There's nothing quite as nostalgic to 90's kids such as myself than retro survival horror games. Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark, Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness, Parasite Eve... they all conjure memories relating back to feelings of tension, suspense, and fright through a newly discovered video game genre. Back then, we weren't so desensitized, and even pixels that we could barely make out horrified us in forgotten ways. Back in 1995 attempts to put the player back in the glory days of horror gaming, all the while telling a complex story.
The plot starts off simple, something that we've heard a hundred times over; you must uncover the mystery surrounding the disappearance of your daughter. The rest of the game is told through a series of notes and dialogue segments with a couple of other characters that you meet along the way, though sadly the story stays perplexing. In the end, there is somewhat of closure, but in all honesty the tale just feels like bits and pieces of a larger story being woven unevenly together. Needless to say, it's neigh impossible to follow unless you focus on just the "true" ending; by the way, there are two endings.
From there, things just go from bad to worse. Yeah, this game does have the clunky tank controls, as it should being that it's emulating old Playstation games, but really that's the only plus side here. The older graphics warp in very strange ways, especially the ground, though it seems to be due to the CRT TV effect emulating the "wrapped" effect of an older television set. If you turn this effect off, the game just looks bad... and not even in an old PSX graphics style kinda bad, just plain bad. You can even walk through things that you shouldn't be able to. The audio is even worse, or lack thereof. A good horror game, whether it be new or old, should have tense music, but this game has a very relaxing "soundtrack".
The first enemy you encounter literally looks like a poop nugget... I can't even make that stuff up, I have no idea what it's actually supposed to be. There are two other bad guys, plus one "boss" monster that appears a couple of times. These foes pose absolutely no threat, since whenever you hit them they're stunned and can't fight back at all. When it comes to the boss monster you can huddle yourself into a narrow confinement and it can't come through, while you pelt it with bullets. This renders the "survival" part of the survival horror tag completely useless, you won't need healing items at all. There aren't even any decent, mysterious puzzles to solve. The people you meet send you on "fetch quests"; go here, do this thing, come back here for further instructions.
I'm actually extremely disheartened to say that Back in 1995 disappointed me tremendously. I've been looking forward to playing this title since it released, but couldn't justify the asking price for such a minimal amount of game time. So I got it on sale for half off, but I've refunded it. The store page claims 2-3 hours of playtime, yet I beat the game (including the "true" ending) in an hour and a half. That's with exploring every area, and killing all monsters. Though that's only the bottom layer of why I refunded this title, the biggest concern is that it has none of the elements that make a decent survival horror experience. Even at half off and an update lingering in the near future, forego this title and just play an actual survival horror game from the good 'ol days.
Join my Steam review group:http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bhhreviews