Welcome to the world of Bullet Witch where events have transpired to decimate the world’s population so that less than a billion remain. Now before you ask questions about if it involves global warming, I will tell you right now that it is not the case. Mainly there was a tragic series of events, including plagues, which have crippled the world. So where does this Bullet Witch come into play, and what role does she serve? It seems that demons have infested the world and they are Hell bent on carving up the remnants of humanity.
Of course you play as the Bullet Witch, because it would probably be a little weird playing a demon trying to push humanity into the open grave. As the Bullet Witch, named Alicia, you try and defeat the demons so that the world can restore balance to itself. Guided by a voice in her head, which ultimately serves her power to her, she moves from city to city trying to cleanse the areas with the help of a gun. But this is not your ordinary gun, as you will quickly see. But why is she fighting this fight? As Uncle Ben always said, “With great power comes responsibility.” I suppose that you could also say that -- in a way -- she is the ultimate cause of this problem.
In Bullet Witch you play Alicia in a third person perspective. Armed to the teeth with a repertory of weapons, magical and physical, she seems to have the weight of the world on her shoulders. Now you may be wondering what a gun can do against a legion of demons, but I will set thing straight by saying that this is no ordinary gun. It is a magical gun, which fires magical bullets, and by saying that I am sure that I now have the attention of all of the conspiracy theorists out there. But back to the magical side of these weapons, the gun has several forms that you can purchase, which also have three different levels of power. You start out with a generic machine gun, where you can additionally buy a shotgun, a cannon weapon that works well for long distance attacks, and a Gatling gun to mow down opponents. You can rotate through your weapons at the press of a button, and oddly enough the animation shows her twirling it like a baton as the gun transforms for you.
There is also the straight magical side of the weapons as well where you can use something called an elemental shot to boost your attacks. These will also offer different flairs to your weapons, but the elements are also specific for each weapon. The machine gun offers up a fire attack, which sets enemies on fire. The shotgun has a wind element that helps spread out your shot to hit multiple enemies. The cannon offers a light attack, which allows you to enter a sniper mode so that you may zoom in on most enemies to make those important shots. Finally the Gatling gun provides a thunder shock to nearby enemies that also freeze them in their tracks briefly. Generally though the machine and the cannon weapons are best utilized with the magical powers.
The magical system in the game is reserved for the bumper buttons, allowing you to scroll through them fairly easily. Attacks are assigned to the X, A, and B buttons, while the Y button is used to cancel the attacks. Hitting either of the bumpers will advance the list by one page, but the scheme is fairly horribly designed. One reason is because you can only exit out of the menu by using the Y button or doing a regular attack or using the dodge command. It should have been set up so that you could advance or drop back a page by pressing the left or right bumpers. I may have even go to the extent of removing a spell and just assigning 8 of them to the X, A, B, and Y buttons. Perhaps even added a few more spells and using the system to go back and forth between four pages, with one defaulting to your main page.
The general spells change combat slightly, but it is possible to avoid using them in general. One of the spells changes the element of attack, which we have already covered. Another one involving throwing a flower, and where it lands rose spears will shoot out of the ground trying to impaling enemies in the local vicinity. One summons ravens to attack the enemies, which keeps them stunned, and that allows you to shoot them with your weapons. One summons a wall to hide behind or give you additional cover. One uses your will power to push debris in the local area at your enemies, and it becomes amazingly powerful as you level it up. Finally the sacrifice spell allows your character to give up a small section of her life to revive stunned innocents / teammates. This can be handy since they may repay you by extending your life bar section slightly. There are also mega attacks like lightning that can destroy tanks in one shot. There is a tornado that can rip through buildings and destroy them. Finally in the last level you can summon meteors from the sky to decimate the field, though it also does a great job of destroying buildings.
The life bar system is fairly interesting, where if you become damaged it will fill itself up fairly quickly after remaining unharmed for a period of time. The bar can reduce in size if continued damage is incurred, reducing the overall maximum size of the bar. The bar will extend itself over time to its max size, but it can take a few minutes to complete. The magical bar fills up as time progresses as well but it will drain as you reload your weapons. The amount of the bar that is reduced changes depending on how many bullets need to be reloaded. General size of the bar is reduced when magical attacks are used, which will also depend on which spell you use. Luckily by killing enemies you may refill it.
AI in the game is fairly limited making the game a breeze to play through on the lower difficulty levels. Even on the later levels, against a single opponent, you will have no problems on the earlier levels. There are five difficult levels that you can play through, easy, normal, hard, after beating hard you unlock chaos, and after completing chaos Hell. It seems the main difference on each of the difficulties is the ratio of damage. You will be damaged much more on higher levels, and your weapons will deal less damage. Sadly the AI of the characters stays the same, which makes it a fairly bland experience. The game shines much more in the later difficulties than the earlier ones.
Graphically the game looks quite nice, but only a little bit better than your average game. It has a few lighting issues where the general light areas are a little too bright, and the dark areas are far too dark. Characters look nice as well but the enemy design is repeated far too often. The most common enemy that you will happen upon is are soul soldiers, whom look quite similar to the main villain in the movie House (Though I doubt manly people remember that movie). While they look okay, they need a bit more work to remain appealing. The magical affects that cause building to be blow apart is quite nice, though the building’s remains appear to be similar to puzzle pieces. It provides an epic feeling since -- as a wee lass -- you see a giant building over a thousand times your size come crashing down. Other than that… the explosions sound great, but there is not much else to enjoy. I really wish that they could have expanded the look of fire, since it comes off yellowish.
In the end it feels a bit like your average game. The mechanics of the game are a little too slow for my liking, where your character will not move fast enough. It may take several seconds just for your character to turn around let alone shoot. Another issue I had was that your main character could not run, and it often had you use the dodge button to cartwheel quicker than walking. It is great to see giant buildings fall apart when you use spells but the chances to use the spells are far too limited to be worthwhile. I would have hoped on a second play through the game that you would have been able to retain the omega spells, rather than needing to wait till the storyline provided them. I also dislike how the game forces you to play it over and over again to get all of the achievement points. I also hate that downloadable content is being delayed for one reason or another, which includes concept levels and alternative outfits (Like a schoolgirl or a pixie). I do like the fact that costume downloads are free, and they are only charging a petty 20 points for extra concept mission. Wrapping up, Captain Gordon gives Bullet Witch a C.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com