Back to the Future: The Game is a dialogue & story focused adventure game. Unlike other Telltale games I've played & liked (Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, a bit of Game of Thrones) it strays a bit from their formula. There are no choices whatsoever (not even the illusory ones) - the story is strictly predefined without even the tiniest of detours. The general quality of the game seems to be subpar at best in comparison to their previous titles. The controls are clunky, the graphics lacks detail and overall polish, the UI elements are huge (mobile like) and obtrusive (even after turning off everything the game allowed me to). And unlike other Telltale games, where you don't really need to know the source material - here you do. You should be familiar with the movies, as the game starts sometime after 3rd movie ended, and not only doesn't explain who is who, but also casually showers you with references assuming you remember everything in detail. If I haven't re-watched the movies recently to refresh my memory, I feel like I would have been at a disadvantage.

For some weird reason the game is split into 5 separate entries in the Steam library, forcing user to re-apply their settings every time they start a new chapter. No wonder no decisions can't be made here, because nothing carries over to the next chapter, since each has to be started as a separate game. The only thing you decide upon in first chapter - your fake name you introduce yourself in the past, is instantly invalidated in chapter 2, where other game inhabitants insist on calling the protagonist what seems to be a default name from the ch1 list. Also I've noticed the time played is not summed up. Chapter 1 time is displayed as total time (which in my case was around 14 hours total, not 3.3 as shown).

The default movement controls require you to left click and drag to move, and on top of that right clicking makes Marty run. Thing is, the right click also skips dialogue, so gods forbid you bump into another character while running like that - you will immediately skip first few lines of dialogue without any option to go back and listen to them. Thankfully you can also move with WSAD and use Shift to run to avoid accidental skip, but the game doesn't tell you that. The environment is so littered with invisible walls that it borders on ridiculous at times & trying to walk can be an exercise in patience. You'd think that in an open area you can cross the road wherever you want - well nope, just in specific nondescript junction points. Rarely you're allowed to just walk up to something in a straight line. Most of the time it feels like being forced into invisible rails.

Clickboxes (clickable areas that allow interaction with objects) are inconsistent. Sometimes they are so huge that clicking several cm from an object still triggers an interaction. Sometimes they are so tiny, that even when you know for sure that they should be there somewhere, you still need to comb the screen carefully with your mouse. Sometimes an object had more than one clickbox separated by empty space, and even though you'd think that the 2nd one is for a different object it still triggeres interaction with the thing you already checked. Whenever I found myself stuck, it usually turned out later that I missed one vital object that was either hard to pinpoint or overshadowed by a bigger nearby object with a huge clickbox. This was particularly frustrating when I had to do a lot of back and forth between several locations. The difficulty mainly came from finding all the interactive objects. Once you pinpointed where everything was, it was quite easy from there.

After first two chapters I was convinced I will be giving this game thumbs down. Even though I liked the story and character development, I wasn't enjoying it and instead I was just irritated most of the time due to game's several issues and disappointing quality & mechanics. The events past chapter 3 raised the stakes, so I became determined to push though & finish the game to see how it all ends. And even though there were so many time jumps, fixing one thing resulting in messing up another and spawning yet another fubar timeline, that there should have been bajillion paradoxes already (not to mention a silly explanation where did the DeLorean came from in the first place), despite all that I'm glad I've played though it. Mainly because the final chapter was indeed great, and the ending was so adorably self aware of its own plot shortcomings, that it put a wide smile on my face and basically redeemed the rest of the game in my eyes :)

If you're planning on playing this game and like me you thought "I like Telltale games and I like Back to the Future movies, so this game should be no-brainer" be aware that this might not be the case. The overall quality & design is disappointing compared to other major Telltale titles. The story is really neat with satisfying finale, but one might consider just watching a let's play instead of having to deal with game's clunkiness and irritating issues. Myself I prefer playing instead of watching, and I'm still in good mood after having beaten the game, so my "on fence" stance is slightly tipped towards thumbs up :) Buyer beware though :)

