User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 5
  2. Negative: 0 out of 5

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  1. Mar 5, 2022
    8
    BE A RACCOON
    Backbone is a post-noir narrative adventure. It’s released on all major consoles and PC. Backbone is inspired by film noir, weird sci-fi, post-soviet aesthetics, modern political regimes, the works of Lynch and Kaufman, and existential philosophy of Sartre. This is my short review of the game.
    STORY, GAMEPLAY, CONTROLS AND GRAPHICS Backbone tells a story of a private
    BE A RACCOON
    Backbone is a post-noir narrative adventure. It’s released on all major consoles and PC. Backbone is inspired by film noir, weird sci-fi, post-soviet aesthetics, modern political regimes, the works of Lynch and Kaufman, and existential philosophy of Sartre. This is my short review of the game.

    STORY, GAMEPLAY, CONTROLS AND GRAPHICS
    Backbone tells a story of a private detective Howard Lotor who explores dystopian Vancouver inhabited by animals. The story is linear and questioning your perception what it is to be a person. The story is deep and has few twist and turns.

    Backbone’s gameplay is focused on storytelling and rich dialogues inspired by old school CRPGs. The game is full of dialogues and by choosing your answers your shaping what kind of person Howard will be.

    Graphically Backbone looked extraoriginally good. The pixel-noir art style looked luscious. The game was not voice acted, which was OK. Controls were simple and worked just fine.

    LAST CASE
    Backbone was nice game, about 5 hours long. It had deep story and the storytelling was the main point of the whole game. The ending was little bit odd, probably because there might be sequel to this. I do recommend this to anyone who likes storydriven games.
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  2. Nov 26, 2021
    7
    The first three chapters are very good with the racoon detective doing a lot of grinding to get information on a missing husband who is believed to be having an affair. It's really a lot of fun when he starts climbing fire escapes and sneaking into apartments. The plot takes a really strange turn when it's discovered that people are being butchered and sent to a science lab forThe first three chapters are very good with the racoon detective doing a lot of grinding to get information on a missing husband who is believed to be having an affair. It's really a lot of fun when he starts climbing fire escapes and sneaking into apartments. The plot takes a really strange turn when it's discovered that people are being butchered and sent to a science lab for experimentation. This strange development is too jarring to deal with and it makes no sense at all for the detective to keep pursuing this lead. The husband is dead. He should just tell the wife and be done with it, not trying to save the world by trying to figure out what a bunch of big shots are up to. Expand
Metascore
63

Mixed or average reviews - based on 5 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 5
  2. Negative: 2 out of 5
  1. Nov 24, 2021
    40
    Backbone had the potential to fill a bit of a void for a noir style game, but it comes up short. It opens with a strong prologue, but the story that follows tries to hit too many different themes meaning there's a lack of focus by the time it comes to a conclusion.
  2. PLAY
    Nov 17, 2021
    70
    It’s not a masterpiece, but Backbone is still worth your time – just make sure you go in with your expectations for the quality of its story held in check. [Issue#8, p.91]
  3. 70
    Backbone is a fine debut from Egg Nut but hamstrung by a high price and a story that outright gallops to a conclusion, overwhelming any feeling of player agency you've built up by the third act of five. The price makes it difficult to outright recommend, but very much a firm foundation for Egg Nut to build on.