Bullet Witch Remastered is a remastered version of the original game that was first released on the Xbox 360 in 2006(Japan) and 2007 worldwide. It is an action third person shooter game where you play as a witch named Alicia. Is the remaster warranted? find out below!
Story:
In Bullet Witch you play as the witch named Alicia. After multiple natural disasters have left the world a wasteland to many of the earths inhabitants,suddenly earth is now being invaded by hordes of demons that are hell bent on destroying all mankind. With humanity on the verge of being wiped out, you must step up as Alicia and her ''darkness'' and put a stop to this endless slaughter of the human race.
Game play:
First off, let me just get this off my chest. You have a witch,she's attractive,she has one liners and she has guns. Where have we seen this before? oh that's right, Bayonetta. However Bullet Witch pre-dates Bayonetta, so this technically makes Bullet Witch the mother witch to Bayonetta. Pretty crazy that we had two games about female witches with guns within a 2-3 year time span of each other. But enough talk! have at you.
I went into my play session for this remaster of Bullet Witch in order to see what has changed,what was tweaked and what actually was different this time around so i can compare it to the its 360 counterpart. After making my way through the game for the first time in 11 years,it all started to come back to me and I got to see all the changes that were made from the original and the conclusion I came to is very little at all, I wish I was joking.
Bullet Witch Remastered is a straight port of the Xbox 360 version,but this time with all the DLC added in. Now I didn't want to come to this conclusion straight away because who knows,its been a 11 years,maybe my memory was bad. So to form a definitive opinion on this matter I decided to dust off my xbox 360 and pop in my original Bullet Witch disc and play them side by side together so I can check not only the framerate,but the graphics,the game mechanics and everything else that goes with it. Conclusion: minimal changes in lighting and smoothness but that's it,that's all there is that is different. BUT is this a bad thing?
As far as this being a negative, it's both a yes and no answer to me. The yes part being a bad thing is because when a developer uses a term ''remaster'',you expect changes to the mechanics and bug fixes and even a substantial upgrade in visuals rather than small light effects. However on the ''no'' side with it not being a bad thing is because over the years this game has gotten a sort of ''cult like'' following to it due to its campy storyline and the different type of game play it introduced at the time of its release 12 years ago. It's a mixed bag.
The game play focuses mainly around you using either your guns or magic rods that you use to cast magic against your enemies. For close range you also have a melee attack to use if you are having trouble fighting at a distance. I found the best way to play this game is to pop shot from a distance and then make your way close and closer to an enemy to melee them and give them a good combo and then rinse and repeat for each regular enemy you come across afterwards.
In this game there are a total of 6 stages that you will have to navigate through and each of them gives you the illusion that its more open ended than it really is. Map sizes may look big on screen or to your own eyes but its deceptive and you're always lead on a straight and narrow path to where the game wants you to move to. You must kill walnut heads in order to open the path for you to go through next, any straying off path to go explore will end up getting you blocked by invisible or colored barriers, sorry, you don't get to be free today witch!
The level variety you experience in Bullet Witch leaves much to be desired. Through 6 levels the only areas you really encounter are city based environments or forest based environments and they aren't really that much of a looker if you had to get my personal opinion on it(which you are currently, mwhahaha). However, they do accomplish one goal that a lot of games weren't doing yet back in 2006, destructive environments. Yes there are some buildings and areas that will interact with your character and the havoc she wreaks. This is plus side for the lack of meaningful environments.
Throughout the game when beating the level's I just mentioned,you will be graded on performance, the higher your grade is means the more experience points/skill points you will earn. Using these skill points,you'll be able to upgrade Alicia's arsenal and overall stats for her spells and gun modes. This is probably the most enjoyable part in the game and really makes you want to aim to see how strong and powerful you can truly make Alicia by constantly racking up the best score as possible.
With your skill points you accumulate you can level Alicia's stats and abilities,upgrade her health,regeneration of her magic,new gun modes and various different guns like cannons and shot guns. This gives your character a huge advantage towards not only regular demons you come across but it is also helpful against pesky boss fights that you might have a trouble with at one point in time. Just grind out some missions,get a good score and you will end up becoming completely unstoppable.
But with all the good I just mentioned about the game play,comes the bad once more rearing its ugly head in our business. There's still a problem with the in game camera that once plagued us on the xbox 360 version. The camera is just all around wonky and can get out of control when trying to fight multiple enemies at the same time. It offers more of a distraction and hindrance more than anything. But while the camera is wonky and doesn't control very well, it usually does not get you killed as often as you might think. This is thanks to the horrible aiming of the AI. Think stormtroopers but then times that by 5. There you go. Bullet Witch enemy AI.
Replayability:
Now here is the main question people are probably wanting to know. Since this game includes all the original costume DLC from the original 360 release,is there any reason to replay the game again after beating its rather short campaign mode? Well yeah there is actually,but that all comes down to the users personal preference.
After completing the main campaign mode in the game,you unlock different challenges to take down. These overall will extend your total play through maybe 20-30 minutes depending on how good you are at them and varies based on the difficulty and the player skill.
The other main reason to replay this game is to make Alicia as strong as possible. Much like other games,even till this day that have many ways to unlock stuff via skill points,you will not be able to make Alicia the strongest she can be your first play through. Instead once you beat the game, you will be given the option to keep continuing the game with another playthrough or just keep doing missions over again in order to acquire more and more skill points. There's quite a lot to unlock like I mentioned above, such as new guns,gun modes,heath,mp regeneration and so on. It's definitely worth giving a shot if you enjoyed the main campaign mode.
One more thing:
Having said all the above,I want to end this review on a positive note and focus on the main character,Alicia. The witch Alicia you play as is actually a really good and likable character. She may not be as spunky and witty as someone like Bayonetta, but she's strong and powerful and she means business. Her attitude in general for her character and the way she acts towards others is totally believable and does not seem forced and whoever does her voice acting in the game portrayed Alicia very well and I think she did a good job at what the developers were going for with her character.
Final thoughts:
Overall after playing the game again for the first time in roughly 11 years, my opinion is basically the same as it was then. It tries to do stuff that games just weren't doing at the times of its release and needs to be commended for that. However, where it fails is in the bad camera,bad lock on system,slow dodging animation,uninspired environments and short campaign mode.
Most people also mention as a negative that the story is ''too campy''. Well I'll have to break stride with those people and say that the campy story actually gives the game its charm and I feel that's one of the reasons the game has a cult like following now a days. I find the campy story a positive and I cannot dock it as a negative.
At the end of the day the game is only like $15 on Steam,but I just can't bring myself to tell people to go ahead and buy the game even at that price in good confidence. The game is listed as a ''remaster'' but it should more so be called a ''definitive edition'' due to dlc only being the big difference between this version and the 360 version.
If you're a die hard Bullet Witch fan from over 10 years ago and you loved it the first time due to the positives(or negatives) I stated above, then I suggest, hell yeah, go out and buy it, you'll still love it. But to the average person that is curious even just a little about it, I caution you to wait for a $5 or so price drop in the future before picking this one up.
Bullet Witch Remastered is out now on STEAM/PC
*Review code provided by Marvelous! and XSEED
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