Nintendo will “re-release” Bayonetta 2 on Wii U as a $30 “standalone product” February 19, Nintendo of America announced Thursday via Twitter. Since it originally hit stores in October 2014, North American copies of Bayonetta 2 also featured a Wii U port of the original Bayonetta. The new disc-based release will only include the sequel.
While the two games were packaged in North America, other regions sold the Wii U versions of Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 separately, so the original may be also see a solo release as well, if only as a download from the Nintendo eShop. The separation may also be connected to the end of a licensing agreement between Nintendo and Sega, which published the original Bayonetta.
The new version of the game, based on Nintendo’s tweet announcing the re-issue, is tied to Bayonetta’s upcoming appearance as a downloadable character in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, which also launches in February. Bayonetta, the seventh and final DLC character coming to the game, was selected based on a “worldwide” online poll held last year. Bayonetta will bring many of her signature abilities to Super Smash Bros, including her four pistols, hair-based summoning attacks, and world-slowing “witch time” abilities.
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The expanded Super Smash Bros. roster also includes Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII and Ryu from the Street Fighter series. Amiibo figures based on all three fighters will also be available in March.
If you have a Wii U and never took the time play it, Bayonetta 2 remains one of the best and most original games one can experience on the platform. “Bayonetta 2 is a game whose gargantuan barrage of sex, violence, and surrealism sets the mind on fire in the best possible way,” Anthony John Agnello said of the game in our review.