The Gates of Hell Have Opened. Huh, must be Tuesday.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds is a 2003 video game developed by Eurocom and published by Vivendi Universal Games for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Xbox. It's technically not a sequel as such to the first game, but it plays the same. Set during the fifth season, the player is tasked with fighting as Buffy, Xander, Willow, Spike, Faith and Sid the Dummy through Sunnydale and beyond.
When the vampire Kakistos, last seen after Faith dusted him, seems to be Back from the Dead, the Scoobies go to investigate. It turns out that Ethan Rayne has made a deal with The First Evil, where the Scoobies are transported to an Alternate Dimension to fight The First's champions. If he wins, Ethan will be made a full Chaos Demon. The Scoobies must find a way to stop them both and return home.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abandoned Hospital: One of the levels takes place in one.
- Adapted Out: Oddly, Dawn is nowhere to be seen and is not even mentioned.
- Adaptational Wimp: In "Faith, Hope and Trick", Kakistos was able to shrug off a regular stake, and it took being impaled on a broken support beam to finish him off. Here, just about anything with a pointy bit will suffice.
- Aerosol Flamethrower: Sid the Dummy can acquire a gas canister that functions as an improvised flamethrower.Sid: "Eureka! What the hell does that mean, anyway?
- Alternate Universe: The setting for the second half of the game. Think the Wishverse.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: You'll switch between the various charcters several times over the course of the game, but you'll still be playing as Buffy more than anyone else.
- Arm Cannon: Adam has a Gatling Gun and missile launcher built into his arm.
- Back from the Dead:
- The First brings Kakistos and Adam as two of his champions. Perhaps the reason it couldn't use Glory was because she was a god.
- On the good guys' end, Sid the Dummy had apparently passed on to the "proverbial better place" after killing the demons who'd cursed him, but he's back on Earth and still a wooden dummy in this game. It's revealed during the course of the story that this is The First's doing.
- Badass Normal: Xander is similar to Buffy and Faith (Slayers) and Spike (vampire) in terms of strength and fighting prowess.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: During the level set inside Sunnydale Mall, Willow mentions early on that she "wishes Tara was here". Guess whose vampire counterpart is the boss of this level?
- Benevolent Architecture: There are a great many conveniently-placed pointy wooden things scattered about the levels.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: When visiting Sunnydale's cinema there's a poster for Alien: Resurrection, a film written by Joss Whedon which he hates (because the production team "did everything wrong that they could possibly do").
- Bond One-Liner: Most deaths will yield this, with each character having quite a number of quips upon dusting a vampire. The surprise here is Faith, several of her quotes portray her as quite a learned Cultured Badass.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Buffy and Spike respectively use a severed hand and a severed head to get past a palm scanner and a retinal scanner.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The first level of alternate Sunnydale has Buffy looking for her allies. Faith is locked in a bank vault and will use Willow's 'bored now' to signify that she wants Buffy to break her out.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Kakistos elects to face Faith in a cave with pointy wooden spikes sticking out of the walls. You'd think a vampire his age would know better.
- Boss Banter: Every boss (except for Adam) has a few lines of dialogue that they repeat ad nauseum.
- Call-Back:
- One of the first levels is in a graveyard, where Buffy is freaked upon learning of a spell that will resurrect her mother.
- An episode of the show had Willow and Tara trying to craft a Sun spell. In this game, it's one of the spells in Willow's repertoire.
- The Bakemono first appeared in the Buffy comic book "The Latest Craze."
- The school, hospital and mall were all locations in the series. What about the Old Quarry when playing as Faith? Aha, you might recall how she used to go diving at an old quarry when younger.
- When Kakistos casts a spell to resurrect all the bodies interred at Sunnydale's cemetery, Buffy is particularly distressed, as her mother is buried there.
- Creator Cameo: In multiplayer Joss Whedon is one of the unlockable characters.
- Credits Gag: Our girl Faith gets one in as a Bond One-Liner.Grrr Arrr yourself.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: With Hope's Dagger, you actually scatter The First across multiple realities, and The First will take centuries to reform.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: Cassandra Rayne, an immortal warrior for the Powers That Be. As The First could not truly kill her, he instead had her ripped to pieces and scattered about. The majority of the game involves the heroes searching for her various parts.
- Elite Mooks: Vampires, surprisingly, are some of the toughest enemies in the game, especially given some of the different attacks they use.
- Escort Mission: Buffy leading a wounded Giles out of The Magic Box.
- Even the Guys Want Him: A lot of the vampires in the Highschool level say very suggestive things to Xander, especially the male vamps.
- Evil Twin: Anya becomes a vengeance demon to fight Xander, Tara is made into a vampire (recalling the prequel comic) to fight Willow and Buffy fights Giles' younger self, Ripper.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The game does not allow decapitation, so shovels, battleaxes, and swords all dust vampires through a stab to the heart with a metal blade. This is at least justified with Hope's Dagger, given its origins as being forged from the first ray of light on the world, but the other swords lying around in the game don't have that excuse.
