Flashback: The Quest For Identity

Written by James Dauer  on June 14, 2006

Rewind Review: Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I don't remember.

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It was close, but the mysterious man had managed to escape the crash. He awakened slowly on the cold steel jungle floor. As he became aware of his surroundings he found he couldn't remember how or why he was there, the only clue he had was a small blue cube that lay near his arm. Upon inspecting the cube, the man, Conrad, was astonished to see a hologram of himself - a warning of foreboding and a Quest For identity.

Flashback: The Quest For Identity puts the player in the role of Conrad, a man who stumbles upon the secret plot of an alien invasion, and must guide him through a perilous quest to prevent the domination of the human race. Throughout the game, Conrad will meet various friends, gain tons of useless items, and, yes, get a job as a delivery boy of sorts. Fun!



Flashback was released back around 1993 from Delphine Software - a company already known for it's bizarre, yet beautiful game, Another World (or as it was called here in the US, Out of This World). Both games utilized a strange 2D polygon method of graphic design, where every character is made of a series of 2D drawn basic-looking polygons. The games ran several frames per second giving the characters very smooth animations. Today, the still graphics themselves look like crap, pure and simple. It's only when the games are seen in motion that the style really begins to set in. It can only be seen to be believed.

While Flashback utilizes the same sort of style that Another World uses, it actually manages to push more details than Another World. Backgrounds are nicely detailed, and the character models, while crude, are at least recognizable- which is more than can be said for a lot of games from '93.

Flashback doesn't have music. There, I said it. Aside from a few melodies that play during events, the game is ridden with 'ambient' sounds. Granted, this was 1993, so the sounds aren't very clear, but you can expect to hear a lot of birds chirping, doors swooshing open, machine humming, and pistols being fired, all of which sound fabulous by the day's standards. To this day, I still think Flashback has the best gunfire noise ever. СChicka-POW!'

Flashback is a double-edged sword when it comes to the mechanics of gameplay. The game oozes with that cinematic feel, tossing its animated cutscenes at the player at every event, however it feels tremendously linear, forcing Conrad to run from point A to point B to receive item X to open door D. Rinse-repeat. The thing is; the game's visuals and narrative more than make up for the monotony of backtracking. And trust me, there will be a lot of backtracking and it will be quite noticeable.

The stages are designed to make the player think about what they are doing and search their surroundings. Acrobatic feats are latent throughout the game, ala Prince of Persia. Fall too far and you will die. Dangle from ledges, leap over chasms, roll under outcroppings- all of the platforming elements are there in very fluid animation.

The game also gives the player freedom to choose how to overcome obstacles. For instance, an early area of stage one sets Conrad above and between two guards. Now, Conrad could either drop down and take out both guards as fast as possible, but he'd most likely be shot; he could throw a stone to distract the guards, drop down while their backs are turned and shoot them; or he could drop down, immediately drop into a crouching position causing the two guards to shoot at one another, and leaving Conrad unscathed. There is plenty of room for improvisation in the game.