Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

The BIT.TRIP series has always held my interest for what it was ever since the first game released: A homage to all things gaming, represented in different manners by each passing title as they came out. Initially starting out as brutally difficult arcade experiences to becoming more complicated affairs, every single game has provided their own unique sense of thrill as they came by. No two games were alike, excluding FLUX taking an approach to being surprisingly similar to BEAT. BIT.TRIP finally decided to rerelease the entire package into two different offerings: A total compilation of all the games with tons of extra content on the Wii as COMPLETE, and as a bare bones experience of all the games compiled as a portable take it and play anywhere experience on the 3DS as SAGA. Unfortunately for me, BIT.TRIP SAGA fails to deliver its promise in its buggy little package.

I would actually be lying if I said the entire game suffers from bugs, but probably the most important games you care about are inflicted with these issues. Unless I somehow received a broken copy of the game, this package of excellent games is hampered by technical issues primarily brought about when the 3D slider has been turned on. It's hard to review this package entirely as a whole since each game plays nothing alike, so I'll have to break down each individual game for review as it plays on the system, 3D and 2D alike.

BEAT: This game plays like a reminiscent of Pong, controlling a paddle on the left side of the screen with either the stylus or the circle pad to move around and strike 'beats' that fly over to your side in various forms and formations. The stylus controls work fine so long as you keep it pressed firmly to the screen and at times feels more precise than handling the Wiimote. The circle pad just does not work whatsoever. The level of control for it is way too sensitive with no way of tweaking it, making each tiny move virtually impossible to make for precision, especially in later levels like Growth where precision is absolute. The 3D effects for Transition are very underwhelming and can be very distracting with all the colorful pixel stars floating around, but for later stages like Descent and Growth, the 3D effects look very gorgeous as the backgrounds span back into engrossing environments.(or in the case of Growth, objects popping out in the background) This does come with some graphical issues as the frame rate will drop, though thankfully it's not horribly noticeable and doesn't really bog down the game by too much.

CORE: Unlike BEAT which shares blatant homage to that of Pong, Core takes you on the role of a plus symbol core allowing you to fire in four different directions to take out beats coming from all various directions. The controls are quite simple as you're tasked to handle the directional pad and the A(Fire) and B button(Bomb). The 3D effects of the game look quite beautiful on this game and surprisingly benefits well, despite minor frame rate issues. Also to note, if you move your system around while on the menu, you'll get a neat little Easter egg of the once set roaming background twisting and aiming to your system's gyro functions. The stage Control seems to have the most issues for me no matter what I do. Every time I play the stage, I see part of the background for the main menu displaying, even with functional gyro controls. This however ruins everything about the stage as when I have the 3D effects on, it doesn't just affect frame rate, but also ruins the pacing of the Beats and makes sound effects disappear. This absolutely ruins the stage entirely, and surprised me how this was completely overlooked. At any time the 3D effect is switched on, it ruins the entire structure of the level. Even without turning it on, at one point of the stage you'll lose sound effects for most the duration of the track, making responsiveness to each beat being absent till around the 7th phase. I'm very disappointed to see one of my favorite games to be considered broken.

VOID: To my surprise with this game, I will first throw out that 3D effects actually benefit this game much more than I thought it could have. While there is hardly any merit on what this game could benefit with 3D, the black somehow collides very well with this as it acts as a different plain of its own in 3D to the true background. The gameplay tasks you to using the circle pad and the A button to absorb black beats while avoiding white beats. Aside from some frame rate dips when things get quite hectic, this strange but engrossing game feels fine to play on the system, whether in 3D or no.

RUNNER: I'm certain this will be the go to game of many people that purchase this collection, but there is one thing I must state. 3D RUINS THIS GAME. It is quite unusual to understand this little tidbit considering out of all the games available, RUNNER has the most 3D objects in any of the games in the series. Even the backgrounds for BEAT and CORE look surprisingly good with the 3D switched on, but RUNNER is not just ruined by serious frame rate issues, but also with highly underwhelming 3D effects as the 3D effect seems flat. The background seems like it's off in the distance while the ground you run on appears to be completely flat, your character and the ground appearing in the same plain. It's highly disappointing the 3D effect is so underwhelming considering BIT.TRIP RUNNER could have been the best looking out of all the others. But that isn't the only issue that plagues the popular game on this collection. Even without the 3D on, there will be certain frame rate drops to expect as the game ruins the smooth frame rate that feels absolutely necessary during the most vital moments you need it on. This can be very much difficult to complete Odyssey in World 1 as the frame rate just suddenly spikes downwards at the most demanding moments, making this version much more frustrating than it already is. For the game that's considered the crowd favorite, it just feels like there's nothing but issues with this version of the game even with the graphics dumbed down to try and help that issue.

FATE: Out of all the titles in the BIT.TRIP series, this is probably the most unusual for various reasons. For one, it's a bullet hell shooter. Also to note, it's also quite literally a railed shooter in the literal sense your character has to move around on a set rail that twists and bends along the way. The whole Bullet hell aspect of this game is probably what will divide the audience on this game as the amount of precision asked for in this title might be just absolutely too much for most players to handle. Tasked with using the circle pad and the stylus simultaneously, you travel around the rails as you dodge initial lite fire before the game eventually turns the experience into a dodging for your life with waves of bullets flooding the screen. Each stage comes packed with a boss to fight, who proves to be a difficult affair as you do your best to dodge heavy amounts of fire while simultaneously trying to fight back. The 3D effects aren't very noticeable in this game since the backgrounds are pretty dull, if not just simply a solid black and everything else just doesn't feel like the depth is really necessary. While 3D doesn't ruin this game, it's hardly necessary as you'll feel like it's barely there.

FLUX: The conclusion of the BIT.TRIP SAGA brings the whole experience back to the classic gameplay style of BEAT, though enhances it with many different happenings and the largest and probably most difficult level up gauge to fill up in the series. The 3D effect isn't as spectacular as BEAT's was since most the backgrounds are primarily consistent of abstract backgrounds that adjust to what level you've currently amassed, though for all things considering, the backgrounds still look quite nice with arguably the best music out of the entire series. The gameplay still works well no matter what, even with barely noticeable frame rate drops that occur here and there. Out of the entire series however, FLUX is also the friendliest to the player as there's a checkpoint system for each of the 8 phases the player progresses through in each of the 3 stages. After finishing the entire series up and (hopefully) finishing FLUX for last, you'll be brought to the ultimate conclusion of your adventure, which brings things to a shockingly beautiful revelation of your entire journey.

With the package as a whole, only two of the six games actually suffer from technical issues. The 3D effects start of pretty nice, but for the more complex titles it just seems to not even matter anymore as it only causes issues with the gameplay(RUNNER, Control on CORE) or just doesn't stand out to even matter as much. The series is one that shouldn't be missed, but with the release of COMPLETE and BEAT and RUNNER being released over various other platforms, your best bet is probably just to steer clear of this version in favor for a more stable one. As nice as it is to have a portable version of the entire SAGA in your hands sporting a pair of headphones, nothing can really mask the blemishes of this broken experience that was offered.