Review score: 7.5/10

Introductions

The year is 2013. Humankind has been subjected to wars, viruses, natural disasters and extreme weather conditions, decimating the world's population and toppling entire nations into ruins. In this time of great peril, the worst is yet to come, as legions of the undead appear. Commanded by enormous monsters, their goal is to eradicate human existence. During this darkest hour, a witch that goes by the name of Alicia armed with enormous kick-ass weaponry and powerful magic spells, rises to power, and is humankind’s last hope. It will be your task to guide Alicia through the game's missions, crushing the opposition while keeping her out of harm's way.



Bullet Witch's introductory cinematic is something that you may want to decide on skipping altogether, not because it's bad, but because it gives away too much of the plot. Why does it already have to show the final boss when you have not even started playing yet? It is something Atari needs to fix before the game finally gets its western release.

Opening movie woes aside, it is hard not to take an immediate liking to Alicia. Much like Lara Croft, she represents a generation of charismatic female heroines that kick polygonal butt. Alicia's character certainly stands tall as one of Bullet Witch's strongest points. Disregarding the hair, her facial details are up to a high standard, only topped by second-generation titles on Xbox 360 such as Capcom's Dead Rising. Her cloth and weapon design earn mention as well. As a witch wielding the power of the devil, Alicia's gothic appearance gives her a particularly awe-inspiring appearance when she is cast against one of the game's full moon backdrops. It is a case of Goth meets class. In addition, her female assets are present, but not exaggerated, making her swift, refined movement even more convincing.

Gameplay

Standing in Alicia's way are entire platoons of undead soldiers and a collection of enormous monsters that tower over apartment buildings. If she wants to stand a chance, Alicia had better be loaded, and indeed, she is. For starters, she has this awesome weapon called the Gunrod. Much as Seras Victoria did in the anime Hellsing, Alicia wields a weapon that is enormous in size. It is bigger than she is, and most likely weighs more than she weighs. Given her supernatural powers, it is believable that she can handle all of its power though.



The Gunrod not only packs power and transforms the smaller enemies into cannon fodder; it also is a versatile piece of equipment. At the press of a button, it can be changed into a machinegun, shotgun, cannon or Gatling gun. I had a particular admiration for the Gatling gun's formidable rate of fire, and found it immensely satisfying to spray bullets around with this gun. Initially only the machinegun, your Gunrod's most basic form, is available, but you will soon be able to acquire the other forms as well. Once you have acquired all of the Gunrod forms, you will notice that the game's nature will mostly force you to stick with the machinegun and/or Gatling gun. The shotgun requires you to get close, which is often too risky, and the cannon simply is too slow.

Just about anything you come across can be destroyed. You can stick to the basics and fire away at the many abandoned cars that are littering the roads, timing everything in such a way that they blow up when a couple of skeleton soldiers are standing right next to them. Alternatively, you can take on much larger targets and tackle entire structures, like gas stations for example. These really go with a bang, spewing forth huge chunks of debris in the middle of a gigantic explosion. The immensity of these explosions has to be seen to be believed, and it is without a doubt one of the most satisfying elements of Bullet Witch, something that would have been impossible to achieve on the previous generation of consoles. You really need the Xbox 360's power to display all of the chaos and mayhem present in Bullet Witch.

Even with all of this firepower at your disposal, you will sometimes need extra support to advance. A helping hand comes in the form of magic. Alicia has knowledge of nine different spells within three elemental circles of magic: fire, wind and lightning. Thus, if you are surrounded by enemies and do not know which one to tackle first, you can summon a flock of ravens. They will distract your enemies, allowing you to pick them off without taking as much as a scratch. Even more carnage comes in the shape of spells like thunder or tornado. Yes, you can summon your own personal twister, which will pick up enemies, vehicles and various other pieces of scenery. It is intensely satisfying to watch your twister from a distance and see how it toys around with your enemies before it slowly dissipates, sending everything plummeting down to earth again. Or how about a meteor shower, that has the potential to completely rip entire building structures apart? Attacks like this are very devastating, but beware, as they can also be lethal to you if you are standing too close to them.



Just as with the Gunrod, not all of the spells will be at your disposal at the beginning of the game. The more powerful spells will be unlocked as you make progress. The thing is that, even if there are nine spells to toy around with, I only found two of them to be useful. Most of the others are a novelty at best, something that you give a try to see its effect, but then definitely pass upon because you want to save magic points for when it really counts.

