Micro Review: bit.trip CORE

I've been playing bit.trip CORE for a couple of days now, and I'm not getting any better at it. To some extent, it's a rhythm game, and on that level, I'm the last guy who should've been asked to review this.

To the beat...

If you like music games, it's safe to say that you'll probably like bit.trip CORE. CORE is kind of like learning how to play a particularly difficult percussion instrument. It looks like a simple arcade twitch-reflexes game, but it really isn't.

The tutorial, such as it is, comes from navigating the game's main menu. You move the D-pad to draw a line in one of our directions, and press the 2 button to light that line up. The idea is to use that line to intercept dots that come flying onscreen. Each dot you catch scores you points and plays a beat in time with the music; if you start missing dots, color is gradually sapped from the game until you're playing with white sprites on a black background. Keep missing dots at that point, and it's game over.

Micro Review: bit.trip CORE

Can't stop, won't stop

It sounds simple - and it is - but bit.trip CORE starts changing the game up very quickly. The first few volleys of dots come along in a simple pattern, but then they get faster, fly in from multiple directions, move rapidly back and forth across your line, or start bouncing. The further you get, the faster you have to react and the less predictable the dots become.

I just described the first ten minutes of the game. Granted, the dots' pattern remains constant from game to game, so rote memorization will work for some time, but the point remains that bit.trip CORE has a very steep learning curve. It takes you about three seconds to learn how to play it and it takes quite a few mistakes before you hit a game over, but this is a remarkably intense, challenging game.

PROS: Challenging; Easy to pick up and play
CONS: Extremely steep difficulty curve
Micro Review: bit.trip CORE
Micro Review: bit.trip CORE

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numba1gamer

I hope it's a lot easier to see when your playing the game because those screenshots look way too cluttered.

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