Back to the Future

Developer: Beam Software    Publisher: LJN    Release: 09/89    Genre: Action Adventure

Back to the Future is legendary as one of the worst NES games of all time. Volumes have been written about just how bad it truly is. And all of it is true. So how is it that such a bad game managed to trick so many back in the day? Chalk it up to the power of a good license. Back to the Future was the biggest film of 1985 and it says a lot that even four years later we were still talking about it. I liked the movie myself but I can’t say that I wanted a game based around it like say, Batman.  After playing it I was not wrong. This is one of the worst games of all time.

About the only good thing I can say about Back to the Future is that follows the plot of the movie in its own weird ass way. Marty McFly ends up stranded in the 1950s due to shenanigans and must find a way home without disrupting the space/time continuum. Anyone who has seen the movie has to wonder how you would even make a game based around it. The film is a sci-fi comedy; not exactly something you make a platformer around. A point and click adventure would have worked but this is LJN we are talking about. They would never go that far. I would gladly have taken a generic platformer over this…mess.

The ultimate goal of Back to the Future is to navigate the streets of Hill Valley to reach the Delorean, hit 88mph and head home.  On the way there are numerous events you’ll have to participate in but more on that in a bit.  You will spend the majority of the game wandering the streets, evading all manner of obstacles to reach the end.  Literally everyone has it in for you; bullies in pink tank tops, window movers, manholes, even the god damn bees don’t like you.  Marty is an incredibly frail protagonist; the slightest tap of anything will cause him to fall over.  Your only defense is bowling balls but you are better off avoiding everything if possible.

There are two timers you have to contend with. The actual game clock for each level and the photo of Marty and his family. This photo slowly fades out, representing time trying to correct itself by removing Marty from the picture. Collecting clocks restores it somewhat. The photo fading away is the game’s biggest hurdle. It fades pretty quickly and anything that wastes time means a few precious seconds lost restoring it. The game stops being generous with clocks quickly and you’ll have to grab every single one to survive long enough to reach the end of each stage.

As the game’s primary mode the best way to describe it is repetitive. All of the street levels are nearly the same. They use the same obstacles, enemies, and graphics and only slightly shift the color palette. It would not be so bad if there were not so many of them. Traveling the same boring street with a different layout gets old fast. It is made worse by the single looping music track that plays endlessly as soon as the game starts.

The minigames could have added some redeeming value to Back to the Future. Instead they are the most frustrating aspect of the game. The café, which pops up early, is the Turbo Tunnel of the game. Here you throw shakes to knock out bullies coming to rough you up. Sounds simple but the camera angle makes it task in itself. If a single bully reaches the bar you die. Death sends you back one level, forcing you to endure the same repetitive garbage for another shot. You need to hit fifty bullies to progress and the difficulty rises so fast I legit thought it was impossible.

The others are varying degrees of frustrating. The only event that is straightforward is breaking your mom’s heart. Here you must block kisses thrown by Marty’s mother. It uses the same viewpoint as the café but because you are only blocking you have leeway, making it the easiest. The school dance might be worse than the café. As Marty you need to catch musical notes to fill a meter to make your parents fall in love. This is made frustrating by having such a low margin for error that you might as well give up if you miss a few notes. The last stage involves hitting the goalpost at exactly 88mph to go home. This short but stupid stage isn’t consistent. Sometimes hitting a lightning bolt causes a dead stop. Other times there is no effect.

The absurd difficulty makes me wonder if anyone play tested Back to the Future or even cared. Eventually the stage hazards become so numerous that it is almost impossible to reach the end without a skateboard. And if my description of each minigame hasn’t put you off here’s the kicker: no continues. There are no continues, passwords, nothing. It is as if the developers wanted to give players one last middle finger. I am still ashamed I played all the way through this without cheating. The things you do for entertainment. I was better off going outside.

In Closing

Back to the Future is one of the worst NES games of all time. It is up there with Total Recall, X-Men, and Rambo. Conveniently all three are from Acclaim. If you have come this far you’ve already made a mistake. Forget this game exists.