➤ Another World, review 🎮

Version tested: iPad

It is not at all easy to review a title that since the day of its first release on the market, in the distant 1991, managed to carve out a space in the Olympus of video games, earning the title of cult video game during its long life made of conversions, remakes. and reissues. Eric Chahi is the name to remember: the historic designer who together with his musician friend Jean-François Freitas was able to bring to the world theAnother World we are about to talk about.

An action adventure like no one had seen before that became a source of inspiration for many western and eastern designers thanks to its incredible mix of fiction, cinematography, music and immersion. A video game that broke an incredible number of barriers that in those years of great changes in the sector seemed to castrate the possibilities of the videogame medium. The game never had a real sequel despite the enormous appreciation of the critics and the excellent sales on the market and Eric found himself first involved in the very difficult development of Heart of Darkness and subsequently decided to disappear completely from the sector to return in 2011 with From Dust and with this remake of Another World developed on the iPhone and iPad to coincide with the twentieth anniversary. We will try in every way to judge it with a clear mind, keeping away the emotional strength of a title that has never left our memory as gamers.

A decidedly atypical gameplay

The game focuses on the incredible adventure of a scientist, this Lester Chaykin who, struggling with a quantum physics experiment that went wrong due to a lightning bolt, finds himself projected into another world hunted by wild animals and soon captured by a merciless indigenous people embroiled in a civil war for control of the planet. Lester will soon find a friend whose history of imprisonment will intersect with that of the physicist and together with him will try to reach salvation by fleeing the harshness and difficulties of a world he does not know.

The plot of Another World it is only hinted at, implicit: there are no dialogues to listen to or texts to read and the only non-interactive sequence is the initial one while the small elements of the story must be captured and understood by the player by observing the interactions with the characters and what happens in the background . In terms of gameplay, the game belongs to the action adventure genre with different elements of puzzle, exploration and with a decent focus on fighting; all in a fixed screen scrolling system where the characters and elements that move on the screen are polygonal and are placed side by side with strictly hand-drawn static backgrounds with enormous evocative charm. The great peculiarity of Another World is its being completely devoid of HUD or on-screen interfaces and in fact forces the player to experiment, to try to understand initially even just how to control the avatar, then to study the scenario and the game path to try to understand what Do.

An extremely avant-garde stylistic choice that has never been fully replicated by other video games even today. In the era of super tutorials and on-screen indicators, this element can clash with today's player's need to have everything clear from the start and without great effort and can risk throwing them off, sometimes even making them feel frustrated. In the game you die continuously (not for nothing there is a nice goal that you earn by dying 100 times) and you go on with deadly trials and errors, repeating small steps several times before properly understanding what you need to do to move forward. . There are even sections where the consequences of an unsolved puzzle can only be experienced at several screens away a bit like in the old graphic adventures that longtime gamers will surely remember. Not to mention the fighting: Lester will soon arm himself with a simple gun that allows him to fire a laser shot, create a protective shield that lasts a few seconds or to load the weapon and launch a super shot capable of destroying the opponent shields. Obviously the same also applies to enemies and it is essential to point out that a single hit leads to the death of both the protagonist and the other humanoids.

We are getting old

To make life easier for the youngest gamer who discovers for the first time Another World on Apple systems, there is a rather lax and abundant checkpoint system that will greatly dampen the frustration of continuing deaths. The work done on the difficulty level also moves in the same direction thanks to the introduction of the normal value, much simpler than the original game thanks to the reduction of the number of enemies, their reaction time and the implementation of some automatisms in the control of the character. Then there is the difficult level, identical to what we experienced 20 years ago and the very difficult level which represents an additional challenge that we would like to recommend to all readers who have already played and finished. Another World in one of its dozen versions. It should also be borne in mind that the title can be completed in less than an hour on the first pass and, subject to the numerous repetitions due to death, the second time will probably take you no more than half an hour.

The other important addition for this version naturally concerns the implementation of the touch that goes alongside the classic commands via virtual d-pad. Handling the protagonist by touch works well for most of the game with only two exceptions. At the beginning where the lack of a tutorial in game leaves you slightly displaced with respect to the available commands (there is however the possibility of consulting help from the initial menu) and during the most intense fights where it is necessary to make the protagonist turn very often on the spot but instead it will not infrequently make him run in one direction leading him to certain death against the blows of the enemy's laser guns. In short, there is a significant reduction in precision in the more chaotic sections. It is still something you will get used to very soon but we are convinced that BulkyPix, the developer, could have done something better in this regard. In technical terms it is interesting to note that Another World for iOS it allows you to switch on the fly between the original version in low resolution and the new one, much more defined and with artistically more refined backdrops simply by sliding two fingers on the screen. We have already seen the feature in other remakes and it represents a simple tinsel that you will forget very soon. Side note regarding the translation: the title is entirely in Spanish but there are numerous localization errors fortunately only in the menus, since the game, as previously written, does not offer dialogues or texts in game.

The tested version is 1.1
3.99 price €
The game is in Universal format and supports Game Center with 13 achievements
Link App Store

Comment

Resources4Gaming.com

9.3

Readers (22)

8.4

Your vote

Another World it is a title that will break the audience, of this we are sure. An authentic jewel of gameplay, it has managed to withstand 20 years of old age while maintaining its ability to involve the player by investing him with emotions with his visionary story just mentioned. However, there are some small flaws in this conversion for iOS, first of all the insensitive and reactive touch controls. However, its gameplay is the real stone of the scandal. While we are sure that it will fascinate both old-time gamers and newcomers of the video game thanks to a style and some features that cannot be found in any other title, on the other we are pretty sure that it will be hated by the laziest. , from those now addicted to tutorials and titles that play alone. Here you die, often and often and the player will have to contend with the difficulty of discovery. If you feel ready, Another World it will stay in your head for at least another 20 years.

PRO

Evocative, fascinating, engaging: every atom of the game is wonderful
The simplicity of the gameplay is combined with a high but satisfying difficulty
Excellent graphic remake

AGAINST