- Gargle Blaster: Faith, being Faith, ponders whether hellfire vials come in six packs.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Ripper isn't all that interested in going toe to toe with Buffy, and will instead spend most of the battle running away.
- Giant Spider: The previous game had these scattered about, and they make a cameo appearance here. The dog sized versions here are the smaller breed, with the larger ones not shown bigger than Buffy.
- Glass Cannon: Willow. She lacks martial arts skills or even any kicking moves leaving her as the worst fighter in the game. She makes up for it with her spells which cause massive damage and several can kill enemies in one hit.
- Guide Dang It!: Have fun getting through the game without a walk-through.
- The first level of the docks requires holy water. Unless you think to smash open the large crates to find a font you're kind of stuck. Buffy even lampshades being able to find it.
"Hello!" - Guns Are Worthless: Averted during the zoo level when Buffy has to use a tranquilizer rifle: it makes a fine long range damage dealer and can stake enemies at low health, and has unlimited ammo. It's only drawbacks are she's forced to use the long range scope which can be disconcerting and it's useless on Ripper.
- Hair-Raising Hare: Playing on her well-known fear of them, Bunnies are integral to defeating Anyanka.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: The game begins with an attack on The Magic Shop when Giles instructs Buffy what to do. Same for Tara with Willow. Subverted with Spike, who is mocked by Buffy, and averted with Xander and Faith who plays the same.
- Hospital Hottie: Discussed by Xander and Willow when he finds a first-aid kit.Xander: "Time to go find Anya and play naughty nurse."Willow: "Ooh, now I can be Nurse Willow! Tara's gonna love this..."
- I'm Cold... So Cold...: The first thing Cassandra Rayne does after being reassembled is ask "Why am I so cold?"
- Infinity +1 Sword: Hope's Dagger, a blade forged from the first ray of light to shine upon the Earth.
- Interface Screw: The "Controller Confusion" pick-up in multiplayer.
- It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: Faith might suggest slaying is the best damn job in the world, which fits with sources such as Go Ask Malice and her joy at being given that sense of purpose.
- Jump Scare: Buffy's exploring a church basement when suddenly she is pounced by demon spiders. Thankfully they are less numerous than before and had gone through a healthy dose of
Badass Decay. - Killer Gorilla: The zombie gorillas in the Zoo level.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The characters engage in this from time to time.Xander: (upon finding an item) "It's like a friggin' video game!"
- Meat Puppet: The First possesses Ethan Rayne in order to confront Buffy as the Final Boss.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Hope's Dagger can only be wielded by a Champion of the Powers That Be or the Slayer.
- Our Gargoyles Rock: A couple of gargoyles are fought early on in the game. They're immune to all normal forms of damage, forcing Buffy to acquire some Gorgon venom in order to return them to their stone state.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The standard desiccated shamblers that act as cannon fodder and go up like kindling if they're lit on fire are the most common variety, while zombie gorillas and penguins are exclusive to the zoo level.
- The Peeping Tom: Referenced by Xander when he tries to open a locked door.Xander: "This is harder to get into than the girls' locker room."
- The Power of the Sun: One of Willow's attacks is a sun spell that can instantly dust vampires.
- Prison Rape: Faith mentions that she had to ward off prison rape when she chose to pay her debt to society.
- Product Placement: The films on the posters in the movie theater, instead of made-up films, are all actual 20th Century Fox motion pictures, such as Alien, Titan A.E., Fight Club, and The Fly (1986).
- Raising the Steaks: With one of the levels in a zoo, but of course.
- Rewarding Vandalism: Items can be found by breaking apart furniture or even headstones.
- Shout-Out: After taking control of Xander during the opening level, leaving him idle for long enough will trigger this.Xander: "Okay, no telepathic prompts for you, X-Man."
- Shown Their Work: Not as much as the first game but the work...shows.
- Status Effects: Some vampires have the thrall move of The Master and Drusilla, which acts as a stun move.
- Super Drowning Skills: Enforced, as the one level with water is an abandoned mine that Faith is trying to blow up to get to Kakistos.
- Take a Third Option: The contest was to pit Ethan's champions against the First's champions for the power to make Ethan a Chaos Lord. Buffy and co. decide that's not a workable option but since losing means death they decide to take out the First so nobody wins.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Xander in the first level when he find himself cornered by vampires.Xander: "Oh... Monkey poop."
- The Tooth Hurts: Anyanka threatens to do this to Xander.Anyanka: "You have nice teeth. They'll make a fine necklace!"
- Weak, but Skilled: Sid, being a wooden dummy, lacks the physical strength of the rest of the cast, but he makes up for it with a number of clever tactics.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Even as an evil Vengeance Demon, Anyanka is still terrified of bunnies to the point that a Magician's Tophat that Xander can pull an endless supply of bunnies out of is integral to defeating her.
