Tom Keller is an average enough guy, although one badly down on his
luck. On the evening this nightmare begins, he's coming home from a
fancy dinner with his wife, at a nice restaurant- where she took him to
tell him she was leaving him, and where he still picked up the check.
She's kicked him out of the house and had the locks changed, and he's
had quite a bit to drink after dinner, and wants nothing more than to
call her and give her the piece of his mind. He's already checked into a
seedy hotel down town, where he plans to sleep it off after making a
phone call. However, he is about to step through to the other side of a
mirror that will warp and destroy everything he thought he knew about
his life.
Tom Keller is lost. He has gone astray, and become trapped in a
nightmare world that is a twisted mirror image of our own, tormented by
horrific abberations, haunted by shattered memories. He is alone behind
the world, and to escape, he must come to terms with all of his sins.
Backstage is a 3 hours and a half survival horror Rpgmaker game, whose gameplay consists in exploring dark urban locations looking for useful items like flashlight and keys, avoiding traps and solving puzzles. This isn't an rpg, of course, but there are still battles and they happen in real time, bit these are a little weird since you have to avoid the enemy proyectiles and collide with the opponent so Tom will use the equipped weapon, even if it's a gun. Anyway aside for the obligatory bosses (like the lich) there is no incentive to fight everyone.
The game has more than one ending.
Random Fact: the game had a sequel planned but only the
prologues for the two protagonists of this game were released. In fact
this time the game had two different playable protagonists, but the
gameplay remained the same of the first game. Anyway see below for this
short demo.
Final Verdict: Backstage isn't a bad game at all (despite some flaws and imprecisions
but few games are without them), on the contrary I found it really
inspired and an interesting adventure to play. Well I admit that I did
not try to find every single ending, nor I played it more than once
except if after a while (when I forgot some details). The story is absolutely the best part of the game. Maybe not the
beginning, but as the adventure unfolds it becomes really intriguing,
especially after the first half. I was in fact constantly doubting about
everything: is Tom really an ordinary guy? Has he already met Alice
before eve if he doesn't remember that? Do the monsters really exists or
is Tom hallucinating? Who knows!
I
liked a lot the Revenge ending, and even if it's probably not a game
for everyone, if a player is fond of dark and horror rpgmaker games
he/she should play this one at least once (puzzles aren't that
difficult, and it's impossible to get stuck). Not the best game by Max
McGee, but still a good one.
EXTRA - Backstage II (demo): in this game you have to choose between Racheal the Prodigal or Tim the Prophet,
anyway their separate paths are going to cross at a monastery.
One thing about the
two protagonists: the Prophet's adventure is a bit more interesting
because it has a sort of prediction about what will happen next (well...
he's a *prophet*!) while the poor Racheal is instead thrust inside a
difficult situation without many explanations.
Backstage II is a game that aimed at improving what was done with the first game, offering better maps, better assets, two protagonists, but a similar gamemplay. Both prologues are pretty short (15 minutes each more or less, for a total of 30 minutes, 10 of actual gameplay and 20 of dialogues) and give just little informations about what was going to happen next, but at least mapping is much better than in the first game.
Random Fact: the demo of Backstage II wasn't the end of
the series. Despite being unfinished there was a last tale related to
the setting and the mysterious entity know as Mask. But this is another
game for another time. Very soon.
Final Verdict: it's really a pity that Backstage II was cancelled
because all aspects hinted that this was going to be a better game than
the previous one, and I liked Backstage, it was a pretty good horror
adventure, even if there were some parts that could have been better, of
course. And Backstage II was really going to improve and correct all
the parts that weren't exactly good, and improve those that were good.
Mapping, story, gameplay... all here looks better, pity that this is
just a short introduction to another adventure in a dark world of
horror. But still better than nothing, I guess!!!
