Sony has released a patch for the PS3 version of Bayonetta, enabling a hard drive installation option for the game to improve loading times.
The patch itself is about 100MB in size, while the actual install uses up 4.5GB of hard drive space.
This update is available for all regional versions of Bayonetta: the original Japanese NTSC-J version, and the English version that was just out in stores this January.
I’ve done some quick testing of Bayonetta’s loading times after the install, and everything has been drastically improved:
Level loading and scene transition:
New levels and transitions into different scenes (eg. Gates of Hell) now take about 10 seconds maximum. A significantly huge improvement over the previous loading times, which could take up to half-a-minute.
Instantaneous pause menu and inventory screen:
The menus now appear instantly without having to wait for a three-second loading pause.
Instantaneous item pick-ups:
The same goes for picking up items: no more lame loading pauses.
Note that this update does not improve the inferior graphics of the PS3 version, nor does it fix the frame rate lag issues for some of the later levels.
Still, this new patch will go a long way to alleviate the concerns for PS3 owners of Bayonetta, an otherwise great game that was ported poorly by Sega to the PS3.
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