BIT.TRIP RUNNER is the fourth game in the BIT.TRIP series after BEAT, CORE and VOID. Gaijin Games has brought a musical sensibility to a variety of different gametypes, with the newly released RUNNER being the most traditional platformer of the bunch despite its untraditional elements.

Spanning across three worlds with eleven standard levels and a boss fight in each, the game contains quite a bit of content for a downloadable Wii game. And while you may scoff at 36 levels, each standard level features a bonus level if you’re able to perfect it, and beyond that there are several points in the game that are just too difficult to breeze through which keeps it feeling even bigger.

Gaijin Games has created a fun and satisfying experience set to a great chiptunes soundtrack. By the time you make it past the final boss, you’ll truly feel that sense of accomplishment. Moreso depending on how many levels you’ve perfected.

GAMEPLAY

The basic layout of the game is quite simple. You control Commander Video, a squat, pixellated adventurer who counts off before each level and then races forward, with or without you to the beat of the great soundtrack. Each obstacle is set to the beat, so its up to the player to handle each necessary action to deal with each obstacle as they arise. Situated cleverly around the obstacles are gold bars, of which a certain quantity are spread throughout each level. If you collect every gold bar, you’ll open up that stage’s “Bonus Get,” which is a truly retro level straight out of Pitfall in which you have the opportunity to really boost your score by collecting large amounts of gold bars. If you get all the gold bars in a level, it gets marked with a flashing exclamation mark. If you better than and additionally get all the gold bars in a bonus stage, you’ll be rewarded with the mark of two exclamation marks sealing your perfection.

The developers have created a great learning curve, starting off with the simplest of levels only requiring a single button: jump. As you progress through levels and eventually into other worlds, more actions get added to your repertoire. After you’re jumping, you learn to slide. After you learn to slide you learn to kick, once you’ve learned to kick you learn to launch off of certain blocks in the game world. From there, you bring on a shield skill in order to deflect yellow dots that look strikingly like gold bars (on the fly, anyway).

BIT.TRIP RUNNER is hard, very hard. You will die a lot. But the simple fact is, you’re not left with enough time to throw your controller through your television as the second you die, you’re dragged back to the start of the level and immediately on the run again. This instantaneous restart makes the sheer quantity of deaths bearable, although without checkpoints some of the more intense levels get quite frustrating. I don’t know if I’m more curious to see my grand total of deaths or grateful that the stat is hidden somewhere I can’t find it.

One of the few problems I had with the title was the balance of difficulty. I worked up to the last standard level of the first world without much trouble, then found myself stuck for countless tries on the same world, aiming each time to beat that next obstacle I wasn’t expecting. The first boss level played out in a similar fashion with some extremely difficult parts that took quite a while to best. By the time I got to the second world it was a breeze. I played through all the eleven stages and the boss without much sweat off my brow. I had first attributed it to the fact that after all my practice I had gotten really good at the game, but after hitting the third world and getting stuck in a similar conundrum to the first, I realized it must have been a matter of balance. The second world is by far the easiest total world. The last few levels of world three and the boss stage took me forever, the majority of my play time, really.

Despite the detail about the boss fight, and the slightly unbalanced difficulty, BIT.TRIP RUNNER is an absolutely pleasurable experience. By the end I felt like I had mastered the game and truly knew how to work my way around the game world.

STYLE

The retro graphics found throughout the game are crisp and interesting, formed with chunky pixels that makes the game feel like it could have come out a long time ago.

But contrasted with the simple graphic elements are the backgrounds in each stage. In the foreign planet world, blocky monsters stick out from the background and move in a three dimensional fashion while you’re still stuck to your single plane. As you move into the second and third worlds, the backgrounds get even more complex and really just exist to throw you off success. I don’t know how many times I died jumping too early due to a twitch reflex from seeing something move in the background.

Stylistically, the colorful trails Commander Video leaves are a great addition. As you collect pink addition signs throughout the world, you build yourself up through different modes. Starting at Hyper, you move through Ultra and eventually up through Extra where you leave a rainbow trail in your way marking your every move. Each stage holds exactly enough addition signs to get you to Extra and give you more points than you’d receive by missing any of the bonuses.

STORY

The story isn’t quite clear outside of a few animated segments linking the game together. There isn’t even a direct reference to your character being called Commander Video in the game, I learned that elsewhere.

The animated segments indicate that Commander Video crashes on an alien planet and starts running. From there he travels to the great open expanses of the west and finally to the big city, pursuing the evil spaceship that’s spent the entire game trying to kill him. How do we know the spaceship is evil? In a talk bubble at one point we see an image of Commander Video crossed out with the universal red “no” symbol. If that’s not pure unmitigated evil, I don’t know what is.

You’ll encounter a few other characters in the game who aid Commander Video by providing platforms to bounce off of and moral support (cheering from the background). You can see all of the characters you have met along the way at the end as everyone bands together in a group. This includes a pixellated version of Meat Boy.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Quality WiiWare games are few and far between, and at 800 Wii Points ($8) this platformer is well worth the purchase to your collection.

Despite the minor flaws I mentioned, I don’t think I can tell you anything that should keep you from purchasing it. It’s fun throughout, has a great soundtrack, and the obstacles are often so cleverly placed you can’t help but chuckle as you die for the fiftieth time.

I haven’t played anything this hard since I cleared VVVVVV earlier this year. If you enjoy a challenge, like chiptunes and feel comfortable patting your head and rubbing your tummy, BIT.TRIP RUNNER is your kind of title.

On a final note, I can’t confirm in the bonus stages in the second and third worlds still take place in the Pitfall style world, as I was only able to clear all of the gold in the first level.

The end of the game seemed to leave the door open for a sequel, so hopefully they don’t jump to a new BIT.TRIP genre before revisiting this gameplay.

Here’s the official Nintendo page for the title.