I really enjoyed this game. It consists of five minigames that are meant to be games you'd play in an 80s arcade. The games are all pretty fun and meaty enough to not feel like throwaways. I won't spoil all the games, but my favorite was the Outrun inspired racer. There are cutscenes telling a story of a teenager in between the games. I found the writing and voice acting to be kind of corny and a bit drawn out, but I liked what they were trying to do with the story. The pace of the game is also a slow too. For example, you have to wait for the menu to do its little into thingy where the title fades in on the beat of the song every time you start the game. They're trying to set a vibe which I understand, but it is a minor annoyance. I know a lot of people think pixel art is overdone, but I think this game does it well. The art combined with the music (which I really enjoyed) give off an enjoyable synthwave vibe. It's a little expensive for its length ($10 about 2 hours), but if you find a sale I'd recommend it. There is apparently a second chapter on the way so if you see this review after that comes out, I haven't played it (I plan on it thought).

It’s like a taste sampler for a few popular games/genres of the late 80s and early 90s. One of the five games is an endless runner section which, while certainly still fun, stands out for not being a direct homage to another game. The plot served enough of a purpose to link the games together though the cutscenes could have been shorter for my tastes. The story felt meandering and somewhat unearned, and it took me out of enjoying the game for its presentation of a bite-sized gameplay variety pack.

I have mixed feelings about this game. On one hand the short story really didn't stick with me at all. If the game were a bit longer the story could have been fleshed out more and could have taken a more relatable route.

On the other hand, the arcade games. THE ARCADE GAMES. I was not expecting these arcade games to be so much fun. Not only that, but they were also mechanically very well made. I usually expect arcade games like these to have poor mechanics or wonky controllers, but both of these were in excellent condition. These arcade games really carried this game to the point were I can happily recommend the game and hope that maybe there is a sequel sometime in the future.

Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2023/07/28/198x-2019-pc-ps4-xbone-switch-review/

Welcome to Suburbia, just outside the City, some time in the 1980s. This journey follows Kid, a teenager stuck between the limitations of innocent youth and the obligations of inevitable adulthood. Their story unfolds when they happen to stumble across a local arcade – an arcade that shows them new worlds, new meanings, all through the lens of video games. With each vidit to the arcade a new game is uncovered, the Kid grows stronger. Soon the lines between the games and reality starts to blur….

198X pitches itself as an homage to the golden age of 80s games, covering a swathe of the genres that were popular at the time, such as brawlers, shoot ’em ups, racers, side scrollers, and even RPGs, and it makes for a good sampler pack of what the decade had to offer. None of them last all that long nor are they all that difficult, requiring nothing more than some level memorization. The only downside is that while each section has checkpoints for when you die, if you have to quit the game for any reason you have to start the entire section of the game over again. I wish there was some option to choose between “Classic/Retro” or “Modern” in which you could jump back into whatever part of each section you were in before you quit the game.

Plus the game’s presintation is mixed with other things that were popular in the 80s, such as coming of age family and adventure movies along with the anime that was popular in Japan that was also seeing a rise in popularity in the West at the time. But it ends up being incredibly basic, for reasons that I’ll get to in a sec.

Unfortunately there isn’t much more to the game outside of showing off what people find nostalgic about the 80s, as the game as a whole is pretty short. When I say that this games comes off as a sampler pack for the decade, I do mean sampler pack, as it’s only a small offering of what each of the genres it’s showing off look like. Not that its necessarily a bad thing, but it the game was centered around something more substantial.

But I guess this was due to the fact that it was funded through Kickstarter means it was too limited by it’s budget to really do much more than what is presented here.

There is a lot to like here, as brief as it is, but the result is a game that has only the bare bones of an interesting concept. And unfortunately there isn’t going to be a sequel that could iron out any of the issues or expand on it’s good points since the company that developed the game went under. And considering that the digital storefronts for this game claim it as ‘Part 1’, they clearly had plans for more games.

I wish that the studio had the chance to put out at least a second part to iron out some of the issues here, as 198X feels more like a prologue or extended demo of something larger.

I also briefly want to compliment the soundtrack, with tracks ranging from something that would sound right out of a game from the decade it’s making homage to to tracks that give a nice sense of nostalgia. It’s not much but it makes it feel more like a complete package.

I know the game’s length is probably going to put a lot of people off, but I would recommend it on a decent sale, even if it’s too little to late for there to be a sequel.

