Topic: Bit.Trip Saga Grooving Its Way to eShop

[tylerohlew]

Commander Video invades the eShop at a great price.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/32746

Bit.Trip Saga will be available on the 3DS eShop come December 20, with an asking price of $14.99.

Bit.Trip Saga is a collection of all six rhythmic retro Bit.Trip titles - Beat, Core, Void, Runner, Fate, and Flux. The collection reworks the controls and visuals to best fit the 3DS, adding touch and stereoscopic 3D.

Bit.Trip Saga was originally released to retail at a cost of $39.99. You can read James Jones's review of the title here. The series compilation was also released on Wii as Bit.Trip Collection, which included a bonus soundtrack disc and online leaderboards.

[Disco Stu]

Sweet!  That is an incredibly good value.

[leahsdad]

That's suspicious timing, since that game has plummeted in price for physical copies on Amazon...they can be had for like 15 or so bucks now.

[Fatty The Hutt]

SOLD!!

[Shaymin]

Runner's worth $15 on its own.

[Mop it up]

Wow, that's a lot cheaper than what they cost individually. I wonder if we'll see Complete on the Wii U shop.

[Rodrigue]

I bought this when it was released. All the games have slowdowns as far as I'm aware, and the worst offender is Runner, where the slowdown is present throughout the entire game, 3D or not (turning off 3D improves it but it is still very noticeable). In other games it happens sometimes when there are a lot of particles on the screen, 3D or not, but with 3D on it is more frequent. It boggles my mind that they released this collection without optimizing it. It doesn't seem that hard to me to make a game that looks like this run properly, and my respect for Gaijin Games has fallen a great deal since I purchased the game. Saga disappointed me too much. It feels like a major waste of potential and a cash-in. I'm sorry for being so negative, because they are good games, but a developer that releases a game for a specific platform and cannot make it run properly is one of my biggest turn-offs in gaming, and it is becoming far too prevalent between this, Virtue's Last Reward (which I could forgive because it wasn't an action game) and Code of Princess (which I find nearly unplayable).

Definitely worth $15 if you are into that type of game.

[SPP25]

Talk about a steal of a deal! 

[Oblivion]

I'd rather order Complete from Amazon.

[Razorkid]

I'm so glad I waited!! When they announced this game in the first place, I always wished it was a digital release. Now my wish has been answered AND at a great price to boot!

[Pixelated Pixies]

I'm a huge fan of this series and own these games already on WiiWare. Of any Wii game the Bit.Trip games are the ones I find myself coming back to most often; dipping into them every couple of months. For that reason, I really could be tempted to buy a digital version for the 3DS. Having them be portable would be kind of cool.
 
I do hope they address the issues Rodrigue has raised though.

[ejamer]

Although very cool news and a tempting digital release, I agree that the Wii version (Bit.Trip Complete) is more appealing based on all the reviews I've read. Also can't imagine playing some of the games without motion control - tilting your Wii remote to control the paddle is extremely sweet.


One question: does anyone know if two-player modes are intact for the 3DS release?

[Mop it up]

One question: does anyone know if two-player modes are intact for the 3DS release?

Nope, it's one player only.

[AV]

This gives them a golden opportunity to fix all the frame rate problems of the original release . I see no reason why they couldn't do it .

[Kytim89]

Getting this game for $14.99 is a side effect of Nintendo allowing third parties to put games on the eShop for free and not charging for firmware updates, and the ESRB not charging for digital games. This game once reatiled for $49.99, so I am assuming that this will one day happen to all 3DS games both digital and retail, or atleast for third parties. By Nintendo not charging companies to put stuff on their store it allows them to have wider profit margins and they can be more felxible with their rpicing once the bulk of their profit has been made over the long term.

[TJ Spyke]

$39.99, and Nintendo never charged companies to put games on the eShop. You might be thinking of the WiiWare policy to withhold money til games met a threshold, but it didn't cost them to put the game up.

[Infinitys_End]

I have never been so frustrated at a game as much as I am with Bit Trip Runner, the game that you must memorize everything to win.

[Pixelated Pixies]

I have never been so frustrated at a game as much as I am with Bit Trip Runner, the game that you must memorize everything to win.

There's a degree to which memorisation is necessary for sure, but as with all Bit.Trip games pattern recognition and timing were what really mattered. Bit.Trip always felt fair to me in large part because I knew exactly what I had to do, it was just a question of executing it perfectly. There's something very satisfying about that for me.