Flashback (Amiga) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
101Flashback is a rotoscoped action adventure game, developed by Delphine Software, and published by U.S Gold in 1992. Influences include Blade Runner, Star Wars, and several 'Arnie' movies. The story is part of the charm, but does this play as well as it did in the 1990s? Lets find out.
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Production Notes:
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Captured: 16th April 2021
Narrated: 10th May 2021
Edited: 16 April - 6th Oct 2021
This game was only the list for series 7, and I had no plans to review it this season. Kim Lemon became a backer in the spring of 2021 and requested this, along with Darkseed CD32. So I recorded both of those as some of the last games to include this year. I hadn't played this since back in the day. I remember struggling to get through the Tower of Death on Normal difficulty, and also the Earth section. I have a feeling I eventually completed it, as I vowed never to play it again on Normal; as the struggle was too difficult to enjoy it. That's why I returned to this in Easy mode. Do do miss those trashcan robots dotted around, but they only slow down the action and dont pose too much of a threat.
I got frustrated with the Earth level again, and played it at least 10 times to try to get further. Part of the problem is the controls, and having to press Enter on the keypad whenever you want to use the shield, making timing to block the shots almost impossible. My favourite music in the game is called the Options Menu theme, but I'm not sure if it plays in the game. I think I head it the first time by going through the tracks in the options menu, and finding it. This is the theme which plays over the ending credits of the video.
One of the name of the makers of this game I pronounced wrong, Visser-low instead of Visser-row. I tried to chop out the 'L' but it doesnt really work to fix it.
I spent ages messing around with the John Romero I.D gag, but couldn't get the handover sequence to run smoothly. I had to re-render this because I had removed a chunk of narration by mistake. In the second render of this video, I noticed the editor had put a box around the card, making it look like a laminated 90's clip-on I.D card. The original picture did not have this outline around it, but as the effect looked ok, and it was too late to render this again anyway, so it stayed in. The end effect looks a bit jerky and not too great.
Danscore:
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Flashback broke new ground when it came out, with its (64?) colour detailed graphics, and smoothly animated character. This was a huge step up from Another World, but also in the same class, making this feel more like a spiritual sequel. The old trick of making the character criss-cross around the map like a Dizzy game is here, but thankfully its mostly a linear path from beginning to end, letting the player get a few screens further each time. Checkpoints are used to safe your progress into Ram, but not having an actual save means each level must be done in one go - which can feel tiresome today. The controls also make it very difficult to use the shield and the gun at the same time, when simply holding down fire and pushing in the direction you are facing should have been enough. The game allows for a two button controller, but maps the second button as holstering the gun - which is not very important in the heat of battle. I like the cut scenes and the sense of adventure without the levels becoming too big or overwhelming, with simple puzzles and a way to restart if you mess up. But the power plant puzzle is annoying and could have been easier to find the slot for the board. Overall I'd give this a solid 8.5 out of 10. This was a classic title back in the day, but the long and often unforgiving levels take away from what could have been run and gun heaven.