting to incorporate two solid things in his designs: You should be able to visually see an enemy’s vitality. The internals of the enemy must make them seem to be incredibly strange beasts.

On the company development blog, Platinum allows individual team members to write their experience in designing the game. Even if you have no interest in the game, I encourage everyone to read at least one of their posts. It adds a personal element to Bayonetta, giving you insight into the overall process in creating the game.

After the jump I included a before and after of enemy concept art and a couple of “precursor” enemy animations.

[PlatinumGames]

                         Before “Divine Angels”                                          After “Angelic Monsters”

Precursor Event – Meant to suggest to the player the enemy’s next action

Attack Event