A Nintendo community
by the fans!
           
  Forum main
 + 
BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien Discussion (Nintendo Wii U eShop) [game]
 
BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien on the Wii U
8.51/10 from 16 user ratings

Welcome to the official discussion thread for BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien on the Wii U!

To start, please add this game to your log, add it to your collection (if applicable), and (when you are ready) rate it using the link above!

Reviews:
BIT.TRIP Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien Review (Nintendo Wii U eShop) (9.5)  by  
As this game is set to release next week, I figured we might as well start discussion now. Who else is excited? Will it be better than the first game? WHO KNOWS?!

Also, in a strange show of complete honesty, Gaijin just posted about the build differences. It kind of sounds like the Wii U version might be the best version? Unless you have a good controller for your PC? The PS3 version is missing some stuff and the Xbox 360 version has the worst load times, apparently.

URL to share (right click and copy)
02/22/13, 02:40    Edited: 02/22/13, 02:42
 
Why not sign up for a (free) account?
   
 
@Zero

Frankly, if you can backup your save just in case, and if you're not really into the high score thing in this game, I say go for it. Restart and ignore all the stuff you don't want.

You just can't enjoy the game if you keep the cannon in the equation. The first times I fired the cannon purposely off the target, it was a liberation. Playing a level and not caring about the cannon saved the game for me, pushing me back into old "Bit. Trip" goodness, otherwise you can't enjoy the levels at all since you always have the cannon/targets at the back of your mind: "what I do may matter, but it may not if I miss the cannon". Who can play thinking that? So, you end up playing on autopilot, and you miss all the level design since everything ends up blurring together into a big ball of tedium. And it'll only get worse as the levels get harder: imagine the super hard levels in the first game depending on a target mini-game.

I don't understand that dying in the game may only take you back to the last checkpoint (especially true with bosses), while some dumb off-topic mini-game means you have to restart all over if you miss.

You're like I was, burnt on the game, and I was amazed how quick I got my progression back when I restarted, and that I had fun doing it. It completely changes the experience. Try it if you can.

About the dancing... as I said, I like in theory, but dancing means scoring (and playing every difficulty mode), and scoring means I have to get the targets, so it can go **** itself.
05/05/13, 02:10   
Edited: 05/05/13, 02:15
@Simbabbad Well, I may be overstating my burnout since I'm kind of burnt out on EVERYTHING right now due to me staying up until like 3 am on nights I work the next day for the last week or two and just being completely deprived of sleep. Ug. I am having fun with RUNNER2, but I feel like doing "easy" and "normal" is just kind of getting in the way of the part I enjoy, which is doing "hard" for high scores. I try to look at it like practice or something but that mindset can only go so far.

I'm probably about 80% accurate on the target now but yeah, it's still annoying to miss one. And when I miss two or even three in a row, I start to get really frustrated.

I'm in the last world now though so I'm basically nearing the end.

I actually just kind of forgot about the retro stages, might go back and get them all, might not. Not sure what, if anything, finding all of them gets you, but they don't seem to work into your overall score? Just the "gold" score.
05/05/13, 02:41   
@Zero

The problem with playing through on Hard for high scores is that for a lot of levels the maximum high score is only attainable on Easy or Medium. It's a shame; I'm ranked 30th on the worldwide leaderboards, and I'd love to go even higher, but it just isn't worth it.

For my initial playthrough, I did it exactly the way Simba described and enjoyed it a whole bunch! This game is stuck between being a short, tight, memorable experience and a high score game that you play forever. It fails at scoring, so all of the extra content ends up polluting the core game. It feels like Gaijin ran out of time and wasn't able to put out the huge game they envisioned. Maybe their short development times for the original BIT.TRIP games were a good thing; it forced them to stick with a minimalist approach, which they totally nailed because of how much they were able to polish it.
05/05/13, 07:20   
@Secret_Tunnel Is that true much beyond the first world though? I've played through all of the stages up to world 4 in all difficulty levels, perfecting them all, and my best scores are almost always on the hardest difficulty beyond the first world.

Are you playing on the Wii U BTW? I thought I saw VofE in the top 30 or so but I didn't see you last time I checked?!
05/05/13, 07:44   
Secret_Tunnel said:
@Zero

The problem with playing through on Hard for high scores is that for a lot of levels the maximum high score is only attainable on Easy or Medium. It's a shame; I'm ranked 30th on the worldwide leaderboards, and I'd love to go even higher, but it just isn't worth it.

