Bit.Trip Flux

 The Nintendo Wii Shop is about to lose its only respectable game series: Bit.Trip.  Since its debut in early 2009, Bit.Trip Beat, the series has been delivering incredible music and retro visuals to accompany zen like gameplay that most rhythm games lack. These games aren't just "good for a WiiWare game".  Collectively, the first three Bit.Trip games was my 2009 game of the year.  Yes, I loved Bit.Trip more than Uncharted 2.
 
Bookending the six game series, Bit.Trip Flux is essentially a refined version of Beat.  You deflect bits that shoot across the screen in various patterns to a beat, while trippy music plays. There are improvements to the look and play of Flux, but the most noticeable change is that you are playing on the opposite end of the screen.  It's a "returning from where you came" sort of thing.  To get into more details, the game's protagonist, Commander Video, died at the end of the previous title.  This is supposed to be his journey into the afterlife, and the ultimate end.  To get into more details… Well, that's for the designers to know and us never to find out.  There is lots of veiled symbolism to philosophies, some hidden Morse code messages in the beat patterns, and a whole lot more seemingly random imagery.  According to lead designer, Alex  Neuse, everything in the Bit.Trip series has a meaning.  EVERYTHING.

These little touches, as obscure as they may be, make for a hypnotizing atmosphere.  The always iconic music is more ambient and euphoric than usual, cleverly working in melodies from Bit.Trip Runner and Beat into the mix.  Visually, the backgrounds are amazing.  I wish I had the opportunity to focus on some of these epic backgrounds, but the beats move faster than ever.  Which brings me to the part of the game I loathe, the punishment…

I finished Flux in one sitting, but it was the hardest Bit.Trip game I've ever played. Both reasons are because of this new checkpoint system.  Like the first three Bit.Trip games, there are only three songs to play through, and each song has about eight or nine stages.  In earlier games, the stage transitions only gave you a sense of progress, and 3 seconds to catch your breath and rub your eyes.  If you failed at any time during the song, even the very end, you were sent back to the start.  Flux has checkpoints at each stage, and infinite lives.  As long as you don't turn your wii off in anger, you've made irreversible progress.  Because they added checkpoints, the developers figured they can make the game much harder; but by doing so, they screwed up an important mechanic… 

The big problem with checkpointing is association with the game's leveling system. The more bits you connect with, the more a meter builds on the top of the screen. When the meter fills, you've earned a more visually enhanced filter to play the game in.  This doesn't change the gameplay at all (for some it actually makes it harder to concentrate), it just plays cooler music, and acts as a buffer for when you may drop down a level by missing bits.  The lowest level is called Nether (black & white), where you are forced to restart if you decline from there.  

In Beat, a few retries meant learning the first two minutes of easy bit patterns to perfection, so that you can build a buffer when you get to the hard stuff in the second half of the song.  Because of checkpointing, you're now restarting into the middle of a song, during said "hard stuff", and making it nearly impossible to gain momentum. Because of this, I spent most of the game in Mega (normal) and Nether modes, which isn't the most ideal way to experience the game.  In some cases I found it easier to deliberately drop into Nether and fight my way back up to Mega during the 10 seconds of easy bits, so I'd have more of a buffer when the immediate hard stuff began.  Bit.Trip isn't the kind of game where I want to do cheap stuff like that.  This problem could have been easily evaded if they made the beginning of each stage not so much of a clusterfuck; or if they just set your level-up meter not to reset and erase your progress when you drop down a level.

There were also a few patterns that I found virtually impossible to keep up with.  It didn't seem as if your paddle had the ability to move up and down that fast.  And the final boss is a bit unfair to the colorblind.  For a moment things seemed so impossible that I wondered if the game was making some artistic statement like "the game won't end unless you turn it off.  Let go, man."  I wouldn't put I past them.  The actual ending to the game is quite touching and abstract.  It's a memorable experience.  The art of this game is the best of the series, hands down.  The difficulty on the other hand, did not give me the sense of accomplishment any of the other games have given me.  I had to weasel my way through some of the areas, and I felt the game was robbing me of the higher visual filter levels I should have earned.  The game should be more forgiving.  I finished it in one night at the difficulty it is now.  If it had been easier, I still would have finished it in one night regardless, but would have had a better time with it.

Despite being such a struggle, Gaijin Games delivers satisfying closure to the series.  I wish I could easily see more of the game in some of the higher levels, but even in Mega, the game is candy to my brain on an audio/visual level.  Its an iconic aesthetic I can't get anywhere else in video games except for the original Mega Man series.  It's not just nostalgic retro pandering.  There is a level of style, detail, and effort that makes the Bit.Trip games feel like nothing else, even among all these other retro or "audio visualizer" games like Bionic Commando: Rearmed, or Rez.  I really do wish these games weren't as punishing.  Super Meat Boy proved that you can make a difficult game that still rewards every level of skill, so there are no excuses anymore Still, it's been a great series, and I'm glad to see it end before it got stale. I'll be looking forward to new interesting ideas from these guys.