#IndieSelect / #Indieween: Back in 1995 (NS)

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Back in 1995 from publisher Ratalaika Games and Degica Games, and developer Throw the warped code out through Xinthus' #Indieween event for #IndieSelect.  The game was given and received without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and the experience be shared through social media channels.  All of the words in this article, unless otherwise noted are my own from my own experience playing the game.

In Back in 1995, you play as the character Kent who is on a mission to get from the top of the building he is currently on, to a red-lit tower off in the distance for some unknown purpose or reason.  That is all of the information that the player is given when they start the game.  So when the character of Kent comes across the first enemy in the game, a floating round blob with arms and is surprised by its existence, you begin to wonder why this particular story is even being told.  Or at least that is what I was wondering.  Or is Back in 1995 just here for the sake of nostalgia?

Back in 1995 is a throw-back designed game to remind the player what it was like to play survival horror games of the 1990s with fixed/dynamic camera angles and tank controls (apparently they're called tank controls), which means that no matter which way the camera is facing and the player is facing, up on the controller is always forward movement, left is always rotate left and so on.  there is even a faux CRT TV display slightly warping the playable screen since flatscreen TVs were far from the norm in 1995.  And the graphics are about on-par with a game that would have come out in the mid '90s and considering that Back in 1995 is trying to bank on the nostalgia for games like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil and Silent Hill which came out in 1992, 1996, and 1999 respectively, Back in 1995 never seems to reach that level of survival horror that all of these games are able to generate.  I should also point out that Back in 1995 was first released in 2016 on PC and only on the Nintendo Switch in May of 2019.  

I bring this up for a couple of reasons, first and foremost, Back in 1995 does actually feel like it was designed and released in 1995, but in an unpolished kind of way on one front, but too advanced for the type of game that would have been released in 1995 on the other.  I think.  Yes, the graphics, especially when you take off the CRT filter, are pretty ugly and the CRT filter does really make the character models look smoother, more rounded, and muddies the pixelated features for the best.  What seems too advanced for 1995 is the moving camera, presumably a security camera that follows Kent as he explores the various buildings that he finds himself in.  The moving semi-static camera is more in line with the dynamic Silent Hill from 1999 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica from 2000.  That being said, the semi-static-dynamic camera is not without its faults, as the texture wrapping on a lot of objects like walls and floors, heavily distorts straight lines to the point where objects can seem unclear as to what they are supposed to represent.

One of my other critiques is that Kent seems to have only some knowledge of what is going, being described as "a mess" but doesn't seem to know why there are monsters in the building.  While exploring, Kent does come across various newspaper articles describing events that seem like they could lead up to monsters appearing in our world, but the appearance of the monsters seems directly connected to Kent wanting/needing to go to the Tower.  But Kent comes across locations, like a rooftop encampment and stairwells blocked with heavy furniture that implies that these events have been going on long enough for society to have begun breaking down and defensive measures to have already been taken.  And as previously stated, the player is also given no reason for Kent wanting to go to the Tower.  All we are told is that he wants to go there, and everyone he has come across seems perfectly fine with helping him get there although no explanation is ever given.

My last critique of Back in 1995 is its self-categorization as a survival-horror game and while it does tick off a lot of the checkboxes for what constitutes a game of that genre.  You play as a lone person in a building full of close quarters.  There are monsters/creatures of supernatural origin, often moving slowly but still deadly.  There are non-traditional camera angles that do not allow for full visibility of the environment.  There are puzzles to solve to access other areas to further progress.  Some weapons have limited effectiveness along with limited amounts of ammunition.  But the lack of a cohesive narrative is really the main thing that is holding Back in 1995 from being a fun survival-horror game.  And games that I do not find to be fun, are not fun to continue playing.

I ended up stopping when I came across the forth enemy in the game, being some pink balloon looking thing with legs and a Mog-like pom-pom attached to its top that moves very quickly.  It does not do a lot of damage when it hits, but when you get swarmed by two or three of these things who can make fast attacks against your two types of slow attacks ( currently a wrench, and pistol).  Running is also not an option in this game and your walking speed is just slow enough to not be able to stay ahead of these creatures.  I realize the tactic for these creatures is to probably just walk briskly away from them while trying to lock on to the item you need to pick up and then get out of the area before they can do too much damage to you.  Even in Resident Evil, the developers were smart enough to never put you in a confined space with three zombie dogs.  Yeah, I know.  Git gud and all that.  One thing that I had not considered, was that having multiple save files was very much a thing, especially in Resident Evil when you could accidentally find yourself without any ammunition and would need to go back to a previous save, rather than trying to fight a hunter with a combat knife.  Multiple save files was oddly something that I did not think of until my only way to progress meant having to saunter through a couple rooms of those fast creatures with only one bottle of pills (for healing) and starting out at 46% health.

I really wanted to fall in love with Back in 1995, but after putting a couple of hours into a game that can be completed in an hour, being stuck on a puzzle that I had to look up a walkthrough to solve and even then the solution did not make any sense, I feel that I may have to just stop playing a game that I have so many issues with.  It almost seems like the developers wanted to create a game that played like old survival-horror games, put all of the elements in their game, but the final product fell flat.  Having all of the ingredients for pound cake does not mean that you will be able to make a great tasting pound cake by.  Back in 1995 does do a great job in executing creating a game that mostly feels right for the era that they are setting the game.  Perhaps if there had been some type of fictional backstory as was the case with The Adventures of Elena Temple as the reason for having the game existing.

I may pick the game back up again some time and really hunker down against those quick little bastards, but in the meantime, I have more on my plate that is more fun than a tasteless poundcake.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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