Time Recoil Review (Switch)

Introduction

Time Recoil is a top-down perspective shooter that takes place in the 80s. You play as the rouge scientist Alexa and after you find out what's going on in your lab, you defect to put a stop to it. Only to be captured and experimented on with different time travel tests and injections. Once you finally wake up from the tests, you realize you can travel through time without dying like previous participants. You even have new powers to help you through your travels like stopping time or dashing through walls. This game's story can take you about 5-6 hours to complete, during these missions you may find yourself doing much of the same. The game is fun and brings back memories of the old flash top-down shooter games on PC.

You can purchase Time Recoil for 13.99$ on the Nintendo Eshop.

Story

Time Recoil takes place back in the late 80s when a renowned scientist called Mr. Time decides to take matters into his own hands. He works in secret to create a powerful device, this device helps him take over Europe and causes the other countries to fall in line. This device destroyed areas in Paris and completely took it over, that was the moment everyone knew they had no chance of winning. Mr. Time wasn't a likable man, in fact, everyone hated him. Because of this, people who used to work for him decided to defect and turn away from the remaining projects. Some were captured and possibly killed, others managed to escape and take some of the time travel technology with them.

Once everything settled down they began plotting against Mr. Time. They started going back in time looking for documents, any information they can find about Mr. Time and his machines. That's when they find Alexa, she's the character you play as, they bring her back and test you to see if you can survive time travel. After a few tests they bring you onto the team, then it is established that you will be the main person traveling through time. Because of the experiments, you had done on you, you find out from the director you are the only one who can come back safely. The other time travelers usually died doing these tests, but your character is able to survive.

Gameplay

The main premise of this game is being able to travel back and forth through time. Your main job is to grab documents, save other scientists, kill certain people, and the list goes on. The story is interesting and in the beginning, it brings you in and you can follow the story. But after a while, I started to notice that the gameplay didn't really fit with the story anymore. It lost its appeal, not to say that the gameplay was bad it just got old after awhile. You go around similar buildings, some of these buildings you can go up and down floors as well. They remotely look the same, but the layout is still different in a sense. Most of the missions you notice that you are stealing some form of intel or destroying some base. It can get repetitive or old after a while, the story might not be as engaging when you get to the end because it is more of the same.

The gameplay in this game is simple, you press one button to shoot and melee. You use another button to time travel back and that's really it in the way of controls. You go into a level with a pistol because the machine can only handle small metal objects. Your objective is usually to steal a few documents that were stolen from you, or kill a few bad guys and save a few people. Sometimes you get missions that follow a unique request from a character.  After going through the story a bit, you will see that there aren't really a lot of different missions. They have you usually doing one of the things I mentioned earlier. The story is interesting but it doesn't keep players engaged with it for long periods of time. In terms of powers, you get these after going through the story a little bit. You also start learning new moves as the story progresses and gets harder. Some, for example, let you dash through walls after killing two enemies. While big moves like time freeze require you to kill 6 or 8 enemies to use it. This will be the theme throughout the game and it's very fast-paced. In later levels, you can also find different weapons like SMGs or Assualt Rifles. But these weapons are rare and usually spawn once on a map. You can find them at the later levels when you have multiple floors to get through.

You will often find yourself dying over and over and getting frustrated. Since you only have one life as the levels get longer they add more groups of enemies. But this will cause you to think more carefully about going into certain areas. I often found myself going through half of the level and dying to an enemy behind me. Time Recoil makes you think more and keeps you on your toes; some people may not enjoy that gameplay style. The gameplay is fun though, it challenges you and makes you use your abilities in the right areas. But you also have some choice on how you want it done, you can run and gun, or you can save your shots for different areas. Overall the gameplay is solid, the missions themselves can get repetitive after a long period of doing them.

Graphics

The graphics aren't bad but they don't stand out like other games. When you go into other levels, you will find that most of the layout is the same or similar to one another. You aren't playing this game for the graphics, but if you want a variety of different scenes this isn't the game for you. I don't mind the graphics, they actually remind me of one of those old flash PC games with updated graphics. But after seeing the same colors over and over after a while you lose interest in it. You start to understand that these backgrounds are more or less the same. Does that mean it's a bad thing? No, their other games have styles similar to this. But this game, in particular, you notice it from the beginning. Most of the hallways and walls have the same color texture. Almost all the paintings in an area are of Mr. Time, which makes sense because he's a dictator. I feel it would help the levels more to add maybe a different art-style of Mr. Time. The graphics overall are solid especially on the Switch, they are lacking in a few areas however.

Audio

The audio in this game has soundtracks that sound like old 80s electric themes. You can tell with some of the songs that some references were put in there. Most of them come from the music artist Nightstop. The songs add a nice touch to the theme of the game and fit the timeline. Nightstop uses an original soundtrack that compliments the time travel theme and some areas in the story. Some of the songs add a club mix kind of vibe, while other songs add more of an electric dance. I think the music selection for this game was a good choice, it's good to hear when you're dashing through walls. if you were looking for a different music selection, you won't find that here. Most of the songs here fall into that area of music. I feel that most people can get into it even if they don't like this genre of music. The music in this is a nice touch, I didn't feel bothered by it during the amount of time I played the game for. All of these tracks are good enough to be listened too outside of the game.

Conclusion

Time Recoil is a nice break from other shooters and platformers on the Switch. You get to enjoy some while and come back you can jump in. Time Recoil also has a long story that can keep you engaged for a while. Which also has a nice 80s soundtrack that differs from other games. This game isn't perfect though, the graphics aren't bad but they don't really stand out. You can go through all the levels in this game and still feel as if you went through the same office building. The missions themselves don't really differ from each other. Overall the game is nice and easy to play, so I recommend giving it a shot if you are still looking for games on the Switch.