Interesting concept, but fails in execution
Bit Boy!! starts off as an interesting concept. Players have to guide a cube named Kubi through different eras of video gaming to save his friends because he accidentally offended a 4-bit monster. As with most arcade style games, this storyline is good enough to get things going. But once the novelty of playing through the different video game eras wears off, Bit Boy!! becomes a desperate Pac Man clone trying hard to charm its audience with cute looking characters. Bplus tries hard in this title to make something they think will please gamers, but comes up short with multiple gameplay issues.
The gameplay options are lacking. There are only two modes, Classic and Warp. In Classic, Kubi goes around saving his friends by going through different maps which looks like Pac Man style mazes. In Warp Mode, Kubi has to collect shiny silver rocks which gain points for the player. The emphasis goes towards achieving high points in Warp Mode. These are okay, but the core game doesn’t want to make one want to spend hours going for the high score. More ways to play would have been helpful.
The controls itself are decent. Holding the Wii remote in a NES style fashion, the player holds the direction they want Kubi to go in using the direction pad. Either the 2 button or trigger is used for special attacks. The attack can only be used from the 8-bit era onward. There are no special attacks during the 4-bit era, but once one moves on to the 8-bit era and later they become available. I would have preferred if Kubi could automatically keep going in the direction one points him in, rather than having to hold the direction the whole time. After all, it worked and continues to work for Pac Man. But this is a minor complaint.
What really bothers me though comes from the insane amount of enemies Kubi has to face. This has to come from Bplus being a new developer, because the amount of enemies they throw at the player is ridiculous. There are no other ways to describe it. The best part comes when ten or so of them gather in the same exact area where Kubi needs to go in order to clear the level. It becomes impossible because the enemies basically camp out, leaving the player to make Kubi die on purpose.
Speaking of dying in this game, enemies can still move and kill Kubi once all the friends are collected. One can clear the level, yet still lose, which seems harsh. In Pac Man once all the pellets are eaten, that’s it, the ghosts are gone and you move on to the next level. That’s not the case here.
Don’t expect the default camera to help matters in the later eras either. The 128-bit era features an option to tilt the remote, which changes the camera angle and gives a close ground view of the action. This seems cool in theory, except that you need every bit of information on where the enemies are in a game trying to emulate Pac Man. The close up view makes things difficult. In the 32-bit and 64-bit eras, the camera tilts in different diagonal directions as Kubi moves around, which not only raises the difficulty, but becomes disorientating. The overhead shot will give players the best chance to clear a level. This view displays the whole map, therefore showing where all the enemies are and where they might move or stay. The view stays still, helping the player’s sense of direction remain steady. But the default angles in the later eras definitely suffer from lack of thought put into them.
The visuals suffer in the later eras as well. They just plain look ugly and grainy up close. The 64-bit era through 128-bit look the same, showing a lack of effort put into the 128-bit era graphics. I did enjoy the 16-bit era. The 16 bit era was clean, sharp, colorful, and gave me memories of playing Super Bomberman. The 8-bit era was nice to look at and certainly gave me fond memories of playing games on my NES. The later eras lack that charm. Perhaps Bplus could have made a game that focuses on only the 8 and 16-bit eras instead. The title would have been more focused that way. However, the later eras (mainly the 64-bit and 128-bit ones) don’t execute what they are advertised to look like. The 4-bit era visuals could have been stretched a bit to fit the whole screen, but that’s more minor considering 4-bit visuals are supposed to look poor. I appreciated the charm of the 4-bit visuals more than the later two.
Bit Boy!! has some small charms when it comes to music, but overall what one hears will be generic and unmemorable. The 8-bit and 16-bit eras again have a slight edge over the later eras, but overall the whole game has music that no one will remember after they play the game. The voice that says “Kubi” at the start of each level can be annoying after hearing it the first five or so times. The sound effects are okay at first and give memories of playing Pac Man or an original NES title, but they don’t evolve with the different eras.
Video games have changed over the years to include more multiplayer options or online leaderboards. Bit Boy!! does have a simultaneous two player option, which is a positive. But the lack of an online leaderboard hurts this title tremendously. If Bplus wants to give Bit Boy!! players the mentality that the high score matters, an online leaderboard has to be there. Otherwise there aren’t enough incentives to continue on with this title after the Classic Mode is completed.
The idea for Bit Boy!! has uniqueness, but there isn’t enough depth to it. There aren’t many games out there where one looks at pixilated 4-bit monsters one minute and rendered monsters about an hour later. The uniqueness stops there. One gets left with the feeling there could have been more, considering that 600 points will get a more solid retro style arcade game in Bubble Bobble Plus. Most of the classic NES titles in VC are more interesting than this. Do not be taken in by the unique concept, Bit Boy!! has all the makings of a title that should be avoided.
