Godfather looks very similar to an older game of Delphine called Future Wars, created by Paul Cuisset (Flashback Director) and designed by Eric Chahi (Another World creator). Flashback gameplay looks much similar to Another World.
I love Flashback and I never realized it was ported to so many systems. I bought the game for the Amiga when it was released and funnily enough its manual had a page explaining how to wire a MegaDrive three button controller to the Amiga in order to be able to use two buttons (the Amiga techno supports three buttons but not with the same wiring as the MegaDrive controller. I remember that at the time I was a bit vexed to have to admit that the authors of Flashback thought the MD had a better controller. 😄 In retrospect it is clear that they were right: I always use my MegaDrive controllers when playing on the Amiga instead of these stupid joysticks. A few years back I acquired the game for the Genesis as part of a lot purchase and got the chance to play it in its entirety on the machine: there is no doubt that the pad make the experience much more enjoyable. I globally agree with you regarding both versions, they play nicely and the Amiga users get to enjoy the disk loading times in exchange for a better music (the MD's music is not bad though). Thanks for the video Mark!
Also, I can imagine the discussion between Delphine and their publisher US Gold regarding the CD based versions : "These new machines are all the rage and you guys absolutely must be present on this market, of course you will have to do it for " "Huh, this is nice but we are already busy with developing Fade To Black and anyway this budget is too small" "Oh, don't worry! We happen to know just the team for such a challenge" "Oh, ok, well, good luck to them"
The SNES, 3DO, and Jaguar versions of this game were all made by Tiertex, which explains why there are similarities between the other two ports on the Jaguar version. Honestly, you'd expect the 3DO and Jaguar versions to be beefed up thanks to the advanced hardware, but of course, because they're Tiertex, they had to mess up one way or another. Also, while I think the slowdown in Another World SNES is acceptable, it's NOT on Flashback SNES. There's much less going on onscreen yet it still slows down. They're just bad ports that should've been a lot better than what Tiertex crapped out.
7MGTESupraTurboA "Although the Super FamiCom SNES hardware did have what is seen as a slow CPU, if properly programmed then slow down should not have been an issue" That's exactly what I'm saying, but of course, since this is Tiertex, why would they ever bother trying?
@@solarflare9078 Yep - it’s probably a basic MD port, using the CPU and not using the support hardware. Same as ST to Amiga ports, and Spectrum to Amstrad / MSX ports.
I remember SNES fan boys at school blindly protecting the SNES version of every game port released on the Nintendo system..... this game in question here was hot topic at school, and only those that played both versions could see the differences. MegaDrive own's SNES ass yet again.
Same as with Out of this World, all versions seem relatively close to each other. The Super Famicom version has the expected slowdown, but still doesn't seem too bad, and the Jaguar version is probably the best thing Tiertex ever shit out. It looks and sounds nice, but the Framerate seems unstable, there's times where it looks too fast (similar to the emulation issues with the Archimedes version) and others too slow. Not enough to make it unplayable but it definitely seems less optimized than any other port in this video. And man it's a shame the CD and 3DO versions replaced the pixel art with FMV, as they otherwise appear to be the best versions.
Despite Eric Chahi not being involved in the making, it looks like Flashback was developed similarly to Another World. We can't even rule out Delphine didn't use some of the tools made by Chahi when he worked for the company.
@@amerigocosta7452 Without a doubt it had to use a similar game engine. The set pieces are structured way too similarly to be coincidence, everything from the actual levels to the cutscenes. Luckily it would seem as though they learned from their mistakes with the Genesis sound hardware, because while it isn't excellent by any means, it sounds far better than the assault on your ears that was Out of this World.
@@amerigocosta7452Eric Chahi talk about this in various interviews and in an biographic book. It was the beginning of the end for him at Delphine Software, Flashback development was a subject of tension because Paul Cuisset seemed not to accept the fact they re-use a lot of technical concepts and ideas from Another World, the objective was to defend at all costs that Flashback was a 100% in-house and original product born from the imagination of his team, including the rotoscoping technology. It was after this mishap that Chahi decided to set up his own studio, Amazing Studio. But you're right, even nowadays, it's difficult to trust that Paul Cuisset's team didn't use lot of ideas from Another world, the result is so similar visually, for me it always sounded like a joke!
It's been eons since I last posted one of my weird stories regarding video games, on Mark's videos, but Flashback was the source of one of the most memorable ones. See the Delphine Software/US Gold logo at the beginning, the dark one with the camera and the creepy music on the MD version? Well, when I first rented the game it unsettled me to no end. My little bro might have noticed something, because hours later, he approached me from behind and sang the last bass-like six notes of the logo: "Doo-Doo-Dun-Dun-Dun-Duuuuun". I swear I literally leaped like a frightened bunny. And that's it. Silly childhood stories one remembers sometimes.
Re: Jag Flashback- you're obviously using an emulator here (understandable!), but on real hardware, the game barely runs better than the Genesis version. The cutscenes in particular are not significantly better, and I really cannot underscore enough the magnitude of how weak of a port it is. I made the likely bad decision to buy an original copy of every Jag game, and having successfully done so... while Flashback isn't even close to the worst game on Jag, it's easily the game that disappointed me most. Especially at original retail price, which is about what I paid for a complete copy. If it weren't for the small visual improvements, I'd swear they just directly ported the Genesis version & only utilized the 68k processor. There is a flaw in Jag emulation where (as far as I can tell) certain games are sped up to 60FPS despite the game intentionally targeting 30 or less, resulting in essentially double speed. In Flashback's case, I'm pretty sure it targeted 24 specifically, making the speedup even worse. A video from a popularish YTer that purported to cover ever Jaguar game commercially released came out semi-recently, but I can't think of more than 4 games covered (some of which weren't in fact commercially released) that accurately reflected how they play on hardware. Some were double time (Cybermorph), many seemed half time, some played normal but with totally messed up audio (Zool 2), some played way better than they do on actual hardware (Bubsy). This video, as was that Jag video overall, is definitely not a good representation of the Jag experience. I want to be clear that I'm not trying to roast you here, you'd have had no way of knowing for sure with this one-off example. I'll definitely criticize someone that makes it through 50+ games and not pause to think "is this really what these games played like?" But in any event, I'll grab some Jag Flashback footage and upload it eventually so that y'all can be just as underwhelmed as I was. Sorry this comment is so long.
Except these games weren't used as social engineering vehicles back then, the way modern day games Trojan horse Marxist-neo-liberal narratives or gas-lighting with revisionist history do today. We only have to look at the way consumers have gone from generic Sicilian mafia parody with games such as GTA3, to crap like Watchdogs legion, where the player is essentially duped into empathizing with playing as a BLM esque, N.G.O funded Marxist revolutionary, the player most likely won't know that said 'Revolutionaries' are trained and funded by many of the same intelligence staff and oligarchs that the revolutionaries claim to be in opposition against. Ever since the false flag of 9-11, we have bombarded with chaos magik via so called popular culture, especially since big corporations bought up many software developers, if you compare it to the 16-bit era, where the majority of themes were much more fantastical escapism, it takes a keen eye to know just what to consume today, especially when it is presented through a filmic presentation.
OH my, so awesome! When I saw you were covering Flashback, I thought I was going to lose my mind! Love, love, love this game. Thank you so much for covering this one. After you covered Another World, all I could think to myself was, I can't wait until he makes it to Flashback. Thank you so much! :D
Rented this a bunch of times for the Mega Drive and now have my very own copy! Very classy game. Felt like a true adventure. loved how you could holster your weapon on demand!
@@RetroCore in The Terminator on Mega Drive you had to remove your shotgun from under your jacket before firing; that animation looked really impressive along with Flashback. Made a difference to normal sprites constantly pointing their guns everywhere!
While I never got the desire to play this game back them, that box artwork of the guy looking up with a glass over his right eye (a HUD), caused a impression on me, very cool. I remember it to this day.
Flash Black and Fade to Black! Played both on DOS. It was a transition phase for me between 16 and 32 bit console, but I ended up playing more on PC. @Retrocore are you going to do Fade to Black as well?
The Mega Drive version is hands down the best version. The snes/sfc version needs a much needed extended vacation to the bin. There's a version for the Fm towns that is worth looking into. I've not seen much footage of it but I know the soundtrack is fantastic.
@@RetroCore I know it's super expensive as is the console/computer. I tried to emulate it out of curiosity some years ago but could never get it to work. Really enjoy your content by the way. Just out of curiosity, didn't you run something online before your TH-cam channel?
I loved this game so much when I played it on my Genesis as a kid. It was the most amazing thing I had seen at the time graphically. I was never able to finish it though, because it was too hard for me then. I'd like to go back and try to beat it one day.
i'm taking notes that the macintosh linux and microsoft windows version aka windows 3.1 or windows 95 version was using the sega mega cd style or 3do way too. besides well the usual extended long acorn computer brand or ms dos ones. or the short intro on the genesis/megadrive or snes/sfc and amiga as well. but i will try to check out the ms dos version which can be using dos box or actual dos mode. post script edit: holy sh*t! the jaguar which i never mentioned about was really fast with cutscenes but short again. i didn't see that coming.
Amazing and very difficult game. Some times I tried to play Megadrive version but I'm not very good. Tiertex made a very good job in my opinion giving to the Jaguar another good game. I'm really surprised.
I need an Archemetes & PC98 copy to complete my collection. I own all the rest. Still, I love the Jaguar port when played in RGB Scart connection the game is stunning. I appreciate this comparison. This is one of my all time favorite platformers.
Good game, but I prefer another world(one of my fav games). Flashback lacks the simplicity of another world and it is way harder, with too muck backtracking.
