Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition (Wii U) Review

The game opens on Professor Lester, who experiments on antimatter creation using an underground synchrotron during a thunderstorm when his lab is struck by lightning and the experiment, going badly wrong, sends him into what seems to be another dimension - a totally different planet, inhabited by all kinds of monster-like creatures and a humanoid race of aggressive aliens.

What sets the experience offered by Another World well apart from anything else is how the player is thrown into control and action right off the bat without a single idea of what he or she has to do or how to accomplish it. This is indeed truly a trial-and-error and riddle solving experience, from beginning to end. Additionally, what little story there is gets told through cut-scenes devoid of any dialogue, other than the occasional line of indecipherable alien language, and yet everything still manages to make perfect sense, which in itself is quite an accomplishment. Back then, the lack of dialogue could easily be attributed to technical limitations, but nowadays most game designers would shudder at the idea of conveying a story with no text or voiceover whatsoever. Another World, for this alone, deserves its title of landmark masterpiece in the history of gaming.

The player is sent into the action as soon as arriving on the planet, and has to battle for their life through unexpected situations from beginning to end, requiring multiple attempts to figure out the way out of a tight situation, which is easier said than done. For example, Lester gets thrown in jail very early in the story and has to escape his cell, with explanation. Even as he does so, he has to run down unknown corridors, pursued by guards that shoot on sight! Little does the player know that the three-pixel-tall black line lying on the ground near the wreck of his cell is the laser gun that was carried by the guard he just killed! However, even when picked up from the ground, sure enough it's easy to press a button to shoot, but this alone isn't enough to survive the next few seconds of being chased by guards. It must be discovered that holding down the shooting button for a while can summon a force field to block enemy fire or that the gun runs out of energy if used too liberally, or even that it holds yet another unexplained function!

The player literally IS Lester, in all his lost and confused feeling of desperation, in the midst of action. That, while it may seem frustrating and clunky for some, will appear as simply genius to others as it works better than a lot of modern games at immersing the player into the action of the game.

Scene after scene unfolds, and should death occur, Lester is sent back to a previous checkpoint, which auto-saves progression through the game, with the main menu allowing previous points in the story to be visited without the need for passwords, as had previously been the case in the SNES version, for instance. Speaking of which, the amount of checkpoints has been at least doubled, meaning that death won't be as punishing this time as it used to be in the original versions. While this will make the experience less frustrating, it will also make it much shorter. Indeed, not having to go back too far after dying means that the game doesn't have to be mastered quite as much as it used to require and means that less time will also be required to finish it, thus diminishing its longevity. It doesn't make the whole experience less enjoyable, though, instead merely offering less worth for money spent, which is unfortunate.

What else does Another World 20th Anniversary Edition bring? Well, the HD visuals, other than upping considerably the native resolution of the game on Wii U, do add a decent amount of detail as well that was previously not included. They do not add anything to gameplay or the story, but do make the whole scenery nicer to look at. It is still possible to revert the 1991 original's graphics at a press of the Y button for those who wonder how the game used to look, but most people won't want to have to suffer the limitations of old when the new look is definitely much more enjoyable. The sound part has also been spruced up a bit through re-mastered sound effects. However, those are not accompanied by any music, which makes the whole experience a bit too bland compared to the SNES - or even better yet Mega-CD - soundtracks, which did add to the experience. Fortunately The Lounge Factory did include the latter, along with the original sound effects, which should be the preferred setup for most players out there.