Hit points and magic points. That is what you want to have plenty of at all times. There are two bars in the top right of your screen. The top one represents your health, and the bottom one your ability to cast spells. You take damage quite fast, but on the other hand, you will also regenerate fast if you manage to avoid enemy fire for a while. One risky element is that, with your health bar being rather tiny, you often do not notice that you are about to bite the dust in the middle of a battle. Most of my deaths were total surprises, until I learned not to overestimate my powers, which is a tempting thing to do when you are running around as Alicia.

In order to cast spells and effectively recharge the Gunrod, you will need magic points. Basic spells like summoning an ancient wall to hide behind only require a limited amount of magic points, but when you want to go all out with the most powerful spells you'll need a fully charged meter. When you drain your meter completely, it will recover, but only up to a certain point, just enough for you to recharge the Gunrod in its most basic form. It is up to you then to fill up your magic meter again by killing enemies. Normally, four to five enemies is all it takes for you to regain maximum magic potential.

Magic can be a lifesaver, but it can also bring you into problems if you do not know how to handle it. There is the aforementioned possibility of dying at the hand of the natural disaster you have just created yourself, but you could also find yourself without the ability to cast spells when you most need them. For example, by disposing of simple enemy soldiers with a tornado, it will be impossible for you to take out a tank that is positioned further down the road since it is invulnerable to your machinegun. You can always try a flanking move to get around it, but sometimes you will absolutely have to take everything out in a certain area in order to advance to the next one.

Aiding you in your quest is the human resistance movement. That may sound like a big thing, but it turns out to be not much more than a handful of human soldiers. Although they are a tad more useful than the entire army at your disposal in Ninety Nine Nights, that still does not amount to much, and I found them to be more of a hindrance, blocking my view, than anything else. At least you can shoot right through them.



I do not know why, but for some missions Cavia came up with the idea of blocking your access to certain areas with a semi-transparent, color-coded wall. It is up to you then to find the enemy that is responsible for this wall. Take the enemy out, and the wall will disappear, allowing you to proceed to the next area. It's a very particular enemy type you will be looking for, hovering in mid-air with an oversized brain. Splattering their brain and making it pop open not only is very satisfying because of the ripe tomato explosion sound effect and look, but also because these are some of the more annoying enemies to take out. Their only defense is their ability to make cars and other loose objects levitate. It does not sound like much, but the slightest contact with one of these objects will bring along imminent death for you, forcing you to start from the last checkpoint again. Not funny when you die after being hit by something you never even saw coming. Unfortunately, the city levels feature a lot of brain hunting, and it does not take long before it becomes a bit of a drag.

Talking about annoying enemy types: the snipers are right up there as well. They have a laser scope, so you can easily detect them, but since it is impossible for you to transform your Gunrod into a sniper rifle form, the only option for you to take the snipers out is to get close to them. The problem with these snipers is that, whenever they manage to hit you, it will always be a headshot resulting in instant death. Luckily, there are not really that many snipers in the game, but it sure would have been practical to give Alicia the possibility to wield a sniper rifle herself.

The above are just small niggles that can still easily be forgiven in light of the game's assets. It is a different matter when it comes to Bullet Witch's longevity though. There are six missions for you to play through. On average, each one of these missions will take you roughly one hour to complete during your first play, so that's some six hours until you reach the end of the game. Not nearly enough value for money by a long shot. I have to admit that there is some replay value though. It comes with leveling up.

At the end of each mission, in true Devil May Cry fashion, you receive a score. It depends on your kill score, clear time, and the survival rate of the innocent humans you came across. Extra points can be gained by completing a mission without dying, and by picking a higher difficulty. Your total score is translated into skill points, which you can then spend on your personal abilities (hit points and magic points), your Gunrod's abilities, and witchcraft. Every ability and spell can be leveled up three times. You will never be able to level everything up to the maximum with your first play through Bullet Witch, but the good thing is that your progress will always be saved, so when you start playing the game all over again on a higher difficulty level, you will be more powerful as well. It is an incentive to tackle the higher difficulties on consecutive runs through the game, and since there are two difficulties that have to be unlocked beyond hard, Cavia was probably thinking the exact same thing.



