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Bit Generations: Boundish Review
Written by Ryan Morgan on Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Exude a genuine sense of style
Many of the concepts are rehashed game ideas
Let me begin by saying that this will not be your standard video game review, as the bit Generations series doesn't really consist of anything that could be called "standard." I must also tell you up front that I only managed to get my grubby, importing hands on 6 of the 7 games, but I am still quite sure this will give you a good sense of how successful Nintendo was with this little project.
For anyone not up to speed, let me give you a little bit of background. The "bit Generations" series was released (for the GBA) in Japan this past July to a small amount of fanfare. I won't go into too much detail, as this has already been tackled a few months ago, but the general conecpt is bite-sized chunks of retro and stylish gaming at a low price point.
Here's a basic breakdown:
Dotstream: The bike races from Tron, only with much simpler graphics and a little mario kart spirit thrown in.
Boundish: Pong redux.
Dialhex: Bejeweled / Zoo Keeper style game, only this time with hexagons.
Coloris: Similar to Dialhex, but with complex color matching and simpler polygons.
Digidrive: Directing traffic patterns. (hard to describe any other way)
Orbital: A lesson in gravitation. Much more fun than it sounds.
Soundvoyager: I haven't played this one, but I understand the sound is so integral you can play it with your eyes closed.
Now, for many of the games you might import from our friends in the East, the big question is not just how good the game is but whether you'll even be able to play it. While there are many benefits to working through the language barrier, like getting to play Ouendan! or Bleach DS at all, I see things as being different in this case. Since bit Generations are supposed to be pick-up-and-play, I will review them from this perspective. They shouldn't require any work to decipher, so if I didn't get into the gameplay without looking it up on Gamefaqs, then I didn't bother going further, and my review will reflect this. My original intent for this piece was to look at all of the games in depth, but to be completely honest, I only enjoyed three of them for any amount of time, and in only one of those cases did I come close to "beating" the game, so I felt it might be better information to be a little less forgiving in my writing.
Digidrive
The menus were in English (as they are in all seven of the games, which is great), so I jumped right into a quick single-player game. About five minutes later, I put the game down and never picked it up again. While there is something to be said for original design, there is a big gap between original and just plain confusing. After a few minutes of play, all I had figured out is that the idea was to direct arrows through a four-way intersection. The point was completely impossible to decipher, and the gameplay was in no way fun enough to justify hanging around to figure it out.
Conclusion: Digidrive is not worth importing. I'm not even sure it's worth playing. 0 stars.
Boundish
From the outset of Boundish, there are 5 "courts" available. Pool Flower is a lot like Pong, only with the added element of floating bubbles that can be changed into your color, causing them to become obstacles for the other player. This extra element is enough to make it interesting, but not enough to hold your attention for any length of time. Next is Box Juggling, which I found reasonably entertaining, sort of like a volleyball-themed Game&Watch game where the goal was keeping a box airborne as long as possible. The third court is Power Slider, which is a lot like Pong on a figure-eight. The "ball" would leave things on the ground, but I never figured out what they did because I got bored and went on to Human League. Yet another Pong clone, the fourth stage reminded me of foosball, as you use two paddles. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the mechanics (my back "paddle" would often seem to be doing its own thing) so I got frustrated and moved to the last court. Wild Go Round is a lot like Pong (yes, again) on a moving record. Okay idea, but I found it frustrating to play in practice.
The good news is that Boundish is easy to figure out. The bad news? It's Pong. Vintage, Nolan Bushnell Pong, which has the unfortunate property of being really boring compared to today's games. I respect the role it played in game history, but I will be quite content to never play it again as long as I live.
Conclusion: Fancy Pong clones are still Pong. Not worth importing, although better than Digidrive. 1 star.
Dotstream
Unlike the previous two, Dotstream was a game I had high hopes for. The controls are simple, and the gameplay obvious: finish first and try not to hit things on the way. I've never been a big racing fan, but playing through the first campaign, the "sonic GP," was enough to tell me this was no ordinary racing game. The courses become increasingly difficult to navigate, with failure common on the first run through each. Things are made more difficult by the fact that "lanes" can only be occupied by one racer, with two unique results. First, it looks cool to see all the colors snaking across the screen, and this is good since looks are a lot of what you are paying for. The more significant result is that you can push others into obstacles by moving into the path ahead of them, shunting them down a lane. This tactic becomes even more important as time goes on and the walls start moving a few races in. To increase the challenge further are a couple of power-ups available (which really ended up reminding me of Mario Kart). The first is star that makes you able to go through any wall, a lot like turning on noclip for the computer gamers out there, and the second an icon that slowed time (and your opponents) for a short period, allowing for more detailed steering. I never really made it back to Dotstream after beating that first GP, but I am definitely planning on giving it another go in the near future.
