2023-12-22 07:57:00
To say that we have been impatiently awaiting Flashback 2 since its announcement would be lying to you. Symbol of what we called the “French touch”, reference of the “cinematic platformer” on micro and 16-bit consoles, this direct sequel to the cult game from 1992 could only excite us. We’ve spoken to you about it several times, it’s a title that rocked our first years of gaming, those where we quickly realized that this media was much more than a simple pastime, but a bringing together of several arts which invites us to be actors in a story. Reappearing regularly since its release, whether in more complete versions on Mega CD, 3DO, Philips CDI or mobile phone, the title even went through the remake box in 2013 without regaining its former success! So when its original creator Paul Cuisset announced that the sequel would arrive in 2023, our excitement quickly gave way to concern the closer we got to the release date. Not only did we see little about the title and Microids, which publishes and develops the game, is going through a zone of turbulence at the end of the year. All focused on the Christmas period, there are ultimately a lot of finishing problems and a lot of damage to the French publisher’s productions… When we could see that the specialized press had not received the title before its release official, we were convinced of a possible shipwreck! What really happens after you finish the game?
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The real sequel to Flashback!
In this sequel, we find a hero who seems to have become much younger! Microids
As in cinema where certain franchises are exploited to the core, Flashback 2 decides to ignore Fade To Black released in 1995 on Playstation and PC by resuming directly after the first episode. We therefore forget this 3D sequel as if it had never existed, and we resume the rest of the story of Conrad B. Hart, this earthling who tried to demonstrate the existence of extraterrestrials among the population and who by the same token opportunity prevented them from exterminating humanity.
After being put in stasis in a capsule of his shuttle which was drifting in space, our hero wakes up and seems to have gone from the status of thirty-year-old to that of a young senior, student at the GBI academy (an equivalent of FBI galactic). Just when he thought he had wiped out the morphs for good, our hero will have to overcome a new threat who initially wants to replace President Stetson Frost at an upcoming galactic congress. Accompanied by the group of Lucanes, he will discover a larger conspiracy led by Lazarus.
Return to the jungle of Titan which offers very beautiful light effects! Microids
If the beginning holds up overall, we’re not going to lie, the writing is ultimately quite bad. In terms of surprises, we’re spoiled, it’s true, but we’re treated to ¾ of the game with totally irrelevant mystical clichés that we absolutely didn’t see coming. Without spoiling too much, it will be about cloning, a master brain and the easy use of parallel dimensions to which is added a large tree created by the ancients, in short… a mixture of science fiction diluted in ecology… we had a lot of difficulty getting into the story which pulls on too many rather clichéd strings!
Overall, the dialogues and writing are quite flat with a humor and lightness that does not fit the Blade Runner atmosphere of the story. It’s often very poorly played, at times completely shoddy apart from Donald Reignoux who plays Conrad even if once again, we imagined the character a bit more mature!
From a point of view of the overall lore, it is undeniable that Paul Cuisset wanted to do much more, this beautiful attention is unfortunately distilled in numerous writings hidden in holocubes. We would have preferred a more environmental narration or one emanating from NPCs… It’s a shame because the developers had nevertheless thought of certain multiple-choice dialogues. It was certainly not possible due to lack of time and also means, it’s difficult to blame them on this point.
A game developed too quickly!
The narration is done through dialogues with fixed vignettes! Microids
We will immediately lift the suspense on the technical side of the title. Flashback 2 oscillates between the barely passable and the disaster. Developed under Unity in a minimum of time, the title sometimes turns out to be beautiful from a distance but more often than not, it is far from beautiful when you get closer! The most successful environments remain the first ones like the New Tokyo market, New Washington and to a certain extent the ring road connecting these areas. On the visual side, the Village des Bannis is also quite appealing but unfortunately it will be impossible to visit it. For the rest we go from the very generic Jungle of Titan which benefits from beautiful lighting effects to closed environments which are nothing extraordinary. As for the NPC models, they are absolutely not worked on.
Where Flashback 2 struggles is especially with its finishing issues which clearly show that the game would have required an additional year of development to be refined.
If certain cutscenes are done directly with the comic book style of the game using animated images, some in real time created with the game engine drag severely which completely cancels their impact in the staging. For dialogue, the devs opted for fixed portraits with lines of text below. We are saving money!
On the framerate side, from the moment you want to reach New Washington from the Village of the Banished, the title suffers very, very big slowdowns which sometimes make it drop below 15FPS, all this on PS5! The SSD is obviously not used at all with sad loading screens between zones. We quickly move on to the death screens or the dialogues which sometimes overlap with the cutscenes. In our playing lives, we have rarely seen this… It makes you wonder how everything passed quality control.
