Game of the Month #31 (August 2017) - Bit. Trip series

Right never done a series for Gotm and one not this long either so prepare for a long, LONG post (not including compilation):

Bit. Trip Beat

From gameplay to visuals to music and imagination, BIT.TRIP BEAT is inspired by classic games in every way. Get sucked into a whole new world of sight and sound as you juggle beats and ride the vibe in this modern look at the beginning of it all.

Bit. Trip Core

Bit.Trip Core is the second installment in CommanderVideo's soul quest.

Bit. Trip Void

Bit.Trip Void continues CommanderVideo's epic journey.

Bit. Trip Runner

Race across the Moon, kicking down crystal walls and sliding under chomping moon-slugs! Bound through the Robotic Mines and face off against the MinerMech! Dash through the Big City on a quest to find friends and defeat the final boss together!
<br> RUNNER is the fourth chapter in the award-winning and critically acclaimed BIT.TRIP series.

Bit. Trip Fate

Bit.Trip Fate is an on-rails side-scrolling shoot-'em-up that finds CommanderVideo riding the vibe to discover his fate. CommanderVideo will need a little help from the friends he made in Bit.Trip Runner to thwart the Mingrawn Timbletot, who has mutated the world into an ugly technological nightmare. Join forces with the Junior Melchkin, CommandgirlVideo and others to increase CommanderVideo�s power and save the world. Whether you play in single-player mode or team up with a co-pilot, you�ll need a steady hand to navigate the vibe and aim your blasters at the twisted souls out to destroy you.

Bit. Trip Flux

The BIT.TRIP series comes full-circle with BIT.TRIP FLUX: CommanderVideo's final adventure. Grab your Wii Remote and get ready for classic paddle-based gameplay as CommanderVideo returns to the source. Whether playing in single-player or in two player co-op, you'll be faced with new challenges that will make even the most experienced BIT.TRIPPERS weep. Enjoy new challenges presented within the familiar paddle-based gameplay which started the phenomenon called BIT.TRIP.

Bit. Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien

Runner2 is the sequel to the critically acclaimed and IGF award winning BIT.TRIP RUNNER. In the style of the BIT.TRIP series, Runner2 is a rhythm-music platforming game. Players will run through fantastic environments, using brand new moves, to brand new soundtracks as they run, jump, slide, kick, and soar toward the goal of tracking down the Timbletot and thwarting his evil plans to destroy not only our world, but every world there is.

Right I've played 3 of this series (only have those 3) so i'll give my thoughts:

Bit. Trip Beat: This is basically a rhythm version of pong. You know what I enjoyed it. Nothing speical but I did enjoy it even if it is very much trial and error.

Bit. Trip Runner: Basic runner series can't say much about it. Relatively average. Can't say it was bad but it wasn't tat interesting.

Bit. Trip Runner 2: An imporvement on the previous game still again a relatively simple game. Enjoyed it more but I didn't find it that special

Right I've played 3 of this series (only have those 3) so i'll give my thoughts:

Bit. Trip Beat: This is basically a rhythm version of pong. You know what I enjoyed it. Nothing speical but I did enjoy it even if it is very much trial and error.

Bit. Trip Runner: Basic runner series can't say much about it. Relatively average. Can't say it was bad but it wasn't tat interesting.

Bit. Trip Runner 2: An imporvement on the previous game still again a relatively simple game. Enjoyed it more but I didn't find it that special

Those are exactly the three I've played.

I have a pretty strong visceral dislike for Beat. The game itself seems like something that would be fun and that I could enjoy, but I literally spent more time trying to find a way to control it that didn't suck than I did playing the game and eventually had to give up. I tried all sorts of custom acceleration curves and whatever wacky things I could think of for every input device I had connected to my computer, and the best I could come up with was "less awful".

Runner was better, in the sense that it didn't actively make me angry to play it, but it was also kind of bland/boring. Never finished it because I just didn't care.

Runner 2 was pretty similar but more polished. Something that bugged me about both of them was that it almost feels like it wants to be a rhythm game, with stuff irritatingly close to happening along with the music but just far enough off that it drove me nuts after a while. And then I went and played 140 instead, which actually does have stuff tightly coupled to the music (and is fantastic), and never looked back at the Bit.Trip games.

It's not very often that games manage to piss me off so much (hello, Dungeon Defenders). A bad game is just a bad game and a brief waste of time, but I feel like there's a good game that I'd enjoy inside each of these, just buried beneath some things that couldn't frustrate me more if someone were doing it on purpose.

