Thanks to Choice Provisions for the review code

Title: Bit. Trip RERUNNER
System: Steam
Price: $19.99
Release Date: 09/19/2023

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Story

In this celebration of the Bit Trip franchise, CommanderVideo returns to running and stopping his evil nemesis once again because uh, they need to continue the eternal struggle they have. Like usual with the Bit Trip games there’s little plot in the game itself, but Rerunner does provide unlockable lore paragraphs explaining the overall connectivity between all of the prior Bit Trip games, which I found to be a really awesome bonus.

Even if a series like this obviously isn’t gonna sport anything too in-depth, they do a fine job at tying everything together, and really the whole slew of unlockables in the gallery does a good enough job at selling this as a reimagining of Runner and a great way to pay tribute to the older titles.

Presentation

The Runner series has done a gradual evolution, getting more and more 3D over time, but with Runner3 this came at the expense of the responsive gameplay the previous games were known for; going full 3D and polygonal with differing camera angles just led to a confusing mess that made stages a lot more frustrating than they should have been. So I was definitely very curious if Rerunner would take influence more from the original Bit Trip Runner, or the sequel, which kept things on a 2D plane while making everything else 3D.

In the end, we got a pretty good mix of the two, with Commander Video back to a retro sprite ala the first game, but with lovely 3D backgrounds like Runner 2, with no sort of camera angle shifting to deal with in this game! Case to the point, this art style is excellent, and it merges the best of both worlds in a way I enjoyed quite a lot. There’s only a few worlds of variety for the backgrounds, but they’re all well done and memorable, with World 2 especially feeling the closest to Runner 2, so much so to the point I could easily see it being pasted right in that game.

You even have the Retro levels from Runner 1 making a comeback in that set of stages, and just like in that title you get a lovely Atari 2600 VCR filter look while running through simpler stages. Even better, you can use this style in the game’s Runner Maker level editor, too!

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Bit Trip game without a catchy soundtrack, and Rerunner has an absurd amount of great tunes. From remixes of the original Runner score, a few new original tunes, and returning favorites from across the entire franchise, even the non-runner ones! Catching a listen of Bit Trip Void’s catchy main theme in the tribute stages was especially delightful.

Likewise, each stage maintains that excellent rhythm that makes playing the stages both as a rhythm game and as a usual platformer equally fun, and the devs really went all out with great touches with the levels, and even the community has managed to impress me with some custom stages with catchy beats or placements. Heck, even the UI is fun to toy with, as each sound for your cursor movement plays a note from the Bit Trip Runner theme, allowing you to goof off and keyboard around with even that, if you so choose.

Even with all of this goodness, Choice still managed to cram a lot of extra presentational bonuses, as there’s now a gallery not only consisting of concept materials for this game, but also assorted models, fan art, sketches, and concepts from the entire Bit Trip series. Arguably, you could say this is a mini Bit Trip museum, and the stuff that you can unlock here is really cool, from fan art submissions for old contests, prototype mockup images of the original Runner game, and even some key art from the Wiiware/3DS days. Seeing stuff I remembered when reading about Bit Trip Saga over ten years ago was a huge rush of nostalgia, and while they could have just left it with the newer stuff, I was super excited to dabble and peek at the older throwback pieces, too. Definitely a great way to preserve and show off your legacy and growth.

Gameplay

Like with prior Runner games, Rerunner is a rhythm based platformer with the main goal consisting of guiding Video to the end of each stage while dodging, kicking, absorbing, or blasting any obstacle that gets in your way, and nabbing as much of the gold and power ups as you can before reaching the exit.

The game provides a really nice, gradual introduction of your moveset like the prior games did, but unlike earlier games it does not lock you out from using and messing around with those mechanics on your own before the game teaches you; this means if you desire, you could mess with absorbing and blocking from the very first stage, even if those functions don’t do anything until later stages that warrant those skills. I presume this was done due to the level editor being a big feature of Rerunner, which lets you go and use all those skills from the start, so the game had little reason to lock techniques.

So yes, like prior Runner games you do have a bunch of the usual skills, from your jump, kick, slide, spring and block, to a Bit. Trip Void inspired absorb move, and a Bit Trip Fate influenced blast technique. You even have the dance from Runner 2 available solely for the sake of maximizing points for scoring purposes, since any moment you have to dance will increase your score in the stage, and all in all your moveset is just the perfect amount of complexity, with none of the weird analogue stick tracing you had to do from Runner 2, or being forced to do the weird 3D camera angle gimmicks Runner3 tried to pull.

