I admit it, I’m new to the whole BIT.TRIP thing. I didn’t pay much attention to the games when they first came out because I thought they were just artsy indie games with blocky graphics and chiptunes music and sound effects. That and Commander Video freaks me out. He’s faceless and disproportionate, like an Atari Slender Man. Still, after the bitterness of Star Fox 64 3D and the desire to keep my 3DS valid, I picked up BIT.TRIP SAGA
Well, jackpot. BIT.TRIP SAGA doesn’t have any extra content like BIT.TRIP Complete on the Wii, but all six BIT.TRIP games together alone justify the $40 price tag of a retail 3DS game.
If you’re not familiar with BIT.TRIP, it’s a series of games that combine chiptunes music and rhythm-influenced graphics and gameplay with old-school arcade aesthetics. Really old school. Like Pong. You play Commander Video, the robot… alien… creepy blocky character through BIT.TRIP BEAT, CORE, VOID, RUNNER, FATE, and FLUX. BEAT and FLUX are puzzle-rhythm-Pong games, CORE is a directional rhythm game, VOID is a cross between Ikaruga and Snake, RUNNER is a rhythm-based platformer, and FATE is basically a 2D version of Rez.
Actually, Rez is really the best way to describe all of BIT.TRIP. Rhythm combines with action, with the graphics and music reflecting how you’re performing in a fluid, dynamic way. You never simply respond to prompts, but instead have to play games and hear and watch it respond to you, generating beautiful music that you’re directly controlling. Every dot you hit or obstacle you jump over adds to the game’s soundtrack, increasing or decreasing how good the game looks or sounds based on how you play.
The color element is perhaps the most brilliant part of the BIT.TRIP games that don’t tie directly into the soundtrack. The better you do, the more colorful the game gets, with good runs resulting in exploding fireworks in the background or a rainbow tracking behind Commander Video. If you do bad, though, the game gets less colorful until you end up in the Nether (in some of the games), a black and white game with flat beeps that feels spooky, like your failure is sucking the life out of the game. Considering the most colorful parts of the games are the backgrounds and the actual objects you interact with are little more than blocks of pixels, and can barely be called sprites, it’s impressive that such games can be so atmospheric. The games that don’t bring you into the Nether, RUNNER and FATE, have enough color and detail that there’s still plenty of life and feedback for what you’re doing (though you will find Commander Video pulled back to the beginning of RUNNER levels hundreds of times before you get them right).
The individual games vary enough that there’s plenty of action for whatever your mood. RUNNER and FATE at the most detailed, with platforming and rail shooting action, but BEAT and FLUX are the most infectious to me. Turning Pong into a rhythm game where your success results in beautiful chiptunes music is brilliant, and the patterns of the dots are hypnotic. With six games, five varying greatly (BEAT and FLUX are extremely similar, and FLUX could be seen as a sequel to BEAT), there’s probably something you can enjoy. I dislike CORE, but I find the other games satisfying enough that the package is still worth a try.
The 3D doesn’t add much, but it can actually enhance your gameplay and make things a little easier. For most of the games, the backgrounds are the only things in 3D, which means colorful pixels you might otherwise mistake for dots you have to hit or avoid sit distinctly behind the action. It’s a nice touch, and in more detailed games like RUNNER the backgrounds can even look downright beautiful in their strange, blocky way.
I missed the BIT.TRIP games when they first came out, but if anything the BIT.TRIP SAGA (and presumably BIT.TRIP COMPLETE, but I haven’t played it) package feels better than getting the games piecemeal. Six solid, creative, classic, and beautiful-sounding games in a single card. Some extra challenges would be nice, but the games themselves are challenging and addictive enough that it’s not a terrible loss. If you like chiptunes, classic arcade games, or pixel art, give BIT.TRIP SAGA a try. I’m still freaked out by Commander Video, though.
