is it B to jump?
wait, I press Up? but that's just
a vertical leap...
Additional Comments:
First and foremost: this game is bullshit!! Ok, now that's out of my system, let me elaborate on my seemingly avid rage regarding this game. And to do that, I must recollect my own personal history with this game. A good number of years ago, an infamous (infamous to Sven and I, at least) disc of ROM's fell into our hands. This was our first experience with ROM's and game emulation. Although neither of us were necessarily interested in playing emulated forms of games at the time - again, knowing very little of the scene, we were intrigued by the various titles that we had never played and here they were suddenly in our grasp. Of course, beyond putting in about 10 minutes worth of gaming on a title or two, the disc passed into obscurity, only to pop up every now and then over the years.
Anyways, one game I recall being on that disc was Flashback. I knew nothing of it and so, wanted to try it out. Well, a few years back, this disc popped up again and I decided to give the game a go. I was with another friend of mine who instantly recognized the game and explained that it was actually a ported computer game. Hmm, strike 1 - those are never good. But whatever, I proceeded - for about one screen. And therein lies the problem with ROM's: no instruction booklet. What the hell are you supposed to do in this game!? How the heck do you do, well, anything!? These controls suck some serious balls!!!
First off, any game where you have to press Up to jump is completely worthless in my opinion - strike 2. However, Up only causes you to perform a vertical leap. So how the fuck do you get across gaps? Needless to say, I think I spent about a week figuring out all of the controls for this game. Basically, I'd learn a new ability that would allow we to advance a couple screens until I came to a new obstacle that I couldn't pass because I didn't know the proper button configuration you had to press to bypass it. For me, this is strike 3. I will never understand SNES games (or really, games of any console) that force you to use button combos to perform moves when the controller has more than enough buttons to perform said functions without interfering with other moves. I mean, the X, L and R buttons are not even used in this game at all - so why am I having to press extraneous two and three button combos? Anyone? I can understand having to do this for the Genesis port, but come on - the buttons are there - use them!!!
So already, this game had struck out for me. I gave up and walked away. Here it is a few years later and I located another copy of the game and decided to give it a run for its money once and for all. The game had hit that threshold of being so terrible that I just had to beat it, purely for the bragging rights alone. Sonuvabitch, within the first couple of screens, I was already crying bloody murder trying to figure out the controls all over again. I think the first time I attempted the game, I made it up to Level 3, Cyber Tower, and it took me days upon days of frustration to even make it that far. This time around, although I still struggled with the controls, I was a lot more in tune with what I had to do and made it up through Level 3 and beyond with minimal issues. In fact, other than the final level, the game was pretty easy going this time around.
Easy mode down, I proceeded to Normal. (I should mention about a month passed between my completion of Easy mode and when I started Normal mode and yet again, I forgot how to perform some of the more complicated moves - ugh.) Between Easy and Normal, there is a definite spike in difficulty, mostly through an increased number of sprites, However, I noticed that the difficulty increase between Normal and Expert was minimal at best. The only place where it really felt apparent was at the very end of Level 4 where you have to do a series of running jumps over bombs and toxic pits while staying ahead of some mobile toxic gas and kill a Flybot to open a locked door - whew! And really, the only reason this proved arduous is because of everyone's increased health in Expert mode, which in my opinion doesn't make Expert mode any harder than Normal, just far more annoying. Overall, I think the game is only as difficult as you make it out to be. True, both Normal and Expert have more sprites than Easy, but once you realize that each screen is about carefully calculating your moves, you find that the modes themselves don't really mean anything.
Despite my anger with this game, during my course of play, I did come to respect and enjoy various aspects of it. First of all, the artwork is great. I love the backgrounds and foregrounds. The sprites, however, are a different story. They just look badly drawn in my opinion, and despite the clean animation supposedly being one of the selling points of this game, it's just not doing it for me. The cutscenes, though appreciative and fairly impressive for their time as far as console games go - they come across as slow and a bit choppy. Next, the music - although limited to the end credits and some sort of mood piece that pops up every now and again - I think it's fantastic. There's something about the Ending Theme that reminds me of the great 80s Sci-Fi/Thriller movie themes. (Yea, I'm aware that link is for the Genesis port, but I can't seem to find a link for the SNES version that doesn't also spoil the ending - but you know what, I'm really diggin' that chunky synth-bass going on in that version. :P)
Additionally, I really came to respect some of the puzzles presented in this game, especially in some of the latter stages. A lot of what initially irked me came to grow on me as I found myself looking for the best solution to pass certain areas. All in all, I think this game could have been great, but there are some serious flaws that hamper it far too much. Perhaps on the Amiga or PC, this game was brilliant, but here, on a console, it lacks the real playability that console games have or should have. The biggest offender, other than the controls, is having to wait out each animation, presenting a sense of sluggish control and overall minimal maneuverability. I think if that wasn't such a crippling factor, I could probably deal with the shitty control configuration just fine, and honestly, the game would be a pretty decent Sci-Fi platformer. It's a bit sad too, because the more I played the game, the more potential I saw in it, but unfortunantely, for me, the bad far outweighs the good.
Nano-rant:
Holy Mother of God, I didn't even know you could release Left or Right while running to perform a running leap until my playthrough on Expert mode. Are there still some moves I don't know about?
Rating: 1.5 unknown trajectories out of 5
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