Developer: Fourattic
Publisher: Devolver Digital
RRP: £10.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)
Released: 13th February 2018
Available on: Gog.com, humblebundle and Steam
This game is a dose of 80’s nostalgia right into the arm. Not because of the gameplay or the mechanics, those are definitely modern, it’s not even the 80’s references (although those help). No, it’s the story itself, it feels like it was ripped right out of Steven Spielbergs mind having a very E.T and Super8 vibe to it. They even stick to the 80’s aesthetic by having animated cutscenes that look like they’re ripped straight from a low budget kids show from the era.
The events of the game take place in California, specifically in the town of Tajunga (which I originally thought was fictional but a quick look on Googlemaps seems to show that it isn’t), in the year of 1986. You control a party of five kids who get mixed up in a adventure that is far bigger than them. You can swap between the various party members at any time. This is especially useful in combat because attacks and dodging drain stamina and by swapping between the various members of the party you allow them to recover. Each member of the party has their own skills and abilities that can be used in combat and while navigating the world.
Sadly the game does have one major flaw, and that is the lack of a skip feature for the dialogue cutscenes. It becomes quite grating to have to mash ’[A]’ just to get past the unskippable dialogue that precedes a boss battle. This is becomes especially frustrating when you’ve already died a few times and just want to cut to the chase.
If you like references then this game will be right up your alley, for the most part they’re quite unobtrusive such as being posters on a background etc. I rather enjoy seeing the little references that the developers have scattered about.
