Topic: Bit.Trip Runner First Impressions

It's a great game, but it's not my favourite of the bit.trips. It just gets a bit repetitive at times, and then every time you make one mistake you have to go back to the beginning and repeat going through the same repeating stuff. As much as we complained about the old bit.trips making you totally restart the level every time you died, at least you got to play for a while and feel like the game had some flow to it rather than just losing the same section over and over again every 30 seconds. It is really cool though how many different moves they managed to give Commander Video.

Lol, did anyone else find themselves just instinctively holding right when you first started the game? Old habits die hard.

Ok, so I just finished the boss. Or at least that's what I think because I see the credits rolling as we speak. Where the hell is the last boss? This is a big let down.

Best WiiWare game I've played to date. Loving it!

Seriously, this is going to be my favorite in the series. Only got to play midway through word 1 so far, but it seems like every concern I've ever had with the series has been addressed, and they've given us so much awesome new stuff taboot.

Definitely a must-download. I am adoring this.

I'm loving it so far too, cleared World 1 and the first half of World 2 I collected all the gold coins in every level so far except 1-11, but I haven't been able to perfect any of the bonus stages. Is there any way to access them without having to play the entire level first?

Yeah this is my main issue, the last levels are far too long and there'll only be like two or three points that are challenging, so each time you restart you have to play through 60 seconds of filler, die at the same bit, restart etc. It didn't feel as dull in Beat because the control scheme was so original it was fun to go through it all again, but since Runner is basically just a platformer it gets old quicker.

No :/ it's irritating. I've perfected the first three bonus stages so far (EU here so I've had the game since Friday), but since the early levels are so short they're easy to access. I suspect playing through some of the Zone 3 levels over and over just to get to the bonus stages will be v. annoying!

Anyway sorry to make a negative post because it's an awesome game, but all the good things have already been said :] I give it 4/5

Hot damn this is way more frustrating than ever before. So unforgiving.

Going back to the beginning for every little mistake is really annoying. I can't believe this is the best possible way of managing risk and reward. Having to constantly redo the easy first half of a level just to retry the same one jump over and over is pointless.

Pretty fun otherwise.

I agree, having to restart is really getting annoying. Like shake said, there are some long areas where there's no challenge or excitement. They should have balanced it better.

I seriously spent nearly an hour on Odyssey (last level before the first boss) before I managed to beat it.

I just beat the game, I think the first boss was actually tougher than the last one, although maybe that's because the last boss came immediately after 3-11 and brain surgery would probably have seemed simple at that point

Here's a graph I made while I was stuck on 3-11, illustrating the unique and innovative difficulty curve employed in Bit.Trip Runner:

3-10 and 3-11 together literally took me longer to beat than the other 34 levels combined. No joke.

Really what boss? I don't have a boss in world 3. It's just me running on a roof and that's it.

BTW, I thought 3-11 was fairly simple, 3-10 was the level I spend the most time on. An entire Sunday and a bit of a Saturday night.

Yeah the Zone 3 boss was sort of disappointing I guess, but to be honest I was happy with it, I didn't want another challenge like 3-10 or 3-11!

3-10 was horrible. HORRIBLE

Singling this out, as a few folks (though I think it's safe to say we are all responding positively to the game overall!) are having exact opposite reactions to me in a few areas!

Especially this...I was about to post about how forgiving I thought the game was! You can often get away with doing the "wrong" thing without consequence. A lucky jump might end up clearing two smaller pits...or accidentally kicking or sliding when you didn't need to...it doesn't necessarily result in death. And in the absence of a multiplier the likes of which the earlier titles in the series have known, you don't have a negative consequence on your score for a misfire.

Also, the whole going back to the beginning thing...I love it. I really do. The song doesn't get interrupted (though it does get stripped back to where it was at the level's beginning...which often works musically), and it ensures that you're never beating a level by the skin of your teeth. (In all three of the previous releases, I've often ended up beating a level while in Nether mode...which is frustrating even though I won!)

Also, I like being warped back to the beginning, because when you are going for 100% gold, you don't need to play through the rest of the level, or go back to the title screen and back in again when you miss one. You just run into a wall and try it again.

I'm not saying anyone is out of line for feeling this is unfair...but I think it's a brilliant solution to a few problems I've had with the series in the past. I absolutely love this game.

I. Absolutely. Love. This game.

My issue is that it just absolutely demands perfection. Past Bit.Trips were hard, yeah, but missing one little beat wouldn't send you back to the beginning to replay the same minute and a half of easy-peasy over and over until the one part comes where things are either difficult to distinguish from the background (so far especially in world 2) or you make some stupid mistake.

I spent an hour on the first boss fight and stopped having fun halfway through that time. I finally got through, but man I feel like there are some balancing issues with regards to difficulty.

EDIT: Aight, I just beat the second boss and that was nowhere near as difficult as the first one. It was a seriously cool battle, but to me it only strengthened the balance issues.

No, I understand what you guys mean. And I respect that; I can see easily why that would frustrate someone. I guess with the other games (Void excepted) I was always reaching for perfection anyway. (Not that I ever got there...) Being booted back to the beginning for another chance at finishing strong is actually preferable, to me, than limping through the finish line.

What's that they say? It's better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees. My Bit.Trip: Runner motto.

But yeah, I see exactly where you're coming from. But with the stages so short, it's not really hitting me as a problem. I'm loving it. Ask me again toward the end of World 3 and I may well be singing a different tune, though.

I complained about the going-back-thing when I was on levels 1-10 through 1-Boss. In hindsight, I don't think anyone should be allowed to opine about the game at that juncture. It's brilliant after, and I love world 3's music! Sometimes I intentionally miss the beats that change the music because I love how it starts off. I think it's like Core in that the game play is wonderful, but the difficulty curve is kind of out of wack. The last levels of World 1 were just not fun, and then World 2 returns where level 1-8 or 1-9 left off (it's hard to keep track of the numbers when you don't go back to the menu).

I can't wait to see the teaser for the next game after the credits. I remember seeing Commander Video run after Void and I felt like I should stand up and clap.

Also, I was worried the musicless Pitfall levels would break up the pace. They don't. In fact, I'm so damn pleased with myself when I actually do get to one that I can't complain about anything. It's not like I live long in any of them, anyway.

This, only I stopped having fun about a quarter through the boss. I finally beat it, though. World 2 is really hard on my eyes. Is Gaijin trying to screw our eyesight or are they just unable to create a non-blinding color-scheme? The moving objects in the background are far too distracting and are often the same color as the foreground objects, which makes it way more difficult than it should be.

Has anyone managed to collect all the gold coins in level 3-1? There are a few parts where you have to jump onto a trampoline immediately after sliding under a bar to reach a gold coin, and there doesn't seem to be any margin for error AT ALL. Like, you have to stop sliding and then jump at EXACTLY the right frame if you want to land on the trampoline. I can't recall ever playing a rhythm game where the timing was that unforgiving. You don't need all the gold coins to advance, but I'm kind of a completionist so not being able to get all of the coins on one of the levels really irks me.

I got all the gold in all the levels. So there are blinking exclamation marks in all three zones. I'm in doubt about collecting perfects (two exclamation marks). I hate the bonus stages.

Just saw it. After the credits, Commander Video meets Kubi and they go back in time to rescue his friends. Also, the gameplay suddenly becomes boring and horrible.