In Back to the Future Part II (Zemeckis, 1989), Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels to October 21, 2015, which is known as “Back to the Future Day” to celebrate the franchise and science.
Released: 1990
Developer: Image Works
Also Available For: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and ZX Spectrum
A Brief Background:
Celebrated as one of the most beloved, iconic, successful, and influential film trilogies ever made, the Back to the Future trilogy sits in a rare category where each film is as good, if not better, than the last. As if reaping over $960 million in worldwide gross wasn’t enough, the trilogy expanded into comic books, cartoons, and videogames. Unfortunately, it would take decades for gamers to be treated to a halfway decent release (one that effectively functioned as a fourth film, no less) and, until then, players endured a slew of mediocre to sadly obscure to aggravating movie tie-ins. Accordingly, to capitalise on the critical and financial success of the unexpected and ground-breaking sequel, multiple adaptations of Back to the Future Part II made their way to home consoles, with this version being coming courtesy of the UK’s own Image Works. Unfortunately, their efforts were met with negativity and the game was seen as a poor adaptation of the movie, with reviews criticising the stunted gameplay and poor sprite work (though the music was largely praised).
The Review:
Back to the Future Part II is a bit of an oddball title that’s a mixture of genres, though it’s primarily a 2D sidescroller. It’s a short game, consisting of only five stages (referred to as “Missions”), with no checkpoints, continues, or opportunities to gain extra lives that I could see. You start the game with at least three lives and a health bar; once you exhaust them all, the game ends and you must start over. I’ve had bad experiences with retro Back to the Future games after a dismal childhood playing Back to the Future Part III (Probe Software, 1991) on the Amiga but I needed Master System-exclusive titles to fill my library and took a risk with this one. Sadly, this didn’t pay off and I never managed to get past the first Mission or finish the last one. Luckily, Back to the Future Part II includes a handy level select code so I experienced everything the game had to offer in terms of level selection, and I feel that’s enough to warrant a full (if short) review rather than categorising it as a “did not finish”. The game honestly gets off to a great start, ambitiously recreating Alan Silvestri’s iconic score in chip tune glory and featuring it throughout as a highlight. The title screen recreates the movie logo and there’s even some surprisingly detailed sprite art and text giving a brief overview of the plot and acting as interludes between Missions. Leave the game running and you’ll see a demo mode play that tells you everything you need to know about the game as the tester clearly fails in the first Mission and quits using the same level select code!
The plot is exactly the same as the movie, but more fleshed out in the instruction manual and very loosely translated into sidescrolling stages and mini games that offer a great deal of variety but aren’t executed very well. Back to the Future Part II falls apart in its first stage, where you (as Marty McFly) take to a hoverboard and trundle down an autoscroller stage in Hill Valley, 2015. Marty’s sprite (and all the game’s sprites) is woefully basic, with barely any animation to show him pushing himself along or punching. I get that the Master System is a weaker system, but I’ve seen it do far better than this ugly effort. In the first stage, you guide Marty along jumping over hazards (oil slicks, strangely deadly curbs, and guys popping out of manholes) and avoiding Griff Tannen’s gang, random pedestrians, the elderly Biff Tannen, and cars that race along. Your punch does little and helpful robots drop various power-ups that speed you up or replenish your health. However, it’s basically a one-hit kill affair that kicks you back to the title screen before you realise what’s happening. There’s a point system here but I’m not sure what it does; there’s no high score table and I died too quickly to see if you gain extra lives. After trying and failing multiple times to beat this section, I skipped ahead to Mission 2, which is really a glorified mini game. Advertised as a “logic puzzle”, it switches to a top-down perspective and has you selecting doors to guide Jennifer Parker out of her future self’s home. You have three minutes to do this and must avoid the McFly family who’re wandering around, but as far as I could tell it doesn’t matter if you succeed or fail, and you can simply progress on (or retry the Mission) after randomly selecting some doors.
Mission 3 sees you controlling Marty in the alternate 1985, you’re moving to the right and hopping over barrels and tyres and using the directional pad and button 1 to punch, kick, or throw stuff. This was very clunky and felt like wading through goo; your best bet is to press down and 1 to sweep the leg rather than relying on frisbees and rocks. Mission 3 did impress with its backgrounds, though. Jennifer’s house, Lyon Estates, and Stanford Strickland’s house are all ambitiously represented, and Strickland himself even appears to fill you with lead. You can simply jump over him and carry on, collecting random colourful sprites that refill your health or award points and seem to represent parts for the time machine or the Grey’s Sports Almanac. I managed to beat this stage but it was very anti-climactic as it abruptly ended when you reached a billboard (there’s no in-game rendition of the DeLorean here!) Mission 4 is another glorified mini game that gives you three minutes to rearrange a slide puzzle and complete the picture of Marty playing “Johnny B. Goode” alongside the Starlighters. I hate these games and couldn’t figure out how to finish the image, so I just settled for matching Marty’s head with his torso and waited out the timer. Mission 5, sadly, is a carbon copy of Mission 1 except Marty has a new sprite and the hazards are a little different. There are puddles on the ground, for example, banana peels, barriers, and cones, multiple Old Biff’s, and Young Biff barrelling about in his Ford Super De Luxe Convertible. I did progress far enough for the perspective to switch to an isometric slant, which was disorientating and made Marty’s punch even more useless, but I couldn’t retrieve the Almanac from Biff and was done after a few tries.
The Summary:
It’s a wonder we ever got a good Back to the Future game at all with mess like this sullying the franchise. Back to the Future Part II is my favourite of the trilogy so it stings a little more seeing it so poorly brought to life on what I feel is one of retrogaming’s most under-appreciated consoles. Sadly, there’s not much to defend here as the game looks and plays terribly, bringing us sprites that’d make the Atari blush and delivering gameplay so clunky you’d swear your controller was on the fritz. The music is impressive, I’ll admit, as is the sprite art used in the interludes and such, but it’s not enough to save this mess of a game. It’s so bizarre as the Master System was more than capable of delivering solid, colourful platformers and it can’t’ve been that hard to just have Marty hop about collecting pages from the Almanac and racing along on his hoverboard. I appreciated the gameplay variety on offer but the main gameplay is barely a step up from the first movie’s notoriously bad outing on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Shamelessly designed to cash-in on a profitable franchise and have to wasting your pocket money on subsequent rentals, Back to the Future Part II is best avoided, no matter how big a fan of the franchise you are, for its ungainly and off-putting gameplay and presentation.
My Rating:
Terrible
Did you ever play Back to the Future Part II on the Master System? If so, what did you think of it? Did you manage to beat the game without using the level select? What did you think of the different gameplay mechanics on offer? Which Back to the Future videogame is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating Back to the Future Day today? Whatever you think about Back to the Future, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
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