Once I got used to how the controls work, I had a blast with this. Some of the puzzles were a bit frustrating, and the baddies hit bullshit levels of difficult by the end of the game, which was also somewhat annoying.

But even today, this game looks incredible. The rotoscoped characters and sprites dressed as polygons has a really futuristic feel to it, but maybe that's just 8 year old me talking.

The gameplay is compulsive. Just one more go. I really enjoyed thinking about how to navigate each screen and figure out the best way to deal with enemies and various other hazards etc.

Other than a clunky control system, this has really stood the test of time. A real gem. I played this via the Delphine Evercade Collection. It's the Megadrive version on there for some reason. Can't complain though, because its still great.

Kinda silly it's taken me this long to beat flashback, considering I actually have the Megadrive cart, and the version they released on Switch. Still, a great time.

At this point in the world of video games, platformers generally follow a very similar pattern. Most of these games typically some kind of character moving from left to right, or in whatever direction is laid out for the player, you take out a selection of enemies, primarily by jumping on top of them, or using other methods like with guns or swords, you collect some kind of regular item that only serves to give you points and make you feel a little better inside, and you fight a handful of bosses to ultimately conquer them and win the day. This formula has typically worked for many games, and it still works even all the way to this day, but… what if platformers can be… MORE than that? What if these games could be bigger, more stylistic, more personal, and most importantly, more story-driven? Well, that’s where cinematic platformers come in, with one of the most iconic examples of this sub-genre being with Flashback: The Quest for Identity.

I myself have dabbled in and out of cinematic platformers over the years, giving games like Limbo, Inside, and Heart of Darkness a shot, and I do remember loving those games (except for Heart of Darkness, that one is… complicated), making me want to check out what other kinds of cinematic platformers are out there, such as with Another World and the Oddworld series. In terms of Flashback, I had wanted to play that because, from what I had heard, it was THE cinematic platformer, one that defined the sub-genre, and one that had the most success and legacy behind it, with plenty of sequels and a remake being made afterwards. So, one day in 2020, I decided that I would go ahead and check it out, and yeah, I gotta admit, I really liked it. Yeah, it may be pretty dated by today’s standards, and it wasn’t the first cinematic platformer out there, but the presentation was something not many other games at the time could achieve, and it had a lot of creative and interesting elements… along with several hindrances to go alongside them.

The story is your typical “aliens try to destroy Earth” plot, but the way that it is presented and shown is much more unique, cinematic, and interesting when compared to many other games at the time, making it so that you care about what is going on (to an extent), the graphics are pretty good for the most part, with plenty of very well done hand-drawn backgrounds for the main gameplay sections, and as for the cutscenes, the animation is fantastic, despite most of the characters looking like clearer versions of characters from Alone in the Dark, which is made up with them being rotoscoped, making them feel more alive, the music is pretty good, even if, most of the time, there is no music, and instead just atmospheric sounds, but when there are tunes to hear, they do give weight to whatever is going on, and they can be good to listen to, the control is… rough, to say the least, but this is usually how most cinematic platformers around this time did control, so it is the norm, and you can get used to it when you know what to do (to an extent), and the gameplay, in terms of key elements, is stuff that has been seen before in other games, but these elements are combined together here in a way that make it stand out and much more interesting to play as a whole.

The gameplay is typical of a 2D cinematic platformer, where you take control of our hero, Conrad, travel through many different futuristic areas with plenty of variety, including cities, forests, and alien fortresses, take out plenty of enemies that you will run into with the help of your pistol and your various shields, gather plenty of items that you will need in order to complete your journey, and complete quests for people in order to proceed forward, watch more cinematics, and find out what the fate of the Earth entails. Yeah, on the surface level, it is pretty much what you would expect from a lot of 2D platformers, but one thing that makes it stand out is about how the game plays. It is very different from that of a regular platformer, feeling a lot more heavy and restrictive, which is definitely gonna turn some people away, but it does make the game feel somewhat more realistic, and in turn, more cinematic.

The other key element that makes the game stand out amongst others is, obviously, the presentation. There are plenty of very detailed and well animated cutscenes to be seen that detail key events of the story, which help the player get more involved in with what is going on, rather then the story element being just being relegated to part of the background afterwards. Not to mention, again, the more realistic animations for the characters mixed in with all of this make the game feel more cinematic as a result, which may not be as impressive nowadays, considering how far technology has come, but again, for the time it came out, it was revolutionary, to say the least. It was if you were playing out a moving, which not too many other games at the time could pull off easily. Those dumbass interactive CD games at the time couldn’t pull something like this off, with that crunchy-ass live-action footage that completely took you out of the experience.