I've previously played Runner. It was a decent game. I'm not great at reactionary games like this (although playing with keyboard probably didn't help at times) and found myself rage quitting fairly often. Even so, it had that 'one more tr' effect on me so I kept coming back and eventually beat it. I liked it.

Just started up Runner 2, so we'll see. From what y'all have said about it being more polished I have a feeling my opinion will more or less be the same hah.

Not sure what I'll do this month. I wasn't so keen on Runner so 2 isn't that appealing, Beat is one of the few games that's ever given me a headache to play. I suppose the others could surprise me though, I don't know much about Void, Flux and Fate. Will have to see how the month goes.

100% Runner 2 already and it was manageable & fun. First Runner on the other hand is super frustrating due to not being able to replay retro levels unless you redo their respective levels collecting everything, that instantly put me off.

I've finished up Runner 2 and very much enjoyed it. It was a lot more forgiving than the first Runner, though that could just be the polish showing. I didn't 100% complete it or anything, but I'm satisfied with taking the #1 place away from a few of my friends on some of the courses haha.

After beating Runner 1 and playing snippets of the rest on the Bit.Trip Saga, each one of them seem like they would be great mini games for other games. Each game seems like it once to make music with each jump, barrier smash, and ball bounce, but doesn't seem to get there. What I really want to call them is time wasters (i.e. games that you can play for short segments when your waiting for a bus or in the bathroom), but the levels are normally too long for that.

I don't know. Good mini-games, just not something I would pay for individually, I guess.

I've played bit trip nothing special just side scroller.. music is nice.

I loaded up BEAT the other day, figured I'd give it another shot but again just didn't like it enough to keep going. I hate having to sit through a bunch of "easy" stuff until you reach the point that you fail at where failure comes at you so fast you barely have time to learn from your mistakes. It's the major thing I hate about the Bit.Trip games is that playing better throughout most of the level has no lasting effect for when stuff gets actually difficult, as in you can't stockpile health playing better in the early game so you have more room for error later down the line. It's good in that you can recover relatively fast but mistakes can just cascade from one to the other just as fast.

I also loaded up Core, played it for like 10 minutes and just knew it wasn't for me. I don't like judging games that quickly, and while it's not a retirement, I just knew I wasn't going to have the patience to endure it.

And then I completed Void today. Void was alright, but extremely boring. I only played it on Easy difficulty which I think is going to be the smartest thing for me to do on future Bit Trip games. Void is sort of interesting in what it does with its simple mechanics, but at the end of the day there's really only so much you can do by moving a pixelated circle around a 2d screen. Also as many other reviews mention, a series built on tying gameplay to music rhythms Void pretty much lacks that, but it's not a huge deal really. I'm also glad Void wasn't constantly blinding me with visual effects, something that really puts me off Beat.

I'll return if / when I get through any more of them.

edit: Bit.Trip Fate is probably my favourite of them so far, not too frustrating, levels aren't stupidly long, bosses are tough but this is the first game where playing well lets you build a greater firepower which helps you survive and those stages are stripped from you each mistake you make but you can build them back as long as you are careful. This is on Easy difficulty though, it's probably a nightmare on higher.

edit2: Bit.Trip Flux is actually unwinnable on PC. The boss of the first level has perfect A.I. making it impossible to beat, and this isn't hyperbole, it's a pong battle where the A.I. can't lose. Really don't like flux much either. A regurgitation of Beat except now you don't even have colour to determine what each square will do, but still with all the other visual noise that makes it hard to focus.

Finally had some free time this month so I devoted this whole morning to going through my Bit.Trip Complete Collection. I've played most of these before from time to time casually and I rather like the series, but this was my first time actually sitting down to try and beat most of them. So here are my observations.

Beat: I like this one in principle. It's a good time killer and I like the creative take on Pong. It's one of those types of games that shreds you to pieces once you start, but once your pattern recognition kicks in, it's pretty easy to get through a level without ever going into Nether. I did have to retire this one at the final boss though. I don't know if I just have bad reflexes, but it only takes a couple of bounces for the Beat to get lightning fast, and once the 2nd boss paddle appeared, things felt pretty hopeless. Best I could do was 7-15, and I just can't justify replaying a 15-minute level over and over for a boss that seems almost luck-based.

Core: Barely played this one. The D-Pad on the Wiimote makes this one pretty uncomfortable, and the visuals were pretty bland.

