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dkirschner's Bit.Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (PC)

[January 3, 2014 07:00:02 PM]

I am really bummed out about this one. I know it garnered much praise from media and fans alike, but it's just...blah. Why is that? What did I expect?

I expected a MUSIC platformer. This is a platformer with music. That is, the music takes a back seat to the running. I thought that as you ran through the levels, you would fall in time with the rhythm and harmony of the music, that your actions would produce interesting variations in the tempo or other aspects of the track.

But none of this was really the case. What happens is that you run...it's an endless runner game...and you have to dodge various obstacles with various moves. You can jump, slide, kick, slide-kick, jump-kick, block, hang, bounce on trampoline pads and some other stuff. Each time you jump over or block or do whatever to an obstacle or trampoline pad, a note sounds. The note sounds nice in the current music track, but it hardly enhances it. The track sounds fine without the note, or the melody if you string a bunch of jumps or blocks together. The additional melodies aren't that exciting. Hell, the music tracks themselves I found quite boring. I played through 2/6 worlds. I don't even remember the first world, but it was just like elevator music to me. The second world had a beachy feel and there were some steel drums and whatnot. The third world was a forest and also sounded like elevator music to me. Each level in a given world sounds very very similar, which added to my boredom.

There is some neat stuff, sure. It's easy to get into a sort of flow state when you're doing well. It's very pleasant to look at. I enjoy that there are 3 difficulty levels (easy is much easier than normal; hard is much harder!), lots of unlockable characters and costumes, lots of levels for replayability if you are so inclined.

It's just that I wanted a game that was more focused on the music. Perhaps that was my fault for misconceiving the premise. Music games that I've absolutely loved include Child of Eden and Beat Hazard. Audiosurf gets an honorable mention too. With Beat Hazard and Audiosurf, I like that you get to choose your own music and the game responds to the music. Then you respond to the game as the game changes. The game doesn't change according to music in bit.trip. The game just is. You respond to the game and incidentally add a harmony to the track. It's just very lackluster.