Gamertell

Even if you think you know nothing about bit Generations, those who have played the recent Art Style games through WiiWare have already been introduced to the series. Nintendo has taken inspiration from those earlier games and retooled/recycled them as Art Style WiiWare and DSiWare games.

The original bit Generations games were released only in Japan in 2006 for the Game Boy Advance, and sadly never made it to North America. To make things worse, because they were released at the end of the GBA’s life cycle, some of the games are now quite difficult to find.

If you do manage to find one, it may be worth picking up. The GBA was region free, so there’s no need to worry about region protection. Also, the games didn’t have massive amounts of text, and didn’t require knowledge of the Japanese language to play.

bit GenerationsSeries One

• Boundish: Boundish could be considered one of the more simple bit Generations games. It’s an action game where you have to hit a circle back and forth, trying to pass levels by making the circle move a certain way or behave in a certain manner. Boundish hasn’t inspired a WiiWare or DSiWare remake, but if you’re looking for an experience that is somewhat similar its gameplay, check out the WiiWare game Bit.Trip Beat.
• Dialhex: Dialhex is a bit Generations title you can go and experience right now, if you’d like. That’s right, it’s one of the ones turned into a WiiWare game. Art Style: ROTOHEX to be exact. It’s a puzzle game where you try to rotate colored triangles to make a hexagon of one color. Once you do that, the hexagon disappears. It costs 600 Wii Points/$6.
• Dotstream: Oddly enough, Dotstream is a rudimentary racing game. The goal is to guide a dot through various racetracks filled with all kinds of obstacles. The goal is to make it around the tracks to complete the races, trying to collect small pellets and earn additional dots. There aren’t any similar games I can think of to recommend, but perhaps in the future we’ll see Nintendo bring Dotstream to DSiWare or WiiWare. (DSiWare seems like it would be a better fit though.


bit Generations Series Two

• Digidrive: Digidrive is one of the more complicated bit Generations games, and is somewhat difficult to explain. On the right side of the screen there is a circular disk, and there is a flat platform below it. On the left side of the screen are various shapes. The goal is to stack up five similar color shapes in a line on the right side and eliminate them so the disk will move forwards. There’s really no winning or losing, the goal is just to move the disk as far as possible before the platform hits it.
• Coloris: Coloris is your standard puzzle game, and is very easy to play. You’re just trying to turn all the squares on the screen the same color as ones near it so you can make them disappear. One could argue Wiiware game Cubello was inspired by Coloris, since both involve matching colored squares/cubes to eliminate them.
• Orbital: Like Dialhex, Orbital is already immediately available via WiiWare as Art Styles: ORBIENT. (It’s also the same price, 600 points/$6.) The goal of the game is to navigate a star through stages, making it larger by combining with other stars.
• Soundvoyager: Soundvoyager is, quite possibly, the coolest entry in the bit Generations series, and one of the hardest games to find. It’s a game you play based entirely on sound. You’re encouraged to close your eyes, put on headphones and play the game based on where you hear the sound coming from. (As you can probably guess, it isn’t very pretty to look at.) The goal is to keep a dot, the only thing you will see on the screen, in the center of a stage that you can’t see, using sounds to help you decide how to move it.
COMING NEXT WEEK: Important Importables reviews Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 2 for GBA. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables talked about M.U.G.E.N.. Site [Play-Asia] Site [YesAsia] Site [NCSX] Site [Himeya Shop] Site [Strapya World]