Nintendo Bit Generations - Simple Pleasures


If I could travel back to 2006, I'd buy the full set of Bit Generations games on the Game Boy Advance. Twice.

I'd also grab that Sega Wondermega that sat in Akihabara Trader's cabinet for ages. I'd probably try to prevent some wars or whatever too.

The Bit Generations series was once far more reasonably priced than it is now. Accessible for even the most cash-strapped of GBA owner. You'd spot them straight away when you entered any well-stocked store, with their distinctive form factor and simplistic but eye-catching cover art. I remember them well, but knew them by sight only. 

As I'm writing this post, it dawns on me that I'm likely describing new copies, or at the very least newly-used. They were launched exclusively in Japan in July 2006, which was my first summer living here. I am remembering, or misremembering, old games before they were old, otherwise known as new games. Oddly, it feels like they were always "retro"; a throwback at launch.

Each of the seven Bit Generations entries retailed at a wallet-friendly 1,905 yen. As they were late-in-the-day GBA releases that weren't available outside of Japan, boxed anyway, you don't see that many copies for sale anymore. And when you do, they far exceed their original SRP.

No worries though, as there are other ways to play these games - ask an older boy or surf the web if you're unsure how. And that's exactly what I've been doing over the last two weeks, making my way through all seven. While I'd love to own a copy or two, I'm happy to make do with experiencing them digitally on my Analogue Pocket, which I'm finally putting to good use. And let me tell you, I've been having a lovely time doing it.

So what is Bit Generations? Well, firstly, it is a series of seven games: Boundish, Dialhex, Digidrive, Dotstream, Coloris, Orbital and Soundvoyager. With the exception of Digidrive, which was a Q-Games production, they were all developed by Skip Ltd., best known for the Chibi-Robo games. Each entry is built around a simple concept, and they resemble fully-realised game-jam experiments, in appearance and spirit. Each was a standalone release, packaged in a unique square box, very different to the standard rectangular packaging in Japan and far smaller than the PAL/US boxes.

They were designed to look great placed on your coffee table, sat next to a book about impressionist painters that you've never opened.



Of the seven, I've put the least amount of time into Dotstream and Digidrive. The former has you racing a dot against other dots through obstacle-littered tracks, where each racer leaves a colourful trail in their wake. The latter tasks you with conducting vehicle-like cones through a crossroad, but I still don't understand what it wants me to do beyond that. Neither immediately grabbed me, and I find that immediacy is key with these games.

Boundish will be instantly familiar, as it's essentially a collection of pong-like mini games. While it's perhaps the least imaginative of the BG bunch, it's certainly one of the easiest to pick up and play. Like most of the Bit Generations titles, it doesn't push score attack modes or high scores. I don't think I've seen a high-score table in the several hours I've pumped into this collection, though that might be due to skill issues. These games are about quickly losing yourself in simplicity, not racking up world-beating scores, and it's astounding how fast you can lose 10, 15, 20 minutes to them.

Orbital relies on this ability to lose yourself in, and become transfixed by, something very simple. Here that means guiding a small celestial body across an unending galaxy, pushing yourself into, and repelling yourself from, larger planets and stars, while attracting smaller ones into your orbit. Or at least I think that's what it's about. It is very vague! I really should put more time into Orbital.

Dialhex has you forming hexagons by spinning and connecting coloured triangles that fall from the top of the screen. You'll instinctively know what you should be doing: listen to the calming beats and spin some triangles, then restart because you're not very good at it.

Soundvoyager is unlike anything I've played before. Or, more accurately, listened to. Firstly, this has to be played with headphones on. Of course, it doesn't make any effort to explain that, and I was thoroughly confused on my first attempt without headphones. Essentially, you must guide your cursor toward or away from sound-emitting points, points that are entirely invisible. The sound effects, which are interwoven with the score, are piped into your headphones, favouring one earphone over the other, and you must centre the sound using the shoulder buttons. Centre the sound, inside your head. Makes sense? It's hard to comprehend without trying it, and it's really fucking difficult to explain, but once you've got your headphones on it'll start to make sense. It takes a few moments to train your senses and fix your focus on the errant beeps, but once you have, pictures begin to form in the darkness, painted in sound only. It's a singular experience.

Finally, Coloris, which I have not been able to put down over the last week. It might be tame, even a little quaint compared to Soundvoyager, but I wouldn't hold that against it. The aim is to eliminate squares from a board by matching three colours. You do this by utilising a cursor, which randomly switches between the primary colours, to alter the shades of the squares on the board. Other rules are built in - in general, you must avoid trying to mix opposite colours - and the visuals shift from time to time, often making it harder to decipher what shades you're looking at. Definitely one to avoid playing in the sunshine, where screen-glare will make progress virtually impossible.

Coloris takes a simple concept and all but perfects it. It's easily grasped yet retains a certain degree of mystery in its mechanics. I've finished it, cleared every stage, yet I still have no clue why the basic levels are more difficult than the advanced, how it decides when to drop the random progress-halting grey blocks, or why I'll fail a single stage a dozen times only to clear it with ease the next day on my first attempt. It is simple - there's that word again - irresistible, but retains a smidgen of mystery. That's the good shit right there.

If I could travel back to 2006, I'd buy a copy. Maybe two.

You know what? I might buy one now. Not two though. Have you seen the prices?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's 2024 and I'm Buying a Nintendo GameCube

SingStar: A Forgotten Icon

The Best & Worst Games of 2024