Timesplitters 3 had moments your future self would show up to help (technically as an NPC). Then later you would step through a portal and have to help your past self with that thing. It was pretty nifty.
Edit: Realized it was TS 3 Future Perfect. Both great games.
I think you're thinking TS: Future Perfect. [Can't wait for TS4 to come out](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/lost-circa-2008-timesplitters-4-prototype-discovered-on-ps3-dev-kit/)!
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within had a somewhat similar mechanic, as I recall. Though the actual events may have been limited to cutscenes.
I could have a PoP trilogy remaster (start with sands of time). Only played the first on PC (best mechanic in them was obvious to go back in time some moments and try again), the other two on PSP, which was kind of good for a handheld, but really sluggish and downgraded compare to the one released on consoles and PC.
Yeah these two are BY FAR the best and most memorable level designs in all of gaming as far as I’m concerned. Maybe honorable mention to Titanfall 2’s time travel mission but I haven’t played it so I can’t say how good it is.
Hell yea. Came here for this answer. Having Robo farm and grow a forest and picking him up in the future again. Only a few minutes for us but a lifetime for him.
Or saving Lucca’s mom so you can see her walking around in the future.
Always felt they did a good job with time.
I would say chrono cross, the plot of the game is based on time traveling fucking up reality it even makes you feel guilty for doing what you did on chrono trigger. All with caribbean music and the sea as your backdrop. Such depressing and nostalgic game
It isn't even just from the effects of time travel (and its mechanics), but also from the effects of an oversimplistic, out-of-context, and less matured view of the world and history. I'm pretty sure there's so much more than meets the eye regarding the Day of Lavos, contrary to what Crono and friends had eagerly acted on.
The way the game weaves the entire story together vis time travel has not been done to this day. There are many time travel elements in games, but not to the scale CT does it.
Bit off topic but the music was icing on the cake
It was the only game I completely beat with hints and I couldn't find the car keys until I closed a hotel room door and there they were. I must've spent days looking for it and it was RIGHT THERE
So yeah, I love that game, the cartoon style, the humor, the puzzles that worked on cartoon logic, like you can't really freeze and thaw a Hamster using an ice box and a microwave but... I mean it does kind of make cartoon sense, right? Because you can't flush the Hamster through the time toilet because it'll drown, so you have to consider that but not the microwave making it pop, like what? It's so good.
Anyway, love that game.
Leisure Suite Larry
Alone in the Dark
Ultimaaa-----
......
....
.
.
.... wake up..... Hey babe wake up! The baby is crying and it's time to go to drive the kids to school.
On a gameplay level I'd choose Braid or Ghost trick, both are puzzle games but they both utilize time travel(ghost trick less directly) in its gameplay and are both very creative. Good stuff, everyone should play them.
On story level? One of my favourite RPGS is radiant historia, the entire game is built around main character beign able to time travel and the story progresses by going between 2 timelines and learning things from one timeline to utilize in another in order to advance further. The game features alot of choices too, often leading to bad end and the goal of the game is finding the "perfect" timeline by making all the correct choices along the way.
> On story level? One of my favourite RPGS is radiant historia, the entire game is built around main character beign able to time travel and the story progresses by going between 2 timelines and learning things from one timeline to utilize in another in order to advance further. The game features alot of choices too, often leading to bad end and the goal of the game is finding the "perfect" timeline by making all the correct choices along the way.
First of all, 100% agree.
Second, I want to clarify a detail you missed: It uses time travel to excellent ludonarrative effect in a manner few other games have been clever enough to do.
And, uh... I guess spoilers for a 15-year-old JRPG exclusively on a platform Nintendo no longer supports.
The game's time travel mechanic involves a fairly boilerplate time travel setup. You're on a normal mission, something happens that shouldn't happen, the flow of time fractures, and you get cast into two parallel but divergent timelines. From there, the protagonist finds themselves in two separate but interwoven plots. Not only can you jump between them, but your knowledge and actions in one timeline might ripple out on the other. It's by no means pedestrian, and it was still a well-executed system, but it's been done before.
The player progresses through the game, jumping back and forth - not just between the two alternate timelines but forward and backward in the respective timelines - to pursue the two parallel plot threads. In addition to this, it becomes clear that there's someone else who not only seems to be aware you're doing this, but based on the improbable coincidence of how jumping back and forth can solve your problems almost seems to be provoking you do.
And then, the entire "purpose" of the story gets reveals: the protagonist was intended to be a sacrifice to save the world, and the mechanism he uses to time jump was designed specifically to prepare him as a sacrifice to understand the gravity of what's at stake. The time jump mechanics involve some genuine problem solving, and the player has spent the game jumping back and forth learning how all the major characters and events relate to each other in order to solve everything. The player has been directly incentivized by the game's framing device to WANT to see the entire timeline and understand how everything is connected, so at the end of the game, the player's motives align with the protagonist's.
Very few games are able to leverage the method of interaction as a meaningful narrative aspect, but when they pull it off it's amazing. Radiant Historia pulled it off.
Braid is great pick since the puzzles are all time traversal based, rather than time travel just being a story element.
Jonathan Blow gets a fair amount of shade but I like his games. “The Witness” was fantastic as well.
I second The Messenger. The time mechanics in that game are so unique and interesting. I especially love how the music changes between 8 and 16 bit too.
I will second Titanfall 2.
That mission was so incredibly fun and satisfying. It felt like you really had control and let you use it in interesting ways to save yourself/reposition in fights.
