It’s time for a new review and this time it’s BIT BOY!! Arcade’s turn. This game was developed by Bplus and was made by just one guy. The game will be available on April 17th for $7.99. Oh, and its size is around 3,610 blocks.
START WALKING! YOU WILL NEED IT.
In the over-world, you can see a lot of extras about the game development progress.
STORY:
The first thing to say is that this is a sequel of WiiWare game Bit Boy!!. The story of that game is explained in the introduction, so you do not need to play the first game to understand the sequel.
Without spoiling too much, the story starts when Kubi, the main character, is killed and the Gear Wheel ZeLeLi is able to rewind the time to the start of the game. Later, the creator of the game deleted everything and redesigned it, just to skip that dark future of Kubi. After a twist, you will find that the creator of the game is able to interact with his creation and both start a journey to rescue Kubi’s friends and also, save the Pixel World.
The game looks excellent on the 3DS.
GAMEPLAY:
This is an adventure game. You have to move Kubi across the game, saving your friends and pixel flies to make progress in the game.
Each world is divided into 3 levels and every level has 20 phases. Every world has a boss, also divided but on 10 phases. Every phase has 3 missions to be done:
ZeLeLi: You must finish with 300,000 points or more.
Pixel Flies: You must revive the 20 pixel flies.
Perfect Run: You must save every Pixel Friend and destroy every enemy.
You must move Kubi on every level, with the D-Pad and A/B/X/Y buttons. The faster you press those buttons together, the faster you will move. You must save the 7 Pixel Friends, avoiding enemies and obstacles, before going to the next phase. The controls work excellent and without lag.
When you saved all Pixel Friends, Kubi will transform into Rainbow Kubi, being able to kill those enemies. The more time that you have left, the higher the score you will get. Therefore, you must be fast to achieve the highest score possible.
Every time you get a Game Over, you must use 2 Play Coins to continue.
After you finished the first 10 phases, you will have access to the next 10 phases. Those are the Action Phases which have more puzzle elements, special powers for Kubi and a higher difficulty.
The level design is great, maybe too hard sometimes and can also surprise you with something you did not expect until you complete the level.
If you’re unable to beat a level, you can try the easy mode. On easy mode, you wouldn’t win as many points as you would in the normal mode, but at least you would be able to finish the level.
If you want to break your records, once you finish the phases, you will be able to restart the level. Something nice if you made a mistake and don’t want to lose a life.
Oh! And there is a ‘Quick Run Mode’ if you want to play a random level on a short burst.
Special Features:
The last thing to know is that the game has two special features.
First, you’re able to continue playing using 2 Play Coins similar to how arcade machines work. This makes the game a little more special. If you don’t want to spend those, you can pick Game Over and start the level again from phase 1, or phase 11 on the action phases. Also, if you won 2PC, you can resume from the phase selection later, but this isn’t valid for bosses, so be careful.
And second, this has a quick start feature and it’s something that needs to be in more games. When you’re playing, and for example, you’re out of battery, you can go to the Home menu, close the game and shutdown the console. Now, start the game again… Ta-da! You’re playing the part you left.
The 3D effect is superb.
GRAPHICS and SOUND:
The graphics are well done, but the game won the lottery with the 3D effect. It’s just perfect on this game and also you’re able to change how strong you want the effect to be.
The game has a lot of voice acting. Sadly, while the quality of the voices are great, they are hard to hear if you aren’t using headphones because the volume is low.
The last thing to mention is that the soundtrack is excellent. You can find a lot of catchy tunes and honestly, I would like to send some of those songs to my phone. The quality is great.
PRESENTATION:
Now there are two aspects of the presentation and I will divide them into two categories:
Good: The presentation of the game is great. The story itself will teach you how to play, and you are able to see all statistics of your progress. You can also see your high-scores and have a quick access to the phases. The features of the game are well implemented and there is a lot of replay value.
Bad: You can’t reset your save data, so if for some reason you need to do it, you must delete and re-download the game. The manual lacks content and some little explanations are missing when you start the game, but overall, it doesn’t affect the experience of the game at all.
For $8, the game has a lot of content to enjoy. It has great music, good graphics, features that need to be in more games and a great replay value, this game is one of those hidden little gems of the eShop.
The presentation isn’t perfect and it’s mostly aimed for hardcore gamers, but this is a game that everyone can enjoy and it is really worth the price.
