Flink on MegaCD is a Psygnosis platformer with magnificent fairy-tale visuals. An elven apprentice sorcerer in enchanted worlds. Among the finest visuals on the console. An overlooked gem.
Your verdict
Category
Platformer1 player7+
Description
Young wizard apprentice Flink sets off in quest of eight stolen magic ingredients in this graphically polished Psygnosis platformer. Published by Psygnosis, released in Europe in January 1994. 2D platformer with collectable spells and equipment, varied environment levels, CD music. Multilingual version.
Flink review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
2/5
Story
★★★★★
"Classic"
Henk Nieborg draws every backdrop as an illustration: gnarled trunks, foliage on several planes, caves with blue reflections, with depth achieved through differentiated scrolling across many layers. Flink himself takes up few pixels, yet his animation holds enough frames for running, jumping and spellcasting to remain visually distinct.
Matthias Steinwachs writes a storybook score: flutes and harpsichord over the forest stages, lower strings in the caves, repeated motifs that transform gently instead of looping identically. The CD rendering preserves the attack of each instrument, so the music owes as much to puppet theatre as to a platform game.
This US release of Psygnosis's Flink draws its desirability from a tiny print run on an already niche format and from its standing as one of the console's most lavishly hand-painted platformers. It shipped late, as the Sega CD was fading in North America, so few copies reached shelves. That scarcity pushes complete-in-box values upward among Sega collectors who chase artful, overlooked side-scrollers.
An underrated gem
Few platformers of the era boasted such visual splendour, made of painted backdrops and fluid, cartoon-worthy animation. Hampered by the Mega-CD's tiny install base, this young wizard's journey slipped under the radar. Its sometimes steep difficulty demands perseverance, but its beauty rewards lovers of polished 2D.
Is Flink still worth playing in 2026?
A platformer from Psygnosis, Flink follows a young wizard's apprentice off to recover eight stolen magic ingredients, across levels of sumptuous art direction by Henk Nieborg. The beauty of the hand-painted backdrops, the spell-crafting system and the fairy-tale mood make it a visual gem of the machine. The pace stays measured and the difficulty sometimes fickle. A delightful pick for fans of polished 2D platforming and connoisseurs of retro pixel art.
