”No Time To Explain (Remastered)” is nowhere close to being the oldest game I’ve played/reviewed & yet when compared to other games it stands out as a title that shows its age a lot when reflecting back. While not inherently a negative that you can tell what period a game is from - it really felt like a strange time capsule from the late 00’s-early 10’s compared to anything else I’ve played through.

The game definitely lives up to its title because doing a brief plot summary would be very convoluted. A broad stroke explanation would be that earth is getting attacked & you need to put a stop to it via time-travel/timeline jumping. For each level you’re given different weapons to help you through this journey - though their primary purpose is to help at traversal first, self-defense second. Because the game is more in line with a 2D platformer than a run n gun game.

Each time you kill a boss you’re summoned into a different timeline. Where gameplay either changes up by introducing a new puzzle/gimmick or you can be transported into a world with less mechanics, but a different way of transportation. Unfortunately, a pretty big quality difference is present. Since the gimmick/puzzle levels (where you retain your standard traversal weapon, but have to account for increasing mechanics) tend to play a lot better than levels with completely new playstyles. Momentum ends up coming to a crawl due needing to learn new traversal, while the difficulty still progresses increasingly. Leading to some of the last “new character” stages becoming rather unenjoyable due to this imbalance between difficulty vs learning curve with stage specific characters.

I still had fun completing ”No Time To Explain” However I would’ve wished it rather just committed fully to the primary weapon & what conditions/limitations could be introduced to make for a good gameplay loop. Instead of having a tool that generally was fun to use, but then have it limited for 65-70% of playtime & then replaced with less fun alternatives in those remaining 30%.