Sights & Sounds
- I really enjoyed the variety of arcade-style pixel art used throughout the various games you play. The real visual show-stoppers, though, are the story vignettes you see between the gameplay sections
- The music is what exactly what you'd expect given the 80's aesthetic. Lots and lots of synth

Story & Vibes
- Not much of a story going on; this game is all about the specific feelings of suburban isolation and stagnation experienced by basically every young person who's had the misfortune of a suburban childhood. It's an easy feeling to relate to for everyone who eventually fled their pond

Playability & Replayability
- Gameplay consists entirely of five short arcade game sections. You start out with a beat-em-up, move on to a scrolling shooter, dodge slowpokes in a racing game, test your reaction times in a surprisingly difficult ninja autoscroller, and wrap up with a mysterious sci-fi RPG
- Given their short lengths, none of these games are mechanically deep. They don't really need to be, either

Overall Impressions & Performance
- It's a very short game that will really resonate with anyone who had dreams in high school that were bigger than their environment could accommodate. I'm no Gen-Xer (I was born in the late 80s), so I can't relate to the time period as much personally beyond the media I consumed as a kid. The mood still feels familiar, though
- Keep that short run time (easily < 2 hours) in mind when setting your price
- No bugs or performance issues to report

Final Verdict
- 6/10. A nice little snack to try between longer games

I wanted to love this, and I think in theory I really could have, but boy the story just sucks the life right out of this otherwise pretty compelling game idea. The multiple arcade games are all fun in their own right, and the Outrun clone in particular is really good, but the trite cutscenes in between and overall lack of a statement this game makes besides "video games good escapism" bugged me to no end. With all that said, though, I would love to see 199X, because there's a lot of fertile ground for arcade machine ideas there to play with.

Playtime: 1.5 hours
Recommended?: Yes
Comments: This game feels like it was made from pure love for the medium. Each of the mini games felt "generic" yes but the polish to make them fun as 5 distinct games that all had decently engaging mechanics is impressive to me. Nothing felt like it was tacked on for the sake of it. The cutscenes and story could be seen as too cheesy, but it was refreshing to see a game that was unashamed to wear it's heart on its sleeve and felt no need to make snarky jokes about itself to do so.

Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked. 198X presents a set of five arcade game stages, each in a different genre, strung together by brief story sequences about the experiences of a school-age child who finds solace in the arcades of his world. There's a nice range of genres on offer - starting with a side-scroller beat 'em up/brawler, the game then progresses through space shooting, racing, an auto-runner and finally a first-person RPG dungeon. The game's nature as a compilation means that none of these individual games are particularly deep or extensive, but as brief tasters of each genre they work well. There's certainly some scope for frustration from narrow failures given the relative lack of checkpoints, but that comes with the territory when we're talking about arcade-style games. The game's presentation is excellent, with well-drawn pixel-art throughout and effective if unmemorable music.

There's some limited potential for score-chasing and attempting 'perfect' runs, to add some longevity, but a single playthrough of 198X is likely to be a fairly short experience - around 2-3 hours is likely to be typical - so waiting for a discount before purchasing may be the best approach if the game appeals to you.

so it's a game about a "guy" who
- Spends time with escapist fantasies
- Sees a girl and thinks she's the coolest ever and never thinks of her again
- Is VA'd by a person with a feminine voice
- Dresses like a boymoder, and
- Doesn't have a father figure

and you're telling me it's NOT trans

Here are my thoughts on every mini-game

Beating Heart ==> Gameplay and art style are nice, nothing special as there are no power-ups or any complex combos, except for a baseball bat.

Out of the Void ==> I prefer vertical shooters to horizontal ones, but it still felt good. Nothing special.

The Runway ==> Car movement is janky and the time limit was annoying, and if you fail the time limit, you start back at the beginning so it may feel long, but it was just about 5 minutes.

Shadowplay ==> This was really cool and I really liked the music. Some later parts felt unfair due to the very fast movement and not being able to look ahead, specially the pits and spikes. My second favorite.

Kill Screen ==> What a way to wrap up this game. My personal favorite, but maybe because I am a sucker for JRPGs and first person dungeon crawlers. The timed attacks was a nice touch, and the enemy designs were cool. The maze may feel long though.

A sincere game about growing up and escapism.

