Review: Bit.Boy

Bit.Boy (WiiWare) Review 8-3-2009

“That game was mostly a joke.”
“Too bad the joke was on us.”

This (short) conversation basically sums up how my friend and I felt about Bit.Boy after playing it. It is a game released on Nintendo's WiiWare service for 600 points ($6).... I want my $6 back.

The premise was cool enough, you are a creature from the 128-bit era (aka, now) and a monster from the 4-bit era uses a time machine to steal all your friends and bring them back with him. You have to go through levels in each generation of gaming to get all your friends back and get back home. There are 5 levels per “bit.” Each area does a good job of reproducing what made that generation identifiable. The 4-bit is basic colors and level design to take after something found on the original Atari 2600, then something you'd find on NES, then SNES, etc. It even goes so far as to have “long CD load times” for the 32-bit era. This last “feature” was funny at first, but gets really annoying when you have to do it for all 5 levels for the 32-bit era.

As for the actual gameplay though, it makes it tough actually wanting to get through each generation. To describe the gameplay easily, picture Pac-Man. Now picture having to only collect the power pellets and not each pellet. By this I don't mean to get to attack when collecting them, just that there are that few to get each level. That's right, you have to dodge enemies to rescue about 4 or 5 friends per level. That's it. You do have an attack that circles around you to kill enemies, and it is limited so you don't just mash it, but you barely have to use it. The game IS 2 player, which may sound like it would make it more fun, but instead it makes it worse since you can just split up and rescue twice as fast. I went through the entire game (long “load times” included) 2 player in about 30 minutes, if that. When doing 2 player and you attack it also has both players attack for some strange reason too. The other thing that makes it boring is that the gameplay does not change for each generation, it is the same boring gameplay, and just changes the way it looks. The only addition to the gameplay is when it becomes 128-bit they add motion control by flicking the controller up you can jump over logs. There are no bosses either, once you beat the last level of a generation it's just “hey, enter your initials on the high score board” and “game over” and you can choose to start the next generation. Very “wash, rinse, repeat.” Even after you beat the game, the credits have you play through the game all over again at a faster speeds with 999 lives and 999 attacks. The credits don't last long enough and it just loops until you get sick of it. We kept thinking that maybe, just maybe something would happen if you went through the whole game again. Luckily with the extra attacks and speed it did not take anywhere near as much time.

There are two choices for how you control the game. The one that they push for is the “joystick” method that has you hold the Wii remote vertically like you are holding an old joystick from the Atari 2600 and move it around that way. While this is a cool idea, and not one new to the Wii (Metal Slug Anthology comes to mind) it does not work particularly well and also does not make sense for any level other than the 4 bit ones. I had multiple issues where I'd be controlling it without issue, and then out of nowhere my guy would stop moving and it wouldn't start again until a random time afterwards. I tried positioning the controller in various ways to try to remedy this, but none seemed to work. This lead me to use control option #2, hold it like an NES controller. Just like the Virtual Console games, you hold it sideways, use the d-pad to move, and the 1 or 2 button to attack. This lead to the experience feeling even more bland since, as mentioned before, there is no motion control and no real excitement to the gameplay.

So the bottom line is don't waste your $6, it could be spent on something so much better on the WiiWare service, something that gives so much more replay value (to reiterate, this has ZERO). My Wii died shortly after beating this game, it is currently sent to Nintendo for repair. I don't blame it for not wanting to be used anymore after that crap. Stay far away.

PS – This game is not at all related to the Bit.Trip games, so do not be fooled by that. Those games are amazing, and I will post reviews for that upon return of my Wii from Nintendo.