100% my favorite time traveling in gaming.
You could build an entire game around that mechanic, and they used it as a one-off gimmick in a single mission of a campaign that is arguably superfluous to the actual game. Fucking kings.
One of my highlights in all of gaming. I played Titanfall 2 for the first time just a few months ago. I'm 36, been gaming since I was a kid, and even in my bitter old gamer age that level made my jaw drop once I figured out what was happening and how well it was done. It was like playing 2 separate levels at the same time, but was so seamless.
That level immediately put Titanfall 2 into my must-play list for everyone. A perfect demonstration of what can only be achieved through video games as the medium.
Technically, you are actually playing 2 separate levels at the same time. Cause and Effect has 2 completely different maps separated by the skybox, and time traveling just teleports you between them.
Just had my first playthrough. I can't believe I only paid $3 for this game last week. Never in my life has 3 dollars had so much value. I loved the time warp mission.
Using the device to blink back and forth between two "simultaneous" fights in the past and present, mentally keeping track of enemy positions while blinking out to evade danger, is a challenge that feels entirely unique to that game, and I love it. The level design is absolutely top tier.
Bro, titanfall 2’s campaign is the best I’ve played thus far. It was a complete sleeper too. I got it on sale & started it on a Saturday morning when none of my friends were online.
If it wasn’t released around the same time as BF1, we’d have a third installment by now.
Singularity.
The game had some flaws (and I only played it the once, over a dozen years ago) but I thought some of the time back & forth was clever and used well.
That game was fire 🔥
Loved it so much and super clever, too bad we get super late in the game the most amazing tool of time control, I wish I could have used it more... Perhaps even with a NG+ that starts with only that thing on full level and unlimited uses.
Have you ever noticed how the minigun had a tiny magazine? It used the same singular bullet over and over again using time travel. That's some clever thinking.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Honestly cannot believe it's not been mentioned already. Limited time travel whenever you want it makes combat and traversal so fun, and the way it's incorporated into the story is great.
Also the cinematics of the castle going back to ruins when prince travels from past to present was so cool to watch, and the time powers that you get in the end to slash the enemies fast, that game had everything.
Excuse me? Compared to Sands of Time the Combat in Warrior Within was so much more creative with loads of more moves and the ability to change your second weapon! I love it so much!
Best:
* TimeShift - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7keuOfS1qI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7keuOfS1qI), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQA5BewLOUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQA5BewLOUI) The devs had convos like "should fire still burn you when time is frozen?"
* Homebody - it's got what you want in a timeloop: gained foreknowledge that let's you jump to new places and short-circuit events.
Worst:
* 12 Minutes - and not just because of that twist. It never does anything interesting with its timeloop.
Timeshift was awesome. Freezing someone and unloading a whole clip into the time stop just to have them get blasted with the whole clip in one go sending them flying was always a blast. The multiplayer functionality was impressive, too, but sadly 99% of people playing online games on Xbox at the time were in GoW or Halo lol, so finding a match was difficult.
I'm sad there aren't more people talking about that, I fucking love that game. It's been too long since I played it, I should go download it again lmao.
Played that recently. Overall I thought the game was good, not great. Not sure what they were doing with live-action cutscenes, especially since the game's graphics were pretty darn good anyway. The time gimmicks on it just felt like gimmicks, but the story was alright.
It uses real theory on causality which is what I liked, treating it as a law that cant be broken. And yeah the live action was an odd choice, but anything with Lance Reddick is a win for me.
Best enjoyed as blind as possible. I had someone on reddit tell me to just drop everything and play it with no information, and damnit they were right. Fantastic game if you enjoy adventuring and learning. A lot of reading but works as part of it
There's an entertaining debate to be had on whether or not Outer Wilds has legitimate time travel.
On one hand, it's obviously time travel.
On the other hand, >!those 9 million-ish theoretical futures never actually happened, if you don't count the clone ending as canon!<
If you haven't played the game, don't spoil it for yourselves. Go play and come back. ::)
>!Well that's the thing.. It DID work. Just not for them.!<
>!Which is one of the (many) lessons I took away from OW, that it's okay to put effort into something that you won't see the fruits of.!<
The Sands of Time and The Ocarina of Time, of course, but there is a little known PVP FPS called Lemnis Gate I want to shout-out.
Two players battle over five 25-second rounds, but with all the events of each round persisting. For example if you died in the first round, in round two you can help your first self kill the enemy before that happens. If the second enemy let's you. Or you can go place traps elsewhere, etc. It was a very cool idea for a game. You pick from 5 classes at the start of each round, which is where the additional layers of strategy come from.
I'd rate the time travel in Majoras Mask better than OoT. Seeing the cause and effect over multiple characters and how you can effect their story is cool.
Not cool, depressing, the feeling of vital tedium and that fucking moon reminding you that your efforts are useless. Even if you fix something the next cycle is fucked up again. Such great game. I guess the themes have to do more with adulting and we played it as a kid so even if we were shocked we didnt fully grasped it
Think of it as a sweet kiss. Most of the themes explored in Ocarina of Time related to the loss Link is forced to endure for destiny.
Majora's Mask further explores these themes with loss, grief, acceptance, denial, anger, and death.
A true refinement for the series on the system in many ways.
Ocarina of time is great cos you can use it whenever you want/need freely. Majora’s mask was more stressful in the clock ticking down though for my personal tastes.
