Game Beaten: Back to the Future Part III (Sega Genesis)

Sat 02 May 2020, 14:16

Before you read this, I assume you've watched the AVGN episode on it: Back to the Future ReRevisited.

And then I will also recommend you to watch the James & Mike Monday ft. Bootsy episode on it.

That's what I knew going into this.

I've tried playing this game before but I just gave up very quickly on the first stage. It's just ridiculous. But then yesterday, I don't know why, for some reason I started randomly grinding this first stage and started memorizing the patterns and figuring out how stuff works. Then I gave up again and went to bed.

Then the next day, today, I started playing it again and actually managed to beat it. I beat the first stage! That alone would've been enough, but I figured I should keep going, because from what I saw of that episode of J&MM, the first stage seemed like the hardest one, so I figured if I could beat that I could probably beat the rest of them.

And yeah, that's basically true. I think the first stage is the hardest one.

The second stage the is the most fun one.

The third stage is very bad.

The fourth and final stage is very frustrating.

So here's my short walkthrough of how to beat the game. It's not really a hardcore walkthrough, just some tips and stuff:

Stage 1

• Try to memorize the first third of the stage. I know the start is jump and then duck.
• I don’t think you can jump over the pit that comes shortly after the first sheriff. I’ve tried mashing jump and timing it but I’ve never been able to jump over the pit. Maybe if you kill the guy you can.
• Try to not fall before the last third. That part is really tough so I recommend saving up your lives to then.
• When a sheriff is behind you and chasing you, just hold down and chill and he will eventually go away.

Stage 2

• You can hit down to move your aim upwards. Keep it in the middle position for the most part.
• I thought you needed 50K points to pass, but apparently its 45K
• Don't bother hitting the small ducks, just hit the cowboys

Stage 3

• This stage is very annoying because the hit detection is kinda wonky.
• You can try to dodge the bullets but you probably won't, it's really hard to do.
• I think you can curve the throws by holding the D-pad after throwing them but it made no sense to me. I recommend just letting go off the D-pad when throwing stuff.
• You dont need to hit a button to pick up more pies, just walk into them.
• Here's where you wanna stand and what direction you wanna tap to aim to hit the different positions:
  • Left window (on the left building): next to the pies, tap up-left
  • Door on the left building: as far up as possible, tap up
  • Left window on the salloon + guy by the sign: about 80% up (20% from the top), tap up
  • Right window on the salloon: next to the pies, tap up
  • The white table: about 40% up, tap right
• Then its just a pattern to memorize:
  • Right window on the saloon
  • Left window on the left building
  • Above the saloon sign
  • Door on the left building
  • White table
  • Left window on the saloon
  • and then it repeats...
• They will pop up in that pattern for atleast the first two rounds. After you've hit them a couple of times I think the pattern becomes random.
• To kill boss I like to just stand by the pies and spam forward. He dies really fast. He will take a few hits on you too though, so you need some health left.

Stage 4

• You need to pick up the "things" in order, I don't know what they are but they add speed to the train
• The ladders are checkpoints. You just need to pass them (not climb them) to register them as your latest checkpoint.
• The time limit is pretty generous, you don't need to worry about failing too much. Having 10-20 seconds left when approaching the front of the train should be fine
• At the very end, before the last "thing", you need to pass some steam that comes up in a pattern, I recommend memorizing the pattern so you don't get to that point and then get screwed by them and get sent back very far. I do this pattern but instead of running at the end I stop above the third wheel and wait for the last column of steam to come up and go down.
• At the very start, I recommend just holding left and try going past the first ladder. A pole will hit you, but you will start at the ladder next to the first thing.
• You don't need to climb down to the lion platform, you can just jump down there to save a second
• When collecting the things 2 puffs of smoke will come out. It seems you can completely avoid them by standing still and ducking. If you're fast you can collect a thing, climb up, take a step to the left, and duck, and the puffs will kill the enemies but not you.

After that, you have beaten the game and so have I.

What else can I say about the game?

• Music is kinda good I guess
• Animations and graphics are kinda good. The color palette is weird though, it's very dark.
  • The dark colors are actually because of a programming bug. You can read more about it and find a patch for it here: Back to the Future: Part III – Color Fix Patch. I played through it with the patch and it looks nice!
• .... I think that's it?

It's honestly not a terrible game, it's just frustratingly difficult. But if it wasn't, you'd beat it in like 5 minutes because it's just 4 stages. I actually find it kinda fun though because it is so fast paced. It's fun to beat it once, then try to do it again and again, feeling how you get better every time.

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Update May 3rd 2020: Added more info as I played throug the game a bunch more