Back to the Future: The Game is a dialogue & story focused adventure game. Unlike other Telltale games I've played & liked (Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, a bit of Game of Thrones) it strays a bit from their formula. There are no choices whatsoever (not even the illusory ones) - the story is strictly predefined without even the tiniest of detours. The general quality of the game seems to be subpar at best in comparison to their previous titles. The controls are clunky, the graphics lacks detail and overall polish, the UI elements are huge (mobile like) and obtrusive (even after turning off everything the game allowed me to). And unlike other Telltale games, where you don't really need to know the source material - here you do. You should be familiar with the movies, as the game starts sometime after 3rd movie ended, and not only doesn't explain who is who, but also casually showers you with references assuming you remember everything in detail. If I haven't re-watched the movies recently to refresh my memory, I feel like I would have been at a disadvantage. For some weird reason the game is split into 5 separate entries in the Steam library, forcing user to re-apply their settings every time they start a new chapter. No wonder no decisions can't be made here, because nothing carries over to the next chapter, since each has to be started as a separate game. The only thing you decide upon in first chapter - your fake name you introduce yourself in the past, is instantly invalidated in chapter 2, where other game inhabitants insist on calling the protagonist what seems to be a default name from the ch1 list. Also I've noticed the time played is not summed up. Chapter 1 time is displayed as total time (which in my case was around 14 hours total, not 3.3 as shown). The default movement controls require you to left click and drag to move, and on top of that right clicking makes Marty run. Thing is, the right click also skips dialogue, so gods forbid you bump into another character while running like that - you will immediately skip first few lines of dialogue without any option to go back and listen to them. Thankfully you can also move with WSAD and use Shift to run to avoid accidental skip, but the game doesn't tell you that. The environment is so littered with invisible walls that it borders on ridiculous at times & trying to walk can be an exercise in patience. You'd think that in an open area you can cross the road wherever you want - well nope, just in specific nondescript junction points. Rarely you're allowed to just walk up to something in a straight line. Most of the time it feels like being forced into invisible rails. Clickboxes (clickable areas that allow interaction with objects) are inconsistent. Sometimes they are so huge that clicking several cm from an object still triggers an interaction. Sometimes they are so tiny, that even when you know for sure that they should be there somewhere, you still need to comb the screen carefully with your mouse. Sometimes an object had more than one clickbox separated by empty space, and even though you'd think that the 2nd one is for a different object it still triggeres interaction with the thing you already checked. Whenever I found myself stuck, it usually turned out later that I missed one vital object that was either hard to pinpoint or overshadowed by a bigger nearby object with a huge clickbox. This was particularly frustrating when I had to do a lot of back and forth between several locations. The difficulty mainly came from finding all the interactive objects. Once you pinpointed where everything was, it was quite easy from there. After first two chapters I was convinced I will be giving this game thumbs down. Even though I liked the story and character development, I wasn't enjoying it and instead I was just irritated most of the time due to game's several issues and disappointing quality & mechanics. The events past chapter 3 raised the stakes, so I became determined to push though & finish the game to see how it all ends. And even though there were so many time jumps, fixing one thing resulting in messing up another and spawning yet another fubar timeline, that there should have been bajillion paradoxes already (not to mention a silly explanation where did the DeLorean came from in the first place), despite all that I'm glad I've played though it. Mainly because the final chapter was indeed great, and the ending was so adorably self aware of its own plot shortcomings, that it put a wide smile on my face and basically redeemed the rest of the game in my eyes :) If you're planning on playing this game and like me you thought "I like Telltale games and I like Back to the Future movies, so this game should be no-brainer" be aware that this might not be the case. The overall quality & design is disappointing compared to other major Telltale titles. The story is really neat with satisfying finale, but one might consider just watching a let's play instead of having to deal with game's clunkiness and irritating issues. Myself I prefer playing instead of watching, and I'm still in good mood after having beaten the game, so my "on fence" stance is slightly tipped towards thumbs up :) Buyer beware though :)