In France, they know how to make highly artistic, vibrant, and original games. Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain, Beyond Good & Evil, Syberia, Life is Strange — the list could go on. But Flashback, released in 1992, stands out particularly — it entered the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling French game in history. Now, 31 years later, a sequel to the adventures of agent Conrad B. Hart has been released. Was it worth the wait?
30 Years Ago
Many things came together in Flashback. It was a very beautiful game with high-quality cutscenes and surprisingly smooth, almost realistic animation created using rotoscoping technology. The gameplay was engaging in its diversity — here you had action/platformer elements, quest elements, flying in a futuristic taxi, communicating with numerous characters, free exploration, and side missions. On the other hand, the game offered serious challenges that didn’t descend into outright sadomasochism — in many ways, especially in platforming, Flashback resembled the cult classic Prince of Persia.
There was also a captivating story that, while not original, was pleasantly surprising with its abundance of references — to films like Total Recall, Alien, Blade Runner, and The Running Man.
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We played as agent Conrad B. Hart of the Galactic Bureau of Investigation, who uncovers a conspiracy of an alien race of morphs capable of disguising themselves as humans. In the process, he gets kidnapped, has his memory erased, records messages to himself, participates in a bloody TV show, destroys the main villainous brain on an alien planet, and falls asleep in a cryo-chamber in an unknown galaxy — in short, the writers skillfully juggled events and locations.
In 1995, the same Delphine Software released a sequel, Fade to Black. The fully 3D game looked frankly ugly and turned out so badly that the developers themselves later declared it non-canonical. The canonical third part, titled Flashback Legends, never saw the light of day due to the studio’s bankruptcy.
Ten years after its closure, a remake of the original appeared, created by the first part’s creator, Paul Cuisset, together with VectorCell studio. It was this developer studio that caught our attention (and not just ours), and for good reason — previously, they were responsible for the unsuccessful game Amy.
The remake itself wasn’t outright terrible, but certainly not what fans of the original expected to see. It had awkward controls, simplified gameplay, and the story and atmosphere were made brighter, more Hollywood-like (Conrad started to resemble the handsome Drake), melodramatic, with touches of not-always-successful humor. In the end, VectorCell closed almost immediately after the remake’s release.
Flashback 2 was developed by Paul Cuisset in collaboration with another company, Microids Studio Paris, which created the excellent Syberia: The World Before. Still, the result is, let’s say, ambiguous. And we really don’t want Microids Studio Paris to close now either…
In Theory, the Game is Good
Interestingly, in terms of appearance and technical characteristics, Flashback 2 looks quite decent. The game still relies on diversity. First and foremost, it’s an action platformer. We don’t do much jumping, but we can crawl through ventilation shafts. Mostly, Conrad fights, using the same energy shield and a pistol with unlimited ammo. The weapon has Aisha built-in — a pretty AI girl who often comes to help, communicates, and gives advice.
There’s no role-playing system, which is for the best — in the remake, it was frankly superfluous. However, you can occasionally use an energy suit and pick-up weapon modules that temporarily turn the pistol into a grenade launcher, rocket launcher, or mortar. Interestingly, these modules have a limited duration. And you need to use them — as the game progresses, more and more enemies are thrown at you.
The opponents are quite diverse: regular soldiers, shield-bearers, flying/exploding/healing drones, mutated creatures, and aliens.
You periodically have to overcome obstacles and solve simple puzzles. The analyzer often helps here, highlighting wires, panels, and quest points on different frequencies. Also helpful is Helen, Conrad’s old girlfriend — she’s especially helpful in the jungles of Titan, where, like in the original, we spend a lot of time.
Sometimes, with her help, we climb higher (oddly enough, not the other way around), then get an access card, hack terminals, activate things, open paths to let her in or to proceed further. Sometimes we press buttons together to activate a bridge. But most often, she uses her ability to manipulate flora — huge leaves fold into bridges or, conversely, pull back to open passages.
Traditionally, we also communicate a lot and occasionally freely explore locations filled with people — for example, to talk to an important character and do something for them. At such moments, the game resembles a quest. As before, there’s an episode where we need to complete missions to earn enough money to advance the plot.
Elements of other genres are also present — for example, simple stealth, mech battles, futuristic bike races, and hacking terminals via a mini-game. And in the finale, the side-scrolling platformer effectively turns into a third-person action game.
