Demo Review 48: BIT.TRIP FATE

At last, the final BIT.TRIP game! It was about time! This one tells us to use either the Classic controller, or the Wii remote with Nunchuk. Once again, we get an intro that makes no sense – and only makes a little bit more sense if you’ve discovered the order in which these games are supposed to be played – and then we’re tossed into the game.

This is a rail shooter mixed with a horizontal shoot’em up. The character, always the same pixelly guy with no features, follows a line on the screen as enemies come towards him. The tough part is that this guy cannot move away from the line, and said line has ups and downs, so you need to steer him (by moving the Nunchuk’s analog stick right to go forwards, or left to go backwards – all while pressing A to shoot). This is important to avoid the bullets, as even though the character’s weakness window is small (the heart), it’s still very easy to get hit there due to the bumps on the line the character follows.

The demo was pretty long, and went through at least two levels (I lost during the second level). The first level was already pretty tough, with the dozens of bullets that some enemies would shoot, bullets which were not always simple to avoid due to the line followed by Pixel Man. The game also includes power-ups in the form of Pixel Dude’s allies (some which are their separate video game characters, such as Meat Boy). Last but not least, the first level ended with a boss fight against a giant version of a previous enemy. It was pretty strong, but I managed to defeat it.

All in all, I consider this one of the stronger BIT.TRIP games. The art is more complex than in other parts of the series, though not to the extent of BIT.TRIP RUNNER, and the music is pretty good. The game offers quite a challenge, too, though it’s not nearly a rain of bullets as other shoot ‘em ups might be (and that’s understandable, as the main character here doesn’t have all the freedom of movement that regular shoot ‘em up characters have). It wasn’t nearly as frustrating as some of the other, more abstract BIT.TRIP games were. I’d say the enemies take too many hits before being defeated, however. Also, it’s not made clear from the start that the character is only hurt when struck to the heart (though, silly me, I should have known about the hitbox).

All in all, an okay game. Probably not enough to encourage me to buy any of the BIT.TRIP games, but at least it ends my look at the six-part series on a higher note. Go try the demo!