I'm new to the game and haven't read through this whole thread, but why are max high scores only attainable on Easy or Medium for a lot of the levels?
05/05/13, 08:18   
@roykoopa64 You get a dance move eventually that you can use whenever you have enough space to get extra points, and in certain stages maximizing this dance thing on the easy difficulty level with less obstacles works better than trying to maximize it on the harder one. I've only noticed this on certain stages, mostly in the first world. Eventually there are enough obstacles even on easy that you can't dance enough to make easy work better than medium or hard.
05/05/13, 08:41   
I was under the impression that playing on harder difficulties brought in some sort of point multiplier?

Or is it just that the amount of dancing in easier levels is enough to overcome such a multiplier?
05/05/13, 08:46   
@PogueSquadron I don't think you get a point multiplier for hard, it just gives you more points because there are more obstacles and you get more points for more obstacles. But sometimes less obstacles means more dancing and that works out better for you. I think mostly just in the first world, but I dunno.
05/05/13, 09:12   
@Zero

I've only bothered to play Easy and Normal on the first world. If it's true that Hard gives you the high score most of the time in the other four worlds, then maybe I'll come back to the game (so I can beat your scores!). But the cannon is so demotivating.

And yeah I'm on Wii U! You even made a Miiverse drawing of "0 > "!
05/05/13, 10:01   
It's sort of sad that the most memorable world is the last one, which copies the first "Bit. Trip Runner" except it's not as imaginative and not as good... I mean, this was "Bit. Trip Runner":







Huge worm, giant skull, waterfalls, giant fish - the world of the first game was weird and had tons of charm. The last world of "Runner 2" is mostly TRON-looking cubes floating around, when that was only a tiny chunk of the style of the first world in the first game (also, it happens to be very hard to read compared to the first game).

On the whole, "Runner 2" tries way too much to look bigger than it is and should be:

- It shouldn't have "easy" and "medium" difficulty settings at all: you're already free not to pick up gold and chests and treasures (which makes the game A LOT easier), you can slide under beats and jump over speed boosts, you can choose easier paths into a level, you can use the checkpoint... It's really not that hard when you do the least you need to do to just to beat a level.

- It shouldn't offer alternative characters. They're all terrible, the only good characters are Commander Video, Commandgirl Video, and maybe the slender looking Commander Video at the end... some alternative costumes are OK, but are they necessary?

- The narration and world map seem superfluous. What does the world map do except make you replay levels you had already completed, what do we gain compared to the old formula - apart from mandatory repetition? Also, why try to make Mingrawn Timbletot an actual villain ą la Robotnik when there is no real persona to its character, and it mostly deprives us of more original bosses?

- The game is "prettier" (meaning more polygons, artistically it's IMO a bit more bland), but what do we gain from the added details and "power"? Why isn't there more of this:



This is actually the ONLY time where there is a change of perspective or some direction. The potential to invent and surprise us was enormous, why not use it? As it is, once you've seen the first level of a new world, you've basically seen all of them, the alterations are minimal (if any, see the "everything is red and you can't see a thing" world), and so, it has less direction and variety than "Bit. Trip Runner". At least in "Runner" you could go into a tunnel, meet a giant worm/skull/whatever, etc. - here, nothing, it's always the same perspective and the same obstacles and more or less the same background.

That game is extremely inflated, diluted and, sadly, a bit washed out. It feels less than a sequel and more a remake, adapted to please the HD (360/PS3) crowd with objectives that are tough and long to reach, difficulty levels, characters, costumes, etc. that wash away the meaning and purity of the original.
05/06/13, 21:50   
Edited: 09/07/13, 14:34
@Simbabbad
I agree with everything, but I still like Runner 2 more than the original. Can't quite put my finger on why, though. Maybe it's the connectivity.
05/06/13, 21:56   
Edited: 05/06/13, 21:57
@anon_mastermind

The scoring/dancing was a good idea. The target and difficulty levels kill it for me, but it was a good idea in theory. The gameplay is a bit more fluid (you can float longer) and more forgiving, which one may like. The music is "softer" than in the original, a bit "cooler", and one may prefer that. The art style is pretty good, I like how enemies have an animation as you come closer to them (it makes estimation of the distance between you and them very intuitive), and how everything dances and moves like in an old B&W cartoon.