With that being said though, the game isn’t perfect, and this all comes down to one key factor: the game is pretty fucking hard. This is something that a lot of cinematic platformers typically fall into, with difficulty ramping up quite a bit as you go along, and most of the time, I can get behind it, but for a game like this, it almost feels like too much at times. There will be plenty of moments where you are bombarded by enemies on both sides of you, and it feels like you need to be a god in order to counter and defeat some of these threats that you face, and this can result in many… many… MANY deaths. What doesn’t help this so much is how often these enemies show up, and how a lot of the time, you can die in pretty BS ways, such as running onto a screen where an enemy is, and they will kill you without you even noticing them right away, and even times where the enemy can kill you from the other screen you aren’t on. Now, this is nothing new when it comes to cinematic platformers, I get that, but it feels like this game in particular has the worst of those elements in it, with it happening so many times that it made the game less enjoyable at times, and more like a slog as a result.

Overall, despite the bullshit nature of the game at points, and the clunky-at-first-controls, I still consider Flashback to be a very good game, with great visuals for the time, very memorable presentation, challenges that feel satisfying to conquer, and a story that, while cliche, you get sucked into with how you view it. I would recommend it for those who are a fan of this sub-genre, and for those who love other games in said genre, because while I can’t say for certain that you will love this one, there is certainly something in it you can find that you will either love or appreciate for what it does. Just, you know, do yourself a favor and DON’T play the 2013 remake of this game. It isn’t worth it, trust me…

Game #342

(This is the 69th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

We have reached Game #69. Nice. Even nicer that this milestone was achieved with a good game, Flashback, a 'cinematic' platformer by Delphine Software that released some time in 1992. There are a few ways in which you could describe this game. I don't think anything would be more than apt though than calling it "ahead of its time", for mostly good but also bad reasons.

This game uses rotoscoped animations and would be best compared to other platformers such as Prince of Persia and especially "Another World", otherwise known as "Out of this World". While Prince of Persia was made by Broderbund, Another World was also developed by Delphine Software, and having played Flashback, feels like what Catacombs 3D is to Wolfenstein 3D, meaning that it feels like a short tech demo to show what's possible. (Fun fact: Just like Flashback is a milestone game for this challenge, Another World was the 50th game I reviewed)

If that doesn't give you an understanding of rotoscoped animations, think of the original Mortal Kombat, which probably is the most popular game to use this technique. It's basically the technique describing animators tracing over motion picture footage to create an illusion of realistic and very fluid animations.

Flashback has a lot of good traits, but definitely stands out thanks to using this animation technique. It has sold over 2 million copies over time and was at the time of its release the best selling French game of all time. It released for more platforms than Skyrim did, and initially released for the Amiga, though funnily enough had been created for the Sega Genesis originally. There is a sequel that released in 1995 called Fade to Black and Flashback 2 is set to release in November 2023 at the time of posting this review.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10

This game shines here in many ways, and primarily in presentation. What makes this game unique is that it has cinematic cutscenes in a cyberpunk style and using polygon graphics that you're not going to see anywhere else apart from Another World. You can tell the devs really took their time making these and they definitely add a lot to the overall experience thanks to their great presentation. For example, in an early cutscene, you wake up and accidentally drop a 'holocube' as you get up. Then, in another cutscene, when you find the holocube, you can see it displaying a message while the main character is holding it in his hands. Cutscenes also play every time you pick up an item or give one to another character. It's a small thing that enhances the meaning of finding a key item, and even though the cutscene has half a second loading screens before they play, I still appreciated them.

Now for the story. You play Conrad B. Hart, a graduate student and agent of the Galaxial Bureau of Investigation (GBI). He is also described as an "overall cool dude" in the manual. You run away from some sort of spaceship with your own, but crashland in an unfamiliar area. When you wake up and pick up the holocube I just mentioned, the message that appears is from your past self. Apparently, you willingly removed your memory and need to see your friend Ian in "New Washington" to get it back.

You play the first level and make your way over there. In the first level, you meet a wounded stranger who asks you to find his teleporter so he can teleport to safety from these woods that you are both trapped in. Later, you meet an elderly man on a chair next to a giant hole. He says he will give you an Anti Gravity Belt if you have enough credits for him, so you can jump down to the next level.

