Short and Sweet

Bleed 2 is the follow-up to Bleed, which was first released 6 years ago now back in 2012. It has a throwback to the very early platform, run-n-gun type of games which were aplenty back in the late 80s and 90s. Many people have wanted such games to return, and Digerati have answered by bringing Bleed 2 to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It’s one of the shortest games I have ever played, but that’s definitely not a negative from me. In fact, with everything on offer in Bleed 2, there is quite the package to be had, one that is really enjoyable.

Don’t worry if you haven’t played the original Bleed game. I missed the original too and to be fair, I understood the story quite easily. You take on the role of a little girl called Wryn, who loves her video games but is distracted by the evil attacks of her arch nemesis, Valentine. It’s up to you to stop Valentine and all of her henchmen and put a stop to evil ways and make sure earth is a safe place, with Wryn going back to playing games which she loved. It’s a very, very simple story. Whether you invest in it or not it doesn’t matter, as it’s the action where it all takes place.

Bleed 2 is very fast paced, but to be fair it’s exactly what makes it exciting. I really liked the pace of the game as with Wryn, you are equipped with two twin pistols (with unlimited ammo) and a Katana. What’s interesting with this is that Wryn is able to deflect attacks back towards the enemy. However, you can only do this with certain attacks, and those ones you can deflect are sorted by colour. If the enemies attacks towards you a pink, you can easily reflect these attacks. However, the more yellow attacks are much more dangerous and you will have to evade then as they come at you very quickly.

As the attacks come at you very quickly, you are aided quite a lot by a feature in the game that you can utilize for a short time. For a short time, depending on the subsequent bar at the top left hand of the screen you can slow down time. This gives you a much bigger advantage as you can use this limited time in order to dodge the attacks that you are heading your way. You only have around 5 seconds though to use it wisely before time goes back to normal and you have to wait for the meter to fill up once again before you can use it. Fortunately, this meter fills up very quickly so you only have to wait a couple of seconds before using it again.

Whilst the limited amount of levels can feel a little bit repetitive, it’s the boss fights at the end where it becomes much more varied. You have 3 boss fights to face in each level, with each more difficult than the rest. You have to watch their attacks and movement closely, whilst having your pistols shoot at them constantly in order to get their health bar down. Don’t worry about lives too much however, as in the story mode you have an unlimited supply of lives.

This games’ story is very much short and sweet. It took me around 45 minutes to complete the game but don’t worry too much. You can play through the story with harder difficulties that will challenge you even more. You also don’t have to do the game alone, as you can have another person jump in for some local co-op. Unfortunately, at this point there is no online co-op, which would of been a nice option. You can also play an endless game, which is exactly what it is as levels will be produced randomly at all times, and it’s up to you when it finishes.

One last comment from me about Bleed 2 is the visuals. I love the retro visuals that Bleed 2 has. Having Player 2 press any button flash at the top of the screen like it did years ago and in the classic arcade games is nice to see. Wryn and Valentine are also very simplistic looking characters. When you are fighting Valentine in their final fight, it’s funny to see but also give me a lot of nostalgia for the graphics used. Games were very simple looking 20 years ago but also give us some of the best memories, so it was nice to see Bleed 2 and how it plays out.

A PlayStation 4 Review Code was provided by Digerati