Played via The BIT.TRIP release on a PlayStation Vita OLED model.
This is a review of two halves - one for the game itself which is an addicting reaction-based runner that looks and sounds great but suffers from a little too much reliance on memorisation for bullshit you have no idea is about to happen. With those few exceptions in mind the rest of the game rides the fine line of the player being the fuck up with no fault of the game, which is an impressive feat.
The other half of my review pertains to the version I had the displeasure of playing - the Vita release, as part of The BIT.TRIP package which bundles the first five games of the series together. This version suffers from really bad framerate issues; not entirely noticeable at first, but when there are specific obstacles or background entities on screen such as a long string of the wall worms in the first world or the mining characters in the second, performance just tanks to low 20s at best and it really throws you off both your rhythm and what you can see coming. I managed to push my way through to the third world after 4 hours but all of the issues culminate here where smooth framerates just don't happen any more and I can't keep bashing my head against this brick wall of a shoddy porting job any more.
This is a good game that I might revisit again sometime but for the love of god avoid the Vita version as much as possible.
This is a review of two halves - one for the game itself which is an addicting reaction-based runner that looks and sounds great but suffers from a little too much reliance on memorisation for bullshit you have no idea is about to happen. With those few exceptions in mind the rest of the game rides the fine line of the player being the fuck up with no fault of the game, which is an impressive feat.
The other half of my review pertains to the version I had the displeasure of playing - the Vita release, as part of The BIT.TRIP package which bundles the first five games of the series together. This version suffers from really bad framerate issues; not entirely noticeable at first, but when there are specific obstacles or background entities on screen such as a long string of the wall worms in the first world or the mining characters in the second, performance just tanks to low 20s at best and it really throws you off both your rhythm and what you can see coming. I managed to push my way through to the third world after 4 hours but all of the issues culminate here where smooth framerates just don't happen any more and I can't keep bashing my head against this brick wall of a shoddy porting job any more.
This is a good game that I might revisit again sometime but for the love of god avoid the Vita version as much as possible.