Once you make it to New Washington, you are met with the sort of setting that would have made me go crazy at the time. There is a subway system that lets you visit for key areas in New Washington that are called "America", "Asia", "Europe" and "Africa". In one of these locations, you will find a bar, in another, you will find a room with job notices that you can take on with a work permit, in another, there is an Admin office that gives you said work permit.

In practice, this ends up being a level where you continously backtrack to ultimately pay another NPC to move on to the next level, and it does get boring and frustrating at times, but to have a world that actually feels real like this in a video game from this time period is extremely rare and absolutely worth a positive mention.

The overall story is relatively interesting as well. The manual has a comic book style opening to the overall story, which you will be able to find with a quick Google search. It shows what happens before the story begins, so maybe you'll want to look at it after playing the game, since figuring out what happened before Conrad lost his memory is part of the appeal of the story. I'm not going to spoil anything, and it doesn't get the crown for most in-depth story for a non-RPG and non-graphic adventure (I'd still give that to Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake) and it also does not have any shocking twists, but it's entertaining enough and most importantly really well presented that the reward you get from learning more is ultimately pretty satisfying.

GAMEPLAY | 12/20

This is a platformer that uses rotoscoping for its animations. This means movement looks really fluid and life-like, similarly to Prince of Persia and Another World. These animations don't just look real, but often they also play out like they would in reality, meaning they are deliberately slow. This has its positives and negatives. On the one hand, this slow movement means a methodical and strategical approach is more important, because there are plenty of enemies that you need to fight here as well. On the other hand, slow is slow. When you have to go over the same section of the game for the 5th time or have failed to make a jump three times in a row, having to wait for animations to play out will get a bit boring after a while.

The game has a somewhat convoluted control scheme that takes getting used to. To reach a platform right above you, you need to stay at one specific point below it and grab up. This makes Conrad grab on, and if you keep pressing up, he will climb up. If you are a single step behind or in front of this spot, he will not hold on. For 7 hours, I constantly had to do one extra step to be in the right position. Not a terrible thing, but annoying at times. It gets worse when there is a platform that is above you but on the other side of the room. Here, you need to hold A, press RIGHT/LEFT to sprint (you needed to run straight) and then UP to jump up. Or was it RIGHT/LEFT again? Actually, it's both. I couldn't quite figure out which one the game wanted me to do for specific jumps, but some jumps required you to press RIGHT/LEFT twice, and others required you to press RIGHT/LEFT first and then UP later. But what timing do you need for the jump? Do you press the appropriate button multiple times hoping the game recognizes your input in time? Do you button mash? Or do you hold on to the button? I can tell you that all approaches worked at times and didn't work at others. Finally, another frustrating thing that would happen is from being able to roll forward when crouching. The game doesn't scroll but rather plays on independent screens. Whenever you enter a new screen, your action from the previous screen would be remembered however. So if you roll from one to the next, you keep rolling as the next screen loads up. In some screens, there would just be pits that you would fall right into, and if you fall too far down, you die. Happened more often than I'd care to admit.

Dying is another thing. There are SAVE points in this game, but sometimes they are pretty far apart. You have 5 lives that you can recharge at certain checkpoints. If you ever die, and you will plenty of times, you go all the way back to your last save point, which can set you back as far as 15-30 minutes easily and all the progress you made is lost. Fall damage takes all your health, and running into portal-like things that have green myst coming out of them instantly kill you too, so you can imagine how many cheap deaths await in this game that make you lose hours of progress over the course of your playthrough.

But enough of the negatives. Despite these points, which do make me reluctant to recommend this game to anyone but retro gamers who have grown somewhat immune to these pains, I had a fun time with this from a gameplay perspective overall.

You are equipped with a simple gun at the start. Taking on enemies with it is not as simple as going in run and gun style. You need to crouch at times to not get shot first yourself, you can throw stones to distract them first or alert turrets that shoot the enemies for you, and you get a force field later on that acts as a shield if you time it right. You can also use teleportation devices or explosive mechanical mice later on to spice things up further.

