4.5/5 ★ – NiGHTS108's review of Another World.

Another World fascinates me. I don’t exactly have the deepest connection in the world to this game, I did just beat it today, but it is fascinating. Much like other near perfect games, such as Portal, Another World has a wonderful simplicity to it. Before playing it, I heard it thrown around quite a bit as one of if not the best game of all time from numerous sources, and honestly, after beating it, I can see where all that high praise comes from. The game Another World reminded me most as I was playing it was absolutely 1981’s Dragon’s Lair. Like Dragon’s Lair, the whole game is almost just one whole playable cutscene, yet in a way that’s actually much more efficient for making a fun video game than Dragon’s Lair. Naturally, one of the first things you’d notice about… well any video game is the artstyle, and Another World’s in particular certainly stands out. It has this extremely pretty, unique and sharp style, which somehow flows perfectly through every cutscene. I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to see this game in 1991, I’m not entirely sure on how the visuals of this game are exactly put together, but what I can say is that it manages a wonderful magical trick years before even something like Sega CD’s full motion video, and also looks way better. Speaking of the cutscenes, let’s talk more directly about the game itself, we’ll walk through its opening a little. We open with a Ferrari screeching onto the scene on a dark, cloudy evening, our main character steps out and enters a futuristic laboratory area. He heads down an elevator, and begins his work operating a particle accelerator, however something goes wrong. We see the outside again, as lightning begins to strike. A lighting bolt has entered the particle accelerator, and teleported our protagonist Out Of This World. Afterwards, we flawlessly transition to gameplay. Now, if you’re like me, you probably died in the pool you teleport to at the start of the game. Seriously, it’s such a flawless transition to gameplay that we probably don’t even notice we’re actually playing the game now until we die. So, after that minor embarrassment, we swim upwards escaping the dark tentacles beneath and come face to face with a 2D side-scrolling platformer view, again still in the same style as the cutscene and pool segment previous. Additionally, we see a gorilla-like beast heading right in the back. As someone who’s most likely played more than one video game since Super Mario Bros, we head right. We see the aforementioned ape again, still in the background, we also contend with deadly leeches dropping from the ceiling. We might not notice them, and have one scratch our leg pretty bad, causing instant death. Trying again, we find that we can jump over them or kick them to get rid of them. Eventually we come to a clearing, yet in a sudden cutscene, the ape from the background drops down and is now in front of us. Naturally, we barrel the other direction. This also probably teaches us about running if we haven’t noticed it already, by holding down the action button. Eventually we run back past the pool at the start, the ape still chasing us. We head left for the first time and see a sheer cliff. This is also a critical moment and teaches us to think outside the box. You have to jump off the cliff quickly, at which point the protagonist will automatically latch onto a vine, which will break and swing him behind the beast on the pool screen. Let’s recap. At this point, we’ve already been completely introduced to all functions of Another World. We had to run to escape the beast with the action button, and use the jump button probably to jump over leeches and escape the beast at the first time using the vibe. We barrel to the right, only barely escaping the ape again, and eventually a mysterious other figure enters and slays or stuns the ape with a laser weapon. Another cutscene plays. We get an ominous, low-angle shot of him, and a shot of our protagonist attempting to befriend his saviours, at which point another figure much like the first shoots us, betraying our trust. We awake in a prison cell with someone else. Given that this second mystery man hasn’t killed us by now and we’re the only two locked up in a cage, we can presume that we’re friends now. We cut back to the side scrolling view. Presumably one of the mystery figures that betrayed us removes their cloak, revealing that our new friend and the enemy are one in the same. We’re trapped in… some kind of facility. We see other figures that look like our friend and the enemy from before mining for materials in the background. Even beyond the betrayal and ominous camera angle, it’s immediately clear that whoever the ruler of this backwards world is Not Very Nice. If we’re captured and imprisoned simply for looking different from these people, there’s probably some racism in this land, and we’re locked up with someone who isn’t racist. To escape the cage, you have to slowly swing back and forth, which will eventually release the cage onto a prison guard’s head. He drops his gun. We pick up the gun, and use it for the rest of the game. The gun in this game is extremely simple. Much like other games such as Videoball, the gun doesn’t use more than one button, but has numerous functions depending on how long you hold it. A short press of the action button will shoot a simple laser. A slightly longer press will reveal a shield, and an even longer press will fire a harsh beam of light. Shields can be shot down with your laser or will disappear after a short time, and one can be removed immediately with a beam of light. Enemies will almost never attack you with anything else, and everyone, including you, does die in one shot, so combat in this game always feels perfectly fair. It’s just about getting in your one shot. From here, the game proceeds as normal. What I love about Another World is, like any great piece of literature, it feels like every decision was made purely from common sense, and only asks common sense to work out its puzzles. For instance, shoot near a bat to trick it into being eaten by a strange tentacle monster so you can go past it. Shoot thin pieces of rock to flood a cavern or get to a higher area. Drop a lantern on a guards head, using the reflection in the lantern to find when he’s under it. Things like that. Another World is a rare effectively mechanically perfect video game, similar to the likes of Portal in that regard. It completely cuts off the fluff, and leaves only the raw game design in its place. As I’ve said, it’s more than obvious why it lives on as a cult classic, even today. Hell, it’s only about an hour long if you know what you’re doing. I’ve already beaten it 3 or 4 times. Do yourself a favour and check it out sometime, it’s worth every bit of praise it gets. Grade: A