Timespinner

On the planet of Winderia, a colony of the empire of Lachiem, Emperor Nuvius is looking for the Timespinner, an ancient device capable of sending its user back in time. The Qaelans, original inhabitants of Winderia, are the protectors and keepers of the Timespinner. Sending back into the time a clan member each generation, they make sure their clan is always aware of any imminent dangers.

We will take on the role of Lunais, a member of the Qaelans and chosen time traveler. During her farewell party, the empire finds the clan hideout. Lunais is therefore forced to flee together with her mother Selen and quickly use the Timespinner. Emperor Nuvius, in an attempt to stop them, kills Selen while she uses the temporal device.

Thus the Timespinner is destroyed, while Lunais finds herself in an unknown world that will turn out to be Lachiem, the capital of the empire, and swears revenge against its emperor. During her adventure, she will get the ability to travel between the present and a thousand years distant past.

I want to start by mentioning a couple of aspects of the game that I found particularly well-made and that I found pretty interesting.
The first one is the themes the game discusses. The game events force the characters to ask themself if what they have always believed in is right or wrong. For example, some characters question their society and the hierarchical order that is constituted, wondering if it is okay to feel superior to an individual belonging to a lower class. Others question the war they are fighting and the reasons behind it.

The second aspect that I want to mention is the collectibles. They have the function of expanding the lore further. Most players – me in particular – do not read all the various notes or additional info that can be found inside a video game. But I have to say that those I found in Timespinner are particularly interesting. They are letters or notes written by some NPCs and they are capable, in their brevity, to outline the personalities and the feelings of those NPCs and make us understand the reasons behind their actions and behind what is happening around us.

The gameplay is similar to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in several aspects. There are GDR elements like leveling up by killing enemies, modifying the equipment to increase the statistics and the increasing ability of the enemies with the continuation of the adventure.

The attack is no longer carried out with swords or whips as in Castlevania but through the protagonist’s Aura powers. The latter are of different types: some of these, like spheres of fire, allow us to carry out attacks at a distance, while others take the form of weapons such as hammers or swords and perform powerful melee attacks. Each of these energy spheres, called Orbs, has its level, which is separate from the level of the protagonist. They also have a type that allows us to do more damage to enemies weak to that exact one. We’ll find some Orbs on our main path, others instead will require some backtracking or are hidden in secret rooms behind destructible walls.

In addition to the basic attack with the Orbs, we have a powerful magical attack that uses our Magic Points. These powers, which are one for each type of Orb, share the level with the Orbs. We don’t get them at the same time as the Orbs but we will have to buy them later.

Another aspect inherited by SOTN is the familiars. These are small in number and have their level, which increases with their use. Unfortunately, having all of them on a separate level makes the use of any other familiar besides the first one counterproductive. In particular, the first one we obtain always has the highest LV and so is always much stronger than the others. In addition, we can only get a couple of these familiars in the last few moments of the adventure.

As in Sotn, as the adventure continues we will get relics, objects that will provide us with skills useful to reach previously inaccessible areas. In particular, we will get the classic double jump, the ability to swim underwater, the slide, and some others. A mechanic that distinguishes the game from Sotn and other Metroidvania is the stopping time mechanic. Thanks to a piece of the Timespinner we will be able to stop the time to avoid attacks or use the enemies as platforms. The usage of this skill is linked to the use of the sands of time, a resource easily obtainable from the lanterns scattered throughout the game world.

The game can be played at 3 different difficulties and there is also a NewGame+ that will make us restart the adventure with all the Orbs, all the skills, and all the equipment we obtained previously. Played on normal difficulty Timespinner is quite an easy challenge with some rare difficulty peaks. It is possible to defeat all the bosses by simply spamming magic attacks. Maybe a greater consumption of MP with their use would have made the boss fights more exciting and the whole game more challenging.

The are four different endings: two are intermediate endings and the others are “True endings”. We can get 3 of them in a single run, while a second run is necessary to get the fourth. It takes about 8 hours to get to the credits completing the game at 100%, while playing the game in NG+ mode is significantly quicker.