Did I mention the NES games were really bad? Anyway, with all my classic video game knowledge I realized that I didn't know if the Japanese Super Famicom had a Game Genie or Game Genie-like cheat device, and after failing to locate any such codes for this game that would enable me to play through it easily just to see what all it had in store, I managed to use the amazing tool that is ZSNES to make my own code that gave me infinite health...er, hoverboards. So, just for the sake of BTTF fans, classic video game fans, and those rare individuals like myself who manage to be obsessed with both, here's what this little-known game has for us.

Doc is kinda...pink                             Jennifer being run down?                                           Aww.............

    The game starts off with a cool little intro that shows just how awesomely designed the sprites in this puppy are. They're kind of anime-like, but very well done. Unfortunately, this is the last time you'll ever see Jennifer. This is also where my lack of knowledge of the Japanese language starts to hinder my ability to tell you the game's interpretation of the story. Some things to note here are that all the clothes the charters are wearing are 100% accurate for as much detail as the sprites allow, right down to the colors.  The only thing that's off, really, is that Marty didn't have the future jacket yet, but despite the numerous wardrobe changes through the course of the movie he never changes clothes in the game, so whateryagonnado. Also, from watching the movies some 800,000,000 times I can say that even the components on the DeLorean appear to be correct. I guess that bomb shelter in the background is supposed to Marty's house, though.

Marty looks right at you THE WHOLE GAME

Enter your...Dertination?

     The first level is Hill Valley in the year 2015, which makes sense in terms of the movie. In fact, all the levels make sense in terms of the movie...in what they're supposed to represent, anyway. The level design itself, however is a different story. I think the best way to describe it would be if someone with very little programming skill tried to make a Sonic clone. In fact, I'm pretty certain that's exactly what happened here. Marty is on the hoverboard for the entire time you play, so they tired to give the levels  a lot of ramps and such so that you can gain some speed on the board and have some fun. It doesn't happen. There are even the little springs like in Sonic, and as in most adventure games you go around collecting coins and beating bad guys. Marty attacks by doing a flip with the board that kills most baddies in one hit. You can get hit three times, and every time you do you lose a hoverboard icon from the top left of the screen. There's also a tally of your coins which can be used to buy additional hoverboards, lives, and invincibility, and if you look closely you can see an icon that apparently tells you how many miniature Kevin Nealon's you have left. There's no saving in the game, but you can return to a level later by entering its code in the time circuits from the menu screen. The level codes are all really odd, with animal names like WOLF and BEAR. The code for the last boss level is BIFF. I bet nobody ever figured that one out. 

Michael Jackson looks excited                  "Aintcha got no scrote!?"                           Quite a size difference

    After such awful level design and random enemies I again find myself impressed with the amount of continuity between the game and the movie. Once you're done beating up the first level baddies such as robotic trashcans, cops, and weird looking teenagers eating junk food, you fight Griff in the Cafe 80's. Griff is completely accurate from his helmet to his pointy shoes, and the Cafe 80's has the Wild Gunman arcade machine in the back as well as Jacko on the TV and the poster of the astronaut in the correct place. It even rains the futuristic Pepsi bottles when Griff gets mad! Throughout the following level you have to beat the members of Griff's gang who go down with one hit, and again are accurate to the movie, though they each have their own unique "move" they do to try and cause you damage. The boss of the entire 2015 part of the game is Griff again, only this time on his hoverboard. When you hit him he flies back and crashes into the clocktower, and the final time you hit him he smashes into the window just like in the movie.

My favorite scene from the game

"What do I have to do to put you in this car TODAY?"

     You're then treated to some cool artwork and Japanese text that might as well be scratches on my computer screen for all I can make of them. The art in this game is just so cool. Lookit old Biff! You can just tell he's up to no good. "Oh that Biff, he's quite the character." 

     The next area of the game is the alternate 1985 Biff creates by traveling back in time and giving the sports almanac to his younger self. Dark and creepy, it stays accurate....except for the flaming head guy. And pretty much every other enemy in this level. Or any other level of the game for that matter. It becomes very apparent at this point that the person who made the graphics for this game and the person who actually laid out the levels probably never actually met. How they got the graphics guy to make such amazingly oddball enemies and yet pay so much attention to continuity with the film in every other aspect of the game is beyond me. If they had met each other I'm sure after the graphics guy was done painstakingly creating accurate yet cartoony sprites and incredibly vivid and detailed exposition artwork he would have maybe said to the programmer, "Uh, Hill Valley didn't have ground made of cobblestone layered 12 feet thick that turns into random slopes and walls." Now, don't get me wrong, I know that certain licenses have to be taken in order to turn a movie into a side-scrolling game, but these specific licenses wouldn't be so bad if they were just...fun....in any way whatsoever. But they're just not. It's awful awful level design. Not that I should really complain, I guess, when almost every movie-to-game port from this era was sure to be a stinker, but I guess it's just frustrating when the graphics are so good. 