I don't know why Amiga version was released before the Megadrive one. Maybe a question of licence with SEGA. What's sure is that Delphine Software was really involved in Amiga gaming life as all there adventure games were clearly designed for Amiga and ST (Bio Challenge, Castle Warrior, Future Wars, Stealth Affair, Cruise For A Corpse and Another World). Flashback was their first real incursion in the console market after Another World that was purely designed on Amiga. Here you're right, Flashback was developed with the idea of a console game but I think that it would be the same if it was created for computer market as they learned a lot with the conversion and marketing of Another World on various console systems. Of course I played it on Amiga. Once again, the use of the keyboard was not a problem for computer gamers that were accustomed to this kind of controls. Clearly, I never heard anyone at the time saying: "if only I could use a joypad with more buttons". No, It was normal to use a joystick with one button and keyboard keys on CPC, C64, Spectrum, ST, Amiga and even PC (do you remember these awful analog joysticks that were the standard to play even action games with usually only one button?). Flashback was so impressive. As other Delphine Software productions, it's a game with a more mature content, designed for young adults, not kids like a lot of other games. And lifetime of the game was so great with vast levels and lot of things to do, to discover. I think that Amiga version gives the best soundtrack. If the original musics were composed by Jean Baudlot (like for a lot of Delphine and Ocean France games), they were totally reworked for Amiga by Raphael Gesqua aka Audiomonster, a French guy that was part of a demoscene group called Melon. If Jean Baudlot composed the original music with lot of drums, guitars and synthesis instruments, Audiomonster prefered to favor an orchestration closer to movie music with percussions, brass, violins... For him, as Flashback was clearly inspired by the Paul Verhoeven movie Total Recall (1991), the music had to be epic as well. And as Amiga players earned this great soundtrack, we all thought "Yeah, that's for that Paula was designed for". Sadly, his work has not been used to compose the CD soundtrack. I was really disappointed by all the CD versions that offer IMO low quality variety compositions that was so far from the epic orchestral atmosphere from the Amiga version. And why ingame musics? Atmospheric sounds and little jingles were perfect, music breaks the cozy atmosphere of the game when you explore the jungle or the city. The CDi version understood that with no ingame musics, just sounds and jingles. Sadly, CPU lack of power is here like on SNES and this version is a little bit slow, that impacts the playability. Disc swaps are a little bit annoying on Amiga. To limit the problem, 3D in-game sequences are not launched by default, you had to activate at the beginning of the game. Hopefully flashback is natively HDD installable. Fast loadings, no disc swaps and 3D in-game sequences activated by default. And you had some more graphical effects if you had additionnal memory. Finally, at the last page of the instruction manual, you can find a schematic that explains how to modify a Megadrive controller to enjoy a third button using the gamepad option of the game. But I never tried it as it involved the fact that the modified joypad will be no more usable on Megadrive and official controllers were expansive at the time. Now as I see this schematic, I think it could be interesting to make a little adapter that just modify the pinout without having to sacrify a Megadrive joypad. Nowadays, you can directly play Flashback without keyboard with a CD32 joypad on Amiga if you install it using WHDLoad Rest assured Amiga fans that you can say that Flashback is an Amiga game as well as a Megadrive game and that there is no conversion from one to the other. The developers themselves specified that the two versions were developed jointly, which also explains why neither really exploits the specificities of the Amiga or the Megadrive. Nevertheless, Flashback is part of game history, regardless of the system you play it but I think that the original Amiga and Megadrive versions are the best natively. And if you permit a totally subjective opinion, for once the Amiga version would be prefered if the game is installed on HD using WHDLoad (complete joypad support) because of the music.
I was one of those Amiga users who complained all the time about: - games supporting only one button - having trouble finding multiple button joystick for the Amiga (the machine supports 3 dammit!) even though I lived in a very big town - joysticks being a pain because you had to dedicate one hand just to hold them steady and the other to hold the stick which made it anti ergonomic to offer more than two buttons. If there was a single thing I would change about the Amiga it would be the damn joystick situation. Had A500 models been shipped standard with three button game controllers (or more since serial input was just as viable) the whole Amiga game library would have been much better.
@@nekononiaow If you came up with the c64 this was not a problem Was easy to if you needed just get an atari 7800 pad works perfect.. Never had any problem with 1 button for fire since i could and it did use the mouse for a lot of games .. most of the great games i played did not even need a gamepad at all..
@@nekononiaow ok, mea-culpa, maybe some people complain 😇 But for all people around, it was not a problem. Of course it was nice when you found a game that permits to use a second button like Turrican or Flashback, it was a bonus. Of course it could be frustrating. You're right, up to 3 buttons were possible natively. I never so any game with such feature apart from Flashback with this trick of the modified Megadrive controller (but it can be wrong). But I think it was not the reason to choose a game more than another. We took it as it was 😉
Nice Post. I'm not sure why the Amiga version was released first. Could be a number of reasons from manufacturing complications to not wanting the Mega Drive version to release at the time of another big game. It's a shame the Amiga didn't have a HDD as standard. Games like Flashback would benefit greatly. Just looking at the MS Dos and PC98 versions show that.
Despite being a weak clue, I think the Mega Drive/mega cd and Amiga versions shares the same code because they are the only ones in which Conrad wears a white shirt instead of a red one of the other versions (and also because they both use Motorola 68000 as their main cpu and their close release dates).
@@RetroCore I don't know if the wall glitch present on the Mega Drive version is also present om Amiga and Mega CD. This could be a proof of code shared between those three versions. From sega.fandom.com: The Mega Drive version has a game-breaking glitch that allows you to walk through virtually any wall in the game. With your back against the wall, run forward, and immediately turn around while tapping the run button (A). The animation for Conrad turning around should start earlier than it normally would. When done correctly, and assuming you have enough space to execute the glitch, Conrad will walk through the wall. Beware that some out of bounds areas in the first level Titan completely crash the game.
A fantastic informative vid as always thanks Mark, it's nice to see no real losers here on this battle as all are decent for a change. The Megadrive was my version and it was amazing in the day, I have the 3DO game sat on the shelf but it shames me to say I've never played it, how times have changed were we have shelves of software which never gets played, as kids every game good or bad was taken apart on a daily basis on all difficulty levels.
Not sure if people are aware (or care) but Flashback started off as a 'futuristic adaptation' of The Godfather Movie, believe it or not...Denis Mercier said they (Delphine) originally wanted to put the Godfather Character into a Space Adventure, hence your character was originally called Michael, after Michael Corleone, but game morphed (no pun intended) into a Space adventure on it's own and the concept of putting Mafia elements into the game, never appealed to the other team memembers
If we're assuming the Megadrive is the original, then it's looking like a tossup between MS-DOS and Archimedes at the top two, with Amiga bringing up the rear. Surprised there was no attempt at a version for the ST. Maybe lessons learned from Another World?
This is indeed doubly strange, first because the ST was perfectly capable of handling Flashback and second because Paul Cuisset, the main programmer and founder of Delphine was a bit ST fan. I suppose this is a question he was asked many times in retro interviews. 😉
@@nekononiaow The ST user base was diminishing by 1992, yet there was a lot of piracy via bullettin boards and the likes. It's most likely that US Gold and Delphine couldn't understandibly be bothered with an ST version, with the outlook of not making a profit.
@Amerigo Costa , this is strange though since the porting effort needed between the Amiga and ST would be less than one or two man months of work and even less for a studio like Delphine which had extensive experience with the ST. Even with piracy, this would be such a small budget that it would easily be reimbursed by meager sales.
@@nekononiaow I think the issue is that the ST was never considered in the first place, so no having to cut down graphics from 32 to 16 colours for a start. Also the Amiga version was 1 meg only, was heavily reliant on samples, and the ST came with the added complication of whether or not to ignore single sided drive users on the ST. As far as im aware, Raphael Gesqua (audiomonster) had no ST music experience so they would have had to pay another person to do the music on the ST. Im sure the ST coild have coped with a cut down version, but I think by then, ST sales were so bad that they opted to not do one, and US Gold didnt push for it either.
SNES could have been even better, if they would have used a speedier CPU... Only Nintendo knows why... Though, they're not the only one, Atari made same, very strange, cuts with 2600 ;)
@@RetroCore Maybe, the thing with 3D is, that about nothing else makes it go faster, than raw number crunching. That's why ST was faster than Amiga on 3D (CPU ran faster) and true 3D games on SNES used additional hardware chip... If I remember correctly, this game used 3D-engine, just like Another World? Also, the extremely slow CPU on SNES is behind all those slowdowns on shooters and for example on Castlevania IV...
I’m not sure if this helps, but I find music sounds a bit ‘tinny’ if you’re playing via DosBox. Have loaded up a few old favourites and I can tell the difference in sound :). I found a few TH-cam videos that provide steps to ‘upgrade’ the sound, and gets pretty much back to the quality of the good old Soundblasters. Haha. Hope this helps!
Me wishing that there would be an Android and iOS ports of Flashback along with Another World. For Flashback mobile port, it'll be done by Delphine Software, and the original team who made that game.
Oh man, this is a game I absolutely love! Even though I never got to experience it as a kid and only recently got myself the Mega Drive game and I loved almost every second of it! Those vectorgraphics in the cutscenes are so charming even today imo, they aged so much better than the crappy CG cutscenes. The only downside with the Mega Drive version is the stupid GEMS soundengine, but even that topped the SNES version for me because the sound effects were either total crap or completely missing in that version, at least in the western release. It was interesting to see that there's actually some noticable differences between the western SNES release compared to the Super Famicom one. Some enemies has different colors and some soundeffects got massively improved. The gun sounds correct for instance and not like the crappy distant lightningstrike as it sounds like in the western release, but the grunt Conrad makes when getting hit sounds just as bad. Kinda sounds like a moose or something. The Super Famicom release was still "censored" (Not sure if it can be called that hence the quotes) I see with Death Tower being replaced with Cyber Tower and the Bar being replaced with a Café. Maybe the Super Famicom version was developed by another team? The western release at least was also made by Tiertex so that explains why it has so many problems. It's a little bit of a shame that the extended cutscenes couldn't fit inside the console versions, but I'm still amazed they managed to fit as much as they did. But there's something all versions got wrong except for the Mega Drive, Mega CD and Amiga, the color of Conrad's shirt. It's supposed to be white, not red. He has a white shirt in the cutscenes, so it looks so stupid he then switches to a red one during gameplay. No idea why they changed that. Nice BotP again Mark!
