A shoot 'em up that stands out thanks to it's time manipulation mechanics, which the game embraces fully. A goofy sense of humor and absurdA shoot 'em up that stands out thanks to it's time manipulation mechanics, which the game embraces fully. A goofy sense of humor and absurd style give it a personality all it's own. It's what keep you going on those levels where all the game's mechanics make it a more tedious than fun experience.
You have 60 seconds to get through the levels and thirty lives. The time limit may sound a little intimidating at first, but the ability to rewind time makes it all doable. That's also where the lives come in. Every time you rewind time it takes a life. Doing so let's you fix a mistake or team up with your past-self to amplify your firepower.
That's right, when you rewind time your past-self is running around onscreen with you doing everything it was doing right before you rewound or died. It allows you to do things like blast through bosses easier (and most importantly faster) or tackle different parts of the level all at once. A few cool scenarios are used where you have to split up versions of yourself in order to progress, but there aren't many of them and they are at the end of the game. Another cool thing is that if you save your past-self from death you can absorb them to make yourself stronger and take an extra hit. Do that with a different character and you can combine it's abilities with your own.
The multiple type of playable characters are one of the game's other strengths. They all have different skills that allow one to customize their own play-style. You can use a variety of characters to get through levels, or just stick with one and use the others sparingly. I personally found the sniper character "Aimy McKillen" whose charged up shot can go through walls to fit my play-style the best and stuck with her for the majority of the game. Experimenting with the character types is part of the fun.
It's a brief and rather easy game, but that doesn't stop the occasional irritations from setting in. Being timed is often just a stressful experience. Given that it's one of the game's core mechanics makes the experience at times feel more like a tense race to the finish rather than a fun and breezy shooter. When some levels want the experience to be about manipulating every aspect of the game to ensure you have multiple versions of yourself attacking several parts of the levels at once the almost constant stopping and rewinding of time in order to achieve perfection slow the experience down and cause tedium to step in.
On one hand it gives the game a strategic puzzle game vibe. On the other it snuffs out the action by making more about placing yourself in the right areas multiple times in order to beat the clock. Some people will enjoy that aspect, other will be like me and just want to get back to shooting stuff. That aspect of the game is more fun anyway.
While far from perfect this is still a fun and at times quite funny game. One that's worth a look if you enjoy platforming shoot 'em ups and are interested in some new tricks via time travel. With a hardcore mode that unlocks after completion and a surprising amount of collectibles to track down there is some stuff to keep you coming back after the credits roll. What we have is a fun, but flawed trip through space and time that's worth taking if you can put up with the game and it's unique mechanics occasionally getting in the way of themselves. They don't ruin what is still a solid and fun core experience.
I give the game a 7.5/10.… Expand
