''Bit.Trip Fate'', marketed as ''BIT.TRIP FATE'', is an arcade-style scrolling shooter music game developed by

Gaijin Games Choice Provisions Inc., formerly known as Gaijin Games Inc. prior to June 2014, is an American-origin independent video game development studio, best known for their '' Bit.Trip'' series of video games. The studio was founded in 2007 by Alex N ...

and published by Aksys Games for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

's WiiWare download service.

Gameplay

Bit.Trip Fate takes place over three environments, each divided into two stages and culminating in a boss encounter. The first environment (stages Determination and Patience) resembles a crystal cavern over a space backdrop, the second (stages Desperation and Frustration) a cityscape filled with skyscrapers, and the third (stages Anger and Fall) an underground pit with rivers of magma. The game's hybrid mechanics feature a side perspective, resembling a horizontal shooter, but with Commander Video confined to a set path, called the Vibe (along which he can freely move forward and backward), an element of rail shooters. In addition, the player controls Commander Video's movement independently of his targeting reticule, similar to the style of twin-stick games descended from ''

Robotron: 2084 ''Robotron: 2084'' (also referred to as ''Robotron'') is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional wo ...

''. The reticule is commanded by the Wii Remote's IR pointer, with bullets firing radially from Commander Video's location. Movement along the rail is faster while the player is not holding down the trigger button. The rail takes on various shapes, usually similar to a

sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a curve, mathematical curve defined in terms of the ''sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph of a function, graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a Smoothness, smooth p ...

, which are predetermined by the stage, while the screen scrolls at a steady rate. Enemies advance from all directions, firing targeted and patterned bullets tradition to

shoot 'em ups Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...

. The player's performance and interaction with enemies creates musical feedback which contributes to the stage's soundtrack, providing an element similar to certain music games, particularly '' Rez''. The gameplay is less rhythmically constrained than previous entries in the series, providing more freedom to the player, but also less dynamic feedback.

Development

The game was later bundled with the other five ''Bit.Trip'' games as ''

Bit.Trip Complete ''Bit.Trip Complete'' is a compilation of six games in the Bit.Trip series, including ''Bit.Trip Beat'' (2009), '' Bit.Trip Core'' (2009), ''Bit.Trip Void'' (2009), ''Bit.Trip Runner'' (2010), '' Bit.Trip Fate'' (2010), and '' Bit.Trip Flux'' (20 ...

'' for the Wii in 2011. A

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

port was released on December 25, 2020.

Reception

''Bit.Trip Fate'' received "generally favorable reviews", according to Metacritic.

References

2010 video games MacOS games Music video games Horizontally scrolling shooters Video game sequels WiiWare games Windows games Nintendo 3DS games Nintendo 3DS eShop games Nintendo Switch games Choice Provisions games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games QubicGames games {{scroll-shooter-videogame-stub