For those who criticize the Atari Jaguar, this game proves that this console is more powerful than the SNES (although the 64-bit console had to be better than a 16-bit one).
I can't read Spanish, but Ultima Generacion, their equivalent to Edge and Next Generation Magazines, gave both the CDi AND 3DO versions a 6/10 score at review. So obviously not taken with either it seems.
surprised that the NEC PC 9801 port looks as good as it does. I honestly think that almost all of the ports are great in their own right. A shame they couldn't get a better dev to do the jag port.
This is mostly copy and pasted from another comment, but whatever: That version also has a 256 color mode for 9821s, but sadly it's incredibly broken. The graphics are almost entirely screwed up even on real hardware. The PC-98 version also can't be beaten legitimately without cheating because of a game-breaking bug surprisingly early in the game. At the end of the first level where you're supposed to find the guy with the anti-grav belt, he just doesn't spawn. I've tried playing through it twice on an emulator and then on real hardware, and it happened both times. I really hope these are issues caused by a bad dump...
Had to send this to my cousin - he’s a huge Flashback nut. I think just judging from footage, I dig the DOS version best, but think the PC-98 version is cool, and I’m more and more intrigued by this Archimedes platform.
Ah, the Archimedes was a missed opportunity. Such a great machine that put the Amiga and ST to shame. Sadly it was quite expensive. I only ever got to use a real one in school. We used to play a jaguar racing game called EType on it during lunch time.
Ok, I took time to play Flashback on my own Jaguar. Sadly I confirm that the movies are a little bit too fast with sometimes weird falls of framerate. Hopefully, nothing really annoying. More annoying are the slowdowns whil playing when there are lot of things on screen. But ok, knowing that Tiertex worked on this version, it could be considered a good job... Except that... no. Why no? As I had the privilege of playing on Amiga enjoying its wonderful soundtrack, and honestly I had a good first impression on Jaguar. The sound test let me hear that some themes are impressive... But soon, I discover that it's here that Tiertex committed its biggest crime. Musics are totally sacrified. They really didn't care. No Mark, you didn't here new musics that are nice. In fact, lot of musics and jingles are missing, they just didn't take time to convert them, using the ones they converted here and there randomly, insomuch that sometimes it sounds like a joke. They even cut some of them like in the introduction. No more explosion sound as a final, just a loop on the last pattern. Like this, no more synchronisation problem! And that's a joke from the beginning. What we hear on the Delphine Software logo is the little tune played during fights. But what show how they didn't care is that you can hear the right music in the option menu with the music test. Totally bullshit! So I'm sorry for Jaguar owners but with broken framerate, cheap soundtrack and missing SFX, Flashback on the Atari system is a fail, a real Tiertex work that just give a nice first impression because of the power of the Jaguar. Be sure that an Amiga fan like me that shown them torture all the CAPCOM games understand what you feel at this point... And to prove to you how much I sympathize with the mess that the lack of use of the technical capacities of your favorite machine can represent, know that I started to replay Flashback on my CDTV and I discovered on this occasion the graphic disaster of the Amiga version. The Amiga version is indeed much less colorful than the PC, Megadrive or SNES versions. If I can forgive it when these machines display dozens or even hundreds of colors simultaneously, Flashback never display more than 32 colors and sprites do not have more than 4 or 8 colors on Megadrive. Why a machine like the Amiga which offers a 32-color display with 8-color sprites natively does not offer the same graphics, it's a total mystery! If not to save space on the double sided floppy disk, I don't understand. And that's not all, musics are not played at the correct speed in the movies of level 4 and 5 and even some texts are not correctly displayed. Did they test the Amiga version before the launch? Hopefully, GFX remain very nice, sprites are colorful as on the other version and the game never slowdown. And all the nasty bugs have been fixed by the WHDLoad team. So if you add the CD32 joypad support, you got a very nice Amiga version now.
I have to disagree. Colors in Archimedes look way worse in my opinion. And for me being sensible to (bad) colors it isn't worth to play a game with such a cool atmosphere using this kind of messed up colors. Even though the higher framerate is of course very welcome. Also I think the Amiga music lacks some charme of the mega drive version. Maybe just me, grown up with Sega hardware. As always, ty for the video and have a good day!
During my schooldays, almost got four decades on me, it was basically everybody together and the Atari owners were the outsiders. No wonder we didn't latch onto the Jaguar hype one bit over here. Ick.
I had a pirated copy of this for the Amiga that was fan-translated from French, so some of the item descriptions weren't 100% accurate. Since it came on four floppy disks, before I had a hard drive to install it to, I used to copy the contents of the disks to a RAM disk and run it from there. Once I got used to the controls, I don't recall having too much problem with them. A couple years ago, I was testing out the Kega Fusion emulator and I loaded up this game. I ended up playing through the entire game. I did have a tough time remembering what buttons to use for each function though. :)
Best version for me, between MS DOS and Sega Genesis, is Genesis because their good balance between ambience and soundtrack. It's a way terrible idea put rendered cinematics on 3DO and Sega CD versions... and background music! What a shitty FMV.
I remember having this on the SNES back in the day. It was a tough game although i did beat it. Didn't really notice the slowdown at the time, so i don't think it was ever that bad although the MD clearly manages the cutscenes better. There was also a remake i had for the Xbox 360 but it was janky as they come. Too much attempts to "modernize" it that didn't really work well. I think there was also a Switch version although i don't think i bought it after the disappointment on the 360 release.
Since I share a rare first name with the protagonist of this game, it was a favorite of mine. Also, this is probably one of my favorite videos of yours since I got to hear my name so many times; I feel like a superstar!
Sierria should have made a Space quest style game like this , They did King Quest 5 on the NES and King Quest 1 on Sega but people did not like that style on that system.
Somehow, I find the 2-D animations on the computer and standard console ports more interesting and impressive than the CGI ones on the Mega CD and 3DO.
A battle of the ports on my all time favourite game, well worth the wait! Another excellent video Mark!! I spent many an hour on the Mega Drive version, still never managed to complete it. Still love it now and play it on my Switch....I'll complete it one day!!
And then there was the sequel which barely anyone remembers because it took everything Flashback did and threw it out. Fade To Black ... it certainly did!
Nice! I hope you and your family are doing well these days? Thanks for another great video. Btw, I’ve really been enjoying your cassette reviews. They don’t really sell them anymore in the states and it amazes me how many different kinds you still have access to.
Thanks Reagan. Yeah, we are doing fine. I'm lucky to live in a part of the world which isn't really effected by Covid-19. Live is normal here besides wearing a mask when I go outside. Glad you're enjoying the cassette reviews too. I'm amazed at how good some can sound.
The Sega CD version apparently came close to being canned, as publisher Sony, didn't want it's release clashing with Another World II on the format, so delayed it's release instead.
Like I said before I have tried this game numerous times on the 3DO, Genesis, and SNES and get frustrated at the controls that are delayed. This is the reason I didn't like this game, along with Out of this World, Flashback, and original Prince of Persia
I had the ms dos version growing up (boy this sure looked great for the time), but I eventually finished it many years later with MD Rom, a guide, emulator save states and stage passwords :P XDD
Sleepover at a mates house in 1994, Flashback, Scared shitless and not really knowing what we were doing, But it was a good enough game that many people at school would talk about it, Mainly because of the graphics. I remember having the demo on mega cd and playing the hell out of it.
I love Flashback. I've played it tons on the Genesis so that version remains my favorite, but I quite enjoyed it on the 3DO later on as well when I picked up one, though I do prefer the original cinematics. It's hard for me to choose my favorite cinematic platformer with my top 5 being Flashback, Fade to Black, Blackthorne, Nosferatu on SNES, and Another/Out-of-This World.
Ooh. Nosferatu on the SFC was delayed for years. It was a pretty good game but I feel by the time it was released it had aged somewhat in the control department.
Good to see you back! Hopefully things are going well over there. I was looking forward to this! Flashback is one of my favorites games since my childhood! I still have the manual (although is in spanish, english isn't my first language) when my mother bought the PC version for my birthday. Besides the instructions of how to install the game (for DOS or Amiga), it had many other things like a prologue, how to play, some pictures with codes as an anti-piracy meassure, trivias about the in-game universe (like holo-theaters or how the first level is an artificial jungle), etc. I also had the genesis version which came bundled with the console, along with a few more games. The Snes version isn't bad, but it fares poorly to the other ports. I would like to add that this version has some censorship, like the "bar" of the second level becomes a "cafe" and the "death tower show" is renamed "cyber tower show". I have no idea why the japanese version recolored some of the enemies with green. I mean, some of them are mutants, but others are just cyborgs. Still those are just minor alterations and have little to no impact on the game. I'm actually surprised to see that it was made by Tiertex. The CD-i version is awful. It has missing frames, slowdowns both in gameplay and cutscenes (to the point that even the Snes is faster), longer load times, no voice-overs in dialogues, no in-game music, controls aren't precise and it also has borders as a lazy excuse to no rescale the graphics (CD-i uses a higher resolution than other systems). It has no reason to be in a CD. Only good thing I can think of is being one of the few "real" games on this platform. The Mac version is basically a high ress version of the DOS port, with a few remade icons and better sound. There's also a CD version for the Mac with a little extra: the diary you find in the final level is voiced in this port (although it sounds like Tommy Wiseau). I've heard that the FM Towns it's based on the Amiga version with a rearranged soundtrack, but i've never played it. I had no idea that it was also ported to the NEC PC-9801. It looks really cool! The 25th anniversary edition it's actually a really nice remaster with tons of extras: remade music and sounds, tutorials, a rewind feature, customizable controls, etc. It also has the option to play like the original game, with no alterations.
