Leger vs. Bit.Trip Void (Wii)

Just as if Gaijin Games heard the voices raised concerning the difficulty, Bit.Trip Void fundamentally changes the flow of the rest of the games in the series.

While still not something to call by the name of easy, Void introduces a checkpoint system and by this allows the player to fail without having to go back to the beginning of a song.

Like last time, like in Core and Beat before it, three songs are up for grabs and the theme this time around is Commander Video having some problems to adapt to the concept of giving people some personal space while trying to interact with them.

An identity crisis, of sorts, turning into a question of an Ego going Super Ego. All of which can be expanded into a battle of balancing up to four egos at the same time, all of which are punished for each other's misstakes.

While Beat and Core did some obvious nods to Pong and Cosmic Arc, Void is more of a hybrid of different concepts mixed into one unique experience.

Controlling the void, a black hole, consuming every black beat it gets in contact with makes its size grow bigger and bigger.

Touching white beats instantly reduces the size and so does the press of a button (however, manually downsizing does not count as a miss). Missing out on consuming the black beats also counts as misses.

Keeping away from misses and downsizing a combo meter rises dealing more points just as the presentation evolves from HYPER to MEGA to SUPER to ULTRA (while dropping to the black and white, musicless, presentation of the close to Game Over mode NETHER if missing too much).

And, yeah, the HUD of past entries is removed from the foreground and put into the background which makes it a tad harder to keep track of how things are going.

At times almost acting as a bullet hell, Void manages to feel less retro and more current in its presentation. The aesthetics are toned down, with much less visual fireworks going on, and the music is both harder and more beat driven than before.

Nullsleep of 8bitpeoples fame, with a background of producing thumping chiptunes, certainly adds to the experience with his involvement.

But what really makes a difference since past entries in the series is the already mentioned toned down difficulty; Beating the game does not really feel like a matter of if, but a matter of when, and having the opportunity of actually experiencing all three songs makes it easier to connect with the game.

With less frustration and more pleasure Void offers the first truly good game in the Bit.Trip series where the concept flows in harmony with the gameplay.

A true trip to get in the zone with.