Conclusion: Dotstream has the distinction of being the first of the series worth the import. Fun, stylish, and well-designed. 4 stars.
Coloris
The gameplay here is in much the same vein as bejeweled, where the goal is to line up three or more of a certain color, causing them to vanish and more to fall in their place. In Coloris, this is done by cycling each square through the available colors, a mechanic that I really started to question, as it seemed to be trial and error alone that would tell you what color the square would shift to next. There would also occasionally be a "lock" on a square, causing it to shake and remain its current color. I never really figured out why this happened, as the game really didn't pull me in enough to make me care.
Conclusion: The DS already has Zoo Keeper, a much better bejeweled clone. If you don't have a DS, save the money you would spend on importing this and put it toward that instead, you'll be happier in the end. 2 stars.
Dialhex
As soon as I saw the menu on this one, I knew something had been done right with Dialhex. By hitting L or R, you rotate to your selection, choosing between "solo," "endless", and "vs," although solo is the only one initially available. This interactivity may seem a small thing, but since design is about 50% of these games' value, it was nice to see that even the menu was stylishly done. The actual gameplay turned out to be every bit as polished, with triangles falling from the top of the screen (filling up a giant hexagon) as you move your cursor (a smaller 6-triangle hexagon) around, picking up the colored triangles and trying to form groups (hexagons) of one solid color. Hexagons figure greatly into the gameplay, if you hadn't noticed. As you clear a certain number of hexagons for each color, new colors come into play, causing the screen to become quite pretty but much more difficult to navigate. In face=t, things got a bit too cluttered for my tastes after four colors were active, so I put the game down after about a half-hour. I know, however, that there are puzzlers among you who are more persistent. You fortunate few will be able to get quite a bit out of this game, the rest of us merely have a polished, adequate puzzler on our hands.
Conclusion: Well executed, but the actual content may not be for everyone. Import at your own risk. 3 stars.
Orbital
In Orbital, you control a small planetoid as it floats through space. You start out as one of the smallest objects on the screen, but by merging with objects a size larger, you increase your own size and gravitational pull. If this sounds like Katamari Damacy, that's because it is, although much simpler in execution. In each stage, your goal is to grow large enough to snag the "sun" into orbit around you. There is also a moon in each level that can be grabbed, resulting in big bonus points (and a bigger unlockable if you collect all of them).
The verdict should already be sounding bright for Orbital, but I haven't even gotten to the best part. The real beauty of this game lies in the control scheme. As you float, you cannot directly control your movement, the directional pad is entirely useless. You only have three options at any given time:
-Hit the A button and pull yourself toward the nearest, largest, gravity well in the area (usually just the biggest thing within view). This is accompanied by a cool sound effect and pulsing red glow that surrounds your object.
-Do nothing, float and let your momentum carry you as it will.
-As you may have guessed, the final option involves the B button, a blue glow, and repulsion from the nearest gravity-producing object.
The beauty of the system comes into play when you discover that large objects can be orbited, allowing you to increase and decrease momentum, slingshot to distant objects, and reverse directions. This system takes all of 5 minutes to learn, but, and this is why I love this game, a long time to master. The longer you play, the more effortless everything becomes. After an hour of Orbital, you are decently through the unlockables, but with a quick glance you can now see that you need to use the nearest planet to slingshot yourself at the moon in the distance, catching it in your orbit before circling around the far side of another planet so that you can turn back to catch the sun "for the win."
Conclusion: If you couldn't tell, Orbital is the best of the bunch. It has every bit of the polish that Dialhex had, the inspired gameplay of Dotstream, and is startlingly original to boot. If you only import one bit Generations title, make it this one. 5 stars.
The bit Generations Series: Final Verdict
Sadly, my impression of the series as a whole is that it was a very cool idea, but disappointing in execution. While Orbital, Dotstream, and (to some degree) Dialhex are worth the import prices, the others tend to be sitting on the wrong side of the "games as art" line.
Lots of style, but not enough substance. Import them all if you are a collector, everyone else get Orbital as soon as you can, I really think you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised.
posted May 8, 2007