As much as I loved the Megadrive, mostly for the speed and music? Lately (and especially after seeing so many more comparisons) it seems many of them lack the colour fidelity of the SNES- those purple marble pillars for example! ....it's not going to sway my old memories of course (given I had barely encounted anything Nintendo in the 90s except for Gameboys) but most of the other ports do look much nicer on the eye! I am curious though about the NEC version though- I've seen many of the games have that "stretched pixel" look to them- is that something done on a hardware level? Or were graphics changed to help give the illusion of colour when viewed back then on lower fidelity screens~
It's just the way the system renders stuff. Kind of like a Snes is naturally too narrow on a modern TV but old CRTs would adapt the image to a 4:3 aspect ratio.
There's an Amiga CD (not CD32) game from 1997 called OnEscapee which feature similar gameplay and visual style. In 2004 the developers released a Windows version as freeware and downloads of both versions can easily be found. The diffuclty level is fairly high but it's well worth checking out for anyone who likes these type of games.
checked around. its look like Tiertex has been done various ports to this game. include the PC one, but only for the CD Rom version, not the floppy disk version, seen here. But sure actuelly, this is one of the clearly better effort from Tiertex for sure, dispite issues.
This is the rare game for which it's difficult to choose a definitive "best" version. I first played the Genesis version, which is really solid, and then the 3DO, which did feel like an upgrade at the time, but in hindsight each had its merits. Those in-engine cutscenes do have a certain wow factor that the FMV just can't replicate.
The Jaguar version from what i remember of it, was odd. Improved backgrounds, faster cinematics, but smaller sprites, slowdown on a 64 bit architecture machine, geared towards 2D and quieter audio..
How Tiertex survive so much time doing so crap world is a total mystery. On Amiga, US Gold was alone to publish their terrible work just to make money. But on consoles, manufacturers had a view on each game launched on their systems. They are guilty too in a sense 😉
@@iXien probably by being able to deliver multiple Platform conversions within budget, to a deadline and being the lowest bidders... Publishers loved those factors. It was always the games buying public who suffered 😭
Wait... Another game by Tiertex that isn’t a steaming pile? I’d say maybe they perhaps don’t deserve all of the reputation they have but 10 seconds of the original Street Fighter on home computers kills any defence I have got for them in my throat...
@@RetroCore AFAIK they did the SNES version as well as the Jag version, so if we're generous we can say they were decent at porting Flashback. IIRC someone who worked at Tiertex was interviewed by Retro Gamer, and expressed relief about working on it rather than Strider 2 (or something along those lines). Tiertex still managed to put out something bad Flashback related though: the PC CD version. The game itself was unchanged, so all they had to do was put in the rendered FMV sequences. That can't go wrong surely? Well, they managed to do it... with FMV running at about 4 fps. The PC wasn't known for amazing FMV capabilities at the time, but even so, that was pretty bad. It could be a DOSBox problem, but I don't think so.
Oh man, cinematic platformers never did much for me. When I was a kid I had no patience for them and now that I'm middle aged it's the same. I should have probably given them a chance when I was in my 20s or something but that rarely happened.
Hmm, you've got me. The obvious option would be Prince of Persia. But I don't think you'd mix that game up for Flashback. Was Blackthorn by Blizzard ever released on the ST? That's similar I guess.
It’s a title I wanted to play back when it was first released but at that time SF II, Zelda and a bunch of other huge games were out and I never got around to giving Flashback a go. Seems the MD or Acorn versions are the best of the bunch?
The PC-98 version is actually quite broken, or at least the currently available dump is. The game has a 256 color mode for PC-9821 machines, but it barely works at all with corrupted visuals all over the place even on real hardware. Also, the game can't be beaten legitimately without cheating. At the end of the first level where you're supposed to find the guy with the anti-grav belt, he just doesn't spawn. I hope these are issues caused by a bad dump.
The amiga disk swapping isn't a thing if you had a hard drive. So that's not an advantage of the DOS version. Then you get flashback without loading and with the better sound. Could you play the DOS version without a hard drive? If not then the floppy version made it more accessible on the Amiga.
@@RetroCore you're comparing two different audiences then. Those who bought the Amiga for casual gaming and those who bought it as computer. Anyone who would been serious about computing on an Amiga would have a hard drive. I did. You also probably wouldn't have had a PC just for games back in 1992, You'd probably have had to be serious about computing to have one (just with a lot more money available). So with those similar audiences in mind, you could get an Amiga with a hard drive for a lot cheaper than a PC with a hard drive and have better experience. It's a common misconception that the Amiga was primarily a games machine. It's certainly a capable one so it made it more accessible. But to say the PC had an advantage over the Amiga version isn't fair considering the costs and circumstances to get those advantages.
@@RetroCore You could also say that most PC owners did not have a joypad to toy around with since the machine primarly ran games designed for mouse and keyboard... and playing Flashback with a keyboard only was quite an aquired taste to appreciate. Platform games were never a big market on the PC up until this point in time. By the time Flashback was released on the Amiga the Amiga 1200 and 600 were a thing and the 600 even launched in a HD version. I would say that it was quite a mixed marked by this point concerning HD or no HD on the Amiga. With that said, I do prefer the Mega Drive version because of the controls even if the Amiga version supports more than one button.
@@RetroCore Megadrive, SNES and Amiga versions of Flashback are all 256x224. The MD and SNES always scale the image to fit a full low resolution TV 320x240 NTSC. The Amiga displays games 1:1 pixel resolution which means you get borders around games that are lower than 320x240 NTSC 320x256 PAL, more so when overscan is involved. On the other hand Amiga games always have the sharper/better pixel/graphic quality when viewed on the real deal via CRT because there's no image scaling, depending on what type of screen/monitor with Amiga you can scale the image manually. The MD version is 100% the original, it was designed for the MD, the rest are ports.
Fun Fact: Flashback originally started out development as a sequel to US Gold's Godfather game, and a sequel to the movies, set in the future.
That is very true. Someone else mentioned that. What a crazy idea.
Good ole Larry and his facts.
He's a legend round these here parts.
Hello you!
Godfather looks very similar to an older game of Delphine called Future Wars, created by Paul Cuisset (Flashback Director) and designed by Eric Chahi (Another World creator). Flashback gameplay looks much similar to Another World.
I love Flashback and I never realized it was ported to so many systems.
I bought the game for the Amiga when it was released and funnily enough its manual had a page explaining how to wire a MegaDrive three button controller to the Amiga in order to be able to use two buttons (the Amiga techno supports three buttons but not with the same wiring as the MegaDrive controller. I remember that at the time I was a bit vexed to have to admit that the authors of Flashback thought the MD had a better controller. 😄
In retrospect it is clear that they were right: I always use my MegaDrive controllers when playing on the Amiga instead of these stupid joysticks.
A few years back I acquired the game for the Genesis as part of a lot purchase and got the chance to play it in its entirety on the machine: there is no doubt that the pad make the experience much more enjoyable. I globally agree with you regarding both versions, they play nicely and the Amiga users get to enjoy the disk loading times in exchange for a better music (the MD's music is not bad though).
Thanks for the video Mark!
Also, I can imagine the discussion between Delphine and their publisher US Gold regarding the CD based versions :
"These new machines are all the rage and you guys absolutely must be present on this market, of course you will have to do it for "
"Huh, this is nice but we are already busy with developing Fade To Black and anyway this budget is too small"
"Oh, don't worry! We happen to know just the team for such a challenge"
"Oh, ok, well, good luck to them"
The SNES, 3DO, and Jaguar versions of this game were all made by Tiertex, which explains why there are similarities between the other two ports on the Jaguar version. Honestly, you'd expect the 3DO and Jaguar versions to be beefed up thanks to the advanced hardware, but of course, because they're Tiertex, they had to mess up one way or another.
Also, while I think the slowdown in Another World SNES is acceptable, it's NOT on Flashback SNES. There's much less going on onscreen yet it still slows down. They're just bad ports that should've been a lot better than what Tiertex crapped out.
7MGTESupraTurboA "Although the Super FamiCom SNES hardware did have what is seen as a slow CPU, if properly programmed then slow down should not have been an issue"
That's exactly what I'm saying, but of course, since this is Tiertex, why would they ever bother trying?
@@solarflare9078
Yep - it’s probably a basic MD port, using the CPU and not using the support hardware.
Same as ST to Amiga ports, and Spectrum to Amstrad / MSX ports.
Pirates in Poland often sold it as Another World 2.
Makes sense. A lot of people consider it to be the 2nd game.
In Brazil too :)
I remember SNES fan boys at school blindly protecting the SNES version of every game port released on the Nintendo system..... this game in question here was hot topic at school, and only those that played both versions could see the differences.
MegaDrive own's SNES ass yet again.
Lol, same at my school. In my home we were lucky to have both systems. Loved both of them but yeah, sometimes the Mega Drive just rained supreme.
Same as with Out of this World, all versions seem relatively close to each other. The Super Famicom version has the expected slowdown, but still doesn't seem too bad, and the Jaguar version is probably the best thing Tiertex ever shit out. It looks and sounds nice, but the Framerate seems unstable, there's times where it looks too fast (similar to the emulation issues with the Archimedes version) and others too slow. Not enough to make it unplayable but it definitely seems less optimized than any other port in this video. And man it's a shame the CD and 3DO versions replaced the pixel art with FMV, as they otherwise appear to be the best versions.
Despite Eric Chahi not being involved in the making, it looks like Flashback was developed similarly to Another World. We can't even rule out Delphine didn't use some of the tools made by Chahi when he worked for the company.
@@amerigocosta7452 Without a doubt it had to use a similar game engine. The set pieces are structured way too similarly to be coincidence, everything from the actual levels to the cutscenes. Luckily it would seem as though they learned from their mistakes with the Genesis sound hardware, because while it isn't excellent by any means, it sounds far better than the assault on your ears that was Out of this World.
