Timespinner

I went into Timespinner half-expecting a polished tribute act, the kind of indie that nails the aesthetic checklist and then coasts. What I got instead was something quieter and more considered than that. Lunar Ray Games, essentially a solo project by Bodie Lee, spent years building a Castlevania-inspired Metroidvania around protagonist Lunais, a trained time messenger whose clan is wiped out by the Lachiem Empire on the worst birthday on record. The setup is familiar, but the care packed into every corridor of the interconnected map signals something made with genuine devotion rather than genre opportunism. The combat is built around elemental Magic Orbs, and this is where Timespinner finds its clearest voice. You carry two orbs simultaneously, swapping freely between a library that includes blade orbs, fire orbs, a gun orb, a radiant light orb that erupts in a circle around you, and more. Each orb levels up the more you use it, which rewards commitment to a build, and the loadout is deepened further by spell necklaces, enchanted rings with passive effects like rotating blades or lifesteal, and three swappable equipment palettes for adapting mid-fight. Boss arenas with screen-filling enemies test your grasp of all of it, and the movement underneath is tight and responsive throughout. A time-freeze ability using magic sand lets you immobilize enemies to use as platforms or dodge otherwise unavoidable attacks. It is clever in isolated bursts, though nearly every critic and a fair share of players agree that it remains underbaked relative to how central time is to the story. The two-era world structure, jumping between Lachiem's lush past and its barren present at warp portals, offers some charming environmental contrasts but rarely delivers the profound cause-and-effect weaving that the premise promises. The Familiars, small creatures like the dream dragon Meyef that orbit Lunais and chip in during combat, are more atmospheric companion than reliable tactical asset. What lingers is everything surrounding the systems. Jeff Ball's soundtrack is the real secret weapon here, a gothic, synth-laced score with enough range to carry both tense dungeon crawls and quieter story beats without ever feeling thin. The pixel art pulls from the same warm, detailed palette as Chrono Trigger's Zeal and early Castlevania sprites, producing environments from dusty libraries to biomechanical labs that feel lived-in. The story, while occasionally clunky in its dialogue, takes a genuinely thoughtful approach to its cast: a group of Viletian soldiers Lunais befriends in the past includes openly gay couples, a bisexual lead, trans characters, and polyamorous relationships, all written with the same matter-of-fact normality they deserve. The lore is mostly kept to discoverable journals and downloadable memories, so completionists are rewarded without everyone else being buried in text boxes. The honest caveat is length. A first run lands somewhere between five and ten hours depending on how thoroughly you explore, and even at the longer end, that is short for the genre. New Game Plus carries over experience and items, and an optional challenge dungeon called the Temporal Gyre plus a Nightmare Mode add replay hooks for the committed, but if you need a forty-hour sprawl, this is not the game. What it is, though, is a six-to-ten hour experience that knows exactly when to end, and there is real craft in that restraint.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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