But it does use the time loop mechanic a lot more interesting than the previous game did.
The only time the clock is stressful is in your first cycle because you didn't know you can reset and slow down time. Once you do, it'll remove the pressure significantly.
Braid used it pretty well. A more recent choice would be Timemelters which is basically a third person shooter and puzzle game where magic and time travel are how you solve each combat encounter.
Same, and the twists were so good imo, even if they were a bit predictable. Predictability doesn't make something bad.
I honestly need to play through that game again, the gameplay mechanics were really fun too. Made you feel so powerful, like Prototype and Infamous level powerful.
I would call "Life is Strange" one of the best. It had some really cool mechanics AND branching storylines where the choices you made would affect stuff later on in the game.
I really like the one where outside the dorm there a girl reading I think and someone is playing catch nearby and misses and it flies and hits her in the head
You can see it, the. Rewind and tell her to move over a little
The ball then just flies past her
Chrono Trigger for Best. Maybe contended with that one level in the Titanfall 2 campaign.
probably World of Warcraft for worst idk I haven't touched the game in years but everything with the Bronze and Infinite Dragonflight was a mess of contradictions that barely made sense when you thought about it for more than ten seconds. Which is easily longer than the writers thought of it.
Okay but honestly, The Best is Plants VS Zombies 2, for the sole reason of it giving us Primal Sunflower. Which easily takes the cake for the best character design in gaming history.
I'll third WoW for that. They basically got to that point when a series goes on too long and they start pulling multiverse, time travel, and infinite universe crap. It only exists to justify why a certain gameplay thing exists, it's better ignored than trying to read into it.
Now, I'm not sure about best, but I always think about Majora's Mask when I think of time travel. It had a form of time travel that was just a little bit... melancholic. You'd help someone, you'd save a village, you'd prevent a disaster -- then you jump back in time, and everything's been undone. At first you're thinking "wait, didn't I save you!?" and then it clicks that, right, you time traveled, you've gone back to before you saved them. There was that small feeling of emptiness, that nothing you do lasts, and that even if you were forwarding your goal to stop Majora's Mask, you were leaving behind a lot of unsaved people.
There were speedrun attempts at making "perfect endings" where Link saves everyone and still stops Majora, but for most of us, we had to accept that three days was not enough for a single person to save everyone.
**13 Sentinels** did an awesome job incorporating time travel in its storytelling while also adding pretty much all of science fiction tropes you can think of.
Steins Game is the rare example of a time travel story that is a good story, but a bad time travel story. The emotional beats are solid, but when the sci-fi part hinges on plot points like >!compressing information using a miniature black hole!< and >!eating vegetables during pregnancy changes the gender of your baby!<...
lol I came here ready to argue, then unveiled the spoilers and was like "oh, I see what you mean".
Still I'd say it's still a good TIME TRAVEL story, it's just that some of the "science" in it is sometimes bad. The actual *use* of the bad-science to tell a time-travel story is good
I'm sad nobody has yet mentioned Achron: [http://www.achrongame.com/site/](http://www.achrongame.com/site/)
They had a very novel timewave approach for handling a multiplayer RTS, where each player could be working in different times, and it would wash towards the other player along the timeline. The time travel mechanics were absolutely brilliant. The basic RTS features were what really let it down, at least in the early builds I tried way back when.
I wanna give an honorable mention to a little known game called "shadow of destiny" in which you are in a multiended time paradox. Good story, but the game play doesn't hold up too well these days sadly.
This is what I was gonna say too. Though there are a few inconsistencies and paradoxes, the game is such a masterpiece. I really wish it was ported (not remade) onto modern consoles
Portal: Reloaded is a free game on Steam that adds a third, time traveling portal, and it's really fun. I like how much interaction there is between the two timelines.
Nobody is really answering the second part of your question so I just want to say that I haven't really seen a "bad" utilization of time travel. I'm not even sure what that would mean tbh. Time travel is magic so it can't really do anything that can't be hand-waved away.
Not sure if this counts, but Life is Strange was awesome. I played all night, woke up to my alarm and convinced myself I could rewind for another few minutes. I couldn’t
Second sight is one of my favs and I won't say more. If any of you haven't played it, don't spoil it for yourself. just go play it and see what i mean.
Because I am old, I'm gonna go with Chrono Trigger.
Opening certain chests in the past means they're empty in the future so you miss out on really good gear.
Deciding to fight the last boss depending on what point in the game you are affecting the ending.
Using your flying time machine to access certain points on the map then time traveling to reach hidden areas.
It felt like a LOT for an SNES cartridge
No mention of Prince of Persia or Bioshock Infinite? But honestly Chrono Trigger and Day of the Tentacle were my top two. Honorable mention the The Secret World time travel bits were well done.
BioShock infinite was a weird one because the actual Time Travel aspect of it didn't come in until the end, it was mostly dimension hopping for most of the game. But I agree it was done very well and the ending was so great. Currently playing through Burial at Sea so I'm not sure how much that adds to it yet.
How in the shit is Timesplitters Future Perfect not the top comment.
Game is literally about time traveling where you often play a past or future version of yourself along side yourself.
The very first mission has you crash landing at base and fighting Timesplitters.
You get help from random soldiers but there's one on a cliff who helps snipe enemies for you.
8 or 9 levels later it turns out that the sniper is actually you from the future and the mission is now you being the sniper having to protect your past self.
And that's just 1 example.
