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198X Nintendo Switch review – pixel arcade overdrive


198X – the 80s as viewed from the 21st century (pic: Hi-Bit Studios)

A loving tribute to the decade that brought you Out Run and Shinobi recreates the joys of the arcade and the perils of being a teenager.

By the normal rules of nostalgia, the 80s has already had its time in the sun and interest should be fading. It’s now the turn for people that grew up in the 90s and early 2000s to begin elevating the shows, fashions, and games of their childhood to an unreasonable level of reverence. Anyone that gets misty-eyed about the 80s today has either had their go already or was never even born at the time. And yet there’s something about the decade that keeps everybody coming back for more.

The 80s were the first full decade where video games were a mainstream concern, with the ZX Spectrum and C64 starting out the era, along with the golden age of arcades; followed by the NES, Amiga and Atari ST, and then the Mega Drive and SNES right at the end. To be honest though, the vast majority of 8-bit titles have very little to offer a modern, or even nostalgic, gamer, which is probably why 198X concentrates on the arcade.

198X is essentially a mini-game compilation of five fake games that recall classics Out Run, R-Type, Final Fight, Shinobi, and Phantasy Star. They’re not full games though, just what pretends to be the first few stages of longer titles, with the whole thing wrapped up in a wistful coming of age story. And by wistful we mean vague and unconvincing.

198X was first released on PC and PlayStation 4 last year but, like Stories Untold, its new Switch release is a chance, during this quiet period of the year, to catch up on a game we’d missed out on previously. Except, unlike Stories Untold, not everything we’d heard about 198X was positive, which we found curious because the trailers and screenshots looked very promising and were clearly created by people that had a genuine love for the period.

On playing 198X though we’re dubious as to whether they really lived through it the first time round, as the five faux video games are hard to pin down as belonging to any specific format. They’re certainly not 8-bit games – they look too good for that – but they’re also a bit too advanced for a 16-bit game, especially the one that’s clearly based on The Revenge of Shinobi, and are even beyond most coin-ops in terms of technology.

The pixel art cut scenes and locations that frame the mini-games are also far better looking than anything that actually existed at the time, like a super-advanced version of something that might appear in a LucasArts adventure. For connoisseurs of the style they are quite beautiful though. The inevitable synthwave soundtrack is also excellent, but again it’s all very much an idealised, modernised view of the 80s rather than a more truthful representation.

198X has a plot that revolves around an unnamed ‘kid’ who dreams of escaping from his small-town existence but only gets as far as a secret arcade in a rundown warehouse. There he learns to make friends and find a place for himself, although precisely what ails him is never gone into in any detail, beyond brief references to an absent father. Unfortunately, the shallowness of the storytelling is also reflected in the treatment of the games themselves.

198X – you’re better of just playing the original Final Fight (pic: Hi-Bit Studios)

The impression given is that the five games are supposed to reveal more about the kid’s background and personality but that really doesn’t come across very well. He clearly feels empowered through playing them but everything about the storytelling is backwards, with 198X starting from the principle that you, the player, loves retro games and therefore being able to play them in an fantasy version of their original setting is intrinsically meaningful and fulling, but it’s not.

The mini-games themselves are fine but they feel equally vapid, not because of the old school mechanics, but the fact that they’re not complete and end arbitrarily in terms of both gameplay and storyline. The Out Run clone and first person role-player are really the only ones where elements of the kid’s story start to bleed into the game itself and this works well enough that it’s a puzzle why it wasn’t used more in the other games. Or if developer Hi-Bit Studios didn’t want to, why they didn’t just make five full games.

In truth, only the Shinobi clone is anything more than a straight tribute act, and it’s telling that it’s also the longest at around 20 minutes. The 2D shooter is also pretty good, but it’s so short, at just two stages, it’s hard to have any strong feelings about it. That would be understandable if it was all in service of the narrative but that’s just as superficial and undercooked as the games themselves.

198X is a classic case of style over substance, which you could argue is entirely appropriate for a game about the 80s. But no matter how good it looks and sounds its representation of the decade feels so mawkish it’s almost distasteful. Fetishising a whole period in time like this can’t be healthy and ultimately 198X has nothing useful to say about either the era or its games.



198X Nintendo Switch review summary

In Short: A mawkish attempt to glorify the 80s that features some gorgeous visuals and music but offers no real insight into the era’s culture or games.

Pros: As out-of-time as they are the pixel art graphics and synthwave music is excellent, with equally good representations of classic arcade games in terms of both gameplay and presentation.

Cons: The shallow storytelling has nothing of interest to say about its characters or the 80s in general. All the games are too short and offer nothing that you can’t get from other homages.

Score: 5/10

Formats: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PlayStation 4, and PC
Price: £8.99
Publisher: 8-4
Developer: Hi-Bit Studios
Release Date: 23rd January 2020
Age Rating: 7

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