Flashback: The Quest for Identity

Flashback: The Quest for Identity is a video game created by the company Delphine Software in 1992 with the collaboration of US Gold. It is an action adventure, or platform adventure.

The game had a sequel in 1995, Fade to Black. In 2021, another sequel was announced under the name Flashback 2, with a release scheduled for 2022.

Argument

The protagonist is a young student who, while writing his thesis, notices the presence of extraterrestrials on Earth. The time in which the story takes place is the future.

The adventure begins with the escape of the protagonist, Conrad, from a prison where he is being held. Conrad commandeers a flying motorcycle and flees to a planet where he is shot down. During the game it is necessary to collect clues about Conrad's identity and past.

Development

The game was directed, written, designed and partially programmed by Paul Cuisset, who had previously created the adventure game Future Wars. Flashback was initially released for the Amiga in 1992, and was later ported to MS-DOS, Acorn Archimedes, and Super NES in 1993, at which time the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis version was released. CD-ROM versions of Flashback for the Sega CD, 3DO, CD-i, MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh and FM Towns were released during 1994 and 1995, along with a cartridge version for the Atari Jaguar in 1995. In 2017, the game was released worldwide on the Sega Dreamcast with graphical elements and scenes taken from the MS-DOS version and music from the Amiga version.

An updated version for Nintendo Switch titled Flashback: Remastered Edition was released on June 7, 2018 in North America, Europe, and Australia. Flashback: Remastered Edition was later ported to PlayStation 4, it was released on November 20, 2018 in North America, Europe and Australia.

Animation

Flashback is similar to Prince of Persia in terms of its animation being based on the use of the technique known as rotoscope. This style of animation is based on pixel art images drawn from frames from a previous video shoot. This gives it a more realistic and fluid appearance, a merit that was highlighted in various analyzes of the time.

Update

Some time later, a reimplementation of the game engine appeared on the Internet under the name REminiscence which, among other things, as well as substantial improvements in the game's bugs and animations, includes the option to insert voices of the Sega Mega CD version.