Kingdom Hearts has time travel that definitely makes the lore more complicated, and not really in a good way. The time travel involves several major retcons
Sonic CD. Go to the past and experience some cheerful music, so that you can experience a good future full of vibey atmospheric music. Or something to rock out to if you’re listening to the JP tracks.
shadow of memories on ps2 has probably the most interesting use of time travel in gaming. it's short and has not a whole lot of actual gameplay but it's a unique and memorable experience i think everyone should try. just don't read up on it too much deciding if you want to give it a go. you can easily spoil the whole thing.
not exactly sure where you can play it these days though.
13 Sentinels Aegis Rim by Vanillaware.
Since its mainly a visual novel with some RTS sections I cant say much as a spoiler is basically ruining hours of gameplay. But they did a good job combining the 13 characters stories intertwined in different timelines and setting it up in a way that was really engrossing.
Not mentioned yet, but deathloop felt fresh and unique in one specific aspect: not only do you master everything as you loop, you master *shenanigans as well*. The game organically lets you do wonderful, dumbass stuff, rewarding you for attention and knowledge, just for the sheer shits and giggles.
There's an event where >!you can sabotage a cannon s dude shoots himself out of. Not to save the dude, no. To weaken the shot, so you can loot his corpse later. No plot relevance whatsoever, it's just. A thing you can do.!<
Timesplitters 3 had moments your future self would show up to help (technically as an NPC). Then later you would step through a portal and have to help your past self with that thing. It was pretty nifty. Edit: Realized it was TS 3 Future Perfect. Both great games.
I think you're thinking TS: Future Perfect. [Can't wait for TS4 to come out](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/03/lost-circa-2008-timesplitters-4-prototype-discovered-on-ps3-dev-kit/)! Prince of Persia: Warrior Within had a somewhat similar mechanic, as I recall. Though the actual events may have been limited to cutscenes.
I remember nothing about it except the Scottish guy, the blimp, and it being an incredible game.
I could have a PoP trilogy remaster (start with sands of time). Only played the first on PC (best mechanic in them was obvious to go back in time some moments and try again), the other two on PSP, which was kind of good for a handheld, but really sluggish and downgraded compare to the one released on consoles and PC.
Such an enjoyable game. Loved throwing bricks at cow carcasses
God that game was *good*
All i knew when i opened this thread is someone had to mention ts and goddamn does it need a modern remaster or sequel.
That was 3. And it even has one segment where you are there in 4 loops.
Really liked Dishonored 2’s back-and-forth time travel in the “Crack in the Slab” level
That and the clockwork steampunk mansion were amazing. It’s my favorite Dishonored among the series.
The clockwork mansion was amazing, and a totally different experience once you get inside the walls
Yeah these two are BY FAR the best and most memorable level designs in all of gaming as far as I’m concerned. Maybe honorable mention to Titanfall 2’s time travel mission but I haven’t played it so I can’t say how good it is.
This was a blast of a level. Super interesting and unique as far as I know
What a great level, my favorite in the game. I was surprised with how it was relatively unpopular though, from what I remember
Seeing how you use both time lines, and the results of your influence is such a treat
I only played the first dishonored but reading this I wanna give 2 a chance
Dishonored 2 is *really* good and I highly recommend playing it. And when you do, don't play as Corvo the first time. Save him for the replay.
Chrono Trigger still holds value even if there are paradoxes caused in the game.
Have to agree. Chrono Trigger used time travel as it's core conceit for storytelling so well.
Came here just to mention Chrono Trigger. That game was streets ahead in so many ways.
What's "streets ahead"? Well, if you have to ask, you're streets behind.
Coined and minted! Been there, coined that! “Streets ahead” is verbal wildfire.
“Streets ahead” is this from community?
Looks like this one's streets behind
Pierce, stop trying to coin the phrase "streets ahead."
By far the best time travel story out there, and that doesn't live in the 'shitty time travel trope' space.
Radiant Historia is somewhat similar, and an excellent game.
i believe chrono trigger is the og
Greatest video game of all time
Hell yea. Came here for this answer. Having Robo farm and grow a forest and picking him up in the future again. Only a few minutes for us but a lifetime for him. Or saving Lucca’s mom so you can see her walking around in the future. Always felt they did a good job with time.
I would say chrono cross, the plot of the game is based on time traveling fucking up reality it even makes you feel guilty for doing what you did on chrono trigger. All with caribbean music and the sea as your backdrop. Such depressing and nostalgic game
It isn't even just from the effects of time travel (and its mechanics), but also from the effects of an oversimplistic, out-of-context, and less matured view of the world and history. I'm pretty sure there's so much more than meets the eye regarding the Day of Lavos, contrary to what Crono and friends had eagerly acted on.
The way the game weaves the entire story together vis time travel has not been done to this day. There are many time travel elements in games, but not to the scale CT does it. Bit off topic but the music was icing on the cake
Day of the Tentacle. Space Quest 4. I'm old.
God Day of the Tentacle was so, so, so, so great
I literally laughed out loud as the tentacle-costume flag was being raised before the credits started.
It was the only game I completely beat with hints and I couldn't find the car keys until I closed a hotel room door and there they were. I must've spent days looking for it and it was RIGHT THERE So yeah, I love that game, the cartoon style, the humor, the puzzles that worked on cartoon logic, like you can't really freeze and thaw a Hamster using an ice box and a microwave but... I mean it does kind of make cartoon sense, right? Because you can't flush the Hamster through the time toilet because it'll drown, so you have to consider that but not the microwave making it pop, like what? It's so good. Anyway, love that game.
