Update, 12/3/2024
After 32 hours, I have finally beaten the game. Whooo what a trip. This game is LONG and you'll swear you'll never see the end of it. It even has a secret [spoiler]postgame chapter[/spoiler]. Why do I have 44 hours? Because there's a very critical bug where saving the game saves everything BUT your lives collected, and I didn't want to play the end of the game on 3 lives. It's hard, exceptionally long, and since saving restarts you from the beginning of an area, you're expected to beat the entire 104 areas in a single 3 hour sitting. So, I left my game running overnight to preserve my lives. I'm glad I did.
Now, onto the rest of my original review at 2 hours of gameplay:
[h1]By far the most unique and weird game I've played.[/h1]
[i]And I collect a lot of weird games![/i]
But don't let "weird" dissuade you. Bitsy Bits is a bizarre mashup of a bunch of different retro game inspirations. Half of the fun is playing it like an old game where you never read the instruction manual and you're just trying to figure stuff out. I'm heavily biased towards the "toy castle/living dollhouse" aesthetics, so that's mostly why I bought it. But upon some initial exposure to the gameplay, it's come out as something extremely unique! The sound effects and visuals are all so euphoric. When you're on a [strike]killing[/strike] bouncing spree, it feels like you're on an acid high and you'll constantly find yourself asking "What is going on?!"
Below is every inspiration I noticed, as well as a description of the ingame mechanics that I've noticed so far in 3 hours of playtime. (Spoilered because, like I said, sometimes its fun figuring stuff out on your own!)
[spoiler]Mario Bros. 3 - The "Stageplay" aesthetic, curtains and all!
Mario Bros. 2 - The "uproot" mechanic as well as the quite obvious reference as you fall from the sky in the first stage.
Bubble Bobble - The general proportions/spritework is sort of reminiscent of this. Abilities bounce around in bubbles, and you have to defeat all the enemies to move on. Respawning puts you in a sailboat which I believe controls similarly to Bubble Bobble's respawn mechanic.
Kirby - Speaking of abilities, they can be picked up from enemies, boxes, the ground, anywhere! And you can store them in your inventory below.
Doom? - There's a little Bitsy face at the top of the screen that keeps looking around and making cute faces. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason for this to exist, but it's cute! And I'm sure other retro games besides Doom does this.
Even Smash Bros.?! - The white number next to the picture of Bitsy is your percentage meter (%). As you take hits, this number will go up. If it gets high enough, you'll find yourself getting flung around the stage until you fly off the top, sides, or bottom, causing you to lose all your hearts and lose a life. (Grab coins to lower this value.) You'll get KO's by knocking enemies off screen too. Once they're hit enough, they just go flying. Sometimes they fly into the background or foreground like Smash bros!
Hearts? - Yeah I've been playing for 3 hours and still can't tell what these do.
Nintendo DS: Sides of the Screen - The sides of the screen is probably my favorite thing, actually. While original arcade games having re-releases often show promotional art at the sides of the screen similar to the sides of an arcade cabinet, Bitsy's side "screens" actually have a use! They display the current goal, hints to progress, secret rooms, interesting mechanics (not spoiling this one!), character sprites, and dialogue in conversations. It's so wild what the developer is able to accomplish with such little space on the sides of the screen.[/spoiler]
I only have two complaints;
Foreground? Background? - Sometimes its hard to tell what's in the background and what's able to be stood on in the foreground. But honestly I'll say its part of the aesthetic, you get used to it.
Music... - The music is a very strange choice. Although sometimes eargrating, the weirdness of it only adds to the strangeness of the game as a whole. I think the music alone helps to make it feel like one of those old arcade games with semi-obnoxious background music. It's really cute!
All in all, I can't get enough of this game and I thank the developer for introducing me to the strangely deep (lore!) and world this game has to offer. I would love to see either a sequel, or whatever else the developer comes up with next!
Easily the most [b]magical[/b] game I've played. So cute!
