The version of Flashback I purchased in
1993 was distributed by US Gold and, of course, developed by
Delphine Software International, neither of which I've seen mentioned in previous writeups about this terrific title.
This one's the
Commodore Amiga version and, on a gold sticker slapped to the front of the outer box sleeve, states: "1 MB
AGNUS CHIP REQUIRED - ASK YOUR DEALER FOR DETAILS"
The manual is a whopping 60 pages long, half of which is dedicated to setting up the scenario: You are Conrad Hart, an agent with the Galaxia Bureau of Investigation, and you are in "great danger." The other half is devoted to more important things such as installation, controls, and special moves. On almost every page you'll find a few dozen cryptic numbers, letters, and a single large glyph -- a
copy protection scheme the
CIA has yet to crack. (Oh, stop patting yourself on the back,
Mr. Software Cracker, it was a joke)
The game itself is ultra cool and is rich with atmosphere and plenty of eye-candy. Although it's not the sequel to
Out of this World (aka "
Another World"), it's difficult not to make comparisons. While this game plays much longer than OOTW, the realtime cutscenes just aren't as clever or elaborate. On the plus side, you have a much larger spectrum of available moves, items, puzzles, and bad guys.
PS: US Gold, what's up with the extra box sleeve that doesn't quite fit? What may have been a beautiful piece of vintage packaging looks more like a size 40 trying to fit into a size 32. Delphine, thanks for the memories!