@@amerigocosta7452Eric Chahi talk about this in various interviews and in an biographic book. It was the beginning of the end for him at Delphine Software, Flashback development was a subject of tension because Paul Cuisset seemed not to accept the fact they re-use a lot of technical concepts and ideas from Another World, the objective was to defend at all costs that Flashback was a 100% in-house and original product born from the imagination of his team, including the rotoscoping technology. It was after this mishap that Chahi decided to set up his own studio, Amazing Studio. But you're right, even nowadays, it's difficult to trust that Paul Cuisset's team didn't use lot of ideas from Another world, the result is so similar visually, for me it always sounded like a joke!
It's been eons since I last posted one of my weird stories regarding video games, on Mark's videos, but Flashback was the source of one of the most memorable ones.
See the Delphine Software/US Gold logo at the beginning, the dark one with the camera and the creepy music on the MD version? Well, when I first rented the game it unsettled me to no end. My little bro might have noticed something, because hours later, he approached me from behind and sang the last bass-like six notes of the logo: "Doo-Doo-Dun-Dun-Dun-Duuuuun". I swear I literally leaped like a frightened bunny.
And that's it. Silly childhood stories one remembers sometimes.
Re: Jag Flashback- you're obviously using an emulator here (understandable!), but on real hardware, the game barely runs better than the Genesis version. The cutscenes in particular are not significantly better, and I really cannot underscore enough the magnitude of how weak of a port it is. I made the likely bad decision to buy an original copy of every Jag game, and having successfully done so... while Flashback isn't even close to the worst game on Jag, it's easily the game that disappointed me most. Especially at original retail price, which is about what I paid for a complete copy. If it weren't for the small visual improvements, I'd swear they just directly ported the Genesis version & only utilized the 68k processor.
There is a flaw in Jag emulation where (as far as I can tell) certain games are sped up to 60FPS despite the game intentionally targeting 30 or less, resulting in essentially double speed. In Flashback's case, I'm pretty sure it targeted 24 specifically, making the speedup even worse. A video from a popularish YTer that purported to cover ever Jaguar game commercially released came out semi-recently, but I can't think of more than 4 games covered (some of which weren't in fact commercially released) that accurately reflected how they play on hardware. Some were double time (Cybermorph), many seemed half time, some played normal but with totally messed up audio (Zool 2), some played way better than they do on actual hardware (Bubsy). This video, as was that Jag video overall, is definitely not a good representation of the Jag experience.
I want to be clear that I'm not trying to roast you here, you'd have had no way of knowing for sure with this one-off example. I'll definitely criticize someone that makes it through 50+ games and not pause to think "is this really what these games played like?" But in any event, I'll grab some Jag Flashback footage and upload it eventually so that y'all can be just as underwhelmed as I was. Sorry this comment is so long.
This, Another World/Out Of This World and Prince of Persia set the stage that cinematic games that are commonplace in modern times.
Except these games weren't used as social engineering vehicles back then, the way modern day games Trojan horse Marxist-neo-liberal narratives or gas-lighting with revisionist history do today.
We only have to look at the way consumers have gone from generic Sicilian mafia parody with games such as GTA3, to crap like Watchdogs legion, where the player is essentially duped into empathizing with playing as a BLM esque, N.G.O funded Marxist revolutionary, the player most likely won't know that said 'Revolutionaries' are trained and funded by many of the same intelligence staff and oligarchs that the revolutionaries claim to be in opposition against.
Ever since the false flag of 9-11, we have bombarded with chaos magik via so called popular culture, especially since big corporations bought up many software developers, if you compare it to the 16-bit era, where the majority of themes were much more fantastical escapism, it takes a keen eye to know just what to consume today, especially when it is presented through a filmic presentation.
@@leeboy2k1 😆
Also Tomb Raider.
@@leeboy2k1 chaos magik? zum-zum!
@leeboy2k1 you just got the world record for the number of silly conspiracy theories packed into a single post. Congrats!
OH my, so awesome! When I saw you were covering Flashback, I thought I was going to lose my mind! Love, love, love this game. Thank you so much for covering this one. After you covered Another World, all I could think to myself was, I can't wait until he makes it to Flashback. Thank you so much! :D
Rented this a bunch of times for the Mega Drive and now have my very own copy! Very classy game. Felt like a true adventure. loved how you could holster your weapon on demand!
Being able to holster the weapon was one of the very cool points.
@@RetroCore in The Terminator on Mega Drive you had to remove your shotgun from under your jacket before firing; that animation looked really impressive along with Flashback. Made a difference to normal sprites constantly pointing their guns everywhere!
@@davidmuldowney Little touches like that are taken for granted now but made a game really special back then
i love when games let me holster weapons.
While I never got the desire to play this game back them, that box artwork of the guy looking up with a glass over his right eye (a HUD), caused a impression on me, very cool. I remember it to this day.
And only now have such glasses became a reality.
Flash Black and Fade to Black! Played both on DOS. It was a transition phase for me between 16 and 32 bit console, but I ended up playing more on PC. @Retrocore are you going to do Fade to Black as well?
I've never actually played fad to Black before. I would like to cover it some time down the road though.
US Gold logo gave me the shivers.
Lol, understandably.
Truly the most horrifying image in all retro gaming.
@@jesuszamora6949 that would be seeing Tiertex logo on the Jag version (which isn't bad, strangely)
Geovane Sancini Bad for the hardware though. Should've been capable for a port better than the MD version.
igual LJN 😂😂🍻
The Mega Drive version is hands down the best version. The snes/sfc version needs a much needed extended vacation to the bin.
There's a version for the Fm towns that is worth looking into. I've not seen much footage of it but I know the soundtrack is fantastic.
Yes, that's right. I used to own it but never actually got around to playing that version.
@@RetroCore I know it's super expensive as is the console/computer. I tried to emulate it out of curiosity some years ago but could never get it to work.
Really enjoy your content by the way. Just out of curiosity, didn't you run something online before your TH-cam channel?
I think the amiga with its superior music and sound is the way to go.
I want to love the Mega CD version so much, but those FMVs absolutely ruin the experience.
good game on megadrive . i brought it again on steam along with another world . wonder if someone port fade to black again
I loved this game so much when I played it on my Genesis as a kid. It was the most amazing thing I had seen at the time graphically. I was never able to finish it though, because it was too hard for me then. I'd like to go back and try to beat it one day.
i'm taking notes that the macintosh linux and microsoft windows version aka windows 3.1 or windows 95 version was using the sega mega cd style or 3do way too. besides well the usual extended long acorn computer brand or ms dos ones. or the short intro on the genesis/megadrive or snes/sfc and amiga as well. but i will try to check out the ms dos version which can be using dos box or actual dos mode.
post script edit: holy sh*t! the jaguar which i never mentioned about was really fast with cutscenes but short again. i didn't see that coming.
Amazing and very difficult game. Some times I tried to play Megadrive version but I'm not very good. Tiertex made a very good job in my opinion giving to the Jaguar another good game. I'm really surprised.
I wonder if Tiertex had commissioned another company to make the Jag port?
I need an Archemetes & PC98 copy to complete my collection. I own all the rest. Still, I love the Jaguar port when played in RGB Scart connection the game is stunning. I appreciate this comparison. This is one of my all time favorite platformers.
You and me both! I loved playing Falsh Back in the 90s.
Another Amiga game that benefited from the use of a hard drive, Commodore should have encouraged people to buy them :)
You're so right. One of the numerous reasons of the Commodore bankruptcy.
Good game, but I prefer another world(one of my fav games). Flashback lacks the simplicity of another world and it is way harder, with too muck backtracking.
True, the back tracking can be a little annoying.
I don't know why Amiga version was released before the Megadrive one. Maybe a question of licence with SEGA. What's sure is that Delphine Software was really involved in Amiga gaming life as all there adventure games were clearly designed for Amiga and ST (Bio Challenge, Castle Warrior, Future Wars, Stealth Affair, Cruise For A Corpse and Another World). Flashback was their first real incursion in the console market after Another World that was purely designed on Amiga. Here you're right, Flashback was developed with the idea of a console game but I think that it would be the same if it was created for computer market as they learned a lot with the conversion and marketing of Another World on various console systems.
Of course I played it on Amiga. Once again, the use of the keyboard was not a problem for computer gamers that were accustomed to this kind of controls. Clearly, I never heard anyone at the time saying: "if only I could use a joypad with more buttons". No, It was normal to use a joystick with one button and keyboard keys on CPC, C64, Spectrum, ST, Amiga and even PC (do you remember these awful analog joysticks that were the standard to play even action games with usually only one button?). Flashback was so impressive. As other Delphine Software productions, it's a game with a more mature content, designed for young adults, not kids like a lot of other games. And lifetime of the game was so great with vast levels and lot of things to do, to discover.
I think that Amiga version gives the best soundtrack. If the original musics were composed by Jean Baudlot (like for a lot of Delphine and Ocean France games), they were totally reworked for Amiga by Raphael Gesqua aka Audiomonster, a French guy that was part of a demoscene group called Melon. If Jean Baudlot composed the original music with lot of drums, guitars and synthesis instruments, Audiomonster prefered to favor an orchestration closer to movie music with percussions, brass, violins... For him, as Flashback was clearly inspired by the Paul Verhoeven movie Total Recall (1991), the music had to be epic as well. And as Amiga players earned this great soundtrack, we all thought "Yeah, that's for that Paula was designed for". Sadly, his work has not been used to compose the CD soundtrack. I was really disappointed by all the CD versions that offer IMO low quality variety compositions that was so far from the epic orchestral atmosphere from the Amiga version. And why ingame musics? Atmospheric sounds and little jingles were perfect, music breaks the cozy atmosphere of the game when you explore the jungle or the city. The CDi version understood that with no ingame musics, just sounds and jingles. Sadly, CPU lack of power is here like on SNES and this version is a little bit slow, that impacts the playability.
