Runner 3 is a caricature of what a fun platformer looks like
by Amr (@siegarettes)
- Runner 3
- Developer- Choice Provisions
- Publisher- Choice Provisions
- Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC
There’s nothing more primal and fun than running and jumping. No matter how many games I play I doubt I’ll get tired of the feeling of leaping past obstacles and learning a stage. Understanding that groove, playing into that rhythm, there’s an almost musical satisfaction to it. Runner 3, the latest of the spinoffs from Choice Provisions’ Bit Trip series, aims to combine both those feelings. Complex strings of movements combine together to bounce you across the environment, as musical cues accompany your actions to give the impression of a choreographed performance. Which should be a perfect harmony. Instead its a painful exercise in increasing frustration.
Runner 3 starts off well enough, giving you leeway for expression. There’s enough room for error on the main path, with several alternative paths and side goals to provide extra challenges if you want. By the time you get partway through world two it becomes deeply punishing. The simple joy of hearing your actions play accompaniment to the music turns into a series of performances where one wrong note has the game yelling at you while forcing you to play the section over. And those sections are LONG.
Runner 3 carries over the single checkpoint structure of its predecessor, meaning each mistake means playing half the stage over again. Not a big deal in the earlier levels, but when they start piling on moves the complexity of what you’re asked to do quickly escalates. There’s just enough options to the movement to make it unclear what the right answer is a certain situation. Did I double jump to early or too late? Was I supposed to slam before or after this group of enemies? Did I not hold my jump long enough to float past this? Or am I supposed to let go immediately and hit the platform early? What initially feels like a dynamic moveset begins to look like a bigger and bigger list of wrong answers.
On top of that, elements like the knights make it even harder. They’re enemies that change into different poses that require you to perform certain moves to counter their attacks. Except that it’s not always immediately obvious what moves to use and you’ll never have enough time to react normally. So you’ll initially need to figure it out by trial and error. Each section also feels long enough to give you time to forget exactly what tripped you up the last time. You’ll bash your head against it, learning sections a move at a time, restarting again and again until you’ve memorized it, before you can even attempt the new part. It turns what should be a joyful feeling into a chore.
Worst of all its musical elements never truly complement the play. Despite how demanding it gets, your actions never really sync up to the rhythm of the music. Rhythm games clearly delineate what move should be used where, allowing them to complement you actions with musical cues. Runner 3 uses these musical notes more as a flourish than anything, and mistaking them as guides to learning a stage’s rhythm is actually a good way to make it more difficult. In fact, I found it easier to play Runner 3 without music at all, since I played it more like a regular platformer instead of trying to play alongside the music. Which is pretty damning for a game that sells itself on its soundtrack.
Beyond that there’s just a serious grossness to the presentation. Runner 3 is channeling a Saturday morning cartoon vibe here, but any charm or cuteness is undercut by a grotesqueness in the art. The environment is littered with colorful tableaus that slowly breathe in the background, each with bulging eyes or mouths hanging limply open with drool. Billboards deliver phrases like “Shelly Smitts Cheese Pits”, because you know, eating cheese makes your shits smelly. At times it’s almost Ren and Stimpy-esque in the way it uses gross out humor or attempts to suggest something more “adult” beneath the surface. If it was a cartoon it feels like one where the main artist behind you would tell you after hours "Oh yeah Commander Video and Commandgirl Video definitely FUCK".
Runner 3 is a remarkable game. Not because any of its aspects are remarkable, but because it manages to assemble plenty of ideas that should be joyful and fun, and make sure every one of them is undercut with frustration.