A few days ago, a friend of mine uploaded a picture of this months Retro Gamer Magazine which he gets early due to having a subscription (something i need to think about).
It features Flashback:The Quest for Identity on the cover and as soon as i saw it I thought woohoo, I love that game! Maybe the article inside was prompted by news of the modern remake that’s currently in the making – sadly, only for Xbox 360 owners so that’s me out 😦 ).
I must have played Flashback on my Amiga so many times that I doubt the floppy disks still have any data on them through wear! It’s a truly awesome game and back in the day, I’m guessing just like everyone else, was simply blown away by everything the game had to offer. It’s highly polished vector intro/cutscenes, big budget movie style soundtrack, rotoscoping and cyberpunk sci-fi visuals were like nothing that had come before since ‘Another World’.
Usually these days, if I don’t have the Amiga on the desk then I’ll play Flashback on the Megadrive as the extra buttons on the controller can often come in handy instead of using stick/keyboard control likes on the Amiga. Still the Amiga was the first version I played it on and it’s on that platform that I’ll always consider Flashback as being my favourite. Flashback on the Amiga is four disks of happiness!
Any…ho, after seeing that magazine cover , I thought I’d check out eBay to see if I could locate a copy of Flashback on the Panasonic 3DO. It’s been ages since I’ve had the ol’  FZ-1 out of its box and I’d heard that on the 3DO, Flashback is particularly good.
Hmm, not sure about the top part of the cover though, the bottom half is very Bladerunner-esq so that’s gets a big thumbs up from me.
After finding a copy of the game at a rather bargain Buy it Now price  (semi-tatty box) it arrived this morning almost on cue after finishing the housework (Yup, jobs out the way first is the StiGGy way!).
The familiar intro has had a bit of a makeover and is looking rather cool in its modern (for the time) 3D rendered guise. Good as it it, it does seems rather short though and I much prefer the original vector animation. On the flip side, the in game cutscenes are fantastic  especially the charging station and scene were you meet Ian and sit in the chair to regain your lost memories…Conrad finally talks!
I’m a bit of fan of the main menu music on the Amiga which simply rocks compared to the Megadrive and SNES version but on the 3DO, I think we have a contender for a new favourite here as it’s just superb. Maybe the other CD based consoles that have a Flashback port (Sega CD/CDI) are as good?
Graphically, its seems pretty much about the same as the Amiga version far as I can tell and not really anything different..maybe a few extra frames of animation on the characters perhaps?
Set up and ready to go. I was concerned at first that it might not run  though as the CD was pretty scratched. So far so good although I apologise for the crappy picture, it’s a bit bright in here this afternoon.
Right, come on Conrad, we’ve got a lot to do.
<an hour later>
Well, I’m four levels in now and truely loving this port…I think even more so that the Amiga….shh, tell no one. I’m sure that if you have a Panasonic 3DO console you’ve already got this in your collection tucked neatly between RoadRash and Nighttrap (seriously!)…but if not, zip on over to eBay right now and see if you can track down this gem of a game.
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