Bit Trip Runner Review

 

A Commanding Classic-A Bit. Trip Runner Review

For this week's review I decided to take a little trip back in time and review one of the earliest indie titles to gain mass appeal and gain multiple spinoffs and sequels (BTR itself is the fourth game in the bit trip series). I hope that going back in time here will help with gaining a perspective on how the indie scene has evolved and grown over the years. 

Dashingly Distinct

The first thing I noticed in replaying BTR is just how distinct its stylistic choices were. Remembering that it existed in a market before the oversaturation of pixel art games made me realize just how new it was at the time. 

BTR, like many of my favorite games, is very simple in its mechanics, and uses the environments they throw you into to enhance the difficulty. In essence, you'll only be jumping, sliding, blocking, and kicking around obstacles in this 2D runner, yet the rhythm and scale of said obstacles keeps things fresh. There is a unique Zen-like mastery of the skills at hand that sort of put you in a trance playing BTR. There was many a time I found myself  wholly immersed in the simple gameplay beating half the game in a single session. In addition to dodging obstacles, you can choose to collect optional gold bars and red plus signs to try to perfect each level. Collecting all the plus signs makes commander video run with a rainbow trail behind him, a reminder of how close you are to the end of the level and a boost of reward for collecting all the plus signs. BTR is a reminder of how refining game design down to its most simple aspects keeps the experience fun. 

Another point of note is the music, which is dynamically generated around your actions in any given level. For example, picking up gold, jumping, sliding, and kicking will all generate music notes and essentially create the music of the level. In some of the later stages you'll find yourself harmonically blasting out symphonies as the difficulty cranks up. Surprisingly, to this day I have yet to find another game outside this series that has done a similar thing to BTR. 

A Dash Aged

Bit Trip Runner would have been in the upper shelf of video games I reviewed had it not been for those fated final three levels. To me, I feel BTR suffers from one of the most silly difficulty curves I have ever experienced. To put it in perspective, it took me around 30-45 minutes to get through all the levels before the final three, and 2.5 hours to finish the last three. And, looking at the steam achievement data, this is a similar statement among the majority of players as only 5% managed to even beat the third to last level (only 3% beat the game). It left a sad note at the end of what was overwhelmingly an enjoyable experience, but I can't say it wasn't bad overall. These issues did lead to an incredible sequel in Runner 2, which I found to be a near perfect experience. 

Verdict

Bit Trip Runner is a great example of simple mechanics, and, with the exception of a few levels, is a delight of a game. It was extremely fun to see how Choice Provisions took what they learned from this game and used it to make some truly incredible experiences in the future. In all, it may not be perfect, but it sure is a keystone in indie history.

8.5/10-An Indie Classic