Your FATE is Sealed

Mondays are usually an interesting day for Nintendo fans. Every week at this time, the big N gives us a few morsels of downloadable goodness for our Wii’s and DS’s. Most weeks its a barrage of shovelware with a few gems littered throughout. This week is a good one though. Bit.Trip FATE released today, and it couldn’t be cooler.

FATE is the 5th game in the 6 part Bit.Trip series. Each game combines old school game design and graphics with modern sensibilities. In this installment, Gaijin Games takes a stab at the shooter genre, and pulls it off with style to spare. Where in most games of this type, the player is given complete control of their on screen avatar with little control over which direction they shoot. Bit.Trip FATE turns this around by making the opposite true. The main character, Commander Video, is restricted to a predetermined path while the player can use an on screen cursor to shoot in any and all directions. This provides a unique challenge as dodging incoming enemy fire becomes much more thoughtful.

As expected from the series, the artwork and music are a mixture of bizarre and wonderful that truly need to be seen and heard to be appreciated. There has been a noticeable progression in the Bit.Trip games as each one gets more and more involved. Thankfully, the games never reach the level of maddening difficulty the genre is known for, opting for a more tough-but-fair approach. Whatever you do, don’t miss this game.

Bit.Trip FATE, as well as the previous installments in the series, are available now on WiiWare for 800 Wii Points.