Review #201: Bit.Trip Complete

 Run, Forrest, run!

 The Bit.Trip series is often regarded as one of WiiWare's premiere titles, it's made up of six very different games(Except one of them), but all of them follow a storyline and are developed around chiptune music. Yes, Music, you might even consider them rhythm games and you wouldn't be too far off. But that's not everything that these games are, these are arcadey games through and through, with a very minimalist aesthetic and a difficulty curve that harkens to the NES era.

 'Complete' is a physical rerelease of all six games bundled in one disc. This isn't just a compilation, it also includes a bevy of unlockables, art, letters(That basically explain the story behind each game and how it ties up to the gameplay and music, very cool.), videos and music. Speaking of music, packaged alongside each copy is a disc with the soundtrack. Futhermore, now there are three difficulty settings per game, which makes most games more lenient without turning them into a cakewalk, and 20 tough-as-nails challenges for each of the six games.

 All six games share a couple of mechanics between each other. For instance, every game but Runner and Fate feature 'levels', scoring points will make you go up a level, while missing beats will make you lose points. The higher you go, the more hectic the visuals will get, and the better the music will get(which is a huge motivator to do well, since the music is pretty dang amazing), which, at least in my case, made it harder to discern the next patterns... which is, probably, while going into the lowest level, Nether, makes everything go black and white, allowing you to get a better focus in order to avoid a game over. And avoid a game over you'll want, only one game has checkpoints, die in any other game and it's back to the beginning of the stage, and stages are particularly long, to make up for their scant quantity(Usually 3). One little thing I enjoyed was that a lot of bosses are throwbacks to other games, like Arkanoid, Missile Command or even Pacman!

 As previously mentioned, the games have a very minimalist aesthetic. Every game but Runner and Fate have a very simple look, using simple geometrical shapes made up of very few pixels, not unlike something you'd find on an Atari, but more colorful, with fancier, but not by much, backgrounds. Runner and Fate have more complex forms involved, and use way more colors. The music is excellent in every single game, with various simple themes to convey the story each game wants to tell. The way the beats of the music are tied to the gameplay is very pleasing, makes you want to do good in the games to get the most of it!.

 Bit.Trip Beat: The first game, you control a paddle on the left side of the screen, and your object is to bounce off the oncoming bits. This game is played with motion controls, something I wasn't particularly fond of, but I managed to find a somewhat precise way of holding the Wiimote by using my fingers. This is probably one of my favorites... and, in my opinion, the hardest game of the bunch, still, it's incredibly addicting and oftentimes hypnotic! There's three very long stages, and bit patterns eventually get devilishly hard. Can be played with up to four players, but the paddles start getting shorter, two players is just the right amount of players if you want to have an easier time!

 Bit.Trip Core: This time around you shoot beams. Using the directional pad you can choose to shoot a beam up, down, left or right, and try to hit the bits as they move onto the beam sweet spots. It was fairly fun and challenging, while the gameplay is completely different, it's still similar to Beat's.

 Bit.Trip Void: In this one you play as a black circle, moving around with the analog stick, you must collect the black bits and avoid the white ones. Collecting beats makes you grow bigger, but you can press the A button to collect your points and shrink back. Why wouldn't you shrink all the time? Because the bigger you get, the more points you'll get, so you'll want to put off shrinking as much as you can, since touching a white beat will not only get you closer yo going down a level, but will revert you back to your original size and you'll lose the points you had amassed! Supposedly this game had checkpoints, but they didn't work for me, every time I'd use a continue I'd still start back at the first segment of the stage I was playing.

 Bit.Trip Runner: Easily the most complex game, both in looks and in gameplay. It plays like the endless runners you'd find in many App games, that the screen scrolls automatically to the right and the only thing you have to do is jump. Except that in this game you must also Slide, block or even kick different obstacles while trying to collect gold pieces. This game is way longer than the others, but the three stages are divided in 12 sections(Thank god!). This game is almost as hard as beat... but not as satisfying. I mean, the first two worlds are excellent, I must've retried the first boss over fifteen times and I wouldn't give up because of how much fun I was having. But the last two stages of Level 3? They felt cheap and I just started getting frustrated and annoying, they were just hard and cheap without being fun. Still, it's only two sections in 36, and that's not counting the secret levels! One of the best games in the series. There's no 'levels' in this one, if you touch any one obstacle is back to the beginning of the segment!

 Bit.Trip Fate: The bleakest game in the series, it's also the easiest and the least fun. This time around, it's a sort of on-rails shooter. The stage scrolls automatically, very slowly, but you are free to move over a 'wave'. It's an... interesting mechanic, you are free to dodge, while restricted to the wave. You shoot by aiming with the Wiimote and pressing the A button. There's 6 levels in this one, but they are fairly short.

 Bit.Trip Flux: The series had reinvented itself four times already, what would it do for the last installment? Fittingly, it closes the circle by being just like Beat, but this time around the paddle is on the right side of the screen. There are other differences, there's new Round bits, or Avoid Bits that you must, well, avoid, and all bits are white in color this time around. Oh, and there's checkpoints, which make it much more accessible than Beat, which is not to say that it's easy, some patterns are waaay harder than Beat, but the checkpoints make it more tolerable.

 While I love Arcadey games, these certainly aren't my type of games. That said, the Bit.Trip games were a fun little adventure that took me through Commander Video's life. Sadly, the high difficulty and the retro aesthetic makes it a bit hard to recommend to most people, but if you are even slightly interested in the premise, it's worth a look, just be prepared for a challenge. And do totally delve into the unlockable 'Letters', the backstory behind each entry is too engrossing to pass out on!
 7.0 out of 10.