But IMO it misses the mark, no Perfect+ here, and IMO no Perfect either. I prefer the original, I still haven't beaten it and I'm still not bored of it, whereas I'm bored of "Runner 2" before beating it.
05/06/13, 22:09   
Edited: 05/06/13, 22:09
@Simbabbad Hmm, I disagree on some things.

I don't mind easy and medium, it means my girlfriend can play the game seriously. She liked the first RUNNER a lot but... she doesn't have much of a gaming background and couldn't really get beyond the first two or three stages in the first game. She hasn't played RUNNER2 yet (being in Europe for a long, long time at the moment) but I imagine she will be able to get further in it on easy mode.

I just don't think there should have been any benefit to playing on the lesser difficulty levels. Let seasoned professionals stick to the hardest one and have your leaderboards reflect that, either by separating them by difficulty (makes the most sense) or just making the points system as such that there would be no way that easier difficulty levels would net you better scores than harder ones.

I liked having different characters took, some of them sucked, but the fish is probably my favorite to play as now. Loved the costumes. But really, instead of linking this stuff to specific paths taken through stages, why not just do it the way most games do... the more you play, the more you unlock? No need to go back and "find" stuff.

Although I don't mind the world map, I kind of see the idea of alternative paths in this game as pointless. Usually the alternative path only went to the key or whatever, which was also sort of pointless. And none of them were "secrets", so it just sort of required you to go through the stage twice, taking a different exit each time.

Then take the 100 stages and smoosh them into 75 or so, leaving only the best / most unique stuff.

Then get rid of the targets at the end. Well, or make them just a tiny bonus that isn't going to ruin your score if you miss. But actually... just get rid of them.

I still kind of love this game a lot. I think it made some missteps, but a lot of the actual gameplay additions are fun, and I enjoy some of the extras too.
05/06/13, 22:50   
Edited: 05/06/13, 22:51
Zero said:
I don't mind easy and medium, it means my girlfriend can play the game seriously. (...) She hasn't played RUNNER2 yet (being in Europe for a long, long time at the moment) but I imagine she will be able to get further in it on easy mode.
"Runner 2" is already much easier than "Bit. Trip Runner", and really, as I said, if you ignore the gold, crouch to avoid the beats instead of blocking them, jump over speed boosts, take the easy paths, use the checkpoint, etc. it's VERY accessible. To grab the key and chests I play like that if I beat the level already, and it's a piece of cake. If anything, they could have made the levels a bit shorter and voilą

For the rest, it's not really that, say, new characters or alternate difficulties or the number of levels are an issue in themselves, it's that it takes resources and blurs the focus of what they should have done with this game. As it is, it feels like: "hey, let's dress up 'Bit. Trip Runner' as a XBLA game and sell it for $15", rather than: "hey, let's expand the 'Bit. Trip Runner' concept into a sequel because we have tons of new ideas". It's more "'Bit. Trip Runner' made marketable for the HD crowd" than ""Bit. Trip Runner 2". Frankly, what does it have that lacks in the original?
05/06/13, 23:26   
@Simbabbad I'm trying to find the nicest way to say that my girlfriend enjoys games but really, really struggles with them unless they are like... very easy. At least as far as games that involve moving characters and twitch reactions and such. I think that there is a level of skill that most of us who play games a lot take for granted but that some who do not play games often just don't plain have. Now, whether Gaijin should even have bothered trying to appeal to these people is another thing entirely. But for my own selfish needs, I'm glad that they did, because I think my girlfriend will, in all honesty... still find easy kind of tough. But she will probably be able to make some real progress with it this time around.

If she ever gets around to playing it. She's in Switzerland until the end of the year and then she gets to come home and write a thesis, so she might not have much time for games in the near future.

Still, the multiple difficulty levels isn't the real issue, is it? It's that the game tries to entice people like us, who could just stick with the hardest one, to play them all, and there is no reason to build the game this way. To be frank, I don't even have a clear sense of why I played multiple difficulty levels throughout the whole game other than the combined leaderboards and the fact that on SOME stages, the easier difficulty levels get you better scores. If they would have had separate leaderboards that probably would have solved the whole issue for me.

