Flashback™

This is a review for the “remaster” of the game that is offered here at GOG, not the original 1992 game. Pros: It still works with modern hardware (not always the case for old games) Cons: There is no option to rebind controls, which is a MASSIVE BLUNDER and my main issue with the “remaster”. The rewind mechanic is clunky at its best. The graphics were not improved in any way, shape or form. All in all, this “remaster” is worth neither your time, nor your money. You are far better off playing an unofficial fan-patched version of the game.

I don't know why Flashback can't catch a break. It gets a really bad reboot that missed all the points of the original and it even managed to screw up the included version of the OG by putting it on an arcade machine that you can't zoom into and borked the sounds. Now this comes out and you'd maybe expect a remaster like Another World/Out of this World where you get true widescreen, touched up visuals, better performance. No. This is the most bizarre port of a game I think I've seen. It's got a bad CRT filter, that awful smoothing filter that destroys pixel art and some other options better turned off. It has a remastered OST as well as sounds which sound like they have lost all identity (ha ha. . .), like they ran the midis through some new instrumentation and called it a day. Inoffensive but not great. And some sounds are not remastered but from what I've been able to tell are mostly from the Genesis/Mega Drive version. This is where it gets weird though, you can enable '8-bit' audio where you'd assume it'd take the sounds/music from either the Genesis or Amiga version but . . .no. It takes various sounds from the Genesis, SNES and Amiga versions and they clash so badly. If this was my first time playing the game I'd be baffled what the audio designers were doing. I mean- I still am but for a different reason. The audio is all over the place with this. The game runs fine, the game looks fine (with the filters off) they even have a rewind feature so the game is less punishing. But the presentation is so, bad. It was so bad it even extended to the Switch special edition which came with a fake SNES cart for a case where the manual didn't even fit into it. Also, SNES? Why? Arguably the worst version. IDK. The core game is still here and good but the presentation is just not doing it justice. Flashback is seriously cursed. Fantastic game, bad reboot, jank 'remaster' and awful sequels.

First of all, I've played this game 30 years ago, and I've loved it! It was probably my first game I've ever finished. Now, the game totally holds up still today. The controls are a bit clunky and needs some time to get used to, but I remember how "challanging" was to use the shield playing on a keyboard - today, using a controller, it's much better. You can either play using the original sounds and graphics, or choose remastered sounds and some visual filters (CRT emulation, antialiasing, etc.). You can turn these on/off one by one, so you can personalize the game to your taste. There is also a "rewind" feature, which enables you to rewind the game if you e.g. abruptly died (which can happen quite often), without the need to restart from the last checkpoint/save point. Saves you a lot of time/frustration! The only negative thing I've come across is that it seems if there were some slowdowns here and there, but I'm not really sure, it's so minor. But other than this, this is a great port and a great game.

The original Flashback used to be one of my favourites games back on the Amiga. This one I bought mostly for sentimental reasons. After the game waited its time in the queue I decided to give it a go to see how well or hwo bad it aged. And it seems that it didn't age that well. Firtly, as many people already pointed out - the "new" graphics is plain ugly. I don't understand the point of drawing big square pixels and then making their edges a bit rounded. Completely pointless feature. Secondly, the control scheme is annoying. Period. Thirdly - the gameplay used to be typical for platform-puzzle-shooter of an era so it wasn't that annoying back then. And the graphics/music and general feel of the game used to be very good (again - for that time). If you play it now... well, the gfx is not that great anymore and you're getting annoyed at the gameplay much easier. And the gameplay tends to be annoying at times. Especially on harder dificulty levels. On the one hand - you have the rewind feature which to some extend helps a bit with harder points in the game but on the other hand the feature itself can be a great PITA because your character restarts with holstered weapon or standing in the wrong direction and so on. So, the game that used to be a 5/5 or even a 6/5 back in its days is now unfortunately only a mediocre retro-styled puzzle-platformer. Good thing it works natively on windows however I can understand that people would love to see the original version to be able to play it under DosBox on any supported system. With this one it won't work.

This game was great when I was young and the Anniversary Edition made me relive this feeling. Sure, don't expect AAA graphics these days but if you are into classics, this one was a milestone. The controls are sometimes a bit unlucky and the game wants to be played slow even though controlling the protagonist - with all the fluid movement mechanics - wants to be played quickly (see it as a first draft of Tomb Raider, Assassins Creed etc. platformers). Also the difficulty is hard at times - even on easy. But don't worry too much. The Anniversary Edition helps in this case. The Rewind functionality lets you rewind some seconds so you can improve without restarting the level. I had 3,5 hours playtime with that (and using some rewind moments) so I guess it was surely worth the money. Give it a try if you want to experience a true classic. Leave it if you get annoyed by ancient graphics - even though that rotoscoping was awesome at this time (Same guy who made Prince of Persia etc.). Good platformer with some nice mechanics, challenging difficulty and a nice story for it's time!