{"id":2948,"date":"2023-07-14T01:32:07","date_gmt":"2023-07-13T23:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kingofgng.com\/eng\/?p=2948"},"modified":"2023-07-14T01:35:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T23:35:28","slug":"another-world-flashback-heart-of-darkness-the-holy-trimurti-of-french-cinematic-platformers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingofgng.com\/eng\/2023\/07\/14\/another-world-flashback-heart-of-darkness-the-holy-trimurti-of-french-cinematic-platformers\/","title":{"rendered":"Another World, Flashback, Heart of Darkness: the holy Trimurti of French cinematic platformers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This post is part 11 of 12 in the series Stories, memories, gaming heroes<\/a><\/strong><\/h4><\/div>

I have never particularly enjoyed nostalgia of the past, ’cause I don’t think I was a very happy teen. But if at my ripe old age of 150 (that’s like I feel right now) I have to indulge in melancholic nostalgia, as everyone seems to do, then I prefer to go back to the early 90s<\/strong>, to the cinematic platformers that I played during my DOS days. Those were glorious days for many of us, as we were losing our gaming virginity with Prince of Persia<\/a>, and that as far as I’m concerned lasted for a very long time at least until I got my hands on my first Windows PC, at the beginning of the 2000s.<\/p>\n

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While the rest of the world kept going by enjoying the graphic marvels of 3D games and the window-based intuitive UI of Win9x\/ME, yours truly was still smashing keyboards fighting with the text prompt<\/strong> and toying with every single shareware program he could get his hands on. My first, historic PC (286) couldn’t even remotely run MAME, so I was just collecting the ROMs of legendary arcade games (Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Trojan, …) by saving them on floppy disks, dreaming of being able to play them one day. But above all, given the hardware I had, my main gaming activity was to play, replay and then replay again in ultra-hard mode the cinematic platform games created in the wake of Prince of Persia. While the rest of the world was playing Doom, Duke Nukem and Half-Life, I was still wandering through the all too familiar stages of Another World, Flashback and (later) Heart of Darkness.<\/p>\n

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Index<\/p>\nToggle<\/span><\/path><\/svg><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

  • Another World \/ Out of This World<\/a><\/li>
  • Flashback<\/a><\/li>
  • Heart of Darkness<\/a><\/li>
  • One, two, three, thousand cinematic platformers!<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n

    <\/span>Another World \/ Out of This World<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

    Originally developed by \u00c9ric Chahi for Amiga and Atari ST, Another World<\/em> (Out of This World<\/em> in the USA) was released on PC after Prince of Persia by Delphine Software<\/em>. The French designer developed his own custom, polygon-based graphic engine to cut memory use, and he took advantage of PoP’s rotoscoping technique to improve character movements. Another World was already a minimalist experience <\/strong>in the 90s, and Chahi’s chosen style has helped to immortalize the game by turning it into an evergreen that can stand the test of time. AW is one of those games which have been ported to any platform, operating system and gaming console, even though for me – because of the aforementioned nostalgia – the DOS version still is the ideal conversion despite its many flaws and a rather disappointing sound part.<\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

    In 2006, Chahi reworked Another World’s code by developing a native version for Windows XP, and the original polygon-based design made it possible to easily increase the 2D graphics resolution<\/strong>. While I was working on the idea for this post, in 2022 I methodically replayed both the original game for DOS and the 15th Anniversary Edition for Windows, which by the way turned out to be perfectly compatible with Windows 10 as well, to finally make the video you can appreciate below. In both cases, Another World is still a fascinating game full of really interesting narrative cues, an essential and condensed experience of the platform genre that I personally can still fully appreciate despite the many years and the huge technology gulf that separates the 90s from 2023 gaming-wise. What I no longer appreciate, however, and which I have never actually liked, is the rough and inflexible control style that sometimes forces you to perform actions you do not want with potentially negative consequences on in-game events.<\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a>\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n