Flashback: The Quest for Identity

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Flashback: The Quest for Identity

Developer(s)	Delphine Software International
Publisher(s)	U.S. Gold
Designer(s)	Paul Cuisset
Release date(s)	1992
Genre(s)	Cinematic Platformer
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: K-A (re-releases) VRC: MA-13
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple Macintosh, Acorn Archimedes, Super NES, 3DO, Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega CD, Atari Jaguar

Flashback: The Quest for Identity, released just as Flashback in some countries, is an cinematic platformer developed by Delphine Software of France, a now defunct company, and published by U.S. Gold in United States and Europe, and Sunsoft in Japan. The game was released in 1992 for MS-DOS. Flashback is listed in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling French game of all time.^[1]

Flashback was released for MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple Macintosh, Acorn Archimedes, CD-i, Super NES, 3DO, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega CD/Mega CD and Atari Jaguar.

The game features fully hand-drawn backdrops, and the player character Conrad's animation is rotoscoped, giving his movements a fluidity unusual for its time, similar to that of the earlier Prince of Persia. The rotoscoping technique of Flashback was invented independently of Prince of Persia, and used a more complicated method of first tracing video images onto transparencies.^[1]

A sequel, named Fade to Black was produced in 1995, and had completely different gameplay, generating mixed reviews from critics who felt that it was too different from the original game.^{[citation needed]} Flashback itself is often mistaken for a sequel to Another World.

1 Storyline
2 Development History
3 Version Differences
4 References
5 Related software
6 External links

[edit] Storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The game begins on the moon Titan, progressing later to Earth and an alien spaceship in the year 2142. It details the journey of Conrad B. Hart, an agent for the Galaxia Bureau of Investigation, and his attempts to recover his lost memory to save the world. Fitting into the cyberpunk genre, there are government conspiracies, bleak world views, and cybernetic enhancements, all squeezed into the dystopian society the game presents. The game also seems to borrow themes from certain films, i.e. the deadly spheres in Phantasm, and many of the dystopian themes developed in Blade Runner and in Total Recall. The story is also somewhat reminiscent of They Live, including glasses that allow one to see aliens and an interplanetary transporter.

In Flashback, Titan is covered by an Earth-like tropical forest (unlike real life's freezing desert with a nitrogen atmosphere)

During one of his investigations, Conrad discovers a plot to take over Earth involving aliens called Morphs who disguise themselves as government officials. Conrad records a holocube for himself and makes a copy of his memory as a precaution against it being erased. As he feared, the Morphs eventually kidnap Conrad and erase his memory but he manages to escape and is left disoriented on Titan.

Conrad finds the cube he recorded earlier, he eventually regains his memory (in the titular 'flashback') and finds out that the people he used to work for have killed his girlfriend to make sure no one would report Conrad missing. In the end, he foils the alien's plans, once and for all, but at the cost of having to go into suspended animation in space and hope that he is picked up by someone. The sequel, Fade to Black, has Conrad being picked up by his old enemies.

[edit] Development History

The game began as a licensed adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola's movie The Godfather, but eventually strayed away from this theme as development proceeded.^[1]

[edit] Version Differences

By default, the MS-DOS version has an extended introductory sequence and more minor cut scenes than the Amiga version (such as when picking up items). In the Amiga version the user can see these scenes by enabling them (although with few seconds of delay every time the animations load) or by playing the game entirely from the hard drive. The game was originally released on 3.5" floppy disk for MS-DOS, rereleases on CD-ROM for systems such as PC, CD-i, 3DO, Jaguar and Sega CD featured redone cinematics with new graphics as well as audible dialogue throughout and new sounds and music.

In North America, the Sega Genesis, Sega CD and Super Nintendo versions featured a Marvel Comics comic book within the manual in order to explain the initial story. The European release on Sega Mega Drive, Sega Mega CD and Super Nintendo omitted the comic and featured a textual story instead.