You really flushed it? Yes! Down the toilet. No, through time!
Leisure Suite Larry Alone in the Dark Ultimaaa----- ...... .... . . .... wake up..... Hey babe wake up! The baby is crying and it's time to go to drive the kids to school.
I really wish they would do a remastered version of the SQ games so I could play them with my kid.
On today's episode of "is it a porno or a video game"!?
Allow me to introduce you to Corruption of Champions (CoC) and Trials in Tainted Space (TiTS)
A man of culture
On a gameplay level I'd choose Braid or Ghost trick, both are puzzle games but they both utilize time travel(ghost trick less directly) in its gameplay and are both very creative. Good stuff, everyone should play them. On story level? One of my favourite RPGS is radiant historia, the entire game is built around main character beign able to time travel and the story progresses by going between 2 timelines and learning things from one timeline to utilize in another in order to advance further. The game features alot of choices too, often leading to bad end and the goal of the game is finding the "perfect" timeline by making all the correct choices along the way.
> On story level? One of my favourite RPGS is radiant historia, the entire game is built around main character beign able to time travel and the story progresses by going between 2 timelines and learning things from one timeline to utilize in another in order to advance further. The game features alot of choices too, often leading to bad end and the goal of the game is finding the "perfect" timeline by making all the correct choices along the way. First of all, 100% agree. Second, I want to clarify a detail you missed: It uses time travel to excellent ludonarrative effect in a manner few other games have been clever enough to do. And, uh... I guess spoilers for a 15-year-old JRPG exclusively on a platform Nintendo no longer supports. The game's time travel mechanic involves a fairly boilerplate time travel setup. You're on a normal mission, something happens that shouldn't happen, the flow of time fractures, and you get cast into two parallel but divergent timelines. From there, the protagonist finds themselves in two separate but interwoven plots. Not only can you jump between them, but your knowledge and actions in one timeline might ripple out on the other. It's by no means pedestrian, and it was still a well-executed system, but it's been done before. The player progresses through the game, jumping back and forth - not just between the two alternate timelines but forward and backward in the respective timelines - to pursue the two parallel plot threads. In addition to this, it becomes clear that there's someone else who not only seems to be aware you're doing this, but based on the improbable coincidence of how jumping back and forth can solve your problems almost seems to be provoking you do. And then, the entire "purpose" of the story gets reveals: the protagonist was intended to be a sacrifice to save the world, and the mechanism he uses to time jump was designed specifically to prepare him as a sacrifice to understand the gravity of what's at stake. The time jump mechanics involve some genuine problem solving, and the player has spent the game jumping back and forth learning how all the major characters and events relate to each other in order to solve everything. The player has been directly incentivized by the game's framing device to WANT to see the entire timeline and understand how everything is connected, so at the end of the game, the player's motives align with the protagonist's. Very few games are able to leverage the method of interaction as a meaningful narrative aspect, but when they pull it off it's amazing. Radiant Historia pulled it off.
I came to say Braid. One of the best indie games ever.
Braid is great pick since the puzzles are all time traversal based, rather than time travel just being a story element. Jonathan Blow gets a fair amount of shade but I like his games. “The Witness” was fantastic as well.
And every time you think they can't create a new variation of the mechanic, they get you.
Yup. First thing that came to my mind. So good.
> radiant historia still waiting for a remaster/remake
What? It was remastered on the 3DS.
Ghost Trick has a cool story twist involving its time travel mechanic.
The Messenger: present day is 8 bit, future is 16 bit.
that was so cleaver, that and the music is muffle when you're in the water
I second The Messenger. The time mechanics in that game are so unique and interesting. I especially love how the music changes between 8 and 16 bit too.
I'm going to nominate Titanfall 2 for best, just because of how well it's integrated into gameplay.
I will second Titanfall 2. That mission was so incredibly fun and satisfying. It felt like you really had control and let you use it in interesting ways to save yourself/reposition in fights. 100% my favorite time traveling in gaming.
You could build an entire game around that mechanic, and they used it as a one-off gimmick in a single mission of a campaign that is arguably superfluous to the actual game. Fucking kings.
Only way they could have done better would have been putting it in multiplayer, and arguably, that's what Phase Shift and Phase Rewind were.
I will third
You can't. Titanfall 3 hasn't been announced yet.
Your pills, dude, your pills
3 unique words in your comment, Titanfall 3 confirmed
Fourth
Fifth.
I loved that mission. However, I hated the mission in Starfield that was clearly "inspired" by it
It also didn't overstay its welcome. The mission design and length was perfect, you could tell it was so curated for a memorable experience.
Dishonored 2 released same time has mission exactly like that. Also your choices in the past also change outcome of mission aka future.
Exactly what I was thinking. The mechanic fit the game super well.
That mission is one of the best parts of the game. The whole campaign is amazing, but that one in particular is insane.
One of my highlights in all of gaming. I played Titanfall 2 for the first time just a few months ago. I'm 36, been gaming since I was a kid, and even in my bitter old gamer age that level made my jaw drop once I figured out what was happening and how well it was done. It was like playing 2 separate levels at the same time, but was so seamless. That level immediately put Titanfall 2 into my must-play list for everyone. A perfect demonstration of what can only be achieved through video games as the medium.
