Flashback 2 Review (johndoe)
I am a huge fan of the original Flashback. It's one of my all time favorite games. I was looking forward to this sequel for a year. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. I never request refunds for games but I just did for this.
Pros:
- Cool environments, ambiance and music. The title screen brought me right back to the original Flashback. The graphical style is great and exactly what I wanted from a modern sequel.
- Campy dialogue and story. Yes, the writing is bad. But I like that the game doesn't take itself too seriously. It's fun, and IMO better than trying and failing to be dramatic or self-important.
Cons:
- Horrendous controls. Honestly, this is the ONE thing they should have spent significant effort to get right. Controlling your character was the best part of the original. Crouching, rolling, shooting, jumping all felt fluid and fun. Combat was exciting and challenging (especially with the force field). Unfortunately, controlling your character in this game is literally the worst part about it. It feels like you're moving in thick mud. There is no pulling out your weapon, ducking, rolling and shooting like the original. Jumping is not precise and too dumbed down. Aiming your weapon is awful. Combat is easy yet somehow still frustrating. How did this control scheme get past alpha testing?
- 2.5D. I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten stuck in a door or on some object while trying to navigate the world. You can't even see what you're stuck on a lot of the time. I don't understand why they didn't just make this 2D movement inside a 3D environment. It would have been so much less frustrating.
- Game breaking bugs. Multiple people have reported issues with the Amy mission that makes it impossible to progress. I thankfully didn't hit that issue, but I did hit the one in Titan Corp factory where the game just becomes unresponsive. Honestly, I could forgive these issues in a brand new game if quick patches came out that addressed them. However, what truly makes these bugs unforgivable is the next issue...
- Inability to use save points more than once. I can't believe I'm even typing this. Yes, it's true. You can't use save points more than once. I don't know if this is an intentional design or not, but there's no indication in-game that this is the case. So once I used up all my save points I literally could not save the game again. Which meant when I hit the Titan Corp bug, I had to redo all my progress up until then. I did this twice until I just gave up and requested a refund. How did this game get past even rudimentary quality control?
I'm so upset by this game. There is so much potential here with the graphical design and the built-in nostalgia from the original. But it's been completely ruined by fundamental control issues and fatal bugs that make the game literally unplayable. I may give this game another chance in 6 months or so, but for now Paul Cuissat and Metroids's reputation have been tarnished forever in my mind.