Bit Generations is Nintendo's swan song to the GBA. The first batch beautiful, simple puzzle and music games have gone on sale, with Series II hitting later this month. The games retail for 2,000 yen (about US $16), and no American release has been announced.

Any good, though?

Yes, says Kotaku reader Kevin, who picked up the Boundish bit Generation at his local Yodobashi Camera in Japan. He reports that the other bit games, Dialhex and dotstream, were being snapped up by customers, with dotstream actually selling out. Kind Kevin not only took photos, but provided us with a detailed description of Boundish's mini-games. Good news foreigners, the English language menus means this game is definitely import-friendly.

Hit the jump for pics and Kevin's blow-by-blow account. Brian Ashcraft

The first game option is Pool Flower. This is basically Pong with a few twists. Your player is red and the CPU is blue. Whenever the ball hits a paddle, it changes to the color of the paddle. During play, different colored circles move through the playing field: red, blue and gray. If the ball passes through a circle that's the same color as it or a gray circle, it speeds up. When it passes through a gray circle, the circle turns to the color of the ball. If the ball hits a circle of the opposite color, it changes the circle to the ball's color but the ball bounces back. You can move in all directions on your side of the screen. This makes for some pretty fun and unpredictable matches since the the circles are of random sizes and movements.

The second game is Box Juggling. You control a stick figure-like man at the bottom the screen and a red box starts falling. You can hit it with your head or your arms. If you hit with your arms, the box will go the opposite direction (left arm sends the box to the right). If you hit it with your head, the box goes basically straight up but your guy is stunned for a little bit. Each juggle this way is 1 point. You can also press A to do a jumping juggle. This gets you 2 to 6 points depending on how solidly you hit the box. Since the guy jumps you have to time it well to get 6 points. At about 20 points some blue boxes fell from the top. I didn't know if they were good or bad so I avoided them. Later in the game I accidentally hit one and found out that you can juggle them for 3 points per juggle - up to 6 with the jump. The blue boxes are heavier than the red boxes though so they don't go too high and it's hard to maintain them and the red box, which is the primary objective. At 50 points a second red block materializes and you have to juggle them both. The second box is a little heavier than the first so you have to juggle it differently than the first one to try to line them up and make it easier on yourself. At 100 points a third box materializes and it's significantly heavier than that other 2 boxes. Not as heavy as the blue boxes (this is when I accidentally hit one) but a lot heavier than the other 2 red boxes. This is when it got really hard for me since I couldn't get a good rhythm with all 3 boxes. I got to 131 before one of the red boxes fell to the floor; which ends the game. I would imagine that getting to 150 and/or 200 add more boxes. There are also power-ups in this game which seem to be triggered by good jumping juggles. The only 2 I've seen are a helmet that lets you get a head juggle without being stunned and a shadow guy that will give you a free juggle on a box while you concentrate on another one.

Up third is Power Slider. This is another Pong variation. This time you're confined to moving up and down along a circular path. The ball is more of a disc in this one and it's all about putting some spin on it. When the ball hits a paddle it does in the air and gains spin depending on how the paddle struck it. When it lands, it moves in the direction of the spin. You can press the A button charge up your paddle and if you time it right you can give some extra oomph to the ball. Getting the added power and good spin is pretty hard to do and the AI is pretty good at it on higher levels. The field gets marked where the ball lands but I haven't noticed those marks affecting the ball's movement at all.

Game number 4 is called Human League and is best described as a kind of crazy 2 paddle Pong. You control the 2 paddles on your side, one in front and the other in back. You have full control of the front paddle and can move it up, down, left and right. The back paddle loosely follows your vertical movement. The twists here and that 1) the ball moves faster after hitting any paddle 2) if the ball hits the back paddle it gets "stunned" for a half second and 3) pressing up or down along with the A button, puts your back paddle on a beeline to the corresponding corner. However this "stuns" your back paddle for a good bit longer than when it hits the ball and you have to rely solely on the front paddle until it "recovers". Also, when the back paddle hits the ball the front paddle can get in the path of the ball to give it extra speed sending it to the other side (that is, you don't have to worry about the front paddle messing up you back paddle save).

The last game is Wild Go Round and honestly... I haven't really figured this one out yet. You're playing Pong on the edge of a record and you can move around the entire edge. The ball moves based on how your paddle hits it but your movement also influences the spin of the record which in turn influences the movement of the ball. It gets pretty crazy and I have a hard time beating the easiest level AI. Though this really stems from the fact that I find the controls a little wonky. Even though you move on the edge of a circle like Power Slider, you can't rely on just up and down to move you in the right direction. You have to roll around the d-pad as you move and I just couldn't get into that groove. Pressing A button looks like it gives some extra speed to the ball but I haven't been too successful at it. There are also some meters on the sides of screen that I haven't been able to figure out. My best guess is they determine how much you can spin the record.

Love Live bit Generations [Kotaku]

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