iReview: Flashback

Manomio’s debut iPhone game is a port of an all-time great. Can they overcome the flaws of the platform in their Quest for Identity?

For the uninitiated, Flashback (released in the US as Flashback: The Quest for Identity) is a cyberpunk platformer originally developed for the Amiga by Delphine Software back in 1992. Modeled in aesthetics, design, and play after French game designer Eric Chahi’s Another World (Out of This World over here), Flashback is a platformer with style and color, challenging levels, and has one of the first game worlds that I remember feeling immersed in.

That world is a loosely sketched cyberpunk future. The main character, Conrad, wakes up in a jungle, after a nasty hovercycle crash. Standard sci-fi plot starts here: hero has amnesia, finds his way into a hostile metropolis, does some bounty hunting, plays in an fatal television show,  fights alien invasion. It draws on plenty of familiar tropes, but with minimal active narration it never feels cliche. You know how to feel about a life-and-death game show, and filling it with neon lights and elevator puzzles manages to bring it to life.

The lack of heavy handed story telling makes the gameworld feel lived in. Yes, you are hero in the traditional sense, but no one but you seems to know it. The tone is strongest in its second level, a massive city on Saturn’s moon Titan. Separated into multiple boroughs, each named after one of Earth’s continents, Conrad zips back and forth via a mass transit system visiting bars, scientists, and megacorps. In order to stop an alien menace, you need to raise enough dough to afford a space-flight back to Earth. To make that money, you do a guy a favor to get a fake ID, use that fake ID to get working papers, and then perform a number of odd jobs: package delivery, VIP escorting, Replicant hunting. (How couldn’t I love this game?) The level is the longest in the game, and in retrospect is responsible for building my earliest conception of what “dark future” meant: blood and bureaucracy, death and debt.

And death comes in many forms. Puzzles in the style of other cinematic platformers (think Prince of Persia) offer bullets, lasers, pitfalls, and more in the way of life-expectancy shorterners. Enemies utilize a number of movement options that you don’t have in order to get the drop on you, flying above you with jetpacks or teleporting to your unguarded back. On your side is a pistol and a shield that you can call up to block upcoming attacks, and eventually a teleporting device of your own.

The limited toolset allows the player to become intimately familiar with the language of the game. I’m unsure if comparisons have been drawn previously, but they ought to: games like Flashback, Another World, and Prince of Persia are obvious precursors to Fumito Uedo’s Ico (and its pseudo-sequels.) Quiet games populated with obstacles that can be overcome with competent understanding of the game mechanics and a healthy dose of patience. There is shared DNA there. Whether or not Ueda has even played those titles is irrelevant. The effect that these games have had on the other platformers since them is undeniable. However Ueda came upon his concepts of isolation in design, some of that inspiration clearly descended from here.

Don’t get me wrong, the title isn’t perfect: The game is short and lacks replay value; There are some complexities in combat that are inconsistent, some exploitable enemy AI, and some frustrating puzzles. The controls are specific, and were by far my biggest concern when I heard that Manomio would be making an iPhone port. I’m more easy to appease than most when it comes to iPhone games (I even managed to blow through the shakey-at-best version of Megaman 2) but in a game built around step-count puzzles, being off by a little bit means a lot of issues.

And so on and so on, would this iReview go if I had written it two weeks ago. When I first picked up Manomio’s port I was more than a little distraught. The controls were alright, but without my past love of the game I would’ve never made it past the fourth or fifth screen. There are key movements that you just can’t figure out without a full set of instructions. An entire set of missions in the second level is nearly unplayable: when you took a job, no instructions were given besides the title of the job taken. The save-anywhere system (while a healthy addition) with its easy-to-overwrite-by-mistake feature was made to frustrate. Worst of all, at $6 dollars it was at least an expensive dose of nostalgia, and at most time and money that would’ve been better spent doing anything that works.

Here’s the twist ending: Flashback is now only $2.99, performs as intended, and now even has a free “Lite” version featuring the game’s first level in full. The latest update features controls that work, a new full screen mode, a detailed set of help instructions, fixed job details in Level 2, a rotatable gamescreen, and controls that work. Manmio has turned this one around, providing a whole new generation of gamers the opportunity to explore a mercurial world as vivid and cogent as its gameplay is solid. And you can play a fun game too.

Manmio isn’t done updating the their first release, either. With a promise to add the original’s password system, and fix the save system they implemented originally, it’s clear that they’re in this for good. Two weeks reveals exactly how digital distribution works, for better or worse: Developers are able to gouge early adopters, use that money to finance necessary changes, and in order to grow the brand and customer base they’re trapped into supporting their buggy software and offering interested consumers a look at the title for free. This is the age we are heading into. We ought to get used to it.

Pluses
+ Exploring a coherent gameworld in 2D games is a rarity, and this fills that niche easily.
+ Step-based puzzle design holds up after all these years. Modern 3D platformers lack this precision
+ Gorgeous aesthetics and lively rotoscoped animations contribute to make this adventure a privilege to look at.
+ Dev support assures future improvements.
+ Free trial version offers you a clear example of the game. if you like the demo, you’ll like the full game more.

Minuses
- Controls work, but even the best 2D platforming controls on an iPhone aren’t for everyone.
- Limited replayability is still an issue, but that is endemic to this genre.

Available for the iPhone
Rated 9+ for Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence and Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence
Completed game on normal difficulty.
Final Verdict: Flashback is an exceptional argument for the return of the 2D puzzle-platformer, and a genuine experience in minimalist science fiction. If you can wrap your head around the controls, then you ought to be playing this now.