@Od Hey, I agreed with you! And came up with part of the theory (though not the Earth part).

EDIT: Nevermind, just realized you were talking about your avatars.

so i got past the final boss, went through the 'return to the planet' part, wound up triggering the Game Over by setting the wiimote aside because i was frustrated at the blank screen in front of me and was out of ideas (perhaps to confirm the fact that you must set the wiimote aside, besides the home button, none of the other buttons do anything except minus, which pauses the game as if you're still playing), but the credits didn't roll — the words 'bit.trip flux' rolled up the screen, and then it returned to the title screen. did i do something wrong to not trigger the credits? i'll watch 'em from the title screen real quick before i head out to job#2 here in a few.

i don't quite get it at this point, but i think overall i'm happy with Flux. except for that cheap 'going backwards' part during the second boss, the 'avoid' bits were a fun obstacle. i liked the added challenge of trying to get the 'bonus' bits, and it just felt good to come home to where it all started: Beat-style gameplay. i'm so glad i didn't spoil myself on the music, either, but i was sorely tempted yesterday when i saw it available on iTunes... will definitely be purchasing that later today, haha.

i'll also try out the whole 'don't hit any beats during the end sequence' thing and see what happens when i get home from work tonight. i gotta try it at least once, even though that end boss was a b*tch and a half. i also kinda want to try pointing the wiimote at the screen, i don't think i tried that either. i totally suck at Pong, though.

@tbd Is there any chance you accidentally hit a button right before the credits would've started, because I'm pretty sure that skips them. Other than that, I don't know why that happened, because that's certainly not much of an "alternative ending," lol.

@SMF96: i wasn't trying to call it an alternative ending, i was just saying it happened, lol. i might have accidentally hit a button in my confusion, who knows. :3

In the third cutscene, the shapes rearrange themselves around CV to look like a person (Big circle is his head, triangles his feet and so on).

Oh, and it seems to me that the very last constellation before the screen goes white is a womb...

I think all the constellations were from the zodiac. I definitely recognized most of them.

I twice unsuccessfully attempted to miss all the constellation beats and whatnot. I did miss ALMOST all of them both times however, and nothing different happened, though I did finally see the whole "put down the remote" thing.

@TBD Just realized that BIT.TRIP FLUX rolls across the screen right before the credits start and hitting a button at any time during this brings you back to the title screen. So yes, it's highly likely you hit a button. :3

@SMF96: when i get home, i'm going to try putting the wiimote down as soon as i beat the final boss and seeing if anything happens differently (provided it shuts off in time, lol). or i guess i could take the batteries out and see what that does...

@TBD Hmm, that's an interesting idea! Honestly at this point I don't think there's a different ending, but hey, that doesn't mean we can't keep trying.

exactly, haha. that nagging 'what if' will bother me if i don't try, anyway :3

edit: okay, two things:

(a) not hitting any of the beats changes nothing in terms of the ending sequence or its outcome
(b) (and i should've realized this earlier, duh i'm a moron) it has nothing to do with the wiimote disconnecting and everything to do with holding still. leaving the wiimote alone at the end for about 5-10 seconds was long enough to trigger the Game Over.

i accidentally triggered the real ending before i got the chance to try not moving the wiimote at all from the beginning of the end sequence (to see if it terminated earlier, perhaps), so i'll need to try that next. blarg, i hate that end boss so much

i did try writing down the sequence of numbers that flashes across the screen in the beginning of the end sequence, but it's either gibberish or i wrote it down wrong (most likely the latter, haha). when i try it again i'll see if i can't make sure i wrote it down correctly.

An impostor posted in this thread for me before. I am here to tell you that I have beaten the final Trip tonight, in case any of you foolishly doubted my manliness. I wasn't particularly amazed by the super easy last boss or the ending, though the putting the controller down thing is a neat idea.

I actually found the avoid beats pretty annoying, though a great idea. Maybe I'm just terrible — an idea I'm not quite ready to disregard — but it seems like you have to be pixel perfect to get through the gaps between them sometimes, or at least so precise that, given the short time you have to react, it might as well be pixel perfect. If not for the avoid beats, I probably wouldn't have spent half the game in Nether, and it's really hard to enjoy a Bit Trip game in Nether.

For that reason, this is sadly my least favorite Trip, though still a good game in its own right. Can't wait to see what these madmen cook up on 3DS.

@TBD Wait, are you saying that by putting down the controller RIGHT after you beat the boss, you caused game over to appear without going to the part with all the constellation beats and whatnot? I never even thought to try that...

@SMF96: no, what i was trying to say was that during my tests (because if you hit 'resume' during the end sequence, you'll start from the beginning of that sequence, not all the way from the beginning of Catharsis entirely; i'd restarted the end sequence multiple times for the hell of it), i accidentally triggered the real ending (once you're in the white screen, leave the wiimote still for 5-10 seconds) before i had the chance to hit pause and restart the sequence for the one last run-through (which wouldn't involve moving the wiimote at all during the end sequence). that's the last thing i have to try before i'll be satisfied [read: out of ideas, haha]. :3

either way, doing what you're describing wouldn't happen, because you go to the scoring screen before you go to the end sequence, and you have to press 2 to get past it. sitting there and not pressing anything does nothing, lol :3

@TBD Oh ok I understand lol.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-bit-trip-flux-195499.phtml

Still waiting on those "retrospectives" or whatever Corbie promised....

all right, curiosity satisfied — i didn't touch the wiimote throughout the entire end sequence. the final ending did trigger much more quickly than when i played through and then set it aside — i could hear it trigger right after the screen went totally white — but then all of a sudden the wiimote connection timed out and the 'connection lost, press any button' screen came up just in time to halt the ending, haha. that was kinda funny, i thought :3

also, when the 'game over' screen is up, it doesn't matter whether the wiimote is connected or not. i briefly pondered leaving it alone for a while and seeing what happened, but then i figured that it was time for me to really let go and do something else, haha. so i'm done with the ending (and that freakin' end boss, holy crap i hate that thing). i'm'a go back to the first two levels for a while :3

Guys, I swear that there is a word flickering on the boss in the first level in Meta mode. I have no idea what the hell it says. It flickers every time I hit it. (the boss)

Is that Icon what I think it is, Starcross?

So I beat the game (my first time beating a game in the series, actually, next will be runner, beat and then core), and my first time beating it I set down the controller immediately after the boss. I watched the ending with my friends, leaving the controller on my wooden desk. Hearing the sound of that heartbeat was chilling.

@wander Yup it is. I started it and Starcross followed suit.