Time Recoil Review

Time Recoil is a top-down action game with a twist.

- Rejean Lagasse

Every time you kill an enemy, time slows down to a crawl. By carefully planning your attack one kill quickly combos into several, unlocking dash attacks, time bombs, and other special abilities. It’s a neat idea used to some decent effect, but it just can’t overcome the bland, poorly designed game underneath it all.

Aside from the time slow down mechanic Time Recoil is a pretty by the numbers affair. Players make their way through the level, finding guns and ammunition so as to clear a path through to the end of the stage. It controls fine, and the time slowing down is a neat effect, but there are issues like the ammo drops are randomized, leading to situations where the same strategy you used to get through 90% of a level might leave the player standing in a room with no options other than to get shot. In another game such randomization might add some replay value, but Time Recoil is as much a puzzle game as it is an action game, and when the layout of the puzzle suddenly changes it just comes across as unfair. It doesn’t help that the melee is completely useless, so on those runs where you find yourself lacking ammunition you basically have no recourse but to restart the level.