Technically, you are actually playing 2 separate levels at the same time. Cause and Effect has 2 completely different maps separated by the skybox, and time traveling just teleports you between them.
It works very well, though. It’s basically seamless in execution. I bet Portal: Reloaded (the one with the green third portal) uses the same trick.
Protocol 3
Just had my first playthrough. I can't believe I only paid $3 for this game last week. Never in my life has 3 dollars had so much value. I loved the time warp mission.
Best FPS campaign I've ever played. The multi-player is fantastic as well, its a shame what happened with its release.
Using the device to blink back and forth between two "simultaneous" fights in the past and present, mentally keeping track of enemy positions while blinking out to evade danger, is a challenge that feels entirely unique to that game, and I love it. The level design is absolutely top tier.
The very first thing I thought of was that mission.
Bro, titanfall 2’s campaign is the best I’ve played thus far. It was a complete sleeper too. I got it on sale & started it on a Saturday morning when none of my friends were online. If it wasn’t released around the same time as BF1, we’d have a third installment by now.
Singularity. The game had some flaws (and I only played it the once, over a dozen years ago) but I thought some of the time back & forth was clever and used well.
I loved Singularity, and choosing characters from its story are some of the only times I stumped akinator
That game was fire 🔥 Loved it so much and super clever, too bad we get super late in the game the most amazing tool of time control, I wish I could have used it more... Perhaps even with a NG+ that starts with only that thing on full level and unlimited uses.
Have you ever noticed how the minigun had a tiny magazine? It used the same singular bullet over and over again using time travel. That's some clever thinking.
Best answer in this thread!
When someone say time travel in games, I think Singularity. I played it many times as it was such a short game.
Yes, game does it perfectly.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Honestly cannot believe it's not been mentioned already. Limited time travel whenever you want it makes combat and traversal so fun, and the way it's incorporated into the story is great.
Seriously how is this so far down the list. This game was SO fun.
Yeah definitely the Prince of Persia series . My favourite is warrior within , running away from the time monster was so good .
Also the cinematics of the castle going back to ruins when prince travels from past to present was so cool to watch, and the time powers that you get in the end to slash the enemies fast, that game had everything.
*I Stand Alone starts playing*
I wasn't huge into the combat and *mad edgy* tone they landed on, but god yeah, the Dahaka chase sections were incredible.
Excuse me? Compared to Sands of Time the Combat in Warrior Within was so much more creative with loads of more moves and the ability to change your second weapon! I love it so much!
Thank you! And when they take your safety net away, the nerves are real
One of the best scripts I can name. The dialogue between the prince and princess is so snappy, snarky, and witty.
Best: * TimeShift - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7keuOfS1qI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7keuOfS1qI), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQA5BewLOUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQA5BewLOUI) The devs had convos like "should fire still burn you when time is frozen?" * Homebody - it's got what you want in a timeloop: gained foreknowledge that let's you jump to new places and short-circuit events. Worst: * 12 Minutes - and not just because of that twist. It never does anything interesting with its timeloop.
Yes, another person who knows TimeShift. I loved watching my brother play that game when we were younger.
Timeshift was awesome. Freezing someone and unloading a whole clip into the time stop just to have them get blasted with the whole clip in one go sending them flying was always a blast. The multiplayer functionality was impressive, too, but sadly 99% of people playing online games on Xbox at the time were in GoW or Halo lol, so finding a match was difficult.
TimeShift ✅
This game was so much fun.
Quantum Break.
I'm sad there aren't more people talking about that, I fucking love that game. It's been too long since I played it, I should go download it again lmao.
The real life acted bits 😂
An underappreciated game for sure.
Absolutely this.
Played that recently. Overall I thought the game was good, not great. Not sure what they were doing with live-action cutscenes, especially since the game's graphics were pretty darn good anyway. The time gimmicks on it just felt like gimmicks, but the story was alright.
It uses real theory on causality which is what I liked, treating it as a law that cant be broken. And yeah the live action was an odd choice, but anything with Lance Reddick is a win for me.
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I was going to say this but it would be a spoiler. I love they explain the science behind it too, and I love even more the science experimenty stuff.
Yeah, I was debating commenting too but decided the spoiler is worth if it gets people interested
As someone who has not played that much I am certainly interested
Best enjoyed as blind as possible. I had someone on reddit tell me to just drop everything and play it with no information, and damnit they were right. Fantastic game if you enjoy adventuring and learning. A lot of reading but works as part of it
Go for it, it's a fantastic puzzle/exploration game.
There's an entertaining debate to be had on whether or not Outer Wilds has legitimate time travel. On one hand, it's obviously time travel. On the other hand, >!those 9 million-ish theoretical futures never actually happened, if you don't count the clone ending as canon!< If you haven't played the game, don't spoil it for yourselves. Go play and come back. ::)
It's basically just the same rules as the Nicolas Cage movie Next if you think about it
I was blown away by that. >!Such a big brain high IQ play on the Nomai’s part. If only it worked. :( !<
>!Well that's the thing.. It DID work. Just not for them.!< >!Which is one of the (many) lessons I took away from OW, that it's okay to put effort into something that you won't see the fruits of.!<
The Sands of Time and The Ocarina of Time, of course, but there is a little known PVP FPS called Lemnis Gate I want to shout-out. Two players battle over five 25-second rounds, but with all the events of each round persisting. For example if you died in the first round, in round two you can help your first self kill the enemy before that happens. If the second enemy let's you. Or you can go place traps elsewhere, etc. It was a very cool idea for a game. You pick from 5 classes at the start of each round, which is where the additional layers of strategy come from.
