Author: Logan Pendragon
Introduction
The name of the game is Bullet Witch. It’s a shooting game with a twist.
Overall Score: 6/10.
Gameplay 5/10
The game is “fun” on certain aspects. The “fun” aspect however dies out after a few hours of gameplay. The controls are a little jerky and hard to manage. The magic system is convoluted and hard to use. The game mechanics and collision detection on the other hand are horrible. The AI of the enemies and the allies are completely dumb. They would require a major upgrade to have any AI whatsoever. It seems it’s based off all basic cause/effect actions with no real strategy. They don’t use cover, they don’t try to hard, they don’t try to swarm you. Generally they stay back and let you mow them down one at a time. Overall the gameplay does not bring anything new to the table that has not been seen before. There are some gameplay elements that are good but overall they didn’t succeed in the release as well as they could have.
Story 5/10
The voice acting is horrible (except the main character but it’s barely passable). The story itself has it’s moments..there are a few nice twists that make it entertaining in parts but most of the scenes are dull. The ending scene was also very nicely put together. I do not think the story alone make it worth being played. If you want to get the story you can do so without playing by looking up the videos online. The only reason I ended up finishing the game were because of a few of the spells as well as some of the story scenes. Only 2 scenes in the entire game were even entertaining. The rest were like watching bad TV shows. The story is probably the best aspect of the entire game. While not great it is salvageable and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy certain parts of the story.
Graphics/Sound 5/10
The graphics are not great. They are not horrible but they are not great either. I think at least 4 of the spells in the game are beautiful to look at. The enemies and humans all look strange. They look like plastic molded models. The sky is dull and most of the coloring in the game is overly dark. The sound/music in the game is on theme for the most part but you wont’ really notice the music due to the other irritating areas of the game. The most annoying parts of the graphics are related to the character development. None of the enemies are unique or worth looking at. There are a total of may 8 different types of demons in the entire game (including bosses) and all of them look stupid, have weird AI, and no imagination. The only enemy in the entire game that I considered “nice” to look at was the final boss..and that was because of certain aspects of the boss fight. Also the secondary character that was speaking with the main character multiple times was created in the most realistic manner compared to the rest. Most humans were recycled and looked fake he was the only one that looked halfway realistic.
Play Time/Replayability 4/10
This game is virtually un-replayable. You might manage to make it through a full game. However afterwards there isn’t anything left to keep you playing. Chances are you will stop before you make it all the way through.. but if you do then there is no chance you’ll play it again. They did release some downloadable content but because of the issues with the standard game and other issues it isn’t very likely to be worth playing over again even with extra content. There is a certain level of downloadable content as well as some new features. There is also a super-difficult difficulty setting that you unlock. If you really enjoy the game some of those may bring some replay value but because of the controls and other issues with the game, there isn’t much a replay factor with this game.
With the release of the new downloadable content, it adds a new depth to the game play and a few things that could potentially keep you busy a little longer. Due to this, I brought my replay-ability review up slightly to take into account the new downloadable content. Before I rated it a 1 in replay-ability, now it’s a 4.
Final Recommendation
Overall I am glad I played it. I doubt I will ever play it again but because of some of the certain magics, and because of certain parts of the story it was worth playing. I do not regret the time put into the game, I just wish the game could have been much better. In reality if they did one major patch for the game with some bug fixes, new features, and maybe a minor graphic upgrade they could save this game. It was a good idea but was just poorly implemented. A few simple patches could easily deal with most of the games major issues and make it a lot more playable. The game has some redeeming qualities. I don’t feel it’s as bad as most people rate it. I played it from beginning to end. I didn’t necessarily regret spending that much of my life in the game. So it wasn’t all that bad. I put a total of about 6-9 hours in the game from beginning to end and got a full clear. The ending wasn’t bad and some of the cutscenes were good. Overall I don’t think it’s worth the price tag. It would have been better as a 10.00 game because of the time and effort they put into development (or lack thereof in certain parts). I did not buy it. Someone I knew had two copies and gave me one. So it may not necessarily be worth buying…it might not even be worth renting depending on what you like. However if you have a free copy of the game and/or if you have game fly or some other video game rental subscription center you probably wouldn’t regret a play through. I don’t imagine anyone taking the time to play it a second time but the spells alone are worth playing through at least once. Some of the spells are amazing.
On top of that, it is fair to mention there is some downloadable content for this game. When the game released the first few rounds of downloadable content it was all primarily costumes. However, over time they added downloadable content that also added to, and enhanced the game. These were made available well after the last time I played it, so I did not have to officially review these. From looking at game play footage, and overall reviews of those new downloadable content, it seems the majority of them are pretty high quality. They all seem to have a pretty high star rating on X-Box Live as well, meaning the majority of users who downloaded them, were satisfied.
Version History
9/7/2014
– Expanded the last paragraph and added details about the downloadable content.
– Expanded the section on replayability, to take into account the new downloadable content.
– Spelling/Grammar fixes throughout the review.
– Cleaned up the review to prepare it for submission on Gamefaqs shortly.
– Added a link back to my website, so they can always see an updated version of my reviews. Since they get updated on this website first.
– Added an “Overall” score as well.
Release Date:
– Initial