This helps the overall game to be a comfy ride to play through, and even though the new campaign here is rather brief at 3 worlds, Choice still managed to pack a good amount of content to play through anyhow, with three different difficulty levels and plenty of accessibility toggles you can mess with to change your final score. These aspects are welcome as it leads to the game being rather customizable for if you just want to breeze through the stages, or go completely hardcore and scorechase your way up the leaderboards and obtain the coveted perfect !!! status.

Besides those three worlds, Rerunner also includes remakes of every stage from the original Bit Trip Runner, with those bosses and stages brought over. This even includes the super fun Retro stages, only now you can keep playing with checkpoints until you clear them instead of the stage ending after a single death, making them way more accessible than ever before. If the new takes and the original stages weren’t enough, then there’s also the unlockable tribute stages representing several songs from each Bit Trip title, including the Runner sequels.

All of these bonus stages throw everything from the main game at you, so they’re a great way to teach yourself advanced mechanics as while the levels are trickier than the normal campaign, they aren’t really hair-pulling and the accessibility toggles apply to these stages as well. I already noted earlier that the Void tribute stages were a joy to play, so if you have had any familiarity with a prior Bit Trip title, you’ll no doubt find a familiar tune to play along with.

Last but not least, is the Runner Maker and community features. I briefly dabbled in the stage editor to make some dummy maps, and it works surprisingly well, even on the Steam Deck’s controller layout. You have the choice of picking from a huge assortment of the game’s tunes, and being able to map out a stage to that song’s beat, however you like. It may seem nightmarishly hard to make a level that matches up with a rhythm in such a precise manner, but somehow the Runner Maker just does a good job at having the obstacles flow nicely, and I definitely could see myself making some pretty fun levels in the Retro skin if I spent several hours hammering away.

Thankfully, you don’t have to be a hyper focused and meticulous level designer to enjoy the Runner Maker’s benefits, as the online community already has tons of great stages uploaded to it, with plenty of handy filters to find the sort of stages that fit your tastes. There’s also a “Stage of the Day/Week” that rotates accordingly, and clearing these plus various other challenges in the game will unlock a variety of customization options for your community banner, along with the ability to change Commander Video’s full-powered rainbow trail to a color scheme of your choice, which is a really fun touch.

If you just wish to have the game throw random stages at you, there’s even the option to just continue from one stage to the next like you would in the campaign, only the game will pull out another level from the community, making marathon sessions rather seamless and so much fun to enjoy, and I can easily see this aspect being as much of a pass and play fun time with friends as Mario Maker 2’s level rotation was.

The base game already has tons of content and stages to master, but with this Runner Maker feature and some really brilliant levels already uploaded, the replay value of this game is immense, and I absolutely adore seeing what fun creations I can stumble upon. My favorite so far is a goofball level made to test how much gold can be crammed on a stage before the game starts rapidly dropping frames, and needless to say it had me laughing my head off from the sheer insanity of it.

Conclusion

Bit Trip Rerunner came out of nowhere for me, as I didn’t really hear about it until I got the PR email announcing the game was already out, so this definitely made for a lovely surprise. Being a huge fan of Runner 2, but being a bit disappointed by Runner3 and the Bubsy title, I was hoping for a return to form that brought the highs of Runner 2 with the good parts of future games, and I am incredibly thrilled to say that Choice pulled that off, and then some!

From the short yet sweet main campaign, the wonderful remake of the original Runner campaign, and all of the fun bonus stages to master, Rerunner would have plenty of content to tackle and master all on its own, but the addition of the Runner Maker and brilliant community features pushes Rerunner to the next level of awesome and adds so much replayability I can easily see this being the defacto Runner game for years to come.

With cool unlockables for your profile to nab, plenty of level variety from the community, and of course, the usual mastery of nabbing all the gold on the highest difficulty and climbing the leaderboards for the campaign stages, and you have a stellar return to form for the Runner series that not only manages to return to the highs of Runner 1 + 2 and exceed them, but also succeeds with being a lovely tribute to the overall history of Bit Trip, with a light museum element that makes the overall package an addictive and charming love letter that I am thrilled to have enjoyed as much as I did. Definitely one of the best surprises of the entire year, and I’m eager to see what the community comes up with next for this charming runner. It’s 2013 all over again!

I give BIT. TRIP RERUNNER a 9 out of 10.