Support NeoGAF

[border]

This game always makes people's "List of Unknown Xbox Gems," so I decided to rent it this week. It was a pretty big hassle since most rental stores long since gotten rid of low-selling titles from 2 1/2 years ago, but eventually I found a copy at the 3rd store I went by (technically it was a second choice to RE4, which doesn't seem to be in stock yet).

So does this always make "Underrated" lists just because people are so surprised that it's not a total piece of shit.....or do they really think it's this great amazing game? I've been playing for a bit and I'm quite torn.

The Good:

An amazing replication of the show. The animation fits the TV fight choreography to a tee. Every subtle backhand or low sweep or stake-stab looks just like the ones done by Gellar (and her stunt double). The dialogue is exactly what you'd expect from the series. Nearly all the voice acting is done by the actual actors from the show.

Melee weapons are pretty cool. Smacking up enemies with a rake or a shovel is tons of fun. Ranged weapons kind of suck though....getting a heart-shot with the crossbow seems near impossible.

I like the Slayer meter and the special moves/combos. Sometimes getting them to work is a bit wonky, but by and large they can be pretty useful in a jam.

The enemy design is pretty decent. I love the zombies that curiously probe their neck stump, trying to feel for their heads after you've just decapitated them with a punch.

The Bad:

The camera, by and large, is a piece of shit. I've always felt that over-the-shoulder was a poor camera angle for beat-em-ups, and here it's even worse because the camera is almost always pulled in very close-and-tight. Against two or three foes, you're almost guaranteed that you won't be able to see one of them. If you dodge a jumpkick/flip, the enemy lands behind you....and thus you can't see them! Yes you can turn around and hit the "Center Camera" button, but by that point you're already getting smacked about.

Fighting the vampires is awful. I love how I can't block anything, but they can block every single attack that I have -- even if I use a bladed weapon (they must have forearms made of granite)! Either let me block too, or give me some special guard busting slayer moves that will let me lay into these fuckers. Right now everything seems like a spazzy crapshoot where I just run around, looking for an opening and praying that they don't block and deal out a devastating counter.

The most fun levels have been the ones with the zombies and demons that don't block. I would rather face down a half-dozen of those guys than two or three vampires. One-on-one with a vampire is okay, but groups of them is almost always an ass raping, thanks to their blocking and camera problems.

Collision detection fucks up at the worst of all possible times. Witness Buffy try to stake/decapitate a vampire lying motionless on the ground and miss her mark two or three times in a row! Then the vamp's friend punches her in the back. The near-dead, almost-staked vamp gets up off the ground and grabs her and sinks his teeth into her neck artery....game over....start level from the beginning.....

Which would bring me to the point that sometimes save points seem a little too far apart. And sometimes there have just been some "What the fuck?" moments related to this. At the end of the "Underground Cathedral" phase there is a totally innocuous looking cliff-edge, no less than 50 yards from the stage exit. If you walk on it though, it collapses, you fall to your death, and you have to repeat the stage all over again. Why is it even there? The developers try to encourage some mild exploration by putting in secrets and hidden areas, but in this case the person that actually looks around gets rewarded by having to repeat 15-20 minutes of the game.

------------------------

At any rate, maybe I'm not playing this right. It seems much harder than I would have expected it to be. Any general tips or suggestions? Right now I'm on a dock/warehouse stage and just getting owned over and over. It's fine up until I activate the crane and get to this 3-on-1 vampire battle. At that point it suddenly becomes hopeless. I only have one elixir thanks to the cheapass Melusina-woman boss at Angel's mansion. The Reaper blade is nice, but it seems like Buffy is even less accurate with it then she is with a stake....I still use it just because it can't get knocked out of her hands.

So far I would say it's an adequate game, but I wouldn't just go around recommending it to everyone like some GAF folks do. It's only for fans of the show that will put up with all the problems. Seems like a lot of the story wouldn't even make sense to your average gamer.

 

[Asskicker064]

For some reason, most nerds have a raging hard-on for Buffy and Angel.

 

[KiNeSiS]

The games garbage rented it on a game pass couple years back off of this sites suggestion.
Pure garbagio

 

[etiolate]

I played it and found it pretty average. I'm not sure what the excitement is about either.

 

[Brandon F]

Completely agreed about the vamps in this game, could never really figure out if the shoddy camera and hit detection were at fault, or my general strategy to combat kept me from being a vamp slaying badass, but I threw up my arms after receiving the seemingly worthless reaver weapon. Sold it, never looked back.

