If you grew up with 8-bit consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System or home computer of the time, Id wager youll probably remember the painful attempts gaming companies such as serial movie tie-in murderer, LJN, made to bring the classic temporal sci-fi flickBack to the Futureto our screens. These games were some of the worst, defecated out onto the market, and bore little to no relation to the events that took place on the silver screen. Often, they were made up of levels that had the smallest, most tenuous link you can imagine to the source material, and they were invariably of poor quality.Take LJNs terrible 1989 NES release thats supposedly based on the first film. This travesty, which bears little resemblance to the movie, features levels where Marty, clad in a black muscle shirt, has to run along the streets of Hill Valley picking up clocks to extend the arbitrary timelimit, while avoiding bullies, giant bees, manholes, and other obstacles. Oh, and he cant stop running.Picking up clocks is about the most literal goal to put into a game about time travel, and just goes to show how little effort or intelligence went into making it. Later levels dont get much better.One is a blatant copy ofTapper(akaRoot Beer Tapper), where Marty has to throw drinks at foes as they approach the caf counter. Remember that scene from the movie? I dont. Then theres the final scene where Marty is racing in the DeLorean to hit the lightning strike at the clock tower so he can travel back to the future. The odd thing here is the fact that the enemies of the level arewait for itlightning bolts, which you have to avoid.Wait, what? Marty is racing to catch a lighting strikes 1.21 gigawatts of electricity in the DeLoreans flux capacitor so he can time travel, and while he does that, he has to avoid lightning strikes? Hmmm.Lightning strikes twiceThe sequel, also made by LJN and based upon the second and third movies combined, was almost as bad. Although the actual stories of the films were followed a little more closely, focusing on Biffs alteration of the timelines, the game itself was totally removed from the movie.The game was a side-scrolling platformer where you had to pick up random objects and keys littered throughout various levels, returning objects to their correct time periods. You were given very vague clues, and the levels bore little to no resemblance to the time periods themselves. Enemies were also right out of other Nintendo games, even including rip off Koopas, complete with spiked shells. It was a confusing, badly designed mess, and once again did the source material no justice whatsoever.Oddly enough, the earlier, and technically inferior Commodore 64Back to the Futuretitle by Electric Dreams was far closer to the movies in terms of content. It was still a pretty poor game, but in it you had to interact with other characters from the movie, such as Martys mom and dad, as well as Biff, and your progress was reflected by the photo Marty carries that shows himself and his siblings vanishing (to be fair, the NES version also has this). You even had to find key objects from the movie, such as the skateboard, guitar, and radiation suit, and explore familiar locales.Later consoles also got a couple of games, notably theBack to the Future IIIgames of the 16-bit console era (which also appeared on home computers like the Spectrum, Commodore 64, PC, Atari ST, and Amiga). These were once again multi-genre games, with different game types for each level, but few managed to get past the awful first level that saw Doc Brown on horseback trying to rescue Clara. It was poorly coded, far too hard, and simply wasnt worth the time. Once again, a popular film was snubbed with a poor video game adaptation. As is often the case, simply slapping the movies name on a box was enough to sell, so little effort was needed and little effort was provided.All of these games failed miserably to capture the magic of the series, and they didnt even feature any of the memorable music from the trilogy (at least any thats recognizable). The music we all know from the movies, such as Johnny B Goodeor The Power of Lovewere either absent or terribly reproduced, and even the iconic theme by Alan Silvestri was usually missing. It was a stream of poor showings, that much is certain.Thankfully, weve had a more recent, far better game based on the series, thanks to Telltale games and theBack to the Futureadventure series. They certainly capture a lot of the spirit of the movies, but even these didnt impress everyone. TheBack to the Futureseries isone of Telltales least well received, which is a shame.Great Scott!And yet, in the midst of all of this, there was one goodBack to the Futureaction game, one that managed to mix the worlds of the movies and games into a cohesive and enjoyable title. Theres a good chance youve never heard of it, though, as it was only released in Japan. Theres something odd about the fact that a film rooted in Americana and western culture was only given a good action game by a Japanese developer, and was then only sold in its home market. But that is indeed how it panned out.The game in question isSuper Back to the Future IIfor the Nintendo Super Famicom (Super Nintendo to most of us, of course).Developed by Daft, published by Toshiba, and released in 1993, the game is a side-scrolling platformer with a very anime style. You play as Marty, who rides his hover board around the complex levels, using it to perform spin attacks in order to dispatch a variety of enemies. These include police, robots, and boss villains like Griff. And you know what? It all opens with the proper theme tune. Huzzah!It has an interesting score and collecting system, using collected coins in vending machines to buy extra lives, invincibility power-ups, and the like, and the whole thing is wonderfully colorful and slickly presented. The DeLorean even flies towards the screen in the intro, using Mode 7 for the effect. Nice.Still, dont get too carried away. When compared to other classic platformers, this is no award winner. In fact, the controls are a little clunky and the level design verges on the wrong side of frustrating. But its still a decent game, and one that does the movies justice. It even replicates some of the famous scenes, such as Biff running his car into the manure truck during the tunnel chase. Its good, clean platforming fun, and one thats a whole lot better than the other action games that preceded it.HeavyThe reason the game works so well in my opinion is not just because the developer clearly set out to make a real game, one that can be played and enjoyed, unlike most of the above. But it also refrained from sticking rigidly to the films when its an impossible task. Granted, Ive been grumbling that otherBack to the Futuregames have little to do with the story, but hear me out.While many licensed games can suffer from not sticking to movies at all, as with most of the older games, they also suffer when they try to replicate a movie that really cant be replicated in game form (theBack to the Future Part IIgame was guilty of that, too). Often, both problems are present.As good asBack to the Futureis, its hardly a film that can be easily adapted into an action game. Its just not that kind of story.Terminator 2is the kind of movie thats prime action game material (and was still butchered when it crossed to video games), but Marty McFlys adventures arent really as fitting for the genre.Super Back to the Future II, on the other hand, takes the license and likeness of the movies, and does its own thing. It doesnt try to emulate entire scenes of the movie exactly, and it doesnt try to force a sequence not from the film into a terribly produced mess. Instead, it focuses on pure platforming, and adds theBack to the Future style to it. The end result is a game thats more enjoyable than the other action games weve had, and one that fits the console mold it sits in.Its a SNES game, of course, so it has all of the usual quirks and traditional style of a title from thar era, but the developer has taken time to lovingly replicate the main characters and other elements, from the Future Hill Valley backgrounds and run-down 1985 neighborhoods, to the reproduction of Biff Tannens Pleasure Paradise. In the end, its a game that fans of the movies will actually enjoy.Sadly, its not an easy game to get hold of in North America or Europe. Local game stores and importers may be able to grab it, and you can find it on eBay, often for a pretty penny. Emulation is another option, of course, but legal issues inevitably ensue there, and thus you may find yourself on the wrong side of the law.Its worth trying to pick up a copy if you see one for sale, though. It might be out of its time now, and it might be 40 years too late, but its something closer to the kind of video gameBack to the Futuredeserved.