On Time Travel

[mjc0961]

Oh man, somehow I thought he was serious at the start, and then I read "Dear Yahtzee, You are a ******." and bust out laughing.

Anyway if we're going to discuss time travel in Zelda, forget Majora's Mask. Oracle of Ages made time travel much more interesting. Rather than just forcing you to start everything back at the start if you ran out of time, you had an entire overworld for the past and then another one for the present, and later on you'd have to constantly navigate between the two to solve puzzles and just get around. They even had a dungeon where you had to play it in both the past and the present to get to the end.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Timesplitters has time trvvel in it, but does it count since there is no game mechanics revolving around time manipulation?

 

[Jaebird]

Time Travel Analogy: Like pumping helium at Abraham Lincoln during the Gettsyburg Address, basically just for a laugh.

Thank you for this very hilarious food for thought. It's right up there with a Miyamoto Riddler getting angry every time a fan figures out the puzzle that is Zelda's timeline.

 

[Enigma6667]

In response to Chris E.:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is all.

Good analysis on time travel games, Yahtzee. I, as of now, can't think of any games aside from the ones you just mentioned other than Braid. Braid's time travel was used so sophisticatedly and devilishly well and the puzzles that required it were incredibly clever.

 

[Wolfram23]

Eternal Darkness was a pretty good game with a sort of time travel.

Also, Day of the Tentacle had to have been the best point-and-click adventure game I ever played.

 

[LesIsMore]

Surprised he didn't mention "Darkest of Days" after his praise for the premise in an earlier ZP - but the premise really has nothing to do with the gameplay mechanics, so I suppose I'm not too surprised.

"Braid" is definitely my favorite example of time reversal as a gameplay mechanic - at first glance it looks like a basic Mario-style platformer, until you realize that you have to slow and speed the progress of the world to make any progress. It requires some genuine skill to master the right use of the powers, and once you get the combinations correct it trumps any standard platformer there is.

 

[PhiMed]

I know you already had a PC game from 1993, but no love for Myst? I thought you were a member of the PC master race, Yahtzee!

 

[Manicotti]

Hey, I liked Majora's Mask. :3

I'm not sure if this really qualifies, but I've always loved Mario RPG: Partners in Time.

 

[findler]

Screed 2! Best time travel game evar!

 

[Stabby Joe]

I can now see Chris E becoming something of an in-joke at the Escapist.

The Ratchet & Clank Future trilogy had some interesting moment of time manipulation, a Crack in Time being the most stand out... but then again it's in the title.

The best game hands down about time travel is Timesplitters. Out of all the lot, Future Perfect had the most crazy story, especially with it's over lapping versions of the protagonist.

 

[Pseudonym2]

One thing that bothered me in all of these games is how the characters stay on the same planet. If the planet,sun, and galaxy are in orbit, wouldn't traveling through time involve getting stuck in space?

 

[Loonerinoes]

Feeling a bit fat and insecure, as you yourself put it, as of late and need your fanbase to mock random moronic fanboy #452955 for an ego boost Yahtzee?

Either way...I am moreso than ever intrigued by the last game on the list now.

 

[Michael Dagastino]

I feel like The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages did a good job with the time travel thing as well.

 

[Stabby Joe]

Feeling a bit fat and insecure, as you yourself put it, as of late and need your fanbase to mock random moronic fanboy #452955 for an ego boost Yahtzee?

That's what the internet does afterall.

 

[RJ Dalton]

You seem to not have anything to do this week, because this article doesn't really have anything interesting to say. Singularity really didn't give you anything to talk about other than a non-comprehensive list of time travel games that don't provide anything interesting about time travel to talk about (aside from Day of the Tentacle, but even then, you didn't appear to be really making a point)?

 

[Booze Zombie]

Was that real? The message from Chris E, I mean.
It's just... it seems a bit too well punctuated to have actually been typed by someone with an I.Q below 70, but then the content of the message completely contradicts that.
Oh well.

I think Time Splitters did quite well overall with the time travel element, though, I don't really think the player ever had any control over said element.
It was quite amusing, well-placed, the gameplay was enjoyable and the settings were interesting... not to mention the humour.

"Banana. Don't ask."

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

I'd argue that Majora's Mask is time travel done perfectly, in that it isn't a gameplay mechanic so much as part of the environment that can be controlled on a game-wide scale.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Oh, well, Chrissy is my personal hero at this point. Such style and grace. I have not seen such great debating since, well, ever.
My personal favorite game involving time traveling has to be the very splendid TimeSplitter franchise. Most notably: TimeSplitters 3. There's time traveling in it so it's allowed xD

You have stolen the words from my mouth. Time splitters was pretty fun, but I wish it incorporated time into the game mechanics iteself

 

[SaintWaldo]

You could even bring up Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and no doubt gain the approval of Chris E.

I'd rather bring up Legend of Labia: Majora's Minora, because I'm quite sure Chris E. never played with that toy set.

 

[t_rexaur]

I've not played it, but Sonic 06 had some time travel in it didn't it?

Although according to the Let's Play it's pretty much as bad as the rest of the game.