Though ultimately similar(also developed by The Collective), Indiana Jones is a far more approachable and enjoyable game if you just want to beat thugs over the head with chairs and beer bottles. It cuts down heavilly on the fisticuffs compared to Buffy though, (removed many of the crazy dial combos miss congeniality had), but imparts in their place, a greater focus on whip and gunplay action. Oh and the level layouts are pretty damned hardcore(minus a few bog-standard Nazi compounds in the midgame). Expect heavy use of traps and environmental dangers to break up the punchy-punchy.

 

[Scott]

Melee weapons are pretty cool. Smacking up enemies with a rake or a shovel is tons of fun. Ranged weapons kind of suck though....getting a heart-shot with the crossbow seems near impossible.

Melee weapons were good, ...most of the time. I didn't like how some weapons, like spears for instance, randomly went from swing attacks to tiny pokes... It's just completely silly to stand there poking a vampire with a stick. Even worse when you realize it only knocks him back for 1/10th of a second, which ends up only being enough time to follow up with, what? That's right, another poke. Whee.

As for ranged weapons, I agree about the crossbow. It's just a pain in the ass to hear the heartbeat to begin with, and damn near impossible to hit the mark as the Vampire is running towards you. But luckily, hitting the heart isn't a requirement with Holy & Flame bolts, and they end up 10x more useful as result.

I also dislike some of the throwing items, like the molotov cocktails (forget what they called them), and the Holy Water bottles... It's just a very clunky interface, and doesn't work well in the heat of battle. Typically, I just combine these with Crossbow Bolts instead.

However, I really do like throwing Stakes & the Reaper Wing, as a well-timed throw can either stagger an enemy back (with some slight damage), or instant-kill it. I pretty much always take my chance with throwing a Stake or two as a vamp is running towards me, and I do the same later on with the Reaper Wing (especially on those flame-spewing demons). Worst case scenario is that the Stake misses the heart and gets stuck in the Vamp, and you have to knock him down to get it out.

Against two or three foes, you're almost guaranteed that you won't be able to see one of them. If you dodge a jumpkick/flip, the enemy lands behind you....and thus you can't see them! Yes you can turn around and hit the "Center Camera" button, but by that point you're already getting smacked about.

After jumping out of the way, knocking down the foe in front of you, whatever: try using the Right Trigger to go into a defensive stance, which will face you towards the closest foe (hopefully the one that was out of view ). Then hit the Left Trigger to snap the camera behind you.

It's cumbersome at first, but once you get the hang of it, it makes multiple foes a lot easier to deal with.

Either let me block too, or give me some special guard busting slayer moves that will let me lay into these fuckers.

You can block with the Right Trigger, however it only blocks attacks from the front. You can also throw items from this stance, so if you have a Stake in your hand while blocking, you can let the enemy finish a combo and then throw it at them, to at the very least stagger them back.

Also, try mixing up kicks & punches, as I've found they'll be able to block a certain move more as the battle goes on, if that's what you're constantly using. Just try mixing things up, throwing them, or blocking until they finish their combo.

As for "special guard busting slayer moves," most of the stronger ones get around it just fine from my experience.

If you walk on it though, it collapses, you fall to your death, and you have to repeat the stage all over again. Why is it even there?

You can jump off collapsing sections if you react quick enough, but I agree that it's very stupid... It's worse when you get to sections that require jumping between platforms, as the controls are just way too floaty for precision jumping. All around an useless addition to the game, IMO.

Any general tips or suggestions?

Hm, maybe these'll help:

* Conserve your potions as best as you can. If you've used too many in a stage or during a boss, it's just best to die to try it again.

* Also save your flame & holy bottles for combining items; holy typically with healing potions (to make potions that recover Health & Slayer Power), and flame with Crossbow Bolts.

* Frequently throw a Stake or Reaper Wing as an enemy is running towards you. Throwing them is also the best way to defeat a few bosses.

* Ignore the life meter in battles, as you can stagger enemies back and decapitate or stake them even with near-full life. Just be careful, as you'll lose quite a bit of weapon durability with the Stake (or anything other than the Reaper [Wing]) if it doesn't connect.

* Throw enemies into environmental hazards as much as you can. Cut/Broken-off pieces of wood, exploding barrels, fire, eachother... basically anything but water, 'cause that doesn't work.

