In this show we exchange views on Gaijin’s BIT. TRIP series.
Leon, Joshua and Darren join Commander Video on his “journey of the soul” with this in-depth look at every one of the six games in Gaijin’s BIT.TRIP series. All retro style over substance or inspired expression of pure gameplay? Furthermore, why are they all so damn hard?! Featuring as well of course some of the fantastic chip-tunes from the games.
Music used in this issue:
1: Transition by Petrified Productions
2: Control by Petrified Productions
3: Id by Petrified Productions
4: Impetus by Petrified Productions
5: Patience by Petrified Productions
6: Epiphany by Petrified Productions
Cane and Rinse 27 was edited by Sean O’Brien
Do you have an opinion about this particular game or maybe about our podcast in general? Then why not venture into our forum and leave us your feedback. Whilst there you could also interact with our ever-growing and friendly community, in discussing past, present and future videogames (and lots of other stuff too!) and perhaps even arrange some games with like-minded individuals. Sound good? Come and say hello at The Cane and Rinse forum
Darren plays a bit of BIT.TRIP RUNNER from Gaijin Games. PC version shown:
Did Gaijin Games excel themselves with Commander Video’s latest escapade, BIT.TRIP Presents… Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien?:
If you like these Quick Rinse videos you can find many more (plus a few other bits and bobs) over on the Official Cane and Rinse YouTube channel.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:38:22 — 90.1MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
I myself have no interest in BIT.TRIP.SELF-FLAGELLATION.
Listening to some great music is the most I’ll ever get out of this series.
Hearing music from the game thats being discussed each week is great. It really up’s the mood, memory and listener involvement.
Thanks for the feedback, tom (belatedly, my bad). Music is an important part of gaming and we like to reflect that in the podcast. It also helps evoke the atmosphere of the game too of course.
Too bad I discovered these podcasts this late… otherwise it’s likely that I would have written a near dissertation on my somewhat limited experience with three games of the BIT.TRIP series: BEAT, CORE, & RUNNER.
At the best of times, I’d rate my gaming skills as average. Unlike the experiences of the show’s participants, however, I found the difficulty quite a bit lower than advertised here. RUNNER took the most time to complete with about four hours clocked, whereas I played through the entirety of CORE on my very first attempt (admittedly very awkwardly with a few visits to the nether on the third song).
I’d venture to say that there’s a good measure of testing the player’s reactions in these games, but I agree completely that memorization through repeated attempts can improve one’s play dramatically. In that regard, I wish someone on your team had had more time — or dare I say, patience — to persevere with each of these games and to test your limits instead of your frustrations.
…That’s a statement from a biased perspective, as I look back fondly upon repeated playthroughs of Battletoads in my youth. I recall dying and restarting that game on a ludicriously high frequency, and yet I look back upon it as a pleasurable experience as I found it rewarding to make even the smallest iota of progression into new, more difficult content. This is an example of a game where overcoming a game’s difficulty is more to do with memorization and familiarity than pure skill or reflex, and maybe it’s why I enjoy the BIT.TRIP games as much as I do.
Perhaps our disparate viewpoints on the challenge is due to the control schemes we used. You three played on the Wii; my game time was through Steam on the PC. I can only imagine how imprecise the Wiimote may feel on such a delicate game as BEAT compared to smooth mouse motions. Inversely, I feel like I strugged with RUNNER and CORE with only a keyboard where having a controller would have tightened up my own responsiveness. It’s too bad no one tried any version of these games on anything beyond the Wii, as it may have had an impact on your overall experience.
Regardless, I’m glad this podcast exists. Maybe you didn’t get to see and/or hear everything these games had to offer (particularly how most of the boss battles across all the games resemble other iconic games), but it pleases me that you will venture outside the realm of what’s mainstream, triple-A or indie alike, and shine a spotlight on niche titles like BIT.TRIP. Thank you for standing out among the crowd, and good luck with your future endeavors!
Note: To all those who wish to see these great games in action and to hear all the excellent music they contain, there’s a wonderful series made by AmbisagrusSA on youtube. If you have the time to sit back and watch, I’d recommend it heartily. There’s also plenty of “perfect” runs across all the games; I suggest anything from either BEAT or FLUX as they are incredibly difficult to accomplish.
Thanks for the excellent post ReadMenace. I’d say that Josh and I are both competent to decent gamesplayers and Darren G is probably better than either of us, and time and patience certainly played their part in our experiences with the BIT.TRIP series. Alex Neuse and the rest of Gaijin listened to and enjoyed the show and I’d like to think we had at least a tiny influence on the inclusion of checkpoints and so on in Runner 2. Though tellingly of course they had already added easy modes to the disc release for the Wii. As a gamer of long standing, as someone who got all 96 exits in Super Mario World and all 242 stars in Super Mario Galaxy, not to mention a massive fan of notoriously brutal arcade games like Robotron 2084 and Defender I stand by my assertion that these games are tough – perhaps too tough for a lot of people to enjoy. I still think the series is a great thing though.