Disc swaps are a little bit annoying on Amiga. To limit the problem, 3D in-game sequences are not launched by default, you had to activate at the beginning of the game. Hopefully flashback is natively HDD installable. Fast loadings, no disc swaps and 3D in-game sequences activated by default. And you had some more graphical effects if you had additionnal memory. Finally, at the last page of the instruction manual, you can find a schematic that explains how to modify a Megadrive controller to enjoy a third button using the gamepad option of the game. But I never tried it as it involved the fact that the modified joypad will be no more usable on Megadrive and official controllers were expansive at the time. Now as I see this schematic, I think it could be interesting to make a little adapter that just modify the pinout without having to sacrify a Megadrive joypad. Nowadays, you can directly play Flashback without keyboard with a CD32 joypad on Amiga if you install it using WHDLoad
Rest assured Amiga fans that you can say that Flashback is an Amiga game as well as a Megadrive game and that there is no conversion from one to the other. The developers themselves specified that the two versions were developed jointly, which also explains why neither really exploits the specificities of the Amiga or the Megadrive.
Nevertheless, Flashback is part of game history, regardless of the system you play it but I think that the original Amiga and Megadrive versions are the best natively. And if you permit a totally subjective opinion, for once the Amiga version would be prefered if the game is installed on HD using WHDLoad (complete joypad support) because of the music.
Just wanted to say thanks for telling the truth here :)
I was one of those Amiga users who complained all the time about:
- games supporting only one button
- having trouble finding multiple button joystick for the Amiga (the machine supports 3 dammit!) even though I lived in a very big town
- joysticks being a pain because you had to dedicate one hand just to hold them steady and the other to hold the stick which made it anti ergonomic to offer more than two buttons.
If there was a single thing I would change about the Amiga it would be the damn joystick situation.
Had A500 models been shipped standard with three button game controllers (or more since serial input was just as viable) the whole Amiga game library would have been much better.
@@nekononiaow If you came up with the c64 this was not a problem Was easy to if you needed just get an atari 7800 pad works perfect.. Never had any problem with 1 button for fire since i could and it did use the mouse for a lot of games .. most of the great games i played did not even need a gamepad at all..
@@nekononiaow ok, mea-culpa, maybe some people complain 😇 But for all people around, it was not a problem. Of course it was nice when you found a game that permits to use a second button like Turrican or Flashback, it was a bonus. Of course it could be frustrating. You're right, up to 3 buttons were possible natively. I never so any game with such feature apart from Flashback with this trick of the modified Megadrive controller (but it can be wrong). But I think it was not the reason to choose a game more than another. We took it as it was 😉
Nice Post. I'm not sure why the Amiga version was released first. Could be a number of reasons from manufacturing complications to not wanting the Mega Drive version to release at the time of another big game.
It's a shame the Amiga didn't have a HDD as standard. Games like Flashback would benefit greatly. Just looking at the MS Dos and PC98 versions show that.
Despite being a weak clue, I think the Mega Drive/mega cd and Amiga versions shares the same code because they are the only ones in which Conrad wears a white shirt instead of a red one of the other versions (and also because they both use Motorola 68000 as their main cpu and their close release dates).
You cold have a point there.
@@RetroCore I don't know if the wall glitch present on the Mega Drive version is also present om Amiga and Mega CD. This could be a proof of code shared between those three versions.
From sega.fandom.com:
The Mega Drive version has a game-breaking glitch that allows you to walk through virtually any wall in the game. With your back against the wall, run forward, and immediately turn around while tapping the run button (A). The animation for Conrad turning around should start earlier than it normally would. When done correctly, and assuming you have enough space to execute the glitch, Conrad will walk through the wall. Beware that some out of bounds areas in the first level Titan completely crash the game.
A fantastic informative vid as always thanks Mark, it's nice to see no real losers here on this battle as all are decent for a change. The Megadrive was my version and it was amazing in the day, I have the 3DO game sat on the shelf but it shames me to say I've never played it, how times have changed were we have shelves of software which never gets played, as kids every game good or bad was taken apart on a daily basis on all difficulty levels.
Maybe it's time to dust off that 3DO version in celebration of this video 👍
Not sure if people are aware (or care) but Flashback started off as a 'futuristic adaptation' of The Godfather Movie, believe it or not...Denis Mercier said they (Delphine) originally wanted to put the Godfather Character into a Space Adventure, hence your character was originally called Michael, after Michael Corleone, but game morphed (no pun intended) into a Space adventure on it's own and the concept of putting Mafia elements into the game, never appealed to the other team memembers
Seriously? I never knew that. What a strange concept.
If we're assuming the Megadrive is the original, then it's looking like a tossup between MS-DOS and Archimedes at the top two, with Amiga bringing up the rear. Surprised there was no attempt at a version for the ST. Maybe lessons learned from Another World?
This is indeed doubly strange, first because the ST was perfectly capable of handling Flashback and second because Paul Cuisset, the main programmer and founder of Delphine was a bit ST fan. I suppose this is a question he was asked many times in retro interviews. 😉
@@nekononiaow The ST user base was diminishing by 1992, yet there was a lot of piracy via bullettin boards and the likes. It's most likely that US Gold and Delphine couldn't understandibly be bothered with an ST version, with the outlook of not making a profit.
@Amerigo Costa , this is strange though since the porting effort needed between the Amiga and ST would be less than one or two man months of work and even less for a studio like Delphine which had extensive experience with the ST. Even with piracy, this would be such a small budget that it would easily be reimbursed by meager sales.
@@nekononiaow I think the issue is that the ST was never considered in the first place, so no having to cut down graphics from 32 to 16 colours for a start. Also the Amiga version was 1 meg only, was heavily reliant on samples, and the ST came with the added complication of whether or not to ignore single sided drive users on the ST. As far as im aware, Raphael Gesqua (audiomonster) had no ST music experience so they would have had to pay another person to do the music on the ST. Im sure the ST coild have coped with a cut down version, but I think by then, ST sales were so bad that they opted to not do one, and US Gold didnt push for it either.
They are so busy making trash like Monster Hunter, while a game like Flashback would make a pretty good movie
Absolutely. Who wants to see a Monster Hunter movie?
That's what happens when Capcom keeps letting Paul W.S. Andersen produce crappy movies.
I think there is quite a lot of influence from total recall in flashback
Fun Fact Switch also uses ARM CPU tech similar to the 3DO and Acorn Archimedes
hardware.
That's true. The switch is basically a tablet after all.
@@RetroCore true
SNES could have been even better, if they would have used a speedier CPU...
Only Nintendo knows why... Though, they're not the only one, Atari made same, very strange, cuts with 2600 ;)
I guess they could have used a DSP with the SNES game but since Tiertex also handled that port, it makes sense why they didn't.
@@RetroCore Maybe, the thing with 3D is, that about nothing else makes it go faster, than raw number crunching. That's why ST was faster than Amiga on 3D (CPU ran faster) and true 3D games on SNES used additional hardware chip...
If I remember correctly, this game used 3D-engine, just like Another World?
Also, the extremely slow CPU on SNES is behind all those slowdowns on shooters and for example on Castlevania IV...
@@RetroCore Nah. I don't want my SNES to begin begging for money mid-stream.
Wait, wrong DSP.
I’m not sure if this helps, but I find music sounds a bit ‘tinny’ if you’re playing via DosBox. Have loaded up a few old favourites and I can tell the difference in sound :). I found a few TH-cam videos that provide steps to ‘upgrade’ the sound, and gets pretty much back to the quality of the good old Soundblasters. Haha. Hope this helps!
Me wishing that there would be an Android and iOS ports of Flashback along with Another World.
For Flashback mobile port, it'll be done by Delphine Software, and the original team who made that game.
Oh man, this is a game I absolutely love! Even though I never got to experience it as a kid and only recently got myself the Mega Drive game and I loved almost every second of it! Those vectorgraphics in the cutscenes are so charming even today imo, they aged so much better than the crappy CG cutscenes. The only downside with the Mega Drive version is the stupid GEMS soundengine, but even that topped the SNES version for me because the sound effects were either total crap or completely missing in that version, at least in the western release.
It was interesting to see that there's actually some noticable differences between the western SNES release compared to the Super Famicom one. Some enemies has different colors and some soundeffects got massively improved. The gun sounds correct for instance and not like the crappy distant lightningstrike as it sounds like in the western release, but the grunt Conrad makes when getting hit sounds just as bad. Kinda sounds like a moose or something. The Super Famicom release was still "censored" (Not sure if it can be called that hence the quotes) I see with Death Tower being replaced with Cyber Tower and the Bar being replaced with a Café. Maybe the Super Famicom version was developed by another team? The western release at least was also made by Tiertex so that explains why it has so many problems.
It's a little bit of a shame that the extended cutscenes couldn't fit inside the console versions, but I'm still amazed they managed to fit as much as they did. But there's something all versions got wrong except for the Mega Drive, Mega CD and Amiga, the color of Conrad's shirt. It's supposed to be white, not red. He has a white shirt in the cutscenes, so it looks so stupid he then switches to a red one during gameplay. No idea why they changed that.
Nice BotP again Mark!
I wasn't aware there are different sound effects and colours between the SNES and SFC. Very interesting.
For those who criticize the Atari Jaguar, this game proves that this console is more powerful than the SNES (although the 64-bit console had to be better than a 16-bit one).
Very good vidéo. But where is the CDI version ?
Couldnt get it to run.
I've never played it. I was trying to make it happen now, but it's impossible, it feels boring.
I can't read Spanish, but Ultima Generacion, their equivalent to Edge and Next Generation Magazines, gave both the CDi AND 3DO versions a 6/10 score at review.
So obviously not taken with either it seems.
surprised that the NEC PC 9801 port looks as good as it does. I honestly think that almost all of the ports are great in their own right. A shame they couldn't get a better dev to do the jag port.
This is mostly copy and pasted from another comment, but whatever:
That version also has a 256 color mode for 9821s, but sadly it's incredibly broken. The graphics are almost entirely screwed up even on real hardware. The PC-98 version also can't be beaten legitimately without cheating because of a game-breaking bug surprisingly early in the game. At the end of the first level where you're supposed to find the guy with the anti-grav belt, he just doesn't spawn. I've tried playing through it twice on an emulator and then on real hardware, and it happened both times. I really hope these are issues caused by a bad dump...
