My Played Video Games Review: Flashback: The Quest for Identity for the Sega Genesis

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Flashback: The Quest for Identity, also known as just Flashback, is a science fiction cinematic, puzzle-action, platform game developed by Delphine Software of France and published by U.S. Gold (British video game publisher) in the USA and Europe, and by Sunsoft in Japan in 1992. The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive port came out in 1993.

Seeing and playing this for the first time during the early 1990s has kept me amazed that this kind of PC style graphics was possible on the Sega Genesis.

Surprisingly dull Japanese version cover. (Image source)

The Story

You play as Conrad Hart in the future- a man fleeing from a group of thugs that are chasing him. He jumps onto a cool hover-bike and tries to escape, but they eventually catch up to him and shot him down from the sky. He crash-lands into a jungle and wakes up with amnesia.

Your goal is to help our hero piece together the events leading up to his escape and help him proceed.

Box and cartridge of the game. (Image source)

The Graphics and Sound

Flashback has a pretty good science fiction settings in its art style. The backgrounds are diverse and a bit detailed. The characters got fluid, animated-like movements. The futuristic atmosphere of the game is graphically welcome. Even the high-quality cinemas in the game look nice too.

This game has got good quality sound effects for most things needed. But the background music, though good, is kind of repetitive and does not have that atmospheric mood needed for a cinematic game like this.

A gameplay video sample of Flashback. Watch in 360p or lower for near original TV resolution at the time.

The Gameplay

The gameplay is quite similar to side-scrolling, platform adventure games (like Prince of Persia) and with the usual movements like running, jumping, turning switches, ledge climbing and etc...

The controls are kind of hard to use because they must be precise. It takes a little time to get used to. The main character uses a laser blaster and also uses bombs. It actually adds a lot to the game's combat and puzzles. The gameplay also can be quite diverse and decent. Backtracking is also part of it.

Replay value is good because you can skip to your desired levels after you get the passwords for beating them.

My Verdict

Flashback is still a worthy addition to any Genesis/Mega Drive or retro video gamers library. The game has a good story, nice graphics, and sounds. And I am glad that it is still quite fun to play.

Play it on the unsinkable Sega Genesis/Mega Drive or play it cheaply on any easy to set up emulator.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!