Back to the Future Part II & III

The Good
The Back to The Future film trilogy is one of the best Hollywood trilogies around. While the first film did not have many sequences that could easily be translated into an action based video game, the second and final entry in the trilogy certainly did. "Just think" we foolishly told ourselves back them, "Two games for the price of one!" Well, the game's intro sequences are good, everything else about the game goes downhill fast.

The Bad
The first half of the game involves the player, as Marty, collecting various keys needed to unlock doors, play the mini-games in each room and win a items that Biff has put in this room in order to mess up the Space Time Continuum. The second half of the game, accessed with a secret password, involves Marty trying to do the same thing but in the Wild West.

Yeah, the story does not make much sense, but that is a minor problem in comparison. Most of the game is a standard platformer similar to Super Mario Brothers. Marty defeats minor enemies by jumping on them or collecting stars to shoot fireballs. Likewise, coins are to Mario as junk food is to Marty. The misplaced items are locked away in hidden rooms that feature a mini-game where you, having mysteriously shrunk, must collect clock icons, while avoiding various enemies. If you win the misplaced item you must then locate another hidden room and play another mini game to return the item to its proper place.

These are not especially fun mini-games to play and having to go through this process over and over again becomes tedious. The time machine, if you find the remote and collect enough fuel, allows you to complete certain adventure game-style puzzles. i.e. if you plant an acorn in 1955 and then time travel to 1985 it will have grown into a tree that you can climb. These are nice touches, but they are too rare and produce annoying, instant-death Marty clones.

The bulk of the game is wandering around the Super Mario Brothers-inspired, streets followed by the tedious mini-games. Granted, other games have similarities to Super Mario Brothers, "M.C. Kids" or "Felix The Cat", but these games are fun to play, with great graphics, music and sound effects. They also add in their own unique and creative elements. Sadly, Back to the Future Part II and III is not fun to play and offers lackluster graphics, music and sound effects.

The Bottom Line
Back To Mario Brothers Part II and III (1990) is a lackluster Super Mario Brothers clone minus the fun. Game play involves lots of effort locating and unlocking hidden doors so that you can play some mini-games. This would not be so bad if the mini-games were fun to play, but they are not. The adventure game elements with the time machine are nice, but they are too few and poorly executed. The graphics rarely attempt to portray scenes from the film, with the music and sound being equally forgettable.

The Good
Back to the future is one of my favorite movies of all time. This game pretty much simulates the events in BTTF Part 2. Get objects from 1955, 1985 and 2015 and place them in the proper time period. The graphics for the game were well done. The title screen is extremly good for Nintendo.

The Bad
Although the game is fun, it takes to LONG to beat part 2. Everytime you lose, all your keys drop back to 0. Marty's jumping is also hard to control. Not to mention that when there is a really bad enemy, it makes a beeping sound which gets really anoyying after time.

The Bottom Line
Overall, it's a good Back to the future game. But don't expect a short and easy game. It's about a 8 on the hard scale. If you're looking for a good thinking, Puzzle solving and time consuming game and Hard Game, then BTTF 2 & 3 is right up your alley.