izigame.me

My God, I don't even know where to start... But I'll try.
I love the old, first Flashback (not that one remaster on new platforms!). I've tried to play Fade to Black and 2013 remake. And here we are - Flashback 2. Game that I was at the same time afraid to wait since announcement and desperately waiting.
And, sadly, sequel (actually, kinda prequel?) is bad. Bad in so many ways, that it's shocking me. It has not redacted AI generated portraits\cutscene sprites and maybe textures with that ones artefacts like strange lines, broken ears, weird hair. At the end even show sprite of main character from the side and it was like some other character wearing Conrad's clothes lol.
Artstyle is generic. Music is generic too. Narrative (plot and texts) too and, I suppose again, made with AI.
But I have more important things to say:
Microids, many years ago you tried to make Flashback 2 on GameBoy Advance. Even has some prototype. The game looked and played like the first part... WHO ON EARTH APPROVED THIS THING THAT YOU RELEASED IN 2024??? It's so far away from everything that fans of the first game loves.
Okay... For some reason you decided to change genre and overall vision. But can you make it with WAY LESS bugs and not that run of the mill experience overall? Game is sometimes broken, unoptimized bunch of lagging bugs nearly without interesting level design and game mechanics.
Funny thing, that I'm not hate this game. Just very confused by many decisions from the devs (reference to PS3\Xbox360 horror Amy? Seriously?)
And, most of the time, was bored.
This game is for that one braindead gaming session where you want some "eatable" singleplayer game with storyline and you don't know what to play. Few times was laughing by absence of characters reaction to anything dramatic that they witnessed lol. And portraits again, yes, they are hillarious.
Again, this is that rare case when I wish that the game would be better (perfect case scenario) or way worse up to the point "so bad it's good"
But game has some okay-ish moments: more or less I like jungle and final level, idea (not implementation) of plot twist with that multiverse synchronization of two Conrad's. And french voice acting makes even this type of games way better than it should be. Sci-Fi cyberpunk cliche-aesthetic is a win-win situation and first rides on a bike. Few lines between Conrad and his girl was cute and funny about pheromones and heartbeating analysis from Aisha, AI-powered gun and assistant of Conrad.
Like... This game HAS something good, but all of this stuff is buried under lack of care, love and inspiration.
Don't know why Paul Cuisset treats his most successful game in that manner. He has some interesting games in 80s and 90s, but something happened later. It feels bad to witness this in realtime.
I played the demo and was horrified by the performance and gameplay, but still bought the game at full price.
Knew I probably wouldn't like it, but I guess I had some hopes? Also the fact that I'm very fond of French science fiction and especially what came out of Metal Hurlant\Heavy Metal magazines also played a role: Moebius, Christin\Mezieres, Jodorowsky, Bilal, Manara, Druillet.
Flashback 2 gave me this vibes sometimes, but it is at the same time very cool and very sad. Cool because all this stuff mentioned right above this block of text and very sad - not that great, when you play the game and wanted something better after you complete the game.
I know that this project cost money, but maybe it would be better to at least make it as original title? Because I wanted to say "why this project was not canceled?", but devs need to make some money from the project, but leave another stain on this "franchise" is... Ugh... Nevermind.
Like, dudes, you can't even properly remaster the original game nowadays. Who told you "hey, Flashback 2 is a good idea"? And who tf agreed with that..?
At the end want to ask one question:
Why you develop this game in-house? You have The Way by Puzzling Dream, LUNARK by Canari Games and even something way more obscure like cringy DreamBreak by Aist. And bunch of other developers that was inspired by Another World and Flashback who made 2D sprite cinematic platformers.
But Microids decided to develop this game on their own. With that design, technical state and other things that makes this game "mostly negative". Sequel to THAT ONE game from Amiga\SNES\Sega about rotoscoped dude with a holocube. Most iconic game from this designer. Just. Hire. Motivated. Talented. Fans. !!!
Comedic levels of absurd.