Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds | Retro – Review
People in their early twenties may remember those golden days, before Channel One had yet become a well-oiled propaganda machine and home to countless stinking talk shows. At the beginning of the 2000s, federal channels did not shy away from showing foreign entertainment content to viewers. After school, students rushed home headlong in order to catch the next episode of Black Cloak, Pokemon, Jackie Chan, Xena – Queen of Wars, and so on.
Among all this diversity, a series has found its way Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created Jos Weedan – one of the authors of these Avengers of yours. The series was about a schoolgirl who is the chosen one and has superpowers that she and her friends need to fight vampires, zombies, werewolves and other devilry. The series was extremely successful with both critics and viewers. What can we say about the inexperienced Russian inhabitants, surrounded on all sides by Brazilian and Argentine soap operas, a la Clone and Wild Angel, against the background of which Buffy, with its high budgets, special effects and high-quality makeup, looked like something fantastic. Game adaptations were not long in coming.
The first big game based on this series was Buffy the Vampire Slayer from The Collective studio, whose most famous projects were Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, The Da Vinci Code and Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.
The game was released for GameBoy and Xbox Original, and the guys from the Eurocom studio, who later developed Chaos Bleeds For PlayStation 2, Xbox And GameCube which we will talk about today.
The game takes place during the fifth season of the series. Buffy and her friends must prevent the emergence of the original vampire, which the demon Kakistos is trying to revive.
To do this, a team of friends needs to find dagger of hope, which will stop the firstborn. Yes. Not much, you will say, and you will be partly right, but only partly. You see, my dear children, youth series of the late nineties and early 2000s were admired for their atmosphere and mood, and not for the intricacies of an intricate plot. Flirting with gray morality and characters whose personalities are woven from fifty shades of gray was not yet in fashion. Almost always, the characters were divided into absolutely positive and negative, which gave some fairy-tale atmosphere.
AND Chaos Bleeds fully copes https://happy-tiger-casino.co.uk/ with the task. The plot is perceived as another episode of your favorite TV series, which is also facilitated by the voice acting performed by the actors of the series.
However, not the entire cast was able to be recruited for voice acting. For example, the role of Willow, played in the series by Alyson Hannigan, whom you may remember from her roles in the mega-popular franchise “American Pie” and the TV series “How I Met Your Mother,” was brilliantly performed by another actress – Kari Wuhrer.
She managed to convey the timbre and manner of speech of Alisson so accurately that you would never have guessed that the actress had been replaced if I had not told you about it. The locations presented in the game also add atmosphere. The outskirts of Sunnydale, the cemetery, underground research bunkers, and even that same school staircase, with conversations on which most of the episodes began. All this fan service adds a couple of points to the positive perception of the game.
And indeed, we didn’t come here to watch a series! This is a game, what do we have there in terms of gameplay??
In terms of gameplay, Chaos Bleeds is a strong beat-em-up. You will be able to play as Buffy herself, Willow, Xandra, Faith, Spike and the wooden doll of Sid.
Playing for most characters is practically the same, except that the animations and button combinations will be different, with the exception of Willow, but more on her a little later. Kicks and punches are placed on different buttons, and this allows you to make small combinations. The enemies themselves, the range of which is very wide here, are mostly immortal, and each of them, after bringing the health bar to zero, needs to stick a stake into the heart, or any other wooden object.
They use shovels, bats, pitchforks, swords and axes, they will also let you shoot from a flamethrower, a water pistol charged with holy water, and so on. Along with this, the player has throwable items such as the local Molotov cocktail, called here "hellfire", and bottled holy water.
The developers successfully dilute the monotonous bitmap with unique game situations. For example, in an underground research bunker there are cyborgs who cannot be knocked out without throwing an emy grenade, and in one of the missions Xander needs to destroy vampires faster than they kill hostages.
The gameplay for Willow is significantly different. The red-haired schoolgirl is not as effective in close combat compared to the rest of the participants in this school gang, however, as a witch, Willow can use powerful spells, which in the hands of a skilled player makes her the most dangerous character in the game. To cast a spell, you need to press a certain sequence of buttons, while trying to stay away from enemies who are trying to disrupt the cast. There are not so many spells, but they look very impressive. In the witch’s arsenal there are both simple fireballs and area attacks, the imposition of a magical shield that absorbs all damage received and even a semblance of mind control.
The structure of the local locations is worthy of special mention. Often, to enter a particular area, the player needs to solve a simple puzzle, engage in platforming, or find an item necessary for further advancement. Buffy can also open shortcuts, and some doors in the level are locked on the other side, which has already become a meme thanks to the recent Souls series. Also, the craving for exploration is fueled by hard-to-reach and not-so-secrets scattered throughout the level, the discovery of which opens up additional materials in the form of additional costumes and characters for local multiplayer, which was a duel between two players to score points from mobs.
Well, the last indisputable advantage of this game is the few bosses. Frankly speaking, one of the first half-bosses threw me into a stupor with its impenetrable stupidity. The situation briefly looked like this: Buffy needed to eliminate two hellhounds in a cage. And it would seem that it should have been an interesting fight tied to the control of each of the dangerous enemies, but… It turned out that the “dogs of hell” for some reason were not able to get out of the open cage, as a result of which they were treacherously shot with a crossbow from a safe distance.
However, the bosses I met subsequently were pleasantly surprised. There may not be so many of them, but each has its own recipe for cooking. For example, one of the bosses has a fairly impressive HP bar and killing him will require a remarkable skill and a large number of items from the player, however, if the player is smart and finds a Molotov cocktail on the second floor, he will be able to deal with the boss with one throw of an explosive vessel. The boss battle that Willow stumbles upon is a fireball fight, but if the player uses his brains, he can set her own minions on the leader. And this happens with almost every boss. Each of them has some kind of peculiarity, which is not at all expected from a project under a film license.
Chaos Bleeds – this is a very worthy beat-em-up that will appeal to both fans of the genre and just fans of the series who dropped in for a sneak peek. The game has some minor problems, such as stupid enemies and a camera that pushes against walls, but in what beatmap have you seen enemies with shooter-level artificial intelligence? F.E.A.R.? And is it really necessary for beatmaps, in which the enemies have always been whipping boys?? And problems with the camera only happen in a couple of narrow rooms, which you can easily turn a blind eye to. Overall, Chaos Bleeds – this is a wonderful adventure for another evening. There is pleasant, easy-to-learn combat, unique bosses, and most importantly – your favorite characters and the already forgotten spirit of the carefree 2000s.