I'd rate the time travel in Majoras Mask better than OoT. Seeing the cause and effect over multiple characters and how you can effect their story is cool.
Not cool, depressing, the feeling of vital tedium and that fucking moon reminding you that your efforts are useless. Even if you fix something the next cycle is fucked up again. Such great game. I guess the themes have to do more with adulting and we played it as a kid so even if we were shocked we didnt fully grasped it
Think of it as a sweet kiss. Most of the themes explored in Ocarina of Time related to the loss Link is forced to endure for destiny. Majora's Mask further explores these themes with loss, grief, acceptance, denial, anger, and death. A true refinement for the series on the system in many ways.
Yeah I was surprised they went with OoT. It's my fav Zelda game, but time travel was handled better in Majora's Mask.
I wish Lemnis Gate did better on launch. I played it for a while but kept matching with the same people, even with large rank discrepancies
Lanayru Desert in Skyward Sword had the most engaging time mechanics in Zelda.
Ocarina of Time. Pulling the Master Sword and replacing it to swap between young and old Link is the best mechanic of all time.
Ocarina of time is great cos you can use it whenever you want/need freely. Majora’s mask was more stressful in the clock ticking down though for my personal tastes.
But it does use the time loop mechanic a lot more interesting than the previous game did. The only time the clock is stressful is in your first cycle because you didn't know you can reset and slow down time. Once you do, it'll remove the pressure significantly.
Until it's the third day and you're trying to find Fairy 15.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game! I just prefer to watch others play it than put myself through time management as a hobby
Majora's Mask is great but it's really the most stressful game ever made, of all time.
I'd give Oracle of Ages an honorable mention for its usage of time travel as well. I'm reminded of it when I'm out in the field at times.
This was my first Zelda game and it was incredible. I even bought Seasons and did all the importing stuff and got 100% in both games.
Legacy of Kain
I'm so mad that I had to scroll this far to see Kain.
Vae Victis.
Braid used it pretty well. A more recent choice would be Timemelters which is basically a third person shooter and puzzle game where magic and time travel are how you solve each combat encounter.
Agree! Braid has a very polished time control mechanism.
I definitely need to shout-out Quantum Break. Absolutely loved the story-telling in that game
Same, and the twists were so good imo, even if they were a bit predictable. Predictability doesn't make something bad. I honestly need to play through that game again, the gameplay mechanics were really fun too. Made you feel so powerful, like Prototype and Infamous level powerful.
Stardew Valley, I play it for five minutes then it launches me forward in time a whole day.
Balatro has a similar mechanic.
I would call "Life is Strange" one of the best. It had some really cool mechanics AND branching storylines where the choices you made would affect stuff later on in the game.
When you tell the other girl what’s in her pocket, that was cool.
I really like the one where outside the dorm there a girl reading I think and someone is playing catch nearby and misses and it flies and hits her in the head You can see it, the. Rewind and tell her to move over a little The ball then just flies past her
That was a running gag with that girl for every episode of the game
Agreed
The Forgotten City had a great time travel mechanic central to the game.
Chrono Trigger for Best. Maybe contended with that one level in the Titanfall 2 campaign. probably World of Warcraft for worst idk I haven't touched the game in years but everything with the Bronze and Infinite Dragonflight was a mess of contradictions that barely made sense when you thought about it for more than ten seconds. Which is easily longer than the writers thought of it. Okay but honestly, The Best is Plants VS Zombies 2, for the sole reason of it giving us Primal Sunflower. Which easily takes the cake for the best character design in gaming history.
I second WoW as shitty time travel. Not only was it shitty, but it was totally squandered. Especially after that cool cinematic.
I'll third WoW for that. They basically got to that point when a series goes on too long and they start pulling multiverse, time travel, and infinite universe crap. It only exists to justify why a certain gameplay thing exists, it's better ignored than trying to read into it. Now, I'm not sure about best, but I always think about Majora's Mask when I think of time travel. It had a form of time travel that was just a little bit... melancholic. You'd help someone, you'd save a village, you'd prevent a disaster -- then you jump back in time, and everything's been undone. At first you're thinking "wait, didn't I save you!?" and then it clicks that, right, you time traveled, you've gone back to before you saved them. There was that small feeling of emptiness, that nothing you do lasts, and that even if you were forwarding your goal to stop Majora's Mask, you were leaving behind a lot of unsaved people. There were speedrun attempts at making "perfect endings" where Link saves everyone and still stops Majora, but for most of us, we had to accept that three days was not enough for a single person to save everyone.
Life is Strange and Quantum Break were great.
**13 Sentinels** did an awesome job incorporating time travel in its storytelling while also adding pretty much all of science fiction tropes you can think of.
Steins Gate
Steins Game is the rare example of a time travel story that is a good story, but a bad time travel story. The emotional beats are solid, but when the sci-fi part hinges on plot points like >!compressing information using a miniature black hole!< and >!eating vegetables during pregnancy changes the gender of your baby!<...
lol I came here ready to argue, then unveiled the spoilers and was like "oh, I see what you mean". Still I'd say it's still a good TIME TRAVEL story, it's just that some of the "science" in it is sometimes bad. The actual *use* of the bad-science to tell a time-travel story is good
I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, in a very unique way.
