Flashback

Flashback is a third-person action-adventure with light RPG elements, built as a modernised take on the beloved 1992 cinematic platformer of the same name. You play as Conrad Hart, an agent who wakes up with his memory wiped and has to piece together a conspiracy involving shapeshifting aliens, corporate cover-ups, and a future Earth that looks like someone's mood board for a mid-budget science fiction film. The premise still holds up. The execution is where things get complicated. The combat is cover-based and serviceable. Conrad has a handful of weapons, a personal shield, and a hologram decoy that can distract enemies. On paper that toolkit sounds like it supports tactical variety. In practice most encounters play out the same way: pop into cover, drain enemy health, advance. The RPG layer, a light skill upgrade system, exists but never meaningfully changes how you approach fights. Build variety is essentially non-existent past the first few upgrades. If you come in expecting the kind of systemic depth the RPG genre tag implies, dial those expectations back to nearly zero. The level design occasionally remembers that the original Flashback was about precision platforming and environmental puzzle-solving, and those moments are genuinely enjoyable. There is a decent mid-game stretch where the alien world setting opens up and the pacing improves. But those highs are interrupted by repetitive combat arenas and fetch-quest detours that feel inserted purely to pad runtime. For an RPG specialist, filler is the cardinal sin, and Flashback commits it often enough to feel like a slog around the two-thirds mark. The story, despite a promising sci-fi noir setup, resolves too quickly and too cleanly to leave any real impression. Conrad is a blank protagonist in the worst sense: not morally ambiguous, not interestingly flawed, just kind of there. Dialogue choices are largely cosmetic. The writing does not reward close reading. Compared to the original game's tense atmosphere and smartly constructed world, this reimagining feels like a Wikipedia summary of something that used to mean more. The art direction has aged awkwardly, and the Mixed Steam review score reflects a fanbase that clearly wanted something closer to a love letter and got a form letter instead. That said, if you have never played the 1992 original and just want a short, low-stakes sci-fi action game with occasional platforming, Flashback 2013 is not offensively bad. It runs fine on PC, clocks in at around four to six hours, and there is something mildly enjoyable about its retro-future aesthetic even when the substance underneath is thin. Just do not come in expecting a CRPG or a game where your choices ripple outward in interesting ways. This is an action game wearing an RPG tag the way some people wear a band shirt without knowing the discography.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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