# 198X

198X is an action game developed by the Swedish team Hi-Bit Studios and published by Sonka. It was originally released for PlayStation 4 and Windows in June 2019, with a port for the Nintendo Switch released in January 2020; an Xbox One port was announced but never released. A homage to arcade gaming in the 1980s, 198X's coming-of-age story follows an unnamed "Kid" as they discover a video arcade in an abandoned factory and fall in love with video gaming. The gameplay of 198X's 5 chapters are each based around different arcade game genres that were popular at the time, such as beat 'em ups and horizontally scrolling space shooters. The game received positive reviews, with praise for its gameplay but criticism for its short length.

## Plot

In an introductory sequence entitled Beating Heart that plays like a side-scrolling beat 'em up, the teenage protagonist fights their way from the subway station and through the streets of the unnamed city in which they live until they reach a hospital where they are attacked by a hooded figure with glowing red eyes.
Set in the 1980s, the game follows the Kid, the teenager from the introduction, who feels stuck in their childhood home in "sleepy suburbia" as they wait for their life to "move forward". One night, as the Kid wanders the streets of their unnamed city looking for anything to "make my heart skip a beat again", they stumble across an abandoned factory that was built "long before" the protagonist was born and now houses an arcade. Wondering if they found a place where they can fit in, they start playing a horizontally scrolling space shooter entitled "Out of the Void". Feeling disconnected at school, the Kid's mind frequently returns to the arcade where they were "on an asteroid somewhere fighting Space Invaders." The only person they notice in school is "her", a "punk rocker from the south district" whose freedom the Kid admires. The story then cuts to the Kid playing an arcade racing game entitled "The Runaway". During "The Runaway"'s second stage, the Kid explains that they've started to spend every night at the arcade, where every game they master makes them "stronger" and "more confident". One evening, the Kid reminisces about their childhood and how "anything was possible" back then before "everyone got brainwashed" in high school. They then mention how, as a kid, "shadows seem darker and more terrifying" yet "more exciting" at the same time. The game then transitions to a ninja video game called "Shadowplay". That night, while walking to the arcade, the Kid reveals that their parents split up due to an incident involving the Kid's father.
They also mention that night was when "everything changed" at the arcade before 198X transitions into a role-playing video game entitled "Kill Screen" where the player has to defeat 3 dragons to solve a maze before fighting the unwinnable SHODAN-like final boss. Afterwards, the Kid is seen sitting outside the arcade in the rain, mentioning that everything "was still there" but that "nothing was the same". Characters from 198X's various games begin to materialize around the Kid, with them concluding that the "game was not over".

## Development

A KickStarter page for 198X was launched on May 3, 2018, With the developer Hi-Bit Studios seeking SEK 500,000 for the project. The goal was reached a little under a month later on June 2 with 1,920 backers pledging SEK 676,558.

## Reception

198X received a score of 65 on Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Writing for Nintendo Life, Damien McFerren gave the game 8/10 stars, stating that while 198X had an "exceptional" soundtrack and cited Out of the Void as "perhaps the highlight of the entire game", he found the game to be too short, with McFerren able to breeze through the entirety of 198X in "around an hour". He also bemoaned the lack of replayability in the mini-games, which he found little point in returning to "outside of boosting your high score".
In his review for GameSpot, James O'Connor gave 198X 5/10 stars, calling the game "mediocre" and stating that while the soundtrack "does a great job of evoking the arcade classics it is paying homage to" and calling Shadowplay "great" he ultimately concluded that 198X was a "great idea with middling execution" and that there's "not enough here for the game to feel like a proper ode to '80s arcades" and that "the Kid's plight, and his longing to escape his current life" don't "totally connect". He finished the review by saying, "198X feels more like a proof of concept than a final product." Eurogamer's Martin Robinson stated that he was "cynical" going into 198X due to seeing many other games like it before but praised its style and the "pitch perfect pastiches" of classic arcade games, which he called "the most assured part of the whole package".
Robinson, however, wasn't convinced by the story, chalking up his issues with it to either 198X being the first game in a planned series that just found its feet at the end of the first title or the narrator whom he found to "sound both bored and melodramatic at once". He concluded the review by stating the developer Hi-Bit Studios did "Fine work here" while stating that 198X is "nestled between near meticulous versions of key inspirations such as Ninja Warriors, OutRun, Gradius, and R-Type and stated that "there's no greater compliment than to say that the tributes on offer here sit happily alongside the originals".