Bit.Trip Saga & Bit.Trip Complete Preview
Everyone has that game that they let annoy them. You know what I mean, the game that, despite killing you at the most annoying moment, despite glitching out and reducing your lives to 1, despite all those stupidly complex controls and mechanics, you just love to play. No matter what.
I have my own; Super Meat Boy. The game will push me to the edge. Sometimes it pushes me over and I end up mashing my keyboard with clenched fists, imitating the angry German kid. Yet I know within 5 minutes I’ll be clicking the ‘Retry’ button; without fail.
If you haven’t got one of these games, then fear not! Bit.Strip.Complete and Bit.Strip.Saga are heading in your direction, and not a moment too soon. Compiling the best games altogether in one game couldn’t have been a better idea for the minigames that took the Ninteno eShop by storm.
For those of you that are alien to the Bit.Trip world, Complete and Saga will be bringing together the 6 popular games; Beat, Core, Void, Runner, Fate and Flux. Each game revolves around a certain mechanic you have to master to beat the challenges set out in front of you. Beat, for example, has you reminiscing about Pong to beat back waves of oncoming notes, whilst Runner has you jumping, kicking and sliding over, through and under obstacles.
However, until now, all the titles have been separately featured. Complete fixes this problem by combining all the games into one handy title, easily being able to exit out of one game and jump into the next.
Having a chance to play the games, and being slightly alien to the series myself, let me experience the absolute wonder that is Bit.Trip. If you’ve missed the games in the past, possibly on purpose, then I suggest you take this chance to rectify that very bad mistake.
Flinging yourselves through all the levels for the first time is reason enough on its own to purchase the Complete game, however, those of you that have already purchased the game before now have something to look forward to as well. Each game comes with an extra 20 levels, uniquely designed for the compilation game.
Playing through the levels gives you that sense that you’ve actually achieved something, without really achieving anything. Upon completing my first 2 levels of Runner, I convinced myself I had become a master of the Bit.Trip universe. Sure, I hadn’t collected all the gold. I hadn’t even had to slide underneath a mountain yet, but it didn’t matter. I was God of Gaming.
However the game can similarly bring you back down to earth with a deathly crash. Upon taking up the challenge of Flux I was swiftly reminded that I was in fact a baboon with no reaction time at all.
It’s at these moments that you’ll continue to pursue your rage face, to hold your arm from wildly swinging the Wii Remote around your head whilst yelling before telling everyone in the vicinity you’re okay, and attempting the level again.
And Saga will simultaneously threaten the very well-being of your 3DS. In a good way, of course. With the games being shrunk down to handheld size, each level of every game will be updated with Stereoscopic 3D and utilise the features of the 3DS, mainly the touch screen to give players a closer, more direct experience with the game.
On top of all that already lovely goodness, the Complete version for Wii will feature added content in the way of developer insights, including the making of the game, and how the game was produced.
Bit.Trip.Complete and Saga will provide you with hours upon hours of endless entertainment. Not only will the levels keep you occupied, and angered, for weeks, but replaying the game to get that high score has never been more viable. Bit.Trip makes you want to get the best score possible, and to do so you’ll have to make sure you don’t cut corners, and take the most treacherous paths.
Should you get the game? If you can dig through the hair ripping and controller flinging to appreciate the good game that lies beneath it, then you should definitely give it a look. The fresh take on hard puzzling is more than welcome in a somewhat stagnant pool of games trying to be the next HD bravado.
With pure simplicity both Saga and Complete will capture your soul twice as much as any try-to-be AAA game, with simple 8-bit graphics, and a simple character design that will wiggle his way into your heart. Bit.Trip Complete may even get you to finally blow the dust off that Wii for something a little more fresh, and interesting.
Rik Wortman
When he’s not writing up a storm at his desk, he’s playing games like Minecraft, Skyrim, Portal, World of Warcraft, Pokemon…well, the list goes on. He studied English and Creative writing at university, which is where he honed his skills for making the gaming news come alive, with a few terrible typos along the way for good measure. Fret not though, my friend, for he does tell quite an engaging tale with each article, and has had plenty of practice, having written for This Is My Joystick and 3DSBuzz.
In between articles he likes to indulge in one of his addictions: Twitter. @Wortermelon provides a good dose of gold on occasion, and other times leaves you wondering why you’re following such a huge weirdo.
