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Cavia’s latest Xbox360 release, BulletWitch,
published in Europe under the watchful-arm of ATARI, reached UK
shores with little fanfare. With the Xbox360 line-up being bolstered
by big titles such as Crackdown, Dead Or Alive: Xtreme 2,
Def Jam Icon and Bill Gates’ own favourite, Fuzion Frenzy
2, BulletWitch
 stood little chance of grabbing headlines
in it’s quintessentially old school Japanese gameplay values.
Set in 2013 A.D., BulletWitch tells the story of
a world ravaged by an army of evil. Humanity stands on the brink of
extinction, but as the global population drops below one billion
survivors, a woman appears before them, possessing demonic powers of
her own, and a hefty Gun-Rod. This woman is named Alicia; this woman
is you.
While the basic premise of the title would have you
believe the game is an Arcade-esque run-n’-gun style Third-Person
Shooter, playing it as such will leave you little else but
repeatedly restarting at liberally placed Checkpoints. Although the
title never offers any real encouragement to do so – until the
difficulty curve kicks-in to leave you little other option –
BulletWitch is best played as a slow-and-steady, tactical
shooting game. Drawn far from the likes of
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, instead, the
title insists on presenting itself as a linear genre-relation to the
likes of Activision’s
True Crime series and NAMCO’s Dead
To Rights.
Basic combat is controlled well, with the R Trigger
controlling the fire of your selected weapon (a total of four
available to purchase using Skill Points acquired throughout the
game), B scrolls through the available weaponry, X reloads and A
executes a melee attack – a skill which is used far too lightly due
to it’s unwieldy animation which cannot be broken once begun.
However, exactly why the dodge manoeuvre (the only jump option
available) has been assigned to the L Trigger is a reasoning that
only Cavia themselves would be able to explain.
The on-screen furniture is well-placed and interferes
with the action as little as is possible. Two Meters adorn the
top-right of the screen – green representing
 Health and red
representing Magic – followed by your amount-count below. Ammunition
is infinite; regulated only by the amount of Magic Power available,
as Alicia can spawn a new clip at a small cost to this Meter.
The Magic System has been well devised, yet poorly
implemented. Rarely forcing you to explore the possibilities
available, the title instead asks you to find your most productive
avenue for their execution. Rose Spear – a spell which, when cast,
makes spears shoot from the ground in-front of you, damaging enemies
even when in cover - is often overlooked in favour of Ravens Panic,
which has the affect of distracting your opponents as a flock of
ravens attack. A total of nine spells are available, selected from a
three-wheeled Menu activated with the L or R Buttons. Scrolling
through these Menus to find your preferred spell can be irritating
in the heat of battle, and so it becomes questionable as to why –
given the open-ended nature of the player’s discovery of each of
these spells – the development team chose to utilise such as system
as opposed to taking inspiration from the likes of The Elder
Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the 3D instalments of
The Legend Of
Zelda series, and instead allow the player to Hot Key their
favourites onto the unused D-Pad. Accompanying each spell, to great
annoyance after the first viewing, is an un-skippable Cut-Scene.
Although highlighting the magnificence of Alicia’s power, these
demonstrations of average-at-best graphical wizardry become a grand
hindrance later in the game, as they can often return to the
gameplay with your avatar in the perfect position to be dealt a
deathblow, or simply cancel the effects of the spell altogether.
The game is divided into six Levels, increasing drastically in scope
as you progress. Taking on a variety of environments, such as
deserted outposts, sewers, and a downtown cityscape, the scenery
ranges from impressive to drastically underachieving. Environments
offer cleverly destructible scenery and impressive draw distances,
only to be let down by poor shadow effects and an incomprehensible
 amount of textures tearing. The enemy models also range from
impressive to little above the average PlayStation2 release – a
stigmatism that may remain due to the rather clear ascertain that
the title was originally intended to arrive on one of the last
generation’s systems - while the animation is, at best, sub-par for
the Xbox360. Skyscraper-tall Boss Fights have a tangible sense of
welcoming, yet the standard enemy types are an irrational mix of
limp A.I. and extended death animations.
As the title continues, interest will pick-up. The A.I. improves
drastically later-on in the title, and as the player becomes
accustomed to that which is never spoken in-game, though remains
useful at even the most hardened events, some reward is gathered
from playing a title which is strictly linear, yet offers the player
more freedom of expression than a great deal of the most recent
Sandbox games. BulletWitch is a hark back to the glory days
of uncomplicated, High Score gameplay, with a modern twist in the
presentation of it’s freedom; unfortunately, both elements seem to
have been compromised somewhat and so even when at it’s best, the
title seems confused as to what to expect of the player, and,
therefore, the player may often find themselves confused as to what
the title is asking of them.
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