Had to send this to my cousin - he’s a huge Flashback nut. I think just judging from footage, I dig the DOS version best, but think the PC-98 version is cool, and I’m more and more intrigued by this Archimedes platform.
Ah, the Archimedes was a missed opportunity. Such a great machine that put the Amiga and ST to shame. Sadly it was quite expensive. I only ever got to use a real one in school. We used to play a jaguar racing game called EType on it during lunch time.
Ok, I took time to play Flashback on my own Jaguar. Sadly I confirm that the movies are a little bit too fast with sometimes weird falls of framerate. Hopefully, nothing really annoying. More annoying are the slowdowns whil playing when there are lot of things on screen. But ok, knowing that Tiertex worked on this version, it could be considered a good job... Except that... no.
Why no? As I had the privilege of playing on Amiga enjoying its wonderful soundtrack, and honestly I had a good first impression on Jaguar. The sound test let me hear that some themes are impressive... But soon, I discover that it's here that Tiertex committed its biggest crime. Musics are totally sacrified. They really didn't care. No Mark, you didn't here new musics that are nice. In fact, lot of musics and jingles are missing, they just didn't take time to convert them, using the ones they converted here and there randomly, insomuch that sometimes it sounds like a joke. They even cut some of them like in the introduction. No more explosion sound as a final, just a loop on the last pattern. Like this, no more synchronisation problem! And that's a joke from the beginning. What we hear on the Delphine Software logo is the little tune played during fights. But what show how they didn't care is that you can hear the right music in the option menu with the music test. Totally bullshit!
So I'm sorry for Jaguar owners but with broken framerate, cheap soundtrack and missing SFX, Flashback on the Atari system is a fail, a real Tiertex work that just give a nice first impression because of the power of the Jaguar. Be sure that an Amiga fan like me that shown them torture all the CAPCOM games understand what you feel at this point...
And to prove to you how much I sympathize with the mess that the lack of use of the technical capacities of your favorite machine can represent, know that I started to replay Flashback on my CDTV and I discovered on this occasion the graphic disaster of the Amiga version. The Amiga version is indeed much less colorful than the PC, Megadrive or SNES versions. If I can forgive it when these machines display dozens or even hundreds of colors simultaneously, Flashback never display more than 32 colors and sprites do not have more than 4 or 8 colors on Megadrive. Why a machine like the Amiga which offers a 32-color display with 8-color sprites natively does not offer the same graphics, it's a total mystery! If not to save space on the double sided floppy disk, I don't understand. And that's not all, musics are not played at the correct speed in the movies of level 4 and 5 and even some texts are not correctly displayed. Did they test the Amiga version before the launch? Hopefully, GFX remain very nice, sprites are colorful as on the other version and the game never slowdown. And all the nasty bugs have been fixed by the WHDLoad team. So if you add the CD32 joypad support, you got a very nice Amiga version now.
I have to disagree. Colors in Archimedes look way worse in my opinion. And for me being sensible to (bad) colors it isn't worth to play a game with such a cool atmosphere using this kind of messed up colors. Even though the higher framerate is of course very welcome. Also I think the Amiga music lacks some charme of the mega drive version. Maybe just me, grown up with Sega hardware. As always, ty for the video and have a good day!
I never liked that glitch with the rocket bike flying in the intro sequence....and also that jump on level 2 haha
During my schooldays, almost got four decades on me, it was basically everybody together and the Atari owners were the outsiders. No wonder we didn't latch onto the Jaguar hype one bit over here. Ick.
Jag was a lost cause everywhere besides the US. Atari has no hold anywhere besides its home country.
❤❤❤❤❤its Saturday... its time.... BATTLE OF THE PORTS 👍👍💥💥🤩🤩🤩🤩🍻🍻🍻
I had a pirated copy of this for the Amiga that was fan-translated from French, so some of the item descriptions weren't 100% accurate. Since it came on four floppy disks, before I had a hard drive to install it to, I used to copy the contents of the disks to a RAM disk and run it from there.
Once I got used to the controls, I don't recall having too much problem with them.
A couple years ago, I was testing out the Kega Fusion emulator and I loaded up this game. I ended up playing through the entire game. I did have a tough time remembering what buttons to use for each function though. :)
Best version for me, between MS DOS and Sega Genesis, is Genesis because their good balance between ambience and soundtrack. It's a way terrible idea put rendered cinematics on 3DO and Sega CD versions... and background music! What a shitty FMV.
Surprisingly the Jag version isn't offensive.
Yep. Very surprised about that.
I remember having this on the SNES back in the day. It was a tough game although i did beat it. Didn't really notice the slowdown at the time, so i don't think it was ever that bad although the MD clearly manages the cutscenes better.
There was also a remake i had for the Xbox 360 but it was janky as they come. Too much attempts to "modernize" it that didn't really work well. I think there was also a Switch version although i don't think i bought it after the disappointment on the 360 release.
I think without playing the other versions first the SNES may seem quite normal.
Since I share a rare first name with the protagonist of this game, it was a favorite of mine. Also, this is probably one of my favorite videos of yours since I got to hear my name so many times; I feel like a superstar!
Lol, nice. Conrad is quite the cool name and not very common either 👍
Sierria should have made a Space quest style game like this , They did King Quest 5 on the NES and King Quest 1 on Sega but people did not like that style on that system.
Have the, Genesis, Jaguar and 3DO version Mark. Still play them both regularly when I have the chance. 8^)
Anthony...
Somehow, I find the 2-D animations on the computer and standard console ports more interesting and impressive than the CGI ones on the Mega CD and 3DO.
That's because it is 👍
Best computer experience was on a Mac though.
A battle of the ports on my all time favourite game, well worth the wait! Another excellent video Mark!! I spent many an hour on the Mega Drive version, still never managed to complete it. Still love it now and play it on my Switch....I'll complete it one day!!
I played flashback so much as a kid, def my go to game at night.
And then there was the sequel which barely anyone remembers because it took everything Flashback did and threw it out.
Fade To Black ... it certainly did!
Nice! I hope you and your family are doing well these days? Thanks for another great video. Btw, I’ve really been enjoying your cassette reviews. They don’t really sell them anymore in the states and it amazes me how many different kinds you still have access to.
Thanks Reagan. Yeah, we are doing fine. I'm lucky to live in a part of the world which isn't really effected by Covid-19. Live is normal here besides wearing a mask when I go outside.
Glad you're enjoying the cassette reviews too. I'm amazed at how good some can sound.
The Sega CD version apparently came close to being canned, as publisher Sony, didn't want it's release clashing with Another World II on the format, so delayed it's release instead.
Lucky for Mega CD fans. So many game were cancelled on that format
Like I said before I have tried this game numerous times on the 3DO, Genesis, and SNES and get frustrated at the controls that are delayed. This is the reason I didn't like this game, along with
Out of this World, Flashback, and original Prince of Persia
I can agree with the slight delay. Its just something you need to get accustom too when playing these games.
I had the ms dos version growing up (boy this sure looked great for the time), but I eventually finished it many years later with MD Rom, a guide, emulator save states and stage passwords :P XDD
Never knew about this one. Looks cool, like a mix between Prince and Blackthorne.
Where are the ports for FM Towns and CD-I?
14:06 - Clearly ripped the sound of a LS from Star Wars.
FM Towns ports is missing from your video
There was also a PC CD-ROM version.
Did Sunsoft make a good job on localizing Flashback in Japanese? I never had too much time to look into their versions for MD/SFC.
They only really translated the main story text. That was done well enough.
@@RetroCore "Only," the man says. A number of bad RPG translations have taught me that fucking up the story text can ruin a game...
1st Archimedes game I’ve seen on BOTP.
Hope to see more, as I need to get hold of one ASAP
There's been a few. Quite a coincidence you posted this because this week's Battle of the Ports is a game that started life on the Archimedes.
Sleepover at a mates house in 1994, Flashback, Scared shitless and not really knowing what we were doing, But it was a good enough game that many people at school would talk about it, Mainly because of the graphics. I remember having the demo on mega cd and playing the hell out of it.
Lol, we used to play this on sleepovers too.
I love Flashback. I've played it tons on the Genesis so that version remains my favorite, but I quite enjoyed it on the 3DO later on as well when I picked up one, though I do prefer the original cinematics. It's hard for me to choose my favorite cinematic platformer with my top 5 being Flashback, Fade to Black, Blackthorne, Nosferatu on SNES, and Another/Out-of-This World.
Ooh. Nosferatu on the SFC was delayed for years. It was a pretty good game but I feel by the time it was released it had aged somewhat in the control department.
Good to see you back! Hopefully things are going well over there.
I was looking forward to this! Flashback is one of my favorites games since my childhood! I still have the manual (although is in spanish, english isn't my first language) when my mother bought the PC version for my birthday. Besides the instructions of how to install the game (for DOS or Amiga), it had many other things like a prologue, how to play, some pictures with codes as an anti-piracy meassure, trivias about the in-game universe (like holo-theaters or how the first level is an artificial jungle), etc. I also had the genesis version which came bundled with the console, along with a few more games.
The Snes version isn't bad, but it fares poorly to the other ports. I would like to add that this version has some censorship, like the "bar" of the second level becomes a "cafe" and the "death tower show" is renamed "cyber tower show". I have no idea why the japanese version recolored some of the enemies with green. I mean, some of them are mutants, but others are just cyborgs. Still those are just minor alterations and have little to no impact on the game. I'm actually surprised to see that it was made by Tiertex.
The CD-i version is awful. It has missing frames, slowdowns both in gameplay and cutscenes (to the point that even the Snes is faster), longer load times, no voice-overs in dialogues, no in-game music, controls aren't precise and it also has borders as a lazy excuse to no rescale the graphics (CD-i uses a higher resolution than other systems). It has no reason to be in a CD. Only good thing I can think of is being one of the few "real" games on this platform.
