A playthrough of the Toshiba EMI's 1993 license-based action-platformer for the Super Famicom, Super Back to the Future Part II (スーパー・バック・トゥ・ザ・フューチャーII).
Since the game was a Japanese-exclusive release, the video was recorded using an English fan-translation patch. If you'd like to check it out for yourself, you can find the patch here: www.romhacking.net/translatio...
English-speaking gamers have been subjected to countless atrocities at the hands of the Back to the Future license. That much is no secret. Before the episodic Telltale adventure game, the NES title based on the first movie ( • Video ) was arguably the best of the games based on the franchise to reach western shores, and that... that makes a statement.
In case your memory needs refreshing, the parade of horrors includes Back to the Future Part II for the Master System ( • Back to the Future Par... ), Part III for the Sega Genesis ( • Back to the Future Par... ), and the absolute antithesis of all that is decent and right in this world, Part II & III for the NES ( • Back to the Future Par... ).
So why dredge up all this up? Well, because so much depends on perspective. It seems that many from the Americas and Europe place Super Back to the Future Part II on an impossibily high pedestal as a tangible symbol of everything that they'd ever wanted and yet had been cruelly denied.
But then there was Japan, a magical land where Back to the Future console games had yet to exist. And then Super Back to the Future Part II for the Super Famicom was thrust into being, and the people, they did not rejoice. Famitsu gave it a 19/40, and on the few Japanese websites that I found that gave the game any attention at all, reactions ranged from "WTF is this trash?" to "It's nice, I guess," with the majority sitting firmly on the negative side of things.
So, which is it? A gift from God, or a room temperature doodoo sandwich?
I'm going to take the middle ground on this one. It's not awesome. It's not even very good. But it is far, far better than what we had become accustomed to from the franchise, and I think that this frame of reference probably makes it easy to give the game too much credit, just as the difference in perspective makes it easier for Japanese gamers to dismiss it altogether.
I'll say upfront, I enjoyed it. I've suffered my way through most of the US games, and this was an honest breath of fresh air. The game gives the necessary nods to events and setpieces from the movie, and the cutesy chibi-style characters manage to put up a good sense of humor. That ending is hilarious, and I got some especially good laughs out of how Lorraine's body is basically boobs with a head and a few limbs attached.
The graphics are colorful and sharp, the music features a few Adderall-fueled remixes of the movie's theme song, and the spirit of the whole thing is light and playful.
Marty tackles each stage aboard his hoverboard, racing along at breakneck speeds while doing flips to take out his enemies. The stages often have split paths like you'd find in the Sonic games, and long stretches often emphasize speed.
The game has the nasty habit of throwing things directly in your path when you're likely to be going your fastest, though, and whenever more than a couple of moving objects appear on-screen at once, the entire game slows to a crawl. Add in some wonky hit detection and slippery hoverboard physics and you've got enough major flaws to drag the entire experience down several notches.
Still, like I said before. I enjoyed it, despite the frustrations. I mean, I've beaten BttF 2&3 on the NES... how could I not? If you're a fan of the movies, I'd absolutely recommend checking it out. As long as you aren't expecting the next incarnation of Christ in video game form, you'll probably appreciate Super Back to the Future Part II for being a dramatically marked improvement over the previous games.
(Please excuse the silence during the end credits - the theme from the movie plays there and the KZfaq copyright scanner flagged it, so I had to mute it.)
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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