As for what new does it have, I think a lot kind of? Tons of new moves and stuff. Through the first 2 1/2 worlds. After that it just starts to rehash a bunch.
05/06/13, 23:34   
Edited: 05/06/13, 23:35
Zero said:
As for what new does it have, I think a lot kind of? Tons of new moves and stuff. Through the first 2 1/2 worlds. After that it just starts to rehash a bunch.
Well, even before that, what does it have? Kicking while crouching? Trampolines that makes you jump higher without you doing anything? Targets to kick in the air?

They basically just removed specificities of the controls and obstacles. And the beats now all go in a straight line rather than bounce, you can't choose to bump higher on a trampoline by using the jump button, you don't have to time properly when you go "up" on a jump pad, etc. What they "added" are just debatable variants that are less interesting (or even bad ideas, honestly) than what they removed, IMO.

It's not a bad game at all, it just feels like an artificially built "product" compared to the first. I mean, just look at the alternate characters, they go all over the place.
They tailored their product for a market, wisely, to cash in on the "Bit. Trip Runner" concept, but they had to make brainstorming sessions to find what to put in, and it shows. A lot.

Also, you can't ask game designers to create three versions of every level and expect them to make those levels tight and unique. You just can't. They're bound to end up being sort of generic and to blend with each others.

Frankly, I feel a bit cheated.
05/06/13, 23:46   
Edited: 05/07/13, 01:31
Having put some time into Runner 2, I'm enjoying it more than Runner. I've gotten used to the graphics and am enjoying them a lot. Maybe they've removed some specificities of the controls like getting a higher bounce off of a trampoline, but I also like being able to hold the jump button to 'glide' a little bit. Maybe I'm crazy, but climbing stairs seems way easier in this game (thankfully). And most importantly, the game has checkpoints. You can still play the game like Runner, but honestly, there's no way I'm restarting a level from the beginning anymore unless I'm going for points. I just want to see the whole game and Runner 2 is allowing me to do that.

And goddamnit Zero, I'll never beat your score on the first level. Don't know how you did it. You had to have squeezed in some more dancing towards the end. I did finally manage to grab second place, so suck on that Casper and Koovaps. Yeah, I said it.

Edit: Fuck, I should've taken a screenshot. Is there any way to view leaderboards on a level by level basis?
05/07/13, 20:45   
Edited: 05/07/13, 20:47
PogueSquadron said:
Edit: Fuck, I should've taken a screenshot. Is there any way to view leaderboards on a level by level basis?

Yes, go to the leaderboards menu option dude, lol. And now that you can log into Miiverse from a computer you can easily grab any screenshots that you have posted to Miiverse and post them here!

As for my high score, I won't give away my trade secrets. Ok fine, I will. Basically, when I know that I will have a huge stretch where I won't have to jump much, etc. I hold the controller sideways with my left hand and just spam the ever loving F out of the dance button with my right hand. Obviously you can only get in your next dance move when you have finished the last, but the faster you jam the button, the more likely you are to hit your next dance move as soon as possible.

Sometimes this doesn't seem to work for one reason or another, but usually it's pretty good for maximizing dancing. I really only used this technique on the first few stages and the intros of some other stages, because I'm always playing on the GamePad itself, so I can't play with the controller at a weird angle.
05/07/13, 20:56   
Edited: 05/07/13, 20:57
Zero said:
PogueSquadron said:
Edit: Darn, I should've taken a screenshot. Is there any way to view leaderboards on a level by level basis?

Yes, go to the leaderboards menu option dude, lol. And now that you can log into Miiverse from a computer you can easily grab any screenshots that you have posted to Miiverse and post them here!

Yep, like this one!



Anyway, I beat the game playing through all the levels (mostly on Normal difficulty). I must say I've been quite enjoying the game. That last world had a lot of fun stuff on for fans of the BIT.TRIP series of games. That last boss was a nice reference to FLUX (moving left, for example).

I spent some time today just getting more perfects, getting better scores (doing more levels on Hard difficulty and skipping the checkpoints), picking up treasures I missed, unlocking a few levels I skipped, etc. Lots to do!

And WOW at you guys and your very high scores, I'm not close yet to getting up there.
05/08/13, 06:54   
Edited: 05/08/13, 07:33
I'm up to 4th now?! I still haven't played worlds 4 and 5 competitively yet. I'm gunning for you ludist!

The high scores are basically... dance the heck out of every stage. On hard mode. Except for the ones that get you higher scores on easy or medium. Ug.
05/08/13, 07:29   
Edited: 05/08/13, 07:30
  Forum main
 +