Review: The Bit.Trip

SERIES.COMPLETE

The Bit.Trip series holds a special place in my heart. With a wonderful blend of rhythm-based mechanics and arcade-style gameplay spanning various genres, the games are easy to pick up, quick to fall in love with, and yet incredibly difficult to master.

This compilation, aptly titled The Bit.Trip, marks the series’ very first appearance on PlayStation consoles, featuring all six games in one neat little bundle. And thankfully, they play just as great on PlayStation as they did on the Wii all those years back.

The Bit.Trip (PS4 [reviewed], PS Vita, PS3)
Developer: Choice Provisions
Publisher: Choice Provisions
MSRP: $9.99 (Cross-Buy)
Released: December 5, 2015 (PS4, PS Vita), TBA (PS3)

The Bit.Trip is a collection of all six games in the Bit.Trip series which were originally released on WiiWare, similar to Bit.Trip Complete for Wii and Bit.Trip Saga for 3DS from a few years ago. It may have a different name than the other compilations, but it’s largely the same aside from the controls, menus, and a few extras.

The Bit.Trip differs in that it offers Trophies and leaderboards, which already existed for the PC versions of the games, but not for the Wii and 3DS versions. However, it’s lacking all of the bonus content and extra challenge levels introduced in Bit.Trip Complete. Those extras would have been a nice addition here as a way to entice people who have already played some of the games before, but as it stands, it’s basically just a straightforward compilation.

Even so, the Bit.Trip games still hold up incredibly well, and the price is perfect for anyone looking to experience them again (or for the first time). All six games can be accessed from the slick main menu, featuring some neat concept art whenever a title is selected. Each game also allows the player to choose between Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulty settings, which is nice because the Bit.Trip games can be quite difficult, even on Easy!

For those who haven’t played Bit.Trip before, the series spans several different genres with an emphasis on rhythm-based gameplay, all held together with similar themes to tell the story of the life and death of Commander Video. Bit.Trip Beat and Bit.Trip Flux are very Pong-like in nature, requiring the player to move a paddle up and down to bounce incoming beats back to the rhythm. Bit.Trip Runner switches things up as a rhythmic auto-running platformer, while Bit.Trip Fate takes the series in another drastically different direction as a musical on-rails shooter.

Bit.Trip Core and Bit.Trip Void are a bit harder to describe, but they both offer gameplay that is completely unique to the series. Core gives players control of an X and Y axis which can zap any beats that pass over them, while Void has players controlling an ever-expanding black hole which must consume other black shapes while avoiding white ones. Void is actually my personal favorite of the series, simply because I’ve never played anything else quite like it.

The biggest difference for the PlayStation versions of these games is of course going to be the controls. I found playing with the Dualshock 4 to be quite comfortable and intuitive, easily on par with the Wii controls. Both Core and Void let the player choose between the left analog stick or the d-pad for movement. I found the analog stick to be preferable in most situations, although the d-pad was useful for a certain boss in Void which requires precision movements, and some players will probably prefer to use the d-pad to play Core (I found it to be a little uncomfortable after a while). Fate uses both analog sticks — one for movement and one for aiming and shooting — and it felt perfect. The controls for Runner are about what you’d expect, since it only requires simple button inputs. It would be kind of hard to mess those up.

As for Beat and Flux, the controls work similarly to the Wii Remote in that you simply have to tilt the Dualshock 4 forward and back to move the paddle. It seemed to really pick up on my hands shaking though, which caused the paddle to sort of vibrate slightly up and down all the time. This made it feel as though I didn’t have as much control over the paddle as I would have like, but it wasn’t too much of a deal-breaker for me since I wasn’t going for high scores or anything. However, it did make the final boss of Beat especially difficult since it’s easier to win by hitting the beats back with the very tip of the paddle. I kept missing even the slow-moving beats by the slightest degree, most likely because of the vibrations.

Finally, for players interested in leaderboards, they’ll be happy to know that each game has separate leaderboards for every individual level, divided between the three difficulty settings. These can be accessed directly from the main menu or individually from the menus of the specific games.

While The Bit.Trip could have been made marginally better with the addition of any kind of bonus content (such as the extra challenges found in Bit.Trip Complete), it’s still a solid compilation of an excellent series of games. Thankfully, they hold up just as well on PlayStation consoles as they did on the Wii. If you still haven’t taken the dive into the rhythmic, arcade-y goodness of Bit.Trip, or if you’ve been looking for a reason to play through it all again, now would be the perfect time to do so.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}