Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds Part 6 - PS2 - Walkthrough / Full Gameplay Playthough
5Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds - PS2 - Walkthrough / Full Gameplay Playthough Commentary. Also on Xbox / Gamecube.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer is my favourite TV show of all time. Been a fan since I was a kid, and Choas Bleeds was an exciting game for my 13 year old self to buy once the TV series ended in 2003. I remember the hours I spent playing this game on repeat for months, sitting cozily on my couch in my childhood home living room, exploring Sunnydale's High School, Streets, the Magic Box and more as Buffy, Spike, Willow and the rest of the cast. The call backs to the TV series, most of the characters voiced by the real actors, and the action packed gameplay felt like enough passion was put into this TV tie in that i'm more than satisfied with. Of course, the writing, voice acting, and other elements could have been improved upon, and as you'll hear me mention a few times in this playthrough; the art direction is more cartoony than a closer design of the live action tv show. Comparing the art style of Buffy Chaos Bleeds to PS2 horror classics like Silent Hill 3, Haunting Ground, and Resident Evil 4, it becomes a little funny that these original video game pieces go for a more realistic direction than the game based on a live show with real actors and TV sets. Of course budget and talent play a massive role, though i'd be interested in seeing what a Buffy The Vampire Slayer game today would look like.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds follows closely to the other games I mentioned. Inspired by Survival Horror and Action Horror titles beloved during the PS2 era when horror was in its golden age, Buffy has a strong directional focus on mixing combat with puzzles, whilst keeping an eye on your health and missions have a limited number of medi-kit healing items. Added in the game being decently difficult in combat, with the puzzles and interactable objects often not glowing or highlighted in the usual video game manner, you can find yourself getting lost or beaten down by level design and enemies. What makes it more difficult is while the health items are limited, the respawning enemy count doesn't seem to end, with getting lost in certain levels for an hour ending with me getting a slay count over 178 at times. Thankfully enemies drop health orbs on death sometimes. It's RNG, so you'll be begging the game for good fortune at times.
Sunnydale Streets, High School, Mall, Hospital, and Sunnydale Zoo may be my favourite levels. But most missions are well designed and there isn't any I would consider downright awful besides Faith's mission at the Quarry which has a horrible boss (Kakistos) and forgettable level, and Spike's Initiative mission which has invisible triggers that cause a game over if you fail to jump the unseeable beams correctly, when the jump animation is rather poor. But still, it's an overall great package for a TV merch budget product.
What surpises me about Buffy: Chaos Bleeds is how well refined it can be times despite those budget hold backs. Over the last few years i've done playthroughs and walkthroughs on many older Playstation 2 horror games, and while many were fun, creative, silly, or weird, they usually have one thing in common; jank. A feeling of sluggish controls, bland or poor level design, vague puzzles that require random real world know-how or are attached to terrible timers and instant game overs.. Buffy: Chaos Bleeds has none of those problems. Instead, this PS2 game is smooth selling. Gameplay is sweet, feels good, fast paced action, and most puzzles are more or less pick up key, find door. Or, go through side window, exit through manhole into sewer. Simple, but effective. Would a Silent Hill hospital riddle have been fun? In theory, yes. But given the history with lower budget games the chances of the puzzles being a headache would be high. The game nails what it aims for and I recommend Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds to every Buffy & Angel fan.
Speaking of which, I never got over the two player mode (yep, a two player mode!) having a ton of characters to unlock having their images cast in black until you've obtained them making me believe the final unlockable character was Angel, when in reality it turned out to be Josh Whedon. It would have been a real cool bonus to a great game, because it's not like we ever expected an Angel The TV Series video game back then, and those slim hopes are long gone today. Still, Buffy: Chaos Bleeds deserves a spot in your horror game collection.
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