Timespinner

This game is a great mix of Symphony of the Night and Mega Man X. If you like Metroidvanias at all, you'll enjoy this one. It has a deep story line too.

used to like castelvania and metroid back in the SNES and PS1 times. Bought a bunch of these games recently not realizing I am not into these sorts of games like I once was. This is the best out of the batch of 20 or so that I purchased recently.

The graphics and soundtrack are beautiful. The gameplay is on the easier side, but that is what I was looking for. I am a pretty busy person, so an 8ish hour game that is gruelingly difficult is perfect for me. I also enjoyed the ability to customize my character builds, and I liked exploring the worlds, although I wish there was a couple more unique areas to explore. This game would have fit very well with other PS1-era games. The story was also deep any surprised me at a couple of points. I agree with some of the comments that the pacing and dialogue could have been better. I also think this game relied a little too much on letters that the player has to read, as opposed to showing the player important plot points through cut scenes. All that said, I enjoyed the story overall. And, if you’re lgbtq+ identified, without spoiling anything, this game incorporates lgbtq+ characters in a genuine way that I found very satisfying, which is very refreshing and I wish there was more of in other games. Overall, I really liked this game and would recommend it. Definitely when it’s on sale, but would recommend even at full price.

Very underrated metroidvania. Leans heavy on it's obvious inspiration from SOTN and Ecclesia but that's not a bad thing. Great game play, intriguing story and really nice pixel art.

If you don't have much time to play videogames (like me), better use that time in another game. The trailer is deceiving. It looks like an interesting metroidvania, but it's actually boring, specially the story, the dialogues and the combat (you just smash the buttons to death, no matter what time of enemy you're facing). The pixel art is fine, but when the characters talk and are shown in a detailed way, they don't resemble to the characters in the general game, not even a little.

Gameplay is pretty good. Story starts out decent but falls off quickly. Bit sad really.

This is good in a sale for £3. Reminds me of a game I played back on the SNES. Tight controls fun metroidvania. Stupid fetch/kill quests. Overall worth playing if you beat your backlog and want a cheap game to play. Do not pay full price just get/wait for a sale :D

Timespinner is an excellent and very fun metroidvania. It's almost like they wanted to make Chrono Trigger or A Link To the Past into a Metroidvania. Timespinner is not very long, and it moves along quite nicely. This makes it perfect as a randomizer. I highly recommend people check out the randomizer.

