Black Future ’88 E3 2018 Preview
It’s 1988 and you must climb a procedural tower in order to kill its owner. Oh, and by the way, the tower is alive and can take your powerups. Oh, and you only have 18 minutes to live. Black Future ’88 is a game that took me by surprise at E3 2018, enticing me to want to enter this crazy tower when the game finally releases.
Perhaps the easiest way to describe Black Future ’88 is that it is a procedural, run-based “Metroidvania”-style game. The title is also reminiscent of a cyberpunk version of Rogue Legacy, with various bosses required to be defeated. However, Black Future ’88 sets itself apart with its bullet-hell like style gameplay and a variety of very interesting guns, such as one that switches the player with the enemy upon bullet impact.
The first thing about Black Future ’88 that caught my eye was its slick aesthetic both in its cinematic as well as its in-game art-style: think futuristic, dark, gritty, and lots of neon. As my hands-on demo began, I also found everything to be a bit overwhelming in terms of the speed of gameplay and all the different things happening on-screen. While a lot was happening, I found myself quickly adjusting to everything, and by the end of my demo felt that my awareness within the game had already improved.
While I selected a relatively average character, players can choose from a few different characters with their own specialties, including one who is addicted to drugs who would be unable to refill certain health bars, but can talk to the drug dealer for free. While I did not select the drug-addicted character, my cooperative partner did… yep, there is coop in this game! Black Future ’88 is fast, furious, and a lot of fun based on what I experienced, and I cannot wait to see more as its release date approaches.
