Black Future 88 is an exciting roguelite shooter with a synthwave soundtrack that is just begging for more content to help round out the experience.
Black Future 88 is a roguelite shooter set in a world where the ’80s never ended. The aesthetics are awesome and the gameplay is addictive, but it doesn’t take too long to experience everything that Black Future 88 has to offer.
The 88 in the title of Black Future 88 refers to a year that never ends. The world was devastated by a nuclear war caused by the mysterious master of the Skymelt tower. The blackened skies meant that people decided to stop counting the passage of time and it has remained 1988 for years. Black Future 88 puts the player in the role of one of the survivors, who is tasked with climbing the Skymelt tower in order to defeat its master. The only problem is that the player only has eighteen minutes until their heart explodes, assuming that one of the guardians of the tower doesn’t get to them first. Black Future 88 is similar to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon in its love for ’80s nostalgia and playing on old cartoon tropes and the whole experience is seeped in a love for the cyberpunk genre.
Black Future 88 plays to its setting wonderfully with flashing neon light effects and a killer synthwave soundtrack that may just be the highlight of the game. The music and visuals of Black Future 88 are similar to that of Hell is Other Demons, which is another neon-fueled shooter with a brooding synthwave soundtrack. It isn’t all about aesthetics, however, is the gameplay of Black Future 88 is also stellar. The goal is to reach the top of the tower by defeating the bosses of each floor and the player has to do this using loot taken from the enemies or purchased from merchants. There are also devices that will let you spend health or time in order to purchase buffs and it’s up to the player to determine whether the cost of such precious resources is worth the boost in boost.
The levels of the Skymelt tower are made up of a random selection of rooms in a manner that emulates the excellent Rogue Legacy and the player needs to decide if the items found by exploring are worth losing precious moments. The time limit also means that the player cannot waste seconds exploring every room and they will have to make snap decisions on how best to proceed. The firefights are frantic and the player’s ability to perform a lightning-fast dodge will only take them so far, as the enemies love to fill the screen with bullets. Black Future 88 is a game that rewards skill and the ability to keep a cool head under pressure, making it a perfect game to enjoy in short bursts of adrenaline-fueled fun.
The player has to scrounge for weapons within the Skymelt tower and they can only hold two at a time. Weapon choice is important, as Skymelt has the ability to absorb items that are left on the ground in order to level up. The player can buff themselves with implants and other special items that they find in Skymelt, while the tower is also powering itself up to throw unique challenges at the player during each run. The random buffs that the player acquires and the debuffs that Skymelt helps to ensure that each run feels distinct and the player will unlock more of these as they progress through the game.
The main issue with Black Future 88 is a lack of content. The roguelike random elements of the game do little to cover up the fact that it’s just the same few room types being repeated over and over again. The enemy types have a little more diversity, but they will soon become old hat. The bosses are hit the hardest in this regard, as there is only a handful of them in the game and the player will need to fight them over and over again with little change to their routines. The game also shares the same issue as Enter the Gungeon in that the random weapons will greatly influence how well a run will go, with a powerful weapon making the early stages of the game boring and trivial, while a poor selection will make it almost impossible to bypass the bosses. The buffs and Skymelt debuffs are generally impressive, but it won’t take long until the player has experienced them all.
Black Future 88 has some fantastic ideas and it executes its concept well. The game would be a must-have if it had more content to help expand upon its game world. Black Future 88 offers fast and frantic fun in short bursts for fans of shooters and games that shake up their formula with each playthrough, but it doesn’t take long for the Skymelt tower to reveal all of its secrets to the player.
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Black Future 88 is available for PC and Nintendo Switch on November 21, 2019. A code for the Nintendo Switch version of the game was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.