[h1]Sights & Sounds[/h1] [h3]Spinphony of the Time[/h3] [list] [*] Maybe it's just the combination of sprite size, damage numbers, detailed backgrounds, and the level of detail put into the pixel art level architecture, but few games have pinned down that [i]Symphony of the Night[/i] aesthetic quite so faithfully without a card proudly bearing Konami's logo appearing before "Press Start" [*] Given the absence of vampires or infuriating Medusa heads (fuck that clock tower), *Timespinner* is notably less gothic-feeling. The palette is a bit more diverse and vibrant, enemies aren't as grotesque or horror-themed, and you play as a blue-haired magic girl instead of the literal son of Dracula. Still, though, the influences show through the thin veil of the differences [*] I've read a few reviews (professional and amateur) that draw a similar parallel between the soundtracks of the two games, but I don't think I'm that convinced. *SotN*'s soundtrack is much more grand-sounding and classically-influenced. [i]Timespinners[/i], conversely, seems to draw from a much wider range of influences. I would have needed to hear a lot more pipe organ to sign off on that comparison [*] It's still a really great set of tracks that stands on its own merit, though. The racing electric guitar/piano/violin combo on The Broken is an excellent boss fight accompaniment, the bright woodwinds do a good job playing off of bassline in Blasphemous Shackles due to some good level-setting in the mix, and the earnest synth and piano of Uncertain Hope sound exactly as tenuous and hopeful as the title suggests [*] The closest the OST comes to sounding like [i]Symphony[/i] is in the brief theme that occasionally plays when the Empire is shown doing evil things in cutscenes. The sweeping pipe organ would have sounded quite at home in Dracula's castle [*] In all, if you're a fan of pixel art indie games, it's hard to envision many complaints about *Timespinner*'s presentation. Looks great and sounds even better [/list] [h1]Story & Vibes[/h1] [h3]Urgent missives[/h3] [list] [*] I kind of wish I knew more about the game's universe going in; I think it would have helped some of the earlier plot beats have more impact. So, as a sort of service to people potentially considering the game, I'll try to explain the world as best I can without spoiling anything important about the narrative [*] The opening of the game takes place on the planet (moon?) of Winderia, a peaceful if somewhat dull planet populated by a tribe of people in possession the Timespinner, a powerful artifact capable of allowing users to travel through time. The tribe primarily uses it as an early warning system so they can travel backwards and raise the alarm when a catastrophic event occurs so that appropriate actions can be taken to thwart it [*] Unfortunately, Winderia has also been colonized by an intergalactic empire called the Lachiem (so much for all that warning, huh?). Lachiem, for its own part, wasn't always as gigantic and powerful. It used to be a sort of space Australia; a prison colony for another society called Vol Terrilis. Unhappy with that setup, Lachiem decides to wage a war for independence after its queen sends her wife to broker an agreement, but she's killed instead. Outnumbered and outarmed, she makes a demonic bargain that eventually results in Lachiem's freedom and Vol Terillis' total destruction [*] Fast forward to the start of the game, and you step into the shoes of Lunais, a magical savant and ideal candidate for being a Timespinner user. Unfortunately for her, on the night of her initiation, Winderia is attacked by Lachiem so fast that Lunais is immediately pressed into service. Even more unfortunately, the Emperor destroys the Timespinner as Lunais activates it, hurtling her through time and killing her mother. Winderia has fallen and Lunais is in another era altogether, seething and vowing revenge [*] As for the in-game action itself, you'll guide Lunais on a time traveling quest to restore the Timespinner and kill the emperor. Eventually, you'll learn that constructing the safest future for Winderia doesn't just involve avenging your mother. You'll have to travel to the origins of the Lachiem empire itself and dismantle it from the ground up. You'll also get a deep dive on the history of the War of the Sisters, learn about the origins of the Winderian religion, and figure out who Lunais' father is [*] With all the time traveling and political intrigue, [i]Timespinner[/i] is a fairly exciting story, and considering the empire-felling revenge tale, it's got some pretty angry and desperate vibes. Sure, the occasional history lesson and sidequests may slow things down every now and then, but the plot moves along at a pretty good clip [/list] [h1]Playability & Replayability[/h1] [h3]It's orbin' time[/h3] [list] [*] The presentation isn't the only part of [i]Timespinner[/i] that hearkens back to [i]Symphony of the Night[/i]. The gameplay likes to draw from that well too. By that, I mean that that it's like a lot of other search action titles, but focuses less on equipment and found items to move around the interconnected map. That doesn't mean that your progress isn't sometimes impeded, but usually just means you need to use your time-altering tricks to position platforms or freeze enemies to allow you to pass [*] Instead, there's a lot more emphasis on the combat. Your main means of attacking enemies are multicolored orbs that Lunais can magically manipulate. The first one you receive is a simple blue orb that you can toss at foes, but you'll eventually have a stable of them that can perform all manner of melee and ranged attacks. You'll eventually be able to equip two at a time, allowing you to tailor combat to your preferences [*] You'll also occasionally find game-altering relics lying around that can do things like allow you to double jump, navigate underwater, and pass through poison gas. With their general function and the ability to turn them on or off in the menu, these especially reminded me of [i]SotN[/i] [*] One thing I'd like to highlight is the surprising number of bosses in the game. If you decide to fight all the bosses (including the optional ones), you'll find yourself facing 15 big bads. Considering that the game is 6-10 hours long, that means that you're likely to fight multiple bosses during each hour of gameplay. I came away enjoying this aspect of the game due to the variety it injected. Mowing down regular mobs can get a little old after a while, so getting regularly beset by combat challenges kept the experience fresh [*] While I was a little annoyed at myself for not fully exploring the map, finding all the gear, or digging into all of the lore, I still don't really see a replay on the horizon soon. If anything, this has just whetted my appetite for replay of [i]SotN[/i] [/list] [h1]Overall Impressions & Performance[/h1] [h3]A pleasant surprise[/h3] [list] [*] Yes, it does lean in its influences quite a bit, but I usually find myself remarking on how much these games remind me of [i]Super Metroid[/i] than [i]Castlevania[/i]. It's worth looking into, if only for that consideration. It's about as close as you can get to [i]SotN[/i] without being a game that's actually made by Koji Igarashi like [i]Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon[/i] [*] Given that [i]Timespinner[/i] is a 2D platformer, it's unsurprising that it plays perfectly and looks great on the Steam Deck [h1]Final Verdict[/h1] [b]7.0[/b]/10. [i]Timespinners[/i] shakes out to be one of the better search action titles to arise from the Kickstarter boom in the mid 2010s. It doesn't reinvent the wheel (or even present any new ideas), and the in-game narrative doesn't always deliver on the promise of the worldbuilding, but it's a solid title with fun combat and well-designed bosses. A game doesn't have to be totally unique if it honors its influences well, after all

Credit where it's due, the art, sound and controls are top notch. Beautiful game, no bugs that I could see, smooth controls. Now the issues. First, the writing is terrible. Like, written by a teenage lesbian terrible. It was very important to include a scene where everyone discusses their sexual preferences, your character announces she is bisexual but not into polygamy. wow, riveting, and not cringe at all. Oh and the only love scene in the game is between 2 gay guys. So yeah, it reads like the fantasy of a young woman more than the scenario of a game. The plot is ridiculously convoluted and poorly presented, to the point where halfway through I just went don't care, let's just finish the game. There is a quest system, which is pretty uninteresting and is just go fetch this, go kill that, and most of the time you already have found the items that are requested, so you go in and out of the screen to refresh and turn in quests, that give seemingly no rewards. You have a leveling system, multiple weapons and armor... but it doesn't matter, you'll pretty much use the latest weapon, and use whatever as an armor (I used anything that gave luck bonus, to get through quests faster). The game is also very small, and the world feels claustrophobic. It's like playing a metroidvania, but taking away 80% of the map and leaving the player stuck in 2 small areas. This game had potential but ohhhh boy was it wasted, would not recommend.

A game with a lot of potential that ultimately feels completely wasted. Buy it only if you’re looking for a simple Metroidvania to spend a few hours on and preferably when it’s heavily discounted. Good: - Art - Music Bad: - Story (Probably written by a 14-year-old bisexual kid raised by gay parents, stuck in a polyamorous relationship, terrified of facing real life’s challenges, and convinced that killing a boomer dad would somehow save everything) - Gameplay (Utterly squandered - just spam attacks and you win) - Map (Repetitive and predictable) - Difficulty (Very low) - Items (Almost all of them are useless) - Side Quests (Waste of time) - Duration (5h ~ 8h)

good short Metroidvania

this game slaps