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Stage four ends exactly how the entire game should have been. You're stuck in a fairly large and detailed military base. A cut-scene shows off a flock of enemy choppers all zeroing in on your position. A new power, tornado, is added to your arsenal. Four NPC troops are there to help. All you have to do is kill every last demonic son of a bitch while staying alive yourself. Don't kill fast enough, and you'll be facing war on two or more fronts. Don't help keep those allies healthy, and all the enemy fire will be focused squarely on you. Clear away the clutter to make it easier to move from place to place, and you'll have less cover when you really need it. Unleashing the tornado might just be the most satisfying interactive moment in videogame history, as it swallows up enemies and tears up buildings with the force of the real thing, but it's going to leave you weak and ally-less when the next group flies in.
That's something I would have played over and over to bump up my score to the near impossible SS rating, but the fact that I also have to replay all that comes before it just throws cold water over the whole thing. Bullet Witch should have been built up as a series of focused encounters, wrapped together in short missions of varying objectives, like GitS:SAC by the same developers, or Gears of War if you want a more modern example. Otherwise, these weapons and powers are just going to waste.
You've got the all around machine gun, the shotgun for close quarters blasting, the cannon for hard targets like tanks (also turns into a sniper rifle in a pinch), and everyone's favorite, the '400 rounds in 40 seconds' gatling gun. The flow of quick switching weapons, zooming in, dodging, reloading, blasting is great once you've unlocked all four, and it's fun to tear through enemies while avoiding incoming fire. Then to mix in some more witchy abilities. Willpower lets you knock around anything that's not nailed down, Ancient Wall is a temporary barrier against bullets (too temporary), Rose Spear is tossing a rose and hoping enemies end up impaled on the spears that sprout from the ground (a little hard to aim), Raven's Panic sends out a flock of birds to keep your enemies occupied (making them easy pickings), Sacrifice heals up allies, and Element Shot enhances weapons to give them more killing power. There's something special about a tornado-infused shotgun that can knock a truck over. Not to mention the three devastating but somewhat limited use ultimate powers you'll gain during the game, whose drain on the mana pool makes them a bit of a last resort.
Mainly, you'll be using these to mow down small clumps of spastic soldiers, hoping you're heading in the direction of the next checkpoint. There's no map, and very rarely is there any sort of indicator where you need to go next, even when there should be. The result is a long, stretched out conflict from the beginning of one area to the end, with six stages that can be finished in well under six hours, though leader boards and five difficulty levels help extend this a little. Cavia can do a lot to fix this issue if they make good on the promised downloadable concept missions, just as long as they show a little more attention to detail than the main story mode. Still, I have to judge Bullet Witch on what's here and now. And for now, it's a bit disappointing. |
