Bit Trip Runner (WiiWare)

[shake_zula]

This game came out in Europe yesterday and is out in America on Monday. It's awesome :] I posted some first impressions on the Nintendo Life forums so I'll just paste that here as it sums up how I feel so far

I just got Runner this morning, it's amazing. I can't say yet whether or not it's better than Beat (and I haven't played the other two) but it's amazing. There's a unique retro bonus level after each regular level so it's like twice the content I was expecting

It's definitely less frustrating than Beat because the automatic respawn mechanic is so smooth and quick, you're literally playing again within like a second of dying. This is probably all old news to people who've been watching trailers and reading the interviews or whatever but I avoided most of the preview stuff

On the other hand it's not quite as satisfying as Beat because it feels just like a normal game (albeit hard), whereas Beat felt like one big f*** you from start to finish. When I nailed the harder parts of Growth and Descent I felt like a machine, I dunno if I'll get that in the later stages of this since it's just a platformer, and I've beaten tough platformers before, you know?

It's still satisfying to nail the sequences in Runner though 'cause the gameplay is so smooth, there's nothing frustrating about the controls at all. They've just got it tuned perfectly, stuff like you don't have to release slide if you want to jump, and if you want to do a jump-kick you can press 2 then 1, or 1 then 2, or 1 and 2 simultaneously... It doesn't sound like a big deal but a game can easily be made so frustrating by ignoring these little touches

The only negative is that there's still no online leaderboards, although bear in mind I've only played through the first of the three worlds so far

Anyone else got this yet?

[guigui]

I played this yesterday too. I also played A LOT of BEAT, CORE and VOID. I must say that, at the moment, it seems to me that RUNNER looks great and plays great ... up to a certain point.

Here is the biggest complain I have against this game (so far) : is it rythm based, or is it not ??

I mean, world 1 plays on a 4-4 measure, ok. First obstacle you encounter do kill you on the first time of a measure. So, in order to avoid it I have multiple choices :
1) Tap jump on the fourth time of the precedent measure
2) Tap and hold jump on the fourth time of the precedent measure
3) Tap jump on the eighth quaver (eight note) of the precedent measure
Etc...
Solution 1) does not work, you fall on the obstacle. Solution 2) is the more consistent, solution 3) is risky since timing is tight. Well, up to here game is still playable.

Now come those 4 steps stairs that we have to climb. And here, hell begins ! Each step corresponds to one time of the measure. Consequently, one might think of jumping on the odd-numbered quaver (against the time) to climb, but it just does not work. Indeed, the regular jump lets you float in the air a bit more or less than a quaver and you (well, I) cant time properly the next jump.
To sum this up : I cant climb the stairs in a musical-based way. This is REALLY annoying. CORE was rythm based, ala guitar hero, push the right direction, tap the button in rythm, it was perfect.

Sorry for the long post ! If anyone understands what I try to explain with my limited musical notions and has a solution to offer in order to climb those stairs in a rythm-based way, it would greatly improves my enjoyment of the game.

[shake_zula]

I get what you mean, but to be honest I haven't really approached the game with rhythm in mind. In the really simple bits I notice that I'm pressing buttons in time with the music, but in the difficult bits I completely forget about the rhythm and just try to time each action individually. I have noticed that the four-steps parts are weird though, like I'll hit each step in a slightly different place

[guigui]

I get what you mean, but to be honest I haven't really approached the game with rhythm in mind. rip.
In the really simple bits I notice that I'm pressing buttons in time with the music, but in the difficult bits I completely forget about the rhythm and just try to time each action individually. I have noticed that the four-steps parts are weird though, like I'll hit each step in a slightly different place

Oh Jesus, I just refuse to believe that those guys at Gaijin just made a rhythm-based game where you have to make action somewhere/times NOT according to the rhythm. This is just impossible regarding how good were the three previous Bit.

I'll play it some more though, just to see...

[msm]

This is ace! i'm near the end and have not really been playing it as a rhythm action game at all, although sometimes the rhythm is helpful i've been relying on the visuals a lot more, think it's more of a platform/memorisation game. i didn't play the others much though, only played beat a bit. enjoying this more than beat, maybe because of the more bite size levels. also the menu music rules.

[guigui]

This is ace! i'm near the end and have not really been playing it as a rhythm action game at all, although sometimes the rhythm is helpful i've been relying on the visuals a lot more, think it's more of a platform/memorisation game.

Definitely impossible to me, sorry

[shake_zula]

I've just finished it. 3-10 and 3-11 (the last two non-boss levels) together literally took me longer to beat than the previous 33 levels combined. I have made a simple graph to illustrate the unique and innovative difficulty curve employed in this game:



I actually drew that while I was stuck on 3-11, the last boss is a dramatic drop in difficulty after those two levels, I finished it off in about 15 minutes