Timespinner

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

Timespinner is a Metroidvania that tells the story of a young woman that is the latest in a line of Time Messengers, people chosen by their nomadic village to go back in time to prevent disasters before they happen. Unfortunately, the evil empire that had been hounding her people caught up to them just as they were making their latest time jump, interrupting the process and sending her careening through time just after seeing her village destroyed and her mother killed. Now, she aims to try to make use of the remnants of the time device, the titular Timespinner, and try to get her revenge, or maybe even find a way to set things right again.

Graphically, Timespinner is a game that has a strong “16-bit” aesthetic, with a pixel art world and characters that feel like they would have been right at home on the Super Nintendo. Overall, the game has a very appealing look, mixing science-fiction and fantasy elements in a way that’s fairly unique and memorable, even as it feels remarkably familiar in a lot of places (but more on this in a bit). Likewise, the game’s soundtrack is excellent, with some catchy tunes to listen to as you explore the game’s world… although again, you’ll find yourself getting a very familiar feeling from this game’s tunes.

Okay, enough beating around the bush – this game is very clearly inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night even more than most modern Metroidvanias tend to do, in pretty much every element of the game save for its story and themes. The mechanics are similar, many of the power-ups were lifted whole cloth from Castlevania, and even the game’s menus feel very much like someone was trying to copy Symphony of the Night.

However, that need not be a bad thing – if you’re going to copy, you copy the best, and I would argue that still to this day, Symphony of the Night is still probably the pinnacle of its genre. And like I always say for games that try to copy another game’s formula, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as the game does it well. So the question is… does it?

Well… yes, actually. Very well. Combat in Timespinner is fluid and varied, with a good amount of options for weapons and different attacks, as well as a variety of memorable enemy types that require different tactics to fight. There are also some very good boss fights here, with a few that really challenged me.

And while it copies a lot from Symphony, Timespinner isn’t afraid to deviate in places to form its own identity, such as its equipment-crafting system that lets players use collected components to create various equipment to customize their experience, as well as its system of rotating profiles that lets you keep three loadouts, each with two weapons, that players can swap between at the press of a button. And of course there’s the mechanic of using the titular timespinner to temporarily freeze enemies, which is used throughout the game to get to tricky out-of-reach areas by using enemies as footstools.

Timespinner actually manages to improve on Symphony of the Night in a few ways too. While Symphony’s latter half is largely segmented off from the rest of the game, Timespinner introduces its second half early on, and ensures that both halves (each a different time period) allow easy fast-travel back and forth. What’s more, save points automatically save as you pass them, with is a nice QoL feature. And Timespinner makes its story a central part of the game, which is good because this game’s story is fairly interesting with some memorable characters, even if there are a few parts that are cringe-worthy, such as the protagonist’s constant casual mentions of revenge.

Having said that, there are some areas where this game definitely falls short. This game is overall about two-thirds the length of Symphony of the Night, and that short playtime eats into the complexity of the level design. In fact, the overall game map is extremely horizontal in its layout, meaning that you’re far less likely to work your way through an area only to stumble into a place you’ve already been, one of the nice discoveries of most Metroidvanias. This horizontal level design also really makes it noticeable just how many lengthy horizontal areas there are with nothing but perhaps a handful of enemies to make things interesting.

And while the weapons and equipment you acquire in Timespinner are nicely varied, there isn’t anywhere near the sheer quantity of fun unique items that’s in something like Symphony. And overall, this game feels like there are fewer secrets hiding around, waiting for your discovery. And when you do gain a new ability, it often feels like there’s only a few places where you can use that ability to reach new places.

There are also issues with missed opportunities here. The protagonist’s time-manipulating abilities make for a lot of wonderful possibilities in her power set, and in manipulating the environment around her. Sadly, this rarely plays an element in the game. Time travel is an extremely important part of the game’s plot, but when it comes to the gameplay, it’s primarily just used for freezing enemies temporarily and traversing from one map location to another. It really feels like this game could have done so much more with this.

The majority of Timespinner’s problems are byproducts of the main two issues, though – the game’s overly spread-out horizontal level design, and the game’s overall short length. I feel like, if this game had about 30% more area placed on top of (or beneath) what already exists in the game, and filled with just as much variety and stuff to discover, this is a game that very well could rival Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in terms of how good the overall experience here is, and that is no small feat.

So, while Timespinner is clearly copying a lot of its formula from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, it doesn’t quite reach those same heights. However, while it’s not quite as good as arguably the best game in the genre, it is still extremely good, and fans of Metroidvanias should absolutely give it a try, as this is one of the better entries in the genre in recent years.

tl;dr – Timespinner is a Metroidvania about a time-traveling girl looking to use her abilities to take down the evil empire that destroyed her village, or perhaps find a way to set things right. This is a game that is very clearly trying to imitate Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in numerous ways, and for the most part it does a stellar job of it, though the game is overall smaller and its map more spread out, which lead to some other issues. However, while it may not be quite as good as Symphony, it’s still a superb Metroidvania, and one well worth playing for fans of the genre.

Grade: A-

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