Cosmos Bit – Review
SEEP and 3rd-strike go together like peas and carrots. Every time they launch a new title, we have the honor to test it out for ourselves. Today we get to take a look at their newest entry of the Bit series – Cosmos Bit. Previously we already reviewed Adventure Bit and Abduction Bit with both titles getting a nice score. While the older games were highly liked for their simple 80s arcade approach, Cosmos Bit takes the whole arcade trip into a new decade by looking more modern and having newer gameplay elements that we saw in the 90s.
Story
The game starts with a short story introduction. You are contacted by commander Igor Petrov, and he explains your current mission. You play as Stella Mironova and you are on your way to the planet of Jufier, where a group of scientists is trapped in an alien control tower. The last soldier sent to that place said something about an access card before dying, so that is your only piece of information. This is as far as the lore goes, but as Cosmos Bit is just an easy-to-enjoy arcade game, you won’t feel like you are missing out on anything.
Graphics
Cosmos Bit was made with retro games in mind. The graphical style is very much like the home console games of the early 90s and thus the game sports 16-bit graphics. The graphics look like they would fit perfectly on the SNES and the many colorful enemies are nicely crafted, giving us a traditional old-school vibe. During your exploits you will wander through many different locations, each having a different color scheme and some introducing new enemies to the line-up.
Sound
Just like the graphics, the sounds and music are a blast from the past. The sound effects will take you back to the 90s thanks to its simple, loud, and effective tones. The music in the background is fast-paced electronic music that captures the essence of space travel. The music is easily enjoyable and won’t become dull after longer playing sessions.
Gameplay
Cosmos Bit is a platforming game where you must find a bunch of trapped scientists to rescue them. The setup is simple: you go in, kill some monsters, recover items, and find out what happened. The game begins without a tutorial, but this isn’t necessary as you only need two buttons to start with. Once you find any upgrades, you will get an explanation of how to use them (what button to press or what combination to use). Overall, the game is easy to learn and the platforming action has been nicely made so all the movement feels natural and highly enjoyable.
The gameplay mainly consists of moving through locations and finding your way from point A to point B. It all feels pretty linear as you are mostly only able to go one way, yet this doesn’t hamper the fun at all. When you kill enemies or destroy rocks you get crystals, these are used to save the game or purchase upgrades at one of the many save points. The cost of saving might be low but it’s often enough to force you to choose between saving the game or buying an upgrade. When you die you get set back to the previous save point, so it is up to you to take the gamble and try to go as long as you can without saving or to play it safe. While this is a common mechanic in old-school games, we would have loved it to be able to save the game without a cost being linked to it.
Initially, the game doesn’t feel that hard, but once you start making mistakes you realize that this game won’t be a breeze. The difficulty feels fair and you will get a few hours of playtime out of it. Between every larger section of the game, there is a small boss fight. These boss monsters resemble a larger and more deadly version of the monsters found outside, and eliminating these will always grant a nice upgrade that allows you to reach new places previously unreachable.
Conclusion
Cosmic Bit is another nice title from SEEP and a worthy entry in the arcade Bit series. The graphics look nice and 16-bit aesthetics make this title even more enjoyable thanks to the many colorful assets. The sounds and music are equally enjoyable and also feel like they were designed with 90s games in mind. The simple yet enjoyable gameplay makes the game very accessible, but keep in mind that the game will not be that easy to beat. The only mechanic that irked us slightly was perhaps the fact that we had to use our resources to be able to save the game. Even so, Cosmic Bit is a game we can easily recommend.
Cosmos Bit – Review,
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