Void: I love this one. Sliding around a black dot on a screen to pick up other black dots is pretty rudimentary, but I the obstacle patterns are both tricky and cool to look at. Learning when to strategically pop your void is pretty fun too.

Runner: I played the crap out of this in high school, and revisited Runner2 not long ago, so I skipped this one. For some reason I was never bothered by the rhythm syncing in this one like others have mentioned. It always made a lot of sense to me.

Fate: I've never really been huge on bullet hell shmups. This one's okay, I guess. Having a fixed line that you can move back and forth one makes dodging enemy attacks more interesting than a standard shooter. I doubt I'd ever commit to replaying this one all the way through, but like most of these games, it's great to pick up and play with friends every now and then.

Flux: Beat, but in reverse. I actually like this one more than Beat, probably because of the checkpoints so you don't have to replay an entire level just for dying at a boss. I kinda wish that the Beats were color-coded like they are in the first game, but that's probably the devs' way of retaining a little bit of that classic difficulty.

Kinda bummed people didn't seem to like this one too much, but I guess these aren't games you really sit down to try and beat so much as they're neat little arcade-style minigames. Ah well. Looking forward to Runner3.

Finally had some free time this month so I devoted this whole morning to going through my Bit.Trip Complete Collection. I've played most of these before from time to time casually and I rather like the series, but this was my first time actually sitting down to try and beat most of them. So here are my observations.

Beat: I like this one in principle. It's a good time killer and I like the creative take on Pong. It's one of those types of games that shreds you to pieces once you start, but once your pattern recognition kicks in, it's pretty easy to get through a level without ever going into Nether. I did have to retire this one at the final boss though. I don't know if I just have bad reflexes, but it only takes a couple of bounces for the Beat to get lightning fast, and once the 2nd boss paddle appeared, things felt pretty hopeless. Best I could do was 7-15, and I just can't justify replaying a 15-minute level over and over for a boss that seems almost luck-based.

Core: Barely played this one. The D-Pad on the Wiimote makes this one pretty uncomfortable, and the visuals were pretty bland.

Void: I love this one. Sliding around a black dot on a screen to pick up other black dots is pretty rudimentary, but I the obstacle patterns are both tricky and cool to look at. Learning when to strategically pop your void is pretty fun too.

Runner: I played the crap out of this in high school, and revisited Runner2 not long ago, so I skipped this one. For some reason I was never bothered by the rhythm syncing in this one like others have mentioned. It always made a lot of sense to me.

Fate: I've never really been huge on bullet hell shmups. This one's okay, I guess. Having a fixed line that you can move back and forth one makes dodging enemy attacks more interesting than a standard shooter. I doubt I'd ever commit to replaying this one all the way through, but like most of these games, it's great to pick up and play with friends every now and then.

Flux: Beat, but in reverse. I actually like this one more than Beat, probably because of the checkpoints so you don't have to replay an entire level just for dying at a boss. I kinda wish that the Beats were color-coded like they are in the first game, but that's probably the devs' way of retaining a little bit of that classic difficulty.

Kinda bummed people didn't seem to like this one too much, but I guess these aren't games you really sit down to try and beat so much as they're neat little arcade-style minigames. Ah well. Looking forward to Runner3.

Trying to beat your Runner 2 scores has been a real source of entertainment for me over the last few days, just thought I'd let you know :D

Trying to beat your Runner 2 scores has been a real source of entertainment for me over the last few days, just thought I'd let you know :D

Yeah, kinda sad I don't have anyone from here on my friends list cause trying to beat y'all woulda been fun lol. Did manage to get top spot against my like... 5 friends that have played Runner 2 on a handful of stages though. =P

Yeah, kinda sad I don't have anyone from here on my friends list cause trying to beat y'all woulda been fun lol. Did manage to get top spot against my like... 5 friends that have played Runner 2 on a handful of stages though. =P

Well that's easy enough to fix. There are a whole bunch of us on Steam at least. Dunno about other platforms because they're not really my thing. There's a whole Steam group and everything, which I keep meaning to go back through to find more people.

Well that's easy enough to fix. There are a whole bunch of us on Steam at least. Dunno about other platforms because they're not really my thing. There's a whole Steam group and everything, which I keep meaning to go back through to find more people.

Oh man, I totally forgot that there was a group!

Trying to beat your Runner 2 scores has been a real source of entertainment for me over the last few days, just thought I'd let you know :D

Aw frick, looks like everybody's challenging my scores. Guess I gotta go defend my title.