Bit.Trip Void Review: Into The Darkness

“Retro” video games are just about on the verge of becoming a marketing tool, instead of an artistic choice, where games are crafted to sell specifically to certain audience’s tastes, instead of developers making interesting games. Fortunately, we aren’t there just yet, as 8-bit graphics and chiptunes are still a hard sell to a lot of gamers out there. However, the relatively new “Bit.Trip” franchise that just released its third game this year that should be at the forefront of changing gamers’ minds about retro style. The most recent release “Bit.Trip Void” continues to proves what many old school gamers already knew; that you don’t need to have realistic gameplay to be fun.

In “Bit.Trip Void” you continue the adventures of Commander Video, and, although it’s never really explicitly explained how or why he is the main character, this time around it looks like he needs to fill a giant black void. You control a large pixelesque void with the nunchuck or the classic controller, and you guide it around the screen collecting as many black dots as possible, and avoiding all of the white dots. As you touch the black dots, you absorb them, and the void you are controlling becomes larger and larger, making it harder and harder to avoid the white dots on the screen (that’s where the strategy comes in). You have the option to defuse your void, and relieve yourself of all of the dots that you have collected, and reduce yourself back down to your original size, but it influences how many points you are accumulating, and how much your bonus is worth. The longer you stay big, the more points you get to bank.

While it is most definitely its own game, “Void” pulls some pixel collecting gameplay inspiration from Nintendo’s (best) bit Generations/Art Style title “Orbital”/”Orbient” where you float around space collecting planets, and increasing your size. However, those games have the player dealing with outside control issues, namely gravity, whereas “Bit.Trip Void” is a much more straight forward collecting and avoiding game.

As confusing as the above description may sound, the game plays extremely smoothly, which is a testament to what can be accomplished if you blend retro style with modern day technology. This being the third game in the series, the developers are honing their craft, and some of the design challenges in the previous two “Bit.Trip” games are starting to be distant memories. While the game is just as insanely difficult as its predecessors, “Void” at least offers midlevel checkpoints. The boss battles are still included, but only appear at the end of each set of three levels, and serve as a great way to break up each level’s gameplay.

There is one other thing that keeps getting better in these games; the music. While the original chptunes in “Bit.Trip Core” sounded great, Gaijin games reached out to one of the most accomplished musicians on the scene, Nullsleep, to craft songs for this game. And the soundtrack does not fail to impress. Once again, how well you play the game influences how good the game looks and sounds, and, the music alone is almost enough of a reward to make sure that you don’t miss any of those black dots as they fly by.

And then there’s the co-op. Much like “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” “Void” can be an entirely different experience when you add in three other players. It can become both infuriating and rewarding, but not so much so that it isn’t worth giving a shot – in fact, the “Bit.Trip” games are some of the best multiplayer experiences available on WiiWare.

“Bit.Trip Void” is the third WiiWare game released in the simplistically styled “Bit.Trip” series from Gaijin Games, and, much like its predecessors, it succeeds at exactly what it’s trying to do. It’s a very basic, simple, and extremely challenging game that will drive most players mad with frustration… in a good way. The “Bit.Trip” series is very quickly becoming one of the best values on Nintendo’s WiiWare service, and all three games are must purchases for anyone that likes their retro styled games with a heaping helping of challenge.

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“Bit.Trip Void” was developed by Gaijin Games and published by Aksys Games for the Nintendo Wii via WiiWare on November 23, 2009.

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