     I should note that it was really cool to run into Principal Strickland who now looks more like a maniac bloodthirsty Mr. Magoo. And he's just a normal enemy, so you get to kill him.

PLEASURE PALADISE!

BIFF TUNNS MUSEUM!

    Once again another cool little exposition moment with awesome cartoon versions of still-frames straight from the movie. Seeing these makes me really wish this game was one on those point-and-click computer adventures like Sam & Max Hit the Road and Day of the Tentacle. Man, those were great. 

     The street levels in corrupt 1985 alternate with levels that take place inside Biff's tower, and in correct order of the plot. No scene with Doc explaining what's gone wrong, though. Maybe it was in the text for the previous exposition scene? The enemies in the tower kind of make sense: securiry guards trying to catch Marty...by holding a taser to the ground. Also there are Biff statue busts on pogo sticks. Biff's gang members make appearances as bosses in strange machine-room scenarios that make very little sense, but they didn't get much screen time until the 1955 part so I'll give 'em this one.  I have no idea what's supposed to be going on with the two that stack on top of each other though. The boss for the whole area of the game is especially cool, its rich Biff on the roof of his tower with the giant neon "Biff" sign behind him. Now see, here's an example of twisting the movie in order to make a better game that makes complete sense to me. Marty just jumps off the building in the movie, but actually fighting Biff makes for a pretty cool boss fight even though it is very clumsy in execution like all the other boss fights.

Even Marty can't look her in the face

Awesome.

     The shot of Loraine with the hooters is actually from a little earlier in the game, you don't save her from Biff or anything, but I wanted to save it as a little something special. Her boobs actually bounce as she talks; it's her only animation. The transition scene to the next area is an animation of  the DeLorean flying away from Biffs tower. Sweet.

The 50's sure were strange times

I'm confused, too, Marty

      So now it's time to head back to 1955 and get the sports almanac back from young Biff. they decided to step up the enemy weirdness yet again, so that the only enemies you encounter on the street levels are ninjas and balloons with crazy faces. I'm not making this up. Although you do eventually get to who I'm guessing is supposed to be Red, the town hobo. He was never shown in 1955 in any of the movies, but the fact that he throws bunny ears and chicken legs into a burning barrel as a means of attacking you more than makes up for this discrepancy. At what is probably the hardest point in the game you have to use those goofy balloons to get high enough into the air to hurdle Hill Valley's gigantic walls, which gets really frustrating. There is an enchantment under the sea level, but unfortunately its even more drab in its design than most of the other levels, and you never get to see the stage or dance floor. Oh, and the only enemies in it are fat kids eating sandwiches. 

     Once you reach the final level you've apparently made Biff so mad that he's decided to make the sky rain down boulders upon you. I think maybe they got Biff and God confused. 

"Slacker!"

"Hey, you! Get your damn hands off her!"

     Biff really takes a beating in the cut scenes in this area, first being slapped by Strickland with the almanac and then getting sucker-punched by George McFly who really looks nothing like George Mcfly. I guess geeky doesn't translate well into anime, which is really kind of ironic when you think about it.

Oh LaLa!

Oh LaLa!

     And then you have the final boss battle, which is really easy, but cool nonetheless.  Beating the crap out of Biff and then putting more crap back into him. Seriously, they really put the manure in his mouth just like in the movie. And that leads to the most disappointing part of the game......there is no ending. None. After a cool intro and great artwork in between levels, it just goes straight from that last picture you see there to the credits, which contains all of twelve names, and then the game starts over. I guess they got so far with developing the game then realized it wasn't fun to play and just gave up. So there you have it, all the best parts of Super Back to the Future II, i.e. the still frames. The bad news is, now there's really no point in playing the game. The good news is, now there's really no point in playing the game. But if you decide to, good luck doing it without cheating. The game isn't hard in any intentional way, its hard in a poorly designed, poorly tested way. But then again despite my undying love of old video games I never was one of these guys who was just instantly good at every game. You can tell on all fronts that they just really didn't play through the game to test for quality, and probably figured they didn't have to with a name that was hot at the time and great graphics. I just wonder if this game is obscure at all over in Japan, or if it was maybe a well-known flop or something. I mean, they were able to license the name, likenesses of all those celebrities, and even the original film score. I also wonder why it never made it to the U.S, being that there are plenty of crappy games for the SNES or any of the old systems for that matter. I would love to know more about this game and the company that made it, but something tells me the that those are facts lost to time and obscurity.