This probably would have worked too, if it were not for the game's rather repetitive nature. Enemy types are not all that varied. They are mostly the skinned undead soldier kind. There is some variation in the weapons they are carrying, their movement patterns and aggressiveness, but that is about it. Even most of the bosses you will encounter suffer from the same syndrome. Sure, it is awesome to bring a giant boss down and watch it creating a small quake as it tumbles to earth, but when you have to do the same thing repeatedly, it starts getting monotonous at some point, even in spite of the awesome explosions.

Controls

The controls are extremely easy to master, and within fifteen minutes of playing Bullet Witch, you will be running, gunning and casting spells as if it is second nature.

The face buttons are used to reload your Gunrod and select the type you want to use. There also is a button reserved for performing a melee attack, but it is almost useless since it takes several hits to kill even the weakest of foes. Since there is an automatic reload, you probably will not be reloading manually all that much either.

In conjunction with the shoulder buttons, the face buttons take on a second life, as you use them to pick spells. Pressing any of the shoulder buttons once brings up the first magic circle, where you can use A, B and X to directly select a spell. A second press of one of the shoulder buttons brings up the second circle and a third press obviously the third circle. Since there are three spells present in each circle (the Y button is used to cancel), you have nine spells to toy around with.



Overall, casting spells is something that you will get the hang of very fast, but I wonder if it would not have been possible to use a system similar to the one found in Kameo, where you can hold a button and then use the analog stick to cycle through all of your powers in one go. I guess it would take away a bit of Bullet Witch's charm, but why not have it as an option?

The right trigger fires the Gunrod, while the left trigger makes Alicia jump. You can jump in any direction. Jumping straight forward is your average kind of jump, but when executed to the left or right, your jump takes on full Matrix-style proportions. It is a shame more is not made of this move, like the ability for you to open fire in mid-air. There is the possibility to cut off a part of your Gunrod reload animation by jumping and thus reload faster, but I do not know whether this was planned or not by Cavia. Since you remain immobile for a while after a jump, it is not that much of an advantage either.

The camera takes on a third person view by default, a target reticle showing you where you are aiming. Clicking the right stick makes you zoom in, and in this view, the camera takes position closer behind Alicia's back. You will have better accuracy this way, but what you will sacrifice is field of vision and turning speed. Should you get too close to a wall, there is a rather smooth transition to a first person view. It is done rather seamlessly, but I definitely preferred the third person view since it gives you better awareness of your surroundings.

One aspect about the controls that can be annoying is that most of the basic enemies in the game have to be in the exact center of your target reticle for you to properly hit them. A bit off to the side and you can unload entire clips on them before they die. It is obvious that a centered reticle should give a more successful hit ratio, but sometimes the difference just is too big.

Graphics and Sound

Being a first generation Xbox 360 title, Bullet Witch still came in as a pleasant surprise. It has nowhere near the polish demonstrated by Dead Rising or Gears of War, but it can definitely hold its own. Some rather boring textures, shoddy lightning and weak shadowing effects set aside; here is a game that demonstrates why we need a more powerful console like the Xbox 360. Explosions in Bullet Witch are stunning. Blow up a truck, and a nearby gas station goes up in flames as well. Moreover, when the gas station goes, almost the entire block goes, with huge chunks of scenery spread everywhere. Stuff like this would simply be impossible to pull off on last generation's consoles.

The monster design is quite impressive. Without giving too much away, the locale for battling the boss at the end of mission three is unique and seeing this boss in action for the first time really is impressive. The same thing goes for the final boss. In survival horror terms, they are on a level of their own. I just wish there were more visual goodies to be had like this.



The sound department is fully armed, and I especially appreciated the whizzing sound effects produced by the Gunrod. The sound of an insane amount of bullets spewed forth at high speed, it is just something you can never get enough of. Whenever the action heats up, a versatile orchestral soundtrack kicks in. Switching between bombastic and subtle, it always manages to set the right tone. You are going to have to be into J-pop to fully appreciate the beautiful theme song “The Vanishing Sky” though, so I am wondering if it will be kept in this game for its western release. I personally am rooting for it, and the same remark goes for the voice acting, which is of good standard for the game's two main protagonists, Alicia and Maxwell, the leader of the human resistance.

Achievements

The Straight Dope

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