Super Meat Boy, Limbo, Fez, Papers, Please!, Minecraft, Hotline Miami and many more, these games take us back to a simpler time, a time where graphics were not the be all and end all of gaming. Instead gameplay and having fun reigned supreme. These titles remind us that games don’t need to have massive budgets, big Hollywood voice talents, require a massive open world to explore or have a huge promotional campaign. They become successful through world of mouth and because they epitomise what gaming is all about. Having fun. We can add a new title to that list because Super TIME Force ticks all the boxes needed to become the next big indie breakout game.
Super TIME Force is a manic, hyper-action platformer from Capybara Games. Think Contra with zany humour and time travel and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. Every level in Super TIME Force is a race against the clock to get to the end. You’ll often find yourself requiring more time to traverse the levels many hazards and enemies. This is where the time manipulation comes in to play.
A limited number of Time Outs can be used at any time to pause and rewind the timeline. This will also give you the option to use a new character providing you with multiple time lines. Did your last character die from a stray bullet? Rewind the game, select a new character and kill that enemy because he has time to shoot and save your former-self’s life. Doing this will allow you to collect your previous player as a sort of power up making your weapon more powerful. Running out of Time Outs? Look out for Glorbs, which add an addition Time Out, Shards, which allow players to slow down time or the ten second clock-extension pick ups which are littered through each level. This time mechanic and additional pick ups make the game incredible chaotic and provides a very satisfying and strategic challenge.
The Super TIME Force is a team made up several unique characters each with their signature weapon, assigned to the X button, and a signature charged attack, powered up by holding X for a couple of seconds. Initially the team comprising of just three characters but they do a good job of allowing the player to understand the game mechanics without overwhelming them with multiple characters and different ways to play. My early favourite was Jean Rambois who has a machine gun that as standard fires bullets in a straight line or charged up to unleashes a massive, three-directional spread shot. Aimy McKillin is the sniper and one I learned to love during my early playthrough. She’s equipped with bullets that bounce off of walls to make killer enemies in tricky places a lot easier, and a charged attack that can blast through walls and multiple enemies. Finally we have Shieldy Blockerson whose shield can stop enemy fire as well as charge up and create a bubble force field that will protect everyone inside it. These three are just the start of the wacky characters you’ll meet and play with throughout the game as many levels will have a special character to rescue and unlock for the rest of your journey and they range from wacky to mind-bogglingly insane.
The story of Super TIME Force follows the same zany trend. The story begins when Commander Repeatski, your boss of Super TIME Force, discovers time travel, thus changing the world and giving the team a chance to save the world from impending doom….or at least that’s what you’d expect to be told. Instead Repeatski will often send you on ridiculous tasks of very minor importance, such as having to get better internet for your spaceship so he can download funny cat videos. The game has a fantastic sense of humour written throughout the missions which seems to get more ridiculous the longer you play. It never gets old and it always got a hearty chuckle from me.
After completing the initial levels players have the option to travel between different levels, much like the classic Mega Man titles, each with their own specific time period. You could be fighting future armies in one level or travelling back in time and helping with the extinction of the dinosaurs. There’s even the occasion mini-boss battles to help break up any monotony you could encounter, though with how insane the gameplay is there’s very little chance of that.
Super TIME Force controls and runs absolutely perfectly. In a game like this you can often mark down a death as an error in the games design rather than your own mistake. Not this time. Every death feels like it is the player’s fault and it’s this feeling of knowing “I could have done better” that makes Super TIME Force an addictive beast. You’ll always want just one more go. The platforming feels great as you jump around the landscape effortlessly and feels very natural. Shooting enemies is also a joy and accurate to whichever direction you aim for. And to Super TIME Force’s credit there is absolutely no lag or framerate issues that I experienced which is fantastic considering all the chaos you can encounter on screen as you have tens of characters blasting away on screen.
Lets get on to the big one. The graphics. The one aspect of gaming nearly all games are judged on before any other. Well…take a look at the screenshots. It looks like a LucasArts adventure game from the 90’s. But that’s perfect. The pixelated graphics add to the charm and style of Super TIME Force much like they did for indie-classic Fez. I’d argue that if the graphics were any different the game wouldn’t be as enjoyable. It’s the simplicity of the well-made pixel art that make the game look incredibly beautiful. Each pixel has been placed with a purpose and the world has been just as lovingly created with an attention to details as any major overpriced AAA title.
Super TIME Force is not the longest game, far from it in fact. You can expect to start and finish the game in an afternoon, maybe a little longer but there are reasons to keep replaying. Each level has various medals to earn earned, Glorbs and Shards to collect in addition to some secret collectibles hiding in hard to reach areas. Collecting every medal in one category unlocks a new character, giving players an added incentive to keep playing and try out their new soldier. Want to punish yourself? Try out the Super Hardcore mode that ramps up the difficulty by allowing each character to die just once.
Super TIME Force is one of the best Xbox exclusives in recent memory. The gameplay and style may not be for everyone but if you like your indie games, if you like Contra, if you like trying something different then this is the game for you. It’ll take you back to a simpler time, when homework could wait until the morning, your games came on a cartridge and installing them simply meant pressing the ‘on’ button.
Super TIME Force is out now for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.