Sinfonia

Hello players and readers!
Welcome to Sinfonia, or Backstage III Electric Bogaloo, a mini-prologue for a game that was never made, but if you remember also Backstage II exists only as a demo. What? You do not know what I'm talking about? Check the reviews of these games if you did not play them:

Backstage
Backstage II

Done? Both are some cool horror rpgmaker 2k3 adventure survival games made by Max McGee, also author of a cool sci-fi classic game, Iron Gaia. Sinfonia was made and released in 2011, three years after the first two games, and was created in just four hours for the RMN's 4th Birthday 4-Hour the Cake is not a Lie! event.

The game can be considered an interactive prologue of a game that will never be made, OR as a short story about a new character set inside the dark world of Backstage, that we experienced in the other games. Technically there are references only to the first game, and if you played it you will recognize them and also understand who's the character that appears at the end of this short sequence. Hey pay attention, because you can also die before reaching the end of this prologue, luckily the game will ask you to save in a couple of instances.

This mini-story is about Reginald Fontaine, a young man that was forced to see a psychiatrist by his parents. All goes well until he meets the psychiatrist, that apparently had some other characters of the Backstage series as patients, and things suddenly does downhill! As is typical in the series, people disappears and monsters appears... will our friend Reginald survive? But I also have some other questions, for example if it is possible to open the safe? I was not able to find the three numbers to open it, maybe I am dumb... anyway I do not want to use Rpgmaker to figure out the solution! For now!


If you played the first Backstage game, the only complete one, you should know who are Tom Keller and Alice Sirafas!

Ok but what about the rest, for example music and graphics? Well the music is well selected, I like that because it's very appropriate to the game, but was good also in the previous game, so nothing new. What instead is REALLY better is the graphics: ok there are just five maps plus one that's used only in the intro, still the use of the Theodore assets and the lightning is simply perfect: the locations are well furnished and realistic, the effects are used very well and in the end this little scenario immediately made me wish for more! And trust me the plot is perfect as it is, I mean even if there is technically no ending, you can guess what's going to happen to Reginald... if you played the previous games, the first one in particular.

Final Verdict
Sinfonia is like one of these gourmet dishes that are really a small quantity but they're so good! Both aestetically and also in terms of substance. Still they are never enough for a complete meal and that makes me sad. Anyway great job with this setting and mapping, the atmosphere is dark and powerful, I also liked the little details like the animation of the protagonist smoking in the beginning. All is really done in a professional way with great attention to the details. Pity there is no game here... still better than a bad game, I guess!