Tuesday, August 28, 2012

VGR Super Back to the Future


Long before Telltale Games got their hands on the franchise and resurrected it via a very fun (if short) adventure game, Back to the Future already had its share of videogame adaptations.

Let's take a look at a pretty underrated and obscure game that stayed in Japan only!
Custom cartmodd done by my buddy Baby. Merci l'ami! Custom stick art by me..

VGR: Super Back to the Future II
From Daft/Toshiba EMI
Played on Super Nes
Also available on /

Type Sidescrolling platformer
Year 1993

Back to the Future is without a doubt my favorite movie(s) of all time!

There's been an awful lot of BTTF games.
Most were actually published around the release of the movies on 8-bit systems.
And all were actually bad to awful games.
(which always surprises me, because they came in a time when "movie tie-in adaptation" didn't necessarily mean bad games like nowadays)
Bad gameplay, barely playable levels, no fun marketing cash-ins.
All...except one!

This one called Sūpā Bakku tu za Fyūchā Tsu... huh, I mean,
Super Back to the Future II!
Developed by the small team at Daft and edited by Toshiba EMI.
It was released in '93, that means long after the series ended with Part III in 1990.

For some reason this game only covers Part II. I wonder if it was intentional or if they scrapped an eventual adaptation of Part I and III.
Why, I even think this very same game could just as well have covered the entire trilogy!
only 3. i wonder?


After taking a trip back in time to 1955 with the DeLorean, Marty McFly is back at hom in 1985 with his girlfriend Jennifer...
...When suddenly Doc appears out of nowhere to take him onboard his time machine once more for an adventure!
They have to go to 2015 now, their future child Marty Jr. is in trouble and risks causing a spiraling chain of events that will doom their entire family line!

Marty ends up facing the bully Griff, while his granddad Biff takes the DeLorean for a time trip of his own.
Now Marty has to run across history to uncover the sports almanac that transformed Hill Valley into a living nightmare in the present!!

Strangely enough, this game follows rather closely the plot of the movie, despite the armies of enemies in every corner, all the bullets flying over the place and obstacles in your way you will find in your playthrough!


Super Back to the Future II is a pretty classic 2D 16-bit platformer.
You play as Marty and you don't even get to play as Jennifer or Doc once (kinda sad about that part though..) because the entire game is played on the hoverboard!

Ha! An original gameplay mechanic, you don't really see those anymore these days.
(last one I can think of is probably Sonic Heroes' partnered up Sonic/Tails/Knuckles system...mmmh..)

Button A to jump.
And that's all you need, really! Though you can use the trigger buttons to speed up.
Avoid the different obstacles by jumping around, to move onto platforms, beat up the enemies and reach the goal!

Marty is traveling through time to stop Biff and his various incarnations.
The game is rather long for a platformer with over 6 "worlds", which are different eras of the same town in this game. Each more or less pretty long, these worlds are layered across different acts (2 or 3). You always face Biff in the end and there's even a couple of sub-bosses here and there.

You can collect coins to buy items at vending machines available around, such as powerups and additional lives.

Surely this isn't the reason why this game wasn't imported...no? (a Nintendo game with poop on screen?!)

The game uses a password system.
A 4-letters password system!
So really, anyone can easily guess those by trial and error!
(I attempted a few for laughs once I finished the game, and got most of these right without even checking!)
Spoiler:
Spoiler alert! The code to the final boss turned out to be...
"Biff"
Really!!?
Alan Silvestri's Back to the Future main theme is here unlike in any of the previous BTTF games.
And it's here plenty!
It gets used in several levels all over the place.
So the music might get a bit repetitive....Oh, come on! Who am I kiddin' here? I love it! :D

You have to play this one smart, to be able to go fast and zip through levels and combo-hit enemies on the head with the board without a pause.

Those later levels do get brutal near the end though...
So why didn't this game make it overseas?
Specially since this was quite a popular franchise in our Western world? And a cartoon was airing in the 90s.
Was it the manga influenced direction while most countries were slowly getting used to Japanese animation?
Surely that was no reason to inflict upon us so many bad awful BTTF games in the meantime and keep this one from us!


Overall, it's a great original platformer!
Very fun and challenging enough.
Onboard like this all the time. I like it!

It is a pretty long game and difficult enough.
(thank Zeus for the password system!!)

I give it:
 2.5 / 3 Bruces!

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