* Use weak enemies for Slayer Power recovery. Basically just juggle them back with very simple combos, and keep the chain going as long as you can to replenish your Slayer Power meter.

Other than that, just basically learn the combat system as much as you can. Learn back-stabs with Stakes, throw weapons as much as you can, go for quick decapitation/stake kills when you're being ganged up on, throw enemies into environmental hazards or eachother (to knock them all down), etc etc.

That's about all I've got... If you need help with specific moves or what-not, there's a really good "Combat FAQ" by Phunk King at GameFAQs, and it has a bunch of recommendations from one of the developers. Worth checking out.

 

[border]

Yeah, after looking over the FAQs it appears that there is a lot of depth and versatility to the combo system. Control seems so screwy I'm not really sure how to get combos working reliably, though. I'm never sure if I am just supposed to press the buttons in rapid succession or if I am supposed to wait for one attack's animation to finish before hitting the next button. It seems like both ways work, but not all the time.

Apparently if you throw holy water into a pool, the entire thing becomes holy water and then you can kill vampires by tossing them in. There's a pool right near the spot where I'm currently getting murdered, so perhaps I'll try that.

What exactly is "back-stabs with Stakes"?

If I can't find RE4 today I'll probably get back into Buffy with some of this higher-level stuff.

 

[Kabuki Waq]

Ia ctually loved the comabt in buffy there is just so much you can actually do.

 

[LakeEarth]

Apparently if you throw holy water into a pool, the entire thing becomes holy water and then you can kill vampires by tossing them in. There's a pool right near the spot where I'm currently getting murdered, so perhaps I'll try that.

Sweet, I never knew that.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Ia ctually loved the comabt in buffy there is just so much you can actually do.

Yep. The combo system is really nice. Doing juggles and staking vampires in midair is really fun. It offers alot more variety than you'd think.

It's because of this game that i'm looking forward to a Star Wars game for the first time (the Episode 3 one). The Collective is awesome.

 

[_Angelus_]

I thought the game was fantastic myself. The game had a good mix of visuals,music,melee fighting,use of weapons. I dunno why some of you bitch about the aiming in first person when all you had to do was lock onto your enemy and then shoot him via 3rd person for the kill. Thats what I always did when I had a few 2-3 vamps to combat,the 3rd person view worked well for when you needed a kill with the crossbow. The addition of the Slayer magic system worked well in combat,especialy when facing those damn annoying demon dogs in the construction yard when there arund 5 of them to contend with. The shrimp sea creatures towards the later part of the game were also total bastards but were kept in check thanks to the the use of the 3rd person crossbow crossbow.


Buffy did allot of things right though. Even the games platformng was enjoyable because it mixed things up from the usual hand to hand and weapon action. For the most part the puzzle elements were tolerable,such as the ones near the begining of the game where Giles required you to find 3 keys to open the old temple. The only one I'll give you that was annoying would be the one stage where you were thrown into that maze with the respawning spiders every around every two corners. Certainly annoying but nothing earth shattering in terms of tolerating it though.

BTW-No one enjoyed the searching and platforming for potions to boost your health though? I thought that aspect of the game was pretty fun.

The shimmying that accompanied it where you were sometimes required to make your way across pits,or at other time the adrenaline enducing run and jumps across these areas were all handled pretty well-the games control was spot on for situations like that.

The fact that as you went on and began to platform more and more gave the game a new dimension in my opinion. Because you needed to make your way by means of platforming to find the potions that were spread out. They were vital to the game too,since these potions would boost your health,or could be combined with the Holy Elixidors to would then give a better boost overall. Then there were the cans fire cocktails to use separetely or as a combination with crossbow arrows was a nice touch since adding the twotogether aded more lethal attacks. All this said though-the fact that the potions were so spread out only made the games platforming that much more important and fun for the game.

I dunno,most 3D beatemups have always sucked for me. Except maybe Maximo ofcourse,but that one plays alot differently so its not even close in what both games are trying to do so whatever. The games camera worked ok for me too. Even if it it got away from you all it needed was a simply click on the control pad and you were on your way again. The last thing I'd call this game would be average. Its a breath of fresh air in my opnion. One of the best 3D beatemups in a long while,and certainly a great one in terms of a 3D world to combat and explore in.
Whatever I guess,everything doesn't always see see the same,heh.