The defunct Telltale Games might not make great video games , but it knew how to tell stories very well . His characteristic narrative style and the episodic format of his graphic adventures opened too interesting possibilities not to bring the successful sagas to consoles and PCs. Enough, to dare to do the impossible: imagine the fourth part never shot of Back to the Future .
The film trilogy directed by Robert Zemeckis is perfect just the way it is. In fact, both Zemeckis himself and Bob Gale , his co-creator, have been totally opposed to a sequel, a prequel and even a reboot of the adventures through the time of the young Marty Mcfly . An opinion endorsed by millions of fans around the world over the last three decades.
The entrance to the Mcfly house, how strong!
Precisely for this reason, making a sequel to the DeLorean trilogy , both on the big screen and in any other format or medium, was a double challenge: beyond having to live up to three cult films that together create a milestone of the seventh art , the very delicate balance of events reached in Back to the Future Part III could not be contradicted.
After all, the Back to the Future trilogy is one of the best exponents of the butterfly effect. How a small difference in a specific point in the past is capable of generating great changes in the present and the future. Turning each film into a true carousel of emotions that not only makes the most of the parallels between them, but also manages to link them all in a story that is as exciting as it is ingenious.
However, as the eminent Emmet ‘Doc’ Brown , inventor of the time machine in the Zemeckis films, said, the future is not written . And, despite the outstanding finishing touch of the trilogy and the predisposition of its creators, there are still stories to be told around the always interesting city of Hill Valley.
Thus, Back to the Future: The Game is presented as an epilogue to the adventures of Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly. A very exceptional one.
Six months after Back to the Future III, Marty Mcfly is back on the DeLorean
It is May 1986 and young Marty Mcfly is about to graduate. At first glance, Marty might look like a regular high school kid. His great passions are skateboarding, rock’n roll and, above all, his girlfriend Jennifer. What not everyone knows is that six months earlier, the young Mcfly set about altering and resetting the timelines.
In October 1985, his best friend, Professor Doc Brown, invited him to witness the first time travel : after installing the flux condenser, his greatest invention, in a DeLorean, anyone at the wheel of that car could move forward or backward. through the years. But, of course, altering the past affects the present.
And although the experiment was a success, the consequences were a disaster: Marty ended up being for a time a temporary castaway trapped in various eras of the past, the future and even alternate versions of the present.
Half a year later, and with all the timelines restored, Marty encounters an unexpected surprise: after a space-time explosion, the DeLorean appears in front of him along with a recording of his friend Doc in the passenger seat. The eccentric inventor is trapped in the past and his life is in danger.
Without thinking twice, and being fully aware of the problems that traveling through time can cause, Marty gets behind the wheel of the car again to set course for 1931. A time, by the way, completely unexplored in the movies and that will allow us meet new characters and reconnect with old friends.
Including a very young 17-year-old Doc Brown who is about to experience the epiphany that will make him dedicate his life to science.
As in the Zemeckis trilogy, Back to the Future: The Game constantly tries to surprise the player through truly dramatic situations suitably seasoned with a dose of humor. Being, in its way, a very interesting expansion of the original libretto that allows us to learn more and better about Doc Brown’s past and rediscover Hill Valley through new perspectives and events.
In the process, we will meet new characters created for the occasion who, when the time comes, will claim a much greater role in the development of the plot itself. Altering the timelines with their inevitable consequences and, little by little, blurring reality in a new succession of dire events.
Throughout the five episodes we will be introduced to the young and restless Emmet Brown, Marty’s grandfather and even an unknown ancestor of Biff Tannen who perfectly fit the archetype of gangster during the years of Prohibition of the United States.
Now, the biggest addition to the original cast is Edna Strickland , an extremely conservative energetic activist who, after being indirectly implicated in Marty and Doc’s schemes, will end up playing a bigger role in the story.
Unsurprisingly, young Edna’s entry into the set of temporary changes of 1931 will have major consequences in the Hill Valley of the present, beginning with Emmet Brown himself, now known as Citizen Brown.
Thus, that 17-year-old in love with science rewrote history and, in the process, created a small dystopia in the tiny Californian town. One not unlike the one imagined by George Orwell in 1984.
Of course, despite the seriousness of the events, Telltale Games not only captures the essence of the films, but also makes the picaresque and humor typical of graphic adventures have their opportunity to shine in this carousel of emotions and unexpected consequences.
When it comes to putting new ideas on the table, Back To the Future: The Game delivers. But how do I video game?
An exceptional epilogue for a Graphic Adventure that deserved to be better
While we can consider, as a whole, that Back To the Future: The Game is a kind of final chapter of the film saga, something like a new and untold story, Telltale’s episodic format makes the duration of it, adding its five parts, it practically triples that of the original trilogy. However, there are many elements that are lost along the way.
