Reviewed on: PC

After 5 years, CommanderVideo’s fans no longer have to wait: Runner3 is among us!

Runner3 is a platform game that takes away part of the player’s controls (the directional pad) and demands enormous focus on executing its numerous and varied maneuvers. Let’s list the main commands:

Jump: Used to get over enemies, pits and other ground obstacles
Kick: Used to break thin/weak barriers – it is possible to kick in the air
Double Jump: A second boost to stay in the air longer and/or gain more height/distance
Slide: Used to pass through tighter spaces, too narrow to pass standing
Fast fall: Increases gravity’s acceleration, letting you dodge aerial obstacles or touch the ground quickly for a new jump
Slow fall: Holding the jump button makes your character fall more slowly

There are countless other situational commands and mechanics, added for some stages. We also have some “retro” stages, where the game offers controls more traditional to the platform genre.

The great appeal of the bit.trip/Runner series is its focus on rhythm and musicality, where commands must be executed at the right moment – in sync with the background music. While Runner3 stays true to its origins, these restrictions have been relaxed. The result is a game that is a bit more permissive when pressing each button, but at the same time far more demanding in terms of reaction speed, memorizing the stage and complexity in the sequence of commands… And that can be a problem.
Runner3 is a game for fans of Bit.Trip.Runner and Bit.Trip presents Runner 2… But the game doesn’t seem to care much about those new to the franchise: the difficulty curve is brutal.

A serious problem in the game is the pacing (of progression). The previous games had more than 100 levels, and Runner3 has a little over 40. The quantity is partly offset by longer, more varied and more complex stages… but the difficulty (sometimes even unfair) forces you to replay huge stretches of the stage, and the repetition (which can reach dozens of attempts) generates a level of frustration that doesn’t fully go away even after overcoming the challenge and completing the stage.

Besides possibly needing to try the same stage dozens of times to reach the finish line, the game will make you replay everything a few more times. Each level has 2 different routes, one with gold bars and one with diamonds (materials to buy cosmetic gear), but the game also has quests that force you to play the same stage at least 2 times (once to find the character and another to deliver the requested item) besides finding the right item hidden in the right stage.

It’s certainly not a game for everyone, being an experience that demands a kind of effort and dedication that only those who already love the series should be able to show.

Although it moves away a bit from previous titles, Runner 3 is a beautiful game. The art direction work is excellent, with quite varied and well-crafted models and colors, and excellent fluidity in the animations. The more dynamic camera makes the overall experience more interesting and exciting, but at times it is used for the sole purpose of hurting visibility and making some parts of the game artificially harder.

The sound work, as expected, is superb. The songs don’t seem striking, but they are strangely pleasant and some stay in your head even against your will.