It's the Bit.Trip Runner that I think a lot of people have been waiting for. I love the personality of Runner 2 & 3, but the original Bit.Trip Runner has always had a very distinct style that felt lost in the transition from pixels to robust wrinkly cgi.

Rerunner takes an iron to those wrinkles and voxelizes our hero in a way that feels refreshing AND familiar.

This game sheds a lot of fluff from Runner 2 & 3 in order to focus directly on gameplay. You'll find yourself playing through 10 levels straight without backing out to the level select menu. Not much downtime, lots of Runtime.

Controls are tight and responsive. You'll be missing a few moves from Runner 2 & 3 but going back to the basics (along with a couple new moves) works well for this outing.

The Mario Maker half of the game is substantial. It has to be, since the entire main campaign of Rerunner was built in it. I've tinkered with the stage builder and it's pretty easy to pick up once you know what you're looking at. You have every song from the Bit.Trip franchise at your disposal which is pretty crazy to me. I'm going to be listening to this game's ost for a looong time.

You can, of course, download and play other people's stages. I've run into an equal amount of bad glitchy stages, gamer rage impossible stages, and good fun stages. So, as it goes. It doesn't seem to be as active as I was expecting, which is a shame (don't think this game got much advertising), but with everything we have already, along with the possibility of Endless Bit.Trip Runner Levels, it's overwhelming!! I love it!!

Unlockables are great. You can unlock an insane amount of stages on top of the main campaign (including the entirety of the original Bit.Trip Runner, of course). Every single song from the Bit.Trip franchise has its own stage. The behind-the-scenes extras are very cute. I LOL'd when I unlocked the "costumes" section.

One disappointing omission is the lack of unlockable characters. Commander Video is all alone on this journey. I wouldn't want like, Unkle Dill, but it would've been neat to see any of the OG Commander Video Friends™ that already have cameos be playable (ah, but how would Meat Boy shoot lasers?). At least we now have a fully customizable cape!!! That's a big deal for ME.

Ah, also, I wish there were a few more different backgrounds. We got the main 3 worlds from the first game here, along with the "retro" stage background, but that's it. I know this is a remake/reimagining of the FIRST Runner game, but it would've done a lot for the stage variety (especially with the online player-built stages) if they brought in some Runner 2 or 3 themes in and voxel-fied them.

In the end, I gave Bit.Trip Runner a 5 star, so how can I not do the same for Rerunner. Love the presentation, love the gameplay. Innovative stage builder and so much fun stuffed in every corner of this game.