Reviewing and describing this game takes a smarter man than me. I will however try to jumble my incoherent thoughts into a little text paragraph and maybe you'll be able to tell if you want to buy the game or not.

The average runtime of this game is around 65 minutes. If this is a problem for you this is not your kind of experience, let's get that out of the way. For me personally it took only 65 minutes for the team behind this game to sell me on every title they will ever put out. This game is one in a million, from a buisness perspective it is absolute madness. This game is not made to be the next big thing, it is not suppose to get every Youtuber, Influencer or Streamer to talk about it. After playing or seeing it once there's not much left for most people. It is a coming of age story for people who have already come of age. It takes place and dives into such a specific time in history that most of the potential customers might be too young to understand or too old to care.
Calling this game a gamble is an understatement.

All that being said I loved this game. This game is raw and unfiltered vision. The team behind this game had a vision and they stuck to it. Sadly it may have become necessary to split this game into multiple parts but this is something I can perfectly understand seeing what I was given. What I was given were stunning visuals, amazing music and razor sharp gameplay. Not a single second is wasted in this video game. They could have easily strechted this game past the 2 hour mark so people wouldn't be able to refund the game. No dice, this game says what it wants to say and that's it.

The soundtrack is so unbelievably amazing that I would have paid double if it had been included. Maya Tuttle, whom I had never heard of before, absolutley kills her performance as Kid.

It may have become obvious that this game spoke to me on a very personal level which I am unable to be open about on a steam review. Escapism is a double-edged sword but for me personally it has become a constant and a way for me to wind down and reflect. Ever since I was four years old I played video games almost everyday of my life. Through the rougher periods of my life being able to become Mario, Sonic, Solid Snake, Strider, Cody or Dante for just a couple of hours was just what I needed to get my head up high again.

This game is oozing love and artistic integrity from every orifice. If anything I wrote above resonated with you, I can only recommend that you buy and play this game.

Hace poco leí de una persona que tan solo leía relatos, cuentos o novelas cortas porque era más fácil que se acercasen a la redondez debido a su pequeñez y ambición limitadas. No estoy totalmente de acuerdo con esa forma de afrontar la cultura. La duración o expansión de un producto cultural no acota sus miras, estas solo dependen del talento del autor/es. Además de que prefiero algo basto, imperfecto y arrebatador que algo redondo, perfecto y miedoso. Dicho esto, 198X es de esas experiencias cortas, acotadas y redondas. Un comentario breve y autobiográfico que hace las veces de radiografía de una época del videojuego. Pero no de lo que había dentro de las pantallas, sino en las cabezas de aquellos primeros jugadores que pasaron su adolescencia en los salones de Arcade. El juego nos pone a los mandos de recreaciones de algunos de los grandes mitos de aquella época: Streets of Rage/un yo contra el barrio cualquiera, un shot em up que podría ser R-Type, OutRun, un runner en 2D que se parece a Ninja Gaiden y un RPG/dungeon crawler que tiene como jefe final la Motherbase de System Shock. Entre partida y partida, la narración de una muchacha de un barrio a las afueras de la ciudad (Suburbia se llama, viva la sutilidad) que discurre entre la monotonía de su entorno, el anhelo de la reciente infancia y la capacidad de los videojuegos para evadirse de la realidad. Yo soy absurdamente joven (perdón), por lo que mi experiencia con los arcades es reducidísima. Y excepto durante unos meses de relación enfermiza con FIFA 18, jamás he acudido al videojuego por escapismo. Sin embargo, el título es capaz de sintetizar esa sensación de vivir en un pueblo con la ciudad como referencia cercana y ese sentimiento de no pertenecer a nada cuando se van quemando etapas. Esto me hace admirar la condensación de un juego que no controlamos fuera de sus partes de juego puro y pese a ello puede encapsular el sentir de una generación de ya no tan jóvenes jugadores. La falta de riesgo y aristas a las que hago mención al principio y que acercan a la obra a esa idea de redondez (signifique lo que signifique) me impiden elevarlo, pero 198X tiene cierta sensibilidad. Sobre todo el monólogo que entona mientras atravesamos las autopistas de Outrun demuestra un entendimiento de las bondades de la obra de Yu Suzuki que no todo el mundo alcanza. Cuando una vez a los mandos olvidamos que el que se supone que está jugando es el chaval que después tomará la palabra, el juego nos hace darle la razón y simplemente dejarnos llevar.