Apart from combat, you do a lot of platforming and puzzle-solving, which either involves figuring out where to go or, if something is blocking your way, figuring out how to bypass it. It's never too difficult but enough of a braintease as well, so I liked the difficulty here. You collect key items like, well, keys, quest items and credits that allow you to make progress. These are on the floor randomly and some are hard to see, so you basically have to walk over every inch of a level to not miss anything. You get a Pick-Up notice once you are on top of an item, so you will find all of them just by being thorough.

Overall, the game offers a strategic challenge in both platforming, puzzle-solving and combat that I appreciated. It was enough to have me entertained for the 7 hours I played. I feel like the atmosphere did a lot of the heavy lifting to make some of the more frustrating parts more bearable. I would call this game "ahead of its time" because it offers a lot of things that just feel futuristic at this point, but the technology at the time meant many things couldn't be done in a way that the devs probably wanted, which means we got some frustrating gameplay parts as a result. The sequel is a 3D adventure game, so I'm curious to see if the devs were able to make use of the three years of technological progress to make gameplay more enjoyable throughout.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10

No voice acting, at least in the Sega Genesis version I'm reviewing. Later, the game would release for the Sega CD for example, where CGI cutscenes and voice actors would be used. I've seen some footage and the voice acting sounds like it takes away more than it adds to the atmosphere, so you'll be fine with this version of the game.

Sound design ranges from meh to excellent, and I particularly love the sounds that are added in to the short cutscenes when you pick stuff up or give and take items.

The soundtrack can be described similarly. Very sci-fi, really adds to the atmosphere. Music plays at specific points of certain screens or during combat, and overall the use of music can be described as "sparingly", and I can't say I mind this. Lots of games with incredible atmosphere forego the use of music for most parts of their gameplay. A great example that comes to mind are the Soulsborne games. This would mean that the game should make me listen to the protagonists footsteps and to the environmental sounds to further set an atmosphere, but for some reason footsteps are only heard while running, not walking. Seems like a weird thing to not do. But back to the soundtrack. Great, when used. Overall the OST is only about 15 minutes long.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

Can't go through this section without going over the rotoscoping that is used here. The animations here are to this day some of the more realistic you will see. Very clean. There is no question what the main reason is for why this and Another World still have a cult following to this day.

Apart from this, graphically there are nice special effects and diverse locations to compliment. It's not a very colorful game despite its cyberpunk theme and most of the game plays in grayish-green outdoor areas.

The HUD consists of an icon on the top right showing the item you currently have equipped. The UI opens up by pressing START and is a simple inventory screen with 4 items shown per line. Move to the item, select START again, and done. There are some items that are always useful, like the force field, and many items that are only useful once or twice, so it would have been nice for these very useful items to be equipped and useable without having to switch to it mid-combat every time. Or for example, charging stations serve one purpose for 99% of the game - charge your shield/hitpoints. Just because it is used for something else once (!) you need to equip shield every time you want to charge it, which seems like something that could have been automated.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 9/10

There are a lot of ways through which this game manages to set a very good atmosphere. The animations of course add a lot of realism at a time where this was hard to achieve. The sound design and soundtrack set a great sci-fi vibe. Cutscenes add close-up looks at the events. New Washington, while backtrack-heavy, is an unusual setting for a level because it creates the illusion of a genuinely lived in oxymoronic tiny metropolis, something that was uncommon at the time. Cutscenes playing when picking up an item or giving something to a different character also add immersion on a deeper level, even if it is a tiny detail. Overall, I definitely felt like there was a world here that the developers actually thought about and they did a great job of making it seem grounded and realistic despite the sci-fi theme.

CONTENT | 6/10

The game takes roughly 6-8 hours, a pretty good length for a game of this type. It's not too short to appear more like a tech demo like Another World, and it's not too long to overstay its welcome. You can tell by the missions you are assigned that there is only so much variety the game has to offer, so I appreciated that it ended when it did. The game does a solid job of offering new challenges throughout, but as I mentioned over this review, there are too many parts where the gameplay does hold the fluidity of the game back, along with the pretty annoying save system, which was only manageable to me thanks to the emulator's own save state feature.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10

The level design in this game has high and lowlights. Highlights are New Washington, where the pros of its uniqueness outweigh the cons of the backtracking that you need to do there. The balance of platforming, combat and puzzle-solving is also well struck. On the negative side, dying setting you back so far, death coming unfairly too often, and some gunfights being in awkward locations that are made even more awkward by the control scheme of the game are some of the more prominent points.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10

This isn't the first game to use rotoscopic animation nor cinematic cutscenes. Another World did both of these things. That game didn't do it on this scale though, and animations look a lot more fluid in Flashback. The game is not groundbreaking in what it does, but it certainly is daring and innovative, and I really like that. Games in this time period pre-CD and pre-3D often stick to the status-quo, similarly to what is being critiziced in modern times, though there was little complaining at the time. Magazines had no issues spreading around 8s and 9s for nearly every game for not doing anything special at all. So developers who try something different are always much appreciated, and while these innovations did come with some drawbacks in this game, I can say the good absolutely outweighs the bad overall.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

No replayability here apart from trying to beat your high score and maybe using some tools that are optional, like the mechanical mice.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times.

