Timespinner

Timespinner is a narratively ambitious 2D Metroidvania that delves into a cycle of war and oppression while boasting a strong art direction and a brilliant soundtrack. It also leaves some of its mechanics underdeveloped, but you know, nothing is perfect in life. Except coffee. There’s nothing wrong with coffee.

The game’s protagonist is Lunais, a young woman who lives in an isolated village in the world of Winderia, training to be a Time Messenger: the person tasked to use the village’s sacred artifact, the Timespinner, to travel back in time and warn them of any incoming danger. When they’re attacked by the Lachiem Empire, however, Lunais’ mother is killed, the Timespinner is damaged, and she ends up being sent to Lachiem too far back in the past.

The people of Lachiem are initially portrayed as an oppressive and imperialistic force, with their invasion of Winderia being framed within a very clear political debate, as the description of their first arrival immediately reminds us of the first European incursions into America:

“The Elders sent a scout, Undar, to the city to find out what they were. ‘Ships,’ she says. ‘From the stars. They are called Lachiem, and bring great gifts for trade, in exchange for our world’s resources. The cityfolk say they seem friendly, but… they have soldiers, too. Many soldiers.’”

But the plot thickens when Lunais realizes that she was sent to a point in time when Lachiem was not the oppressor… but the oppressed. She wakes up in this foreign land amidst the beginning of a revolution: Lachiem was the place where the kingdom of Vilete dumped their weak and undesired, treating Lachiems as less than human, leaving them with no rights, no voice, no humanity. For all intents and purposes, the people of Lachiem were trash, and, like some forks used to believe, trash has no feelings.

Vilete is under a fascist rule that defends the natural superiority of those who bear magic auras (“Powers of the Aura are our birthright, the gift of the Plasma. Those with magical ability are the natural apex of our race,” they say) whereas in Lachiem people desire equality (“We believe all are equal regardless of strength of aura.”) Timespinner’s narrative, then, raises a central question: how a people that knew firsthand the dangers of an oppressive regime, that suffered at the hands of a country that believed itself superior, could later become oppressors themselves and go on to try to commit genocide?

Lunais’ quest is built around this problem. When she goes back in time, she only wants revenge. She has a single goal in mind: “I’ll kill them all.” For the protagonist, Lachiem is an irredeemable enemy, a monster, something less than human. She creates a binary worldview in which she is the hero and Lachiem, the villain. But when she arrives at Lachiem, however, a newfound friend warns he, “please remember…it’s not as simple as we want to make it.”

Lunais’ character arc, then, much like Ellie’s, revolves around the dangers of dehumanizing your enemies, which was precisely part of the mindset that made Lachiem become the evil empire of the protagonist’s future. As the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire explains, “when education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.” Hate, even when justified under certain circumstances, is an uncontrollable beast. It feeds on itself and transforms people, blinding them to the nature of their own actions. By treating the oppressor as an abstract evil, it becomes difficult to prevent oneself from becoming a similar evil to others. That’s part of the reason why Lachiem deteriorated as an empire and became another Vilete: the oppressor is always the “other” one, never yourself. When Lunais confronts the Lachiem Queen about her future actions against her people, the queen’s answer couldn’t be more tragic: “Dear girl, you’re thinking of Vilete.”

Meanwhile, the people of Vilete think they are on the right side as well. The game’s hub area is populated by some Vilete soldiers who got stranded in Lachiem. They are the most important secondary characters in the game, and, through sidequests that develop their struggles and personalities, they somehow even become Lunais’ closest friends there. But, despite this friendship, Vilete’s soldiers are still…from Vilete. A captain called Haristel, for instance, defends her country’s fascist rule by claiming that it’s not fascist at all. Fascism is just a bad word to characterize bad people, after all, and the people from Vilete are not bad; they’re heroes. And if some are treated better than others there, it’s only because they deserve it: “Vilete is a meritocracy of the magical, a celebration of our abilities to help the worlds.”

What Haristel fails to grasp is that there’s no meritocracy at play when people’s magical abilities are determined by birth. Magic in Timespinner is as deterministic as money in a capitalist society: those who are born with it get even more, and those who are born without it struggle to just survive – while hearing people like Haristel claim that it’s just a matter of effort and ability. When questioned about war crimes, Haristel vehemently denies their existence and, when the proof starts to become overwhelming, she assumes no responsibility: “So I’m supposed to be ashamed of something I have no control over,” she questions Lunais. Denial is one of the game’s core motifs, directing the choices and actions of its tragic characters, which will end up dooming their societies.

But despite its complicated themes, Timespinner is not overly serious, being full of surprisingly comical characters. There is, for example, a crow – wearing a crown – that acts as a merchant, selling special goods. When questioned about how it could get to different places so quickly, its answer is nothing but whimsical: “Pshaw. Like a little thing like ~time~ would keep me from being here *and* there.” Likewise, the Succubus we battle at some points explain their motivation in an equally playful way: “Come now, we’re not so bad. We only feed on ~drama~…”

Moving to gameplay, Timespinner is a simple but competent Metroidvania. There is a large interconnected map to explore in a non-linear way, with more paths becoming available as the protagonist acquires specific abilities, which fall under the genre’s staples: there is the double jump, the ability to move underwater, and so forth.

But there are some gimmicks in place to make it stand out. One of them, of course, is time travel: Lunais can travel between Lachiem’s past and future by activating certain gates, and the maps of both time periods mirror each other. However, this has little impact on the gameplay, since Lunais’ actions in the past rarely change something in the future: this is reserved for specific points in the story. The other gimmick is the ability to stop time, which makes enemies and projectiles become platforms. Even though it has great potential, this ability is criminally underutilized and can be safely ignored throughout most of the game.

Besides that, the game is your typical 2D Metroidvania. We find health and energy upgrades hidden in the environments, alongside some bits about the game’s world and lore. We attack with orbs, which can vary from green swords to red pistols, which level up as they are used. And there is the option to have a familiar, which also levels up as it helps to destroy weak monsters.

The game’s presentation, on the other hand, is on another level altogether. The art direction is superb, capturing the corruption of Lachiem through strong changes in the environment: where there was once a lush forest, now there is a window to a futuristic city that appears to be forever immersed in darkness. Enemy design follows suit: in the past, we find mostly dangerous animals and creatures, while in the future, we encounter only robotic impersonations of them.

Meanwhile, the music, composed by Jeff Ball, goes full Castlevania: just listen to Defiance and you’ll be hard-pressed to think of any other soundtrack, as it perfectly captures the gothic tone and energetic pace of Konami’s classic franchise. And the soundtrack also works well with the time travel motif: the theme of the game’s last area, Shears of Atropos, for example, has some bits that clearly harken back to the Terminator theme, aptly framing Lunais as this killer from the future that is initially single-minded in her violent purpose.

Timespinner, then, with its thought-provoking narrative, great cast of tragic characters, and excellent presentation, has the makings of a timeless classic. If it had been just a bit more daring with its mechanics, it would have been perfect. Much like the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning.

September 19, 2025.