Despite having excellent scores and compositions by Alan Silvestri, Back To the Future: The Game fails to match the thrills and adventurous spirit of the film series. In return, it allows the fan to freely travel the Hill Valley, explore new happenings on their own, and best of all, offer the fan a sensational reunion between Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly.
Telltale Games had several advantages when it came to tackling this odyssey: in addition to Universal Pictures’ interest in making the video game itself a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the film’s release , the developers were self-confessed fans and devotees of the DeLorean trilogy. . Something that Bob Gale himself appreciated, co-creator and co-writer of the films and also involved in video games in the role of consultant.
That Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloid lent their image -caricaturized- and voice to the project (although the counterpoints of the young versions of their characters will have other voices) added great points to the set and much more fanservice to the equation.
And of course, the way to invite the player to travel back in time and freely wander through recognizable places as the Hill Valley plaza, the entrance to the McFly house or Professor Brown’s laboratory is an incentive in itself.
That said, it’s not all flattery for Back To the Future: The Game . As Aventura Gráfica is tremendously linear, so there are hardly any challenges for fans of the genre and there are hardly a couple of puzzles that pose a challenge at the height of the greatest exponents.
In fact, using the help system of Back To the Future: The Game makes it practically an interactive movie : with a simple button we will have in view all the elements with which we can interact. Pressing another button will show us what our next goal is and, in addition, we can use up to three clues that go from the cheeky reference to telling you exactly what you should do.
It’s not really a bad thing for the record . The help system opens the door for movie fans to dare to experiment with the video game. However, as a Graphic Adventure experience, the truth is that Back To the Future: The Game loses really interesting opportunities.
Opportunities such as a sequence of exchanges involving time travel, as in The Day of the Tentacle by LucasArts. Once Marty finds himself in a scenario, he must solve it to move forward, so the story progresses in a practically linear way.
Which, added to a lack of really exciting scenes and a lack of rhythm in general terms , ends up playing against the whole.
Don’t get me wrong: Back To the Future: The Game is packed with details and movie references. It beautifully synthesizes the personality and character of Doc Brown, Marty Mcfly, as well as the other protagonists and antagonists of the film trilogy. It is a game made by fans and for fans, and its script is written with extra care and big surprises.
As an epilogue, Telltale Games’ game pretty much lives up to expectations. But, unfortunately, it falls far short of being a great adventure game.
Is Back To the Future: The Game part of movie canon?
With all of the above ahead, there is still a great doubt to be resolved: Back To the Future: The Game is a Universal co-production developed by Telltale Games in which Bob Gale participates and has a voice, as well as most of the original cast of the films. . So, is it an official epilogue of these? The short answer is no.
Despite never contradicting or altering what was shown on the small and large screen, which was part of Telltale Games’ initial premise, the events that take place in the games belong to a timeline created exclusively for the occasion . Something that has been referred to more than once by Bob Gale himself.
Only movies are canon. Everything else fits into the “What if?” Category. (‘what-if?’) “or it could be canon in some alternate universe.
In fact, as shown in the development of the game, the appearance of the DeLorean in May 1986 before Marty is due, in essence, to the unexpected creation of a new timeline generated after the climax of the first film (Return to the Future) with which, in the specific case of Back To the Future: The Game , we are talking about an alternative universe to that of the canon that continues everything that happened in the movies.
In fact, beyond the tributes and nods to the most iconic scenes from the Delorean trilogy shown throughout the game, Back To the Future: The Game serves as a rare opportunity to reclaim discarded premises that never appeared in the movies. . What’s more, Gale was left with many ideas in the inkwell.
There were some concepts that we came to consider for Back to the Future Part II. In fact, if you have a copy of the Trilogy, either on Blu-Ray or in standard definition, you will find among the extras some various storyboards that was meant to be the end of Part I. Of course, thank goodness we replaced it with the sequence of the Clock Tower.
An example of ideas that have not been shown [in the game] and appeared in the first drafts of Part II is a new sport in 2015 called ‘Slamball’, which was a kind of mix of handball in zero gravity, dodgeball and roller derby, but maybe there is a sequel to Back To the Future: The Game …!
We already know the outcome of the story: in 2018 Telltale Games closed its doors and all the projects it had in hand were canceled. The confirmed and the unannounced.
Of course, Back To the Future: The Game had a second chance to shine through a reissue released in physical and digital on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the premiere of the films.
Back To the Future: The Game is not the only initiative that has expanded the legacy of the films. Since the premiere of Back to the Future: Part III we have seen an animated series, several comic book collections and even short films made as gifts to fans and starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloid.
And yet, despite all its shortcomings as a Graphic Adventure game and based on the fact that it is outside the canon, Back To the Future: The Game stands out from the rest of the initiatives called to continue with the DeLorean trilogy by hitting something essential : the new messes through the time of Doc Brown and Marty McFly end up stealing a smile from us.