OVERALL | 72/100

70+ is usually "at least check it out" territory for me. With this game, I have the same recommendation to retro gamers for sure, but unlike, say, a Super Mario World, Zelda or Monkey Island, Flashback has A LOT of the noticeable growing pains that come with old-school video games. I'd understand if it's too much for some people to take. That said, the game does plenty right as well and its unique status is undeniable.

You know when I first looked at Flashback, I thought it looked kinda excessive and I wouldn't really be all that into it. Now that I finally took a chance to play and beat it, thereby fulfilling the Three Pillars of the cinematic platformer subgenre, I can say that I was mostly wrong, but sometimes right.

If you couldn't already tell from the cover and title alone, this is taking some influences and style from Total Recall and even They Live, though instead of combating dreams vs reality, authoritarianism, consumerism, all that jazz, here it's a simple spy thriller where you, as Conrad B. Hart, start out as amnesiac, before picking up and activating a holocube where the prerecorded message tells you to head on over to Ian to recover your memories and found out what's happening, with the closing line honestly being kind of raw. After getting yourself situated once over there, you soon learn that an alien species called Morphs have started to invade and secretly hide within the culture of Earth, and are soon planning to take it over. A simple plot to be sure, but it's backed up by some pretty impressive presentation at the time. Yea, the faces can be pretty funny looking at times, but I imagine most people didn't really give too much of a shit about it back then (or at least, not enough to warrant commenting over) cause they were justified in ogling over how cool as shit the animation and framing is. Like shit, even the intro sequence manages to get me amped up over what's about to happen within the game. It's pretty nuts for 1992 and later 93, and well worth the effort Delphine Software, this time with a team mainly headed by Paul Cuisset, has poured into it.

This also extends to the environments and level details as well. Apparently the Genesis version is the baseline version, only being released a year after the Amiga. I dunno if this is true or not (couldn't find a source at the time of writing this, apparently Paul himself said this at some point), but regardless, this has some good aesthetics and flair within the systems library. From the beginning at the jungle, to the middle with this low-light meshes of purple and dark blues at a place called Death Tower, all the way to the end at the alien homeworld that's using those signature circular pores with purples and greens, the game was providing some visual treats and then some with that classic Genesis twang, heavy bass, and sharp bullet noises for the sound department. A standout among the system's many visually impressive showcases to be sure, and from the looks of it, all other versions don't alter it too drastically, which is nice.

As for the controls, it took some getting used to admittedly. If you tried out Gothic, then Flashback has the same sorta philosophy with action uses and such, where you need to press or hold a button first before another, for example holding A when idle then holding left or right to run. It's kind of weird to go from the last few games where this wasn't exactly necessary to this, but much like with the time I spent in Gothic, I got used to the scheme pretty quickly. The weight of it here is probably the best I've experienced thus far, practically every action felt just right, and whenever I let go of the directional buttons it stopped exactly when needed. There's a couple of minor yet nagging details I have though, in order to climb ledges you have to be underneath that ledge in order to do so, not be a little ahead of it. Kind of weird at points, especially when you need to hug a wall and don't have immediate visual clarity to see Conrad's hands, but nothing that gets annoying too much. One thing that always tripped me up though, is how long jumps work. See, this still has the "running left or right then pressing up to jump" approach, but there's also another where in order to jump and grab stuff you have to... release left/right, continue holding the action button down, and when you have a ledge appear you'll immediately jump towards it. It's weird, and quite honestly, I would've preferred just having one method or the other, but eh.