For the animations, we take a little trip into the past… The game is at times so stiff in these jumps that it’s laughable. It should be noted that they are also contextual, which clearly shows that the platform takes second place. For those who had rinsed the 1992 version, the title had at times smoother animations, and especially finished animations. The character’s dash also falls into this last category. He’s a complete failure…
The motorcycle phases could have been much more interesting to play! Microids
To finish on the character design, I for my part found it far too generic, without much identity but above all with an ultra-young Conrad. There are few different mobs while the basic soldiers, drones, colossi and the invisible assassin morph are successful, it’s a shame!
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It doesn’t work or doesn’t work!
We find the spirit of the license in certain Microids decors
If the title directed by Paul Cuisset has its share of technical glitches, certain game design choices undermine the experience quite quickly.
Opting for a 2.5D rendering, Flashback 2 takes the essence of the license by adding a touch of modernity. For gunfights, he chooses the twin stick shooter which often turns out to be imprecise. The player will at times have difficulty understanding the depth and will often bump into the railings while going up the stairs or may also find themselves stuck in the scenery… a mishap which forced us to reload the saves a few times in the game.
We end the movements with the false good idea of phases on a motorbike to reach one area to another at the start of the game. Collisions are non-existent and that adds nothing to the title. It’s hard to believe that it’s Paul Cuisset who is behind the Moto Racer series which at least had undeniable fun!
The twin stick shooter fights are sorely lacking in precision! Microids
It’s a safe bet that the game does not offer a difficulty mode because it is aware of the imprecise and poorly regulated side of its combat. You can unsolder someone almost at point blank range without them having seen you or conversely you barely pass a door when your character is targeted. In the same spirit, it was possible for me to pass my gun behind a closed door and kill someone without being visible to them.
Thanks to a protective bubble, armor but also numerous medikits, the difficulty of the game remains quite accessible with the added benefit of unlimited lives. Be careful when respawning after a death, you can sometimes find yourself in the heart of a fight without being able to take cover and therefore die again immediately. This parameter was adjusted haphazardly and finally, we screw up, we die, we reappear ten times and that’s it…
To finish with the grand finale, the game reserves the surprise of a TPS phase for the player. A small homage to Fade To Black but which will not raise the overall level of the game.
Raphaël Gesqua at the helm
Even if it is not the main means of transport, we still find the New Washington metro
Faithful partner of Paul Cuisset, it is Raphaël Gesqua who composes an OST that I for my part found impeccable, he who was already behind the Amiga version of 1992, Mr Nutz, and especially the entire Fade To Black soundtrack. We find some Cyberpunk ambiance sounds, sometimes in a SF style like Mass Effect 2 and even with a few nods to his own productions such as the Shaq Fu soundtrack, one of which he revisits. It’s great work and for me it’s undoubtedly the most successful part of the game.
For the general sound design, nothing extraordinary to report apart from an unbearable gun noise once you start jamming on it.
Verdict
The hacking mini-games are ultra-simple! Microids
Aimed primarily at an audience aged between 30 and 40, Microids’ game attempts to take up the codes of the original but fails to infuse it with the magic of the era.
A true technical benchmark when it was released in 1992 and for a long time remained the best-selling French video game in history, in this 2023 version it is weighed down by technical deficiencies, by an achievement unworthy of its predecessor and gameplay that works very poorly !
This is already the third time that Flashback has returned since the very first opus with once again an ultra-disappointing result. The 2013 HD remake was even better on many levels, that is!
Unless he comes back one day in a 2D like at the time with a whole new story, Paul Cuisset would have every interest in finally leaving his old masterstroke alone and moving on to something else. We saw much more interesting this year with Lunark, a game clearly inspired by Flashback which shows that on its own, it is largely possible to do much better and more interesting than what Microids offered us.
It’s a disappointment that lives up to the love and expectations we had following this great video game classic. The game is finishable, but unfortunately for Microids, it deserves its status as one of the worst games of 2023. So ok! It’s not so bad as Inspector Gadget, but we can really see that it was done with few resources and, more surprisingly, with major technical weaknesses at times!
To know :
The mecha fight at the end of the first part of the game is laughable and without any real fun interest Microids
► Sortie : 16/11/2023
► Plateformes : PS4/PS5, XBOX ONE, Series, PC
► Developer: Microids Lyon, Microids Paris
► Publisher: Microids
► Genre : Action
► Age : +12
Most
The New Tokyo Market is one of the most successful Microids settings
► Quality OST
► Some visual ideas
The lessers
Conrad leads the investigation in this nightclub, a cyberpunk classic! Microids
► Very average gameplay
► Pick-up technique
► Cliché scenario
► Sloppy VF
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Test carried out by from a version sent by the publisher
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