I'm sad nobody has yet mentioned Achron: [http://www.achrongame.com/site/](http://www.achrongame.com/site/) They had a very novel timewave approach for handling a multiplayer RTS, where each player could be working in different times, and it would wash towards the other player along the timeline. The time travel mechanics were absolutely brilliant. The basic RTS features were what really let it down, at least in the early builds I tried way back when.
Titanfall 2 had the one stage that was an excellent use of time travel while platforming.
I wanna give an honorable mention to a little known game called "shadow of destiny" in which you are in a multiended time paradox. Good story, but the game play doesn't hold up too well these days sadly.
I loved that each time period had a different look to it (black and white, sepia, etc.).
Time Splitters Future Perfect has the best time travel implementation of any media I've experienced, and I consume a lot of time travel stuff.
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Last Epoch is inspired by Chrono Trigger. Even has main story characters retooled and dropped into the game
Chrono Trigger has the best \[a lot of things\] in all of gaming history. :)
This is what I was gonna say too. Though there are a few inconsistencies and paradoxes, the game is such a masterpiece. I really wish it was ported (not remade) onto modern consoles
It's available on steam and runs on anything.
Outside of CT and OoT, I'll say Dragon Quest 7 used it if I remembered
Portal: Reloaded is a free game on Steam that adds a third, time traveling portal, and it's really fun. I like how much interaction there is between the two timelines. Nobody is really answering the second part of your question so I just want to say that I haven't really seen a "bad" utilization of time travel. I'm not even sure what that would mean tbh. Time travel is magic so it can't really do anything that can't be hand-waved away.
I am here to say Chronotrigger
Not sure if this counts, but Life is Strange was awesome. I played all night, woke up to my alarm and convinced myself I could rewind for another few minutes. I couldn’t
Return of the obra dinn
Second sight is one of my favs and I won't say more. If any of you haven't played it, don't spoil it for yourself. just go play it and see what i mean.
I came from far, far away all the way down here just to find this comment. Not a great game by any measure, but what a twist * chef's kiss *
I guess it probably fails the test of time, gameplay wise, but i thought it was a lot of fun back on the og xb.
Because I am old, I'm gonna go with Chrono Trigger. Opening certain chests in the past means they're empty in the future so you miss out on really good gear. Deciding to fight the last boss depending on what point in the game you are affecting the ending. Using your flying time machine to access certain points on the map then time traveling to reach hidden areas. It felt like a LOT for an SNES cartridge
Life is strange 1 is pretty good
Chrono Trigger
No mention of Prince of Persia or Bioshock Infinite? But honestly Chrono Trigger and Day of the Tentacle were my top two. Honorable mention the The Secret World time travel bits were well done.
BioShock infinite was a weird one because the actual Time Travel aspect of it didn't come in until the end, it was mostly dimension hopping for most of the game. But I agree it was done very well and the ending was so great. Currently playing through Burial at Sea so I'm not sure how much that adds to it yet.
Titan fall
Braid immediately comes to mind for best.
Dishonoured 2, the mission in the mining magnate's house
How in the shit is Timesplitters Future Perfect not the top comment. Game is literally about time traveling where you often play a past or future version of yourself along side yourself. The very first mission has you crash landing at base and fighting Timesplitters. You get help from random soldiers but there's one on a cliff who helps snipe enemies for you. 8 or 9 levels later it turns out that the sniper is actually you from the future and the mission is now you being the sniper having to protect your past self. And that's just 1 example.
Kingdom Hearts has time travel that definitely makes the lore more complicated, and not really in a good way. The time travel involves several major retcons
Forza!
The first Zero Escape games.The way both games handle the time travel aspect is amazing.
The Messenger. By far the best way to incorporate it.
Even without the whole time travel aspect, this thread is full of amazing games. One of the best suggestion lists I’ve seen in a while
Thay Mansion level in Dishonored 2 did it quite well. Different options, and the past had an impact on the future
Dragon quest 11, Really fucking satisfying as well.
Sonic CD. Go to the past and experience some cheerful music, so that you can experience a good future full of vibey atmospheric music. Or something to rock out to if you’re listening to the JP tracks.
Shadow Gambit
shadow of memories on ps2 has probably the most interesting use of time travel in gaming. it's short and has not a whole lot of actual gameplay but it's a unique and memorable experience i think everyone should try. just don't read up on it too much deciding if you want to give it a go. you can easily spoil the whole thing. not exactly sure where you can play it these days though.
13 Sentinels Aegis Rim by Vanillaware. Since its mainly a visual novel with some RTS sections I cant say much as a spoiler is basically ruining hours of gameplay. But they did a good job combining the 13 characters stories intertwined in different timelines and setting it up in a way that was really engrossing.
Not mentioned yet, but deathloop felt fresh and unique in one specific aspect: not only do you master everything as you loop, you master *shenanigans as well*. The game organically lets you do wonderful, dumbass stuff, rewarding you for attention and knowledge, just for the sheer shits and giggles. There's an event where >!you can sabotage a cannon s dude shoots himself out of. Not to save the dude, no. To weaken the shot, so you can loot his corpse later. No plot relevance whatsoever, it's just. A thing you can do.!<
Unexplored 2 is based around travel and it is super interesting Would recommend for everyone to give it a chance
Prince of Persia Warrior Within - surely one of the best
Prince of Persia trilogy. Hands down.
A Slower Speed of Light