While Flashback's platforming segments are strong, it puts emphasis on the combat aspect more than even Heart Of Darkness did, though the good news is that it's mainly manageable. Alongside another difficulty selection - Easy, Normal, and Expert - there's also Energy Generators scattered around each level, and when placing the Shield, an item you have with you at all times, on them, you'll be granted four charges, effectively meaning you'll have up to 5 HP. They're pretty decently placed too, each time I felt like needing one ASAP, either a new one appears or I can make an easy backtrack for a previous one. Checkpoints start off rough though, you have to reach a save point first so that you can respawn there if you happen to die, which the first level doesn't even start you out near until a bit later. That said, I felt the frequency and appearance of them, much like with the generators, did get better over the course of the experience. On Normal at least, I didn't really feel like enemies were too tough to tackle, getting the drop on them (literally) and blasting worked out well, and the ones that take more hits can be defeated with simple patterns, or in the case of the circle drones, just spamming the shit out of the fire button. Outside of that, there's also the puzzles, and disappointingly the variety and density of them are pretty basic. Some simple switch/motion sensor activations here, some lift finangling there, item usage throughout, it's all cool and workable, but nothing that really got my thinking cap going like with the last few games I went through. In terms of Gotchas, there aren't that many around, but when they do appear they're the most despicable of the bunch that I've experienced thus far. This started to crop up more around the halfway point, which sometimes works for the increase of difficulty, but other times felt rather cheap.

Flashback has all the hallmarks of a classic 2D platformer, but unfortunately, it's too ambitious for it's own good. I'm gonna be blunt, this whole venture took me six hours to complete, well over the length I've experienced to the point I could've played the previous titles once each and barely come close to it. There's some sections here that severely messes with the pacing, and while granted most of the levels are free from this by only having the occasionally tedious backtracking to worry about, there's still enough grievances that seriously had me wishing this was cut up by a good 25-40%. In the second level, you're in a city that's essentially a hub to do odd jobs in, having to do so because someone requires 1500 credits in order to help you access Death Tower. You do five of these, and it really should've been two or even three at most, since one mission just boils down to a hunt for a rogue cyborg, and another is a boring combat section that doesn't feel intense or fulfilling to do. The aforementioned Death Tower has 8 levels worth of challenges to complete and unlock a lift to proceed, and in fairness, I feel like only the 8th and 7th levels could've used some trimming, mainly in the enemy and/or trap, due to the time fighting them adding up just enough that it'll start to get repetitive. The worst of it though, is within the last 3/4s or so of the final level. I thought HoD's arbitrary extension was bad, but that was at least 20-30 minutes, here it's obtuse puzzle solving, the most tedious enemy encounters that usually pits you in tight or barely mid-sized corridors and rooms, and mundane platforming to get it all to work, and it's also where the bullshit started to crop up often. By the time I got to the final stretch, I was just exhausted, and waiting for it to be finally over. While part of the charm is to get used to the layouts and formulate a plan to optimize time to a great degree (longplays of this usually take up to 2-4 hours cause of it), I still think there's enough fluff on hand to really consider just cutting out entirely, especially when they're mandatory plot progressions.

Despite my harshness, I do want to stress that, when Flashback's good, it's a grand time, and if nothing else, the atmosphere throughout is top notch. It's a shame that it loses out on greatness by being excessive in its capabilities, but it's within these capabilities that made it carve out such a grand following to begin with. If you want to play it for yourself, it got a rerelease that I believe is based on the DOS version, available on PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbone/Series X&S. I actually dabbled with this for a fair bit, and you can play it as originally intended, or select and toggle some enhancements like a rewind feature, remastered sounds, some noise and CRT shaders, or if you hate yourself, that godawful smear horseshit that always get packed in these old games for some reason, along with a couple more on hand. It controls and runs great, though I think there's some issues with the OG sound unfortunately, while the music and other essential sfx are fine, some of the ambience either don't play right or are super quiet. The new sound option is good and I got used to that at least, but it's a bummer regardless.

Es un clásico, de los imprescindibles. Aunque va a hacer 30 años desde su lanzamiento, es un juego que merece la pena disfrutar. En Flashback encontramos un juego de acción en 2D donde manejamos a Conrad, un científico que se ve envuelto en una conspiración y debe salvar a la humanidad. De temática ciencia ficción futurista, con una historia muy entretenida, y un apartado gráfico increíble, me sorprendió entonces y sigue haciéndolo a día de hoy. El sonido es sencillo, pero le pega muy bien y te ayuda a vivir la experiencia. La jugabilidad es complicada, hasta que la dominas, pero es un reto que te exige desde el principio dar tu mejor versión.