BULLET WITCH: CHAOS CONTROLLED
"i don't get no respect!" - bullet witch
when i first got my job - this stupid job where every employee i like gets fired and where i spend half my time terrified of my bosses and the other half fighting for shifts - i used to come home after late nights and spend hours playing bullet witch. i think i did 6 back-to-back playthroughs before i moved on to something else. i don't understand how someone could dislike backflipping over demons and knocking down skyscrapers. like, are the haters stupid or just lame?
i cite the 'scrapers, but bullet witch doesn't have consistent environments at all. your main girl/my wife, alicia, treks from a small suburban neighborhood all the way out into a secret demonic forest by the last couple of hours. hell, playing a level standalone will take you through at least a few totally distinct spaces. despite what the cheap graphics may lead one to assume, presentation is bullet witch's biggest strength and i spent large chunks of my playthrough panning the camera around marveling at it all. any lack of pOlyGoNs or polish is made up for by the simply stunning direction. so it's real funny when alicia walks into these places and starts blowing them the hell up. no matter where you are, alicia will use her giant gun and her magic spells to tear apart infrastructure, vehicles, nature, demons, ANYTHING. this simple formula makes for a PHENOMENAL shooter. the best third-person shooter, perhaps.
the most egregious of bullet witch's purported offenses is having technical issues - all of which are ironed out in its fantastic pc port. what do y'all even have to complain about? if something as unfinished as vampire: the masquerade can be so beloved, i don't see why bullet witch can't. and before y'all start getting on my ass because TEH VAMPIRE TEH MSAQUAREADE WAS SO AMBITION - for a budget ps2 studio, making a next-gen ornate gothic shooter with giant, destructible environments (all of which boasting awesome setpieces) and multiple game modes is super ambitious. just cause 2 wouldn't hit these heights for another 4 years! though some would argue that perhaps that ambition is exactly what makes the game a failure, i say that's some myopic bs. if it weren't for so-called "trash" like bullet witch, we wouldn't have half the criticommerical successes that populate the backloggd charts. so put aside your hollow prejudices for once in your life and enjoy the game for what it is, rather than what it's not. cuz what it is is easily one of my favorite pieces of art i've interacted with. that's right. bullet witch is art, motherfucker.
that being said: play it with the japanese va. i'm not crazy enough to defend the awful english dub. the japanese voices are also awful, but in a very endearing "random dev team members" kind of way.
here are some other tips if you're interested in playing:
- DO buy the pc version. it has a number of enhancements, including a debug dash activated by crouching in the spell menu. that's not as awkward an input as it sounds. i wouldn't recommend using the dash feature often as one of this games defining features is its wide open spaces and the levels often break if you spam it. it is helpful, though. i used it to regain progress after deaths.
- your FIRST PRIORITY when upgrading alicia is to get all the different gun forms. i made the mistake of upgrading spells instead of buying all 4 and i greatly regret this decision.
- have fun. if you take the quirks in stride rather than trying to make it conform to what you preconcieved notion of what a shooter "should be", you will almost definitely have a good time (or at least a better one than you woulda had).
END GAME REVIEW