The Mac version is basically a high ress version of the DOS port, with a few remade icons and better sound. There's also a CD version for the Mac with a little extra: the diary you find in the final level is voiced in this port (although it sounds like Tommy Wiseau).
I've heard that the FM Towns it's based on the Amiga version with a rearranged soundtrack, but i've never played it. I had no idea that it was also ported to the NEC PC-9801. It looks really cool!
The 25th anniversary edition it's actually a really nice remaster with tons of extras: remade music and sounds, tutorials, a rewind feature, customizable controls, etc. It also has the option to play like the original game, with no alterations.
I do like the 25th anniversary version but sadly I've never owned it. I did have the HD remake digital version on the Xbox 360 though.
thought youd mention SNES death tower stage censorship difference
I never got that far in the SNES version.
So where's the C64 version? j/k
As much as I loved the Megadrive, mostly for the speed and music? Lately (and especially after seeing so many more comparisons) it seems many of them lack the colour fidelity of the SNES- those purple marble pillars for example! ....it's not going to sway my old memories of course (given I had barely encounted anything Nintendo in the 90s except for Gameboys) but most of the other ports do look much nicer on the eye!
I am curious though about the NEC version though- I've seen many of the games have that "stretched pixel" look to them- is that something done on a hardware level? Or were graphics changed to help give the illusion of colour when viewed back then on lower fidelity screens~
It's just the way the system renders stuff. Kind of like a Snes is naturally too narrow on a modern TV but old CRTs would adapt the image to a 4:3 aspect ratio.
There was an episode of Game Center CX with Flashback on the Mega Drive. The guy really was wondering what he was playing!
Lol, nice.
TIL this game even came to 3d0 and jag
There's an Amiga CD (not CD32) game from 1997 called OnEscapee which feature similar gameplay and visual style. In 2004 the developers released a Windows version as freeware and downloads of both versions can easily be found. The diffuclty level is fairly high but it's well worth checking out for anyone who likes these type of games.
Cool. Didn't know about that.
checked around. its look like Tiertex has been done various ports to this game. include the PC one, but only for the CD Rom version, not the floppy disk version, seen here.
But sure actuelly, this is one of the clearly better effort from Tiertex for sure, dispite issues.
The best Tiertex has ever done for sure.
Excellent video, this game always amazed me. I only ever played the SNES version but I did enjoy it.
This is the rare game for which it's difficult to choose a definitive "best" version. I first played the Genesis version, which is really solid, and then the 3DO, which did feel like an upgrade at the time, but in hindsight each had its merits. Those in-engine cutscenes do have a certain wow factor that the FMV just can't replicate.
Agreed. The FMV just wasn't impressive like the ingame engine scenes are.
I wonder which you'd consider the worst development team when it came to ports, Tiertex, Digital Eclipse, or Micronics?
Tiertex without doubt.
Oh man, they're all awful. I'm going with Digital Eclipse because they had no excuse for they're awful screen filters on modern games they ruined.
Delphine Software Bath Water.
The Jaguar version from what i remember of it, was odd.
Improved backgrounds, faster cinematics, but smaller sprites, slowdown on a 64 bit architecture machine, geared towards 2D and quieter audio..
It was made by Tiertex. Of course they would screw up on a more powerful machine.
Im guess the Jaguar port only used the 68000 cpu as many Jaguar ports did? But its seens like a playable game this time.
@@solarflare9078 and they gave us Supercross 3D on the platform 😂
How Tiertex survive so much time doing so crap world is a total mystery. On Amiga, US Gold was alone to publish their terrible work just to make money. But on consoles, manufacturers had a view on each game launched on their systems. They are guilty too in a sense 😉
@@iXien probably by being able to deliver multiple Platform conversions within budget, to a deadline and being the lowest bidders... Publishers loved those factors.
It was always the games buying public who suffered 😭
thanks for the sweet breakdown can't wait to give this one a try
I recall this and Another world being quite ground-breaking games on the Amiga.
They were. 👍
Wait... Another game by Tiertex that isn’t a steaming pile? I’d say maybe they perhaps don’t deserve all of the reputation they have but 10 seconds of the original Street Fighter on home computers kills any defence I have got for them in my throat...
Haha, they got lucky many 3 times. That doesn't give them a free pass for all the shit they've put out there 😁
@@RetroCore AFAIK they did the SNES version as well as the Jag version, so if we're generous we can say they were decent at porting Flashback. IIRC someone who worked at Tiertex was interviewed by Retro Gamer, and expressed relief about working on it rather than Strider 2 (or something along those lines).
Tiertex still managed to put out something bad Flashback related though: the PC CD version. The game itself was unchanged, so all they had to do was put in the rendered FMV sequences. That can't go wrong surely? Well, they managed to do it... with FMV running at about 4 fps. The PC wasn't known for amazing FMV capabilities at the time, but even so, that was pretty bad. It could be a DOSBox problem, but I don't think so.
One of my all time favourites. I cleared the latest version, just a month ago and couldn't believe how short the game was. Great video👍
It is quite short. No Prince of Persia, that's for sure.
There’s also a great port for MorphOS that uses bits of other ports called : REminiscence.
I believe this was ported to the PS2 too.
Oh man, cinematic platformers never did much for me. When I was a kid I had no patience for them and now that I'm middle aged it's the same. I should have probably given them a chance when I was in my 20s or something but that rarely happened.
They take a bit of time to get used to. How long have you played them in a single session?
There one of those games you need to have time for I guess.
I was pretty sure I had it on my ST but apparently they never released it on the ST! I wonder what game I'm mixing it up with?
Hmm, you've got me. The obvious option would be Prince of Persia. But I don't think you'd mix that game up for Flashback.
Was Blackthorn by Blizzard ever released on the ST? That's similar I guess.
You must be mixing it up with Another World/Out of This World. Flashback is an unofficial sequel.
great video ! I love this game. i had the SFC version when I was kid. packaging was so cool
That it was.
CD versions have excellent music. As does the amiga one.
9:20 Dude that looks awful!
Have you seen other games on the system? For a PC98 it looks quite nice.
@@RetroCore Of course. You're tripping if you think that looks anywhere near lovely
It’s a title I wanted to play back when it was first released but at that time SF II, Zelda and a bunch of other huge games were out and I never got around to giving Flashback a go. Seems the MD or Acorn versions are the best of the bunch?
I'd say so. If it wasn't for the FMV I'd then maybe choose the 3DO
@@RetroCore awesome, thanks! Looking forward to your next upload 😄
These type of games looked good at the time, but controlling the characters always seemed kind of janky.
It only takes a bit of persistence and training to get the hang of it. Once it clicks it is really natural and fast to handle.
oh hey, did you not get a copy of the PlayStation 2 ISO the developer distributed for free? Or was there some reason it doesn't count as a port
I didn't even know that was a thing.
I think this was based on the morphOS port.
no bad versions this time!! Mark, have you played "The Eternal Castle"? is a recent "retro" platformer that is very much inspired on Flashback!
No, I've not seen that. It's it is on Xbox or PS4 I may check it out.
@@RetroCore it's on Switch an PC
The PC-98 version is actually quite broken, or at least the currently available dump is. The game has a 256 color mode for PC-9821 machines, but it barely works at all with corrupted visuals all over the place even on real hardware. Also, the game can't be beaten legitimately without cheating. At the end of the first level where you're supposed to find the guy with the anti-grav belt, he just doesn't spawn. I hope these are issues caused by a bad dump.
The amiga disk swapping isn't a thing if you had a hard drive. So that's not an advantage of the DOS version. Then you get flashback without loading and with the better sound. Could you play the DOS version without a hard drive? If not then the floppy version made it more accessible on the Amiga.
Most Amiga owners didn't have a HD. Ever PC owner had a HD so it was normal to install the game.
@@RetroCore you're comparing two different audiences then. Those who bought the Amiga for casual gaming and those who bought it as computer. Anyone who would been serious about computing on an Amiga would have a hard drive. I did. You also probably wouldn't have had a PC just for games back in 1992, You'd probably have had to be serious about computing to have one (just with a lot more money available). So with those similar audiences in mind, you could get an Amiga with a hard drive for a lot cheaper than a PC with a hard drive and have better experience. It's a common misconception that the Amiga was primarily a games machine. It's certainly a capable one so it made it more accessible. But to say the PC had an advantage over the Amiga version isn't fair considering the costs and circumstances to get those advantages.
@@RetroCore You could also say that most PC owners did not have a joypad to toy around with since the machine primarly ran games designed for mouse and keyboard... and playing Flashback with a keyboard only was quite an aquired taste to appreciate. Platform games were never a big market on the PC up until this point in time. By the time Flashback was released on the Amiga the Amiga 1200 and 600 were a thing and the 600 even launched in a HD version. I would say that it was quite a mixed marked by this point concerning HD or no HD on the Amiga. With that said, I do prefer the Mega Drive version because of the controls even if the Amiga version supports more than one button.
So you telling me Falshback actually develop for Mega Drive/Genesis by US Gold ? So US Gold have once make good game ?
@B3ro1080 wait what really there good LJN game, I don't know about that
No, US Gold just published the game. They had nothing to do with developing it
LJN didn't make games. They were just a publisher. LJN is just a division of Acclaim, another crappy publisher which is thankfully now gone.
Surprised to see the SNES version is not cropped, despite its lower resolution. I wonder why this was?
Probably because they squeezed everything on to the narrower screen real-estate.
@@RetroCore
Megadrive, SNES and Amiga versions of Flashback are all 256x224.
The MD and SNES always scale the image to fit a full low resolution TV 320x240 NTSC. The Amiga displays games 1:1 pixel resolution which means you get borders around games that are lower than 320x240 NTSC 320x256 PAL, more so when overscan is involved. On the other hand Amiga games always have the sharper/better pixel/graphic quality when viewed on the real deal via CRT because there's no image scaling, depending on what type of screen/monitor with Amiga you can scale the image manually.
The MD version is 100% the original, it was designed for the MD, the rest are ports.