Back to the Future: Part II and Back to the Future: Part III (Sega Master System Review)

Back to the Future II
Developed by Mirrorsoft
First Released October, 1991
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Oof. Horrible.

I’ve played multiple attempts at making a decent Back to the Future game. The Super Famicom version is probably the best, and it’s still a terrible game that only seems halfway decent in comparison to how god awful the series had been up to that point. Back to the Future II on the Master System is possibly the worst. One of the least fun and most unplayable pieces of trash to ever occupy a game console. It’s reprehensible that this was released. In the first level, you have to skateboard and avoid obstacles such as the sidewalk’s curb. NOT THE SIDEWALK, but specifically the curb. You lose energy if you touch that. There’s also dogs. They kill you. And other people. There’s a girl on a hoverboard that aims straight for you. You get more energy by picking up items vaguely shaped like MacGuffins from the film. Griff’s gang show up too. THEY drain your energy. Even if Griff hits you with a baseball bat, it doesn’t kill you. So hitting a dog.. a tiny little dog.. is death. Being pummeled with a baseball bat by a guy twice as big as you is a boo-boo. You can have five boo-boos before you die. To defend yourself, you have the worst punch in video game history, and that is not hyperbole. I don’t think the pixel actually extends past your body. Yea. Then this happens.

There’s no consistency to the rules, and here, the rules change. You have to clear this entire lake in one motion. If you go too fast, as in faster than the screen scrolls, you stop on a dime and die. Logic be damned. You have to go not too fast and not too slow across the very top of the pond, or else The whole hoverboard section feels like it goes on FOREVER. Then you enter a bonus stage that works like a logic puzzle. Only, if you fail it, you lose a life. You have to pick which doors to open so you never run into your past self. I couldn’t tell what was going on at all.

Fun fact: if you’re on your last life here and you die, you can’t game over on this screen. It reduces your life count to zero, and you continue on.. and now you have infinite lives. Did they even test this? I can’t blame them if they didn’t. I wouldn’t want to play Back to the Future on the Sega Master System either.

AND THEN the game becomes a side scrolling brawler, only the brawling is still historically atrocious. Now, you’re in the “evil” 1985, being stalked by Biff Tannen who shoots at you. I think maybe you’re supposed to punch him, but since your punch seems to not go past the center of your own character model, I’m not sure HOW exactly. Once again, everything that seems like it shouldn’t be fatal is an instakill. I finally threw in the towel when two Biffs were following me and shooting at me. It is unbelievable that this game exists. There is no way the people who made this thought they were coming close to an acceptable, fun video game. It’s shameful.
Verdict: NO!

Back to the Future III
Developed by Probe Entertainment
First Released March, 1992
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Weird that the Back to the Future movie that nobody likes is the one that lends itself to gaming the best.

The best thing I can say about Back to the Future III: it’s not Back to the Future II. This one basically copies the gameplay of the Sega Genesis, with the shooting gallery level from the 16-bit version omitted. Unlike Back to the Future II, I actually finished this one. It took me twenty whole minutes, but realistically, I could have beaten it in under ten. In the first section, you ride a horse, shooting people off horses, shooting birds, and occasionally jumping over gaps. At one point, it spawned a bird at the same time it gave me a gap. This is why I needed an additional ten minutes. I kept rewinding this section to see if there was anything I could have done to avoid dying in this specific spot. Apparently, there wasn’t. I still beat the level about two seconds later anyway. It was a lot easier than the Genesis version. In the second stage, you throw plates at Mad Dog Tannen’s henchmen. I got shot about 5,000 times, give or take, and didn’t die.

I didn’t understand the object of the platforming section at first and got stuck behind a barrier. Once I figured it out, it was just a matter of not dying from the terrible combat.

Then there’s a platforming section where you have to move across the train, detaching the cars from it.. I think.. it’s either that or you’re grabbing the magic presto logs from the film. Either way, the game puts up a barrier that you can’t cross if you don’t hit all those targets. You also have to avoid ultra-fast moving blasts of smoke and punch it out with bandits. Once you reach the caboose with Doc, you have to clear one final platforming section with Marty. And that’s the whole game. Back to the Future III is absolutely atrocious, and the fact that on my very first attempt, not counting rewinding, I beat the whole experience in ten minutes? This wasn’t an Atari 2600 game, mind you. I’d think by 1992 the idea of beating an entire relatively expensive video game in ten minutes would be infuriating. Especially when it’s not a fun game. The first level is boring, the plate throwing is stupid, and the third section is janky as all hell. Christ, and to think, there’s many more Back to the Future games out there I haven’t played yet. I long for death.
Verdict: NO!