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Before jumping into the second half of the series, a mention about the music. The games can be considered “rhythm” games because, even though you can get through them based only on the visuals, hitting the “beats” at the right time makes sounds that fit in correctly with the soundtrack. As a testament to this, falling into the “Nether” mode, which has no background music, is so disorienting that it is even more difficult than usual. The moment you rise above the default “Hyper” level, the instruments of the music change as an additional reward, with each subsequent games adding an additional level (“Mega”, “Super” and “Ultra” for the first three games, respectively).

Similarly, the graphics are both simple with some 3D objects in the background and so on, but with increasing psychedelic effects as you increase from one level to another, penalizing you if you rely more on visuals than the musical aspect.

Well, for the fourth game, Runner, it is essentially an “on-rails” platformer where Commander Video always runs to the right at the same pace, but at key times you must act by jumping, using springs, sliding or breaking objects. This time, rather than having three long levels with a soundtrack of several minutes, you have smaller levels that immediately restart whenever you fail. The result is that instead of feeling penalized more as you make a mistake later in a long level, restarting a short but though level seems reasonable. Also, the soundtrack is looping continuously as you play, so increasing levels (now up to “Extra”) changes the instruments of the various tracks that never exactly play the same thing at the same point in the level, adding variety. Again, the jumping and sliding make instrumental sounds at each successful move, becoming an instrument of its own as in previous game, so using the musical aspect can help you in tougher levels.

I have to highlight how exhilarating Bit.Trip Runner is. The short levels, the amazing “simple 3D” graphics, the soundtracks are lively yet challenging. For such a “limited” game, I’ve never had so much fun. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that if you collect all the gold bars in a level, you can play a short bonus level that mimics Pitfall.

Following that, you have an average “on-rails” shooter in Fate. Like Void the rhythm part isn’t as important, and the music (dubstep) reflects that. It is a more varied gameplay than other games though, with power ups of many kind, and the additional level “Giga” was amazing to see (if you can reach it).

Finally, you have Flux, a mirror of Beat, meaning reversed with your paddle on the right. It takes back elements from all the other games, and it is made to be finished in a single sitting (it took me 2 hours to finish it the first time). It finally adds the level “Meta”, which changes the music to classical instruments. It is nice to have a game that’s not as painfully difficult as the other ones, though there is little value to play it without having played the rest of the series before, given the narrative of the final game.

I’m not saying much about the story because it is so simple I can spoil it easily. Suffice to say, for games without any narration, by the time you get to the last game you will have experienced a whole gamut of emotions. The music is just amazing, fun, dark, poetic, light, and more. You will feel touched by the story of a rectangular bar. And for all the flaws that are in that series, the artistic aspect of it is so well done yet simply told that the gameplay flaws are quickly forgiven.

Overall, Bit.Trip is an experience worth living through.