Spotting an arcade cabinet of Time Crisis 5 was like spotting a unicorn in the wild for me, and as such, I immediately felt compelled to run through the whole thing. I imagine that the devs must have been just as excited as I was to try out their new toys (in the form of the Unreal Engine), because that would be the easiest way to explain the drop in depth from previous installments. The dual pedal system sounds great in theory (switch perspectives on the fly to target covered enemies from their weak points while dodging more threatening attacks), but it makes the game somewhat of a breeze, because you can switch pretty quickly with no limits and enemies take a few seconds to refocus their attacks towards you, not to mention that you can dodge every bullet your way by doing so. You're heavily conditioned to do so anyways, because the animation for ducking back under cover has been slowed in comparison to how quickly red-highlighted bullets can be spotted and then damage you, so it's much harder to dodge without outright switching with pedals. Besides that, there's a lot less incentive to mess around with your other weapons, because there aren't quite as many yellow grunts to attack to farm extra ammo: not that you'd really need to anyways, since the unlimited handgun deals enough quick damage to dispatch practically everything with ease. The game also feels a bit more gimmicky this time around due to all the other sections that detract from Time Crisis's signature cover shootouts. There are a few quick time events that require you to press the correct pedal to avoid damage, a single sniper section that has you headshotting foes to avoid detection (unlikely anyways since they die to two body shots and you'll usually fire fast enough), and some "break the targets" quick time events that become simple enough since you're provided with unlimited ammo during these moments.
I do have to admit that at the end of the day though, it's still Time Crisis despite the obvious lack of focus, and it's still got many of the hallmarks that got me so interested in the first place. The light gun aiming feels pretty responsive and satisfying due to the vibrations and fantastic visual/audio feedback, there are some pretty intense railgun sections that actually prompted me to really keep an eye on both perspectives with the pedals, and the story still makes absolutely no sense at all with some of the laziest voice-acting imaginable. I can't help but grin though, as the campyness of the franchise, with all its exaggerated boss fights and gratuitous explosions, has always been a big draw in its memorability. As it stands, it's definitely the weakest of the Time Crisis games I've dabbled with, but I'm glad to have finally found and conquered another installment. The search shall continue until I've beat them all...
I do have to admit that at the end of the day though, it's still Time Crisis despite the obvious lack of focus, and it's still got many of the hallmarks that got me so interested in the first place. The light gun aiming feels pretty responsive and satisfying due to the vibrations and fantastic visual/audio feedback, there are some pretty intense railgun sections that actually prompted me to really keep an eye on both perspectives with the pedals, and the story still makes absolutely no sense at all with some of the laziest voice-acting imaginable. I can't help but grin though, as the campyness of the franchise, with all its exaggerated boss fights and gratuitous explosions, has always been a big draw in its memorability. As it stands, it's definitely the weakest of the Time Crisis games I've dabbled with, but I'm glad to have finally found and conquered another installment. The search shall continue until I've beat them all...
Split pedal is cool.
Split pedal was cool, overall not the best in the series
This review contains spoilers
This is definitely the worst Time Crisis I've played.
The gameplay gimmick is really nice and some of the stages use it to good effect but unlike the non stop action that I love in Time Crisis 1, 2 and Razing Storm, I felt like I spend more time waiting and watching (skipping) cut scenes than actually shooting which made me feel really disconnected.
The story is so unbelievably shit. Time Crisis is obvs not here for the story but it's enough to make you feel like you're pushing towards something. The story here is so underwhelming it actually puts me off. Robert being a traitor was a potentially interesting idea since TC villains are pretty much typical terrorists but they do nothing with it here; I get the feeling they wanted him portray him as some deep villain despite being as cartoony as Dick Dastardly.
Also why does the cut scenes in the final make Robert out to be so drunk? (The way he says "Hmph, you still weren't able to stop the missile!!!" and the red guy responds "Dangit!") Speaking of cut scenes, the only cool encounters is the one with Keith and Wild Fang. Everything else feels like a puppet show on a budget. Story beats come out of nowhere such as the drug plot line which at that point felt very lame.
I still ironically enjoy this game though. Keith's fight is hysterical and Robert's voice acting in the final is so stupid it's funny.
The gameplay gimmick is really nice and some of the stages use it to good effect but unlike the non stop action that I love in Time Crisis 1, 2 and Razing Storm, I felt like I spend more time waiting and watching (skipping) cut scenes than actually shooting which made me feel really disconnected.
The story is so unbelievably shit. Time Crisis is obvs not here for the story but it's enough to make you feel like you're pushing towards something. The story here is so underwhelming it actually puts me off. Robert being a traitor was a potentially interesting idea since TC villains are pretty much typical terrorists but they do nothing with it here; I get the feeling they wanted him portray him as some deep villain despite being as cartoony as Dick Dastardly.
Also why does the cut scenes in the final make Robert out to be so drunk? (The way he says "Hmph, you still weren't able to stop the missile!!!" and the red guy responds "Dangit!") Speaking of cut scenes, the only cool encounters is the one with Keith and Wild Fang. Everything else feels like a puppet show on a budget. Story beats come out of nowhere such as the drug plot line which at that point felt very lame.
I still ironically enjoy this game though. Keith's fight is hysterical and Robert's voice acting in the final is so stupid it's funny.
This review contains spoilers
The two big innovations (Unreal Engine, two pedals!) are worth the experience and the story is mostly entertaining enough to watch while you stretch your wrists between scenes. That being said, game-wise it's kind of all over the place.
TC5 had two releases, an original with the first three missions and then a "True Mastermind" edition that added three more missions to finish out the story. I played True Mastermind, but I just wanna say: I think if you played the original TC5, you should be allowed to sue for damages or false advertising or something. All of the stuff with Wild Dog is horrible, by stage 2 you're shunted into a "chopper battle" that feels like a Raw Thrills attraction, and the Stage 3 boss battle is bizarre. Why does this look like some dystopian wasteland? Why is Wild Dog's face on all of the TVs? It's absolutely spiritless and brown, but I still admire the stage for letting you quickly swerve 15 feet side to side on a motorbike, tire squealing sounds and all.
Thankfully, I think the True Mastermind stuff is a better package so it's worth the price of admission by the end. The pedal-shifting mechanic gets put to great use in a boss fight where you're trying to shoot one of two people who are entangled in a brawl. The zombie stuff is an absolute waste but when you throw everything at the wall, some things don't stick, right?
TC4's weapon-swap system returns but it feels almost completely forgotten. There are a few segments that specifically call for the machine gun but there aren't different enemy types for your other guns to spec against, so I found myself mostly sticking to the handgun. I switched to shotgun and grenade when I felt it was appropriate but those moments were a handful for the whole run and I couldn't say that they felt particularly effective.
I think it was between 7-8 credits for the whole run but I wasn't counting too hard. May try to attack it again in the future, especially since the scoreboard hinted at point opportunities that I didn't hit at all??
TC5 had two releases, an original with the first three missions and then a "True Mastermind" edition that added three more missions to finish out the story. I played True Mastermind, but I just wanna say: I think if you played the original TC5, you should be allowed to sue for damages or false advertising or something. All of the stuff with Wild Dog is horrible, by stage 2 you're shunted into a "chopper battle" that feels like a Raw Thrills attraction, and the Stage 3 boss battle is bizarre. Why does this look like some dystopian wasteland? Why is Wild Dog's face on all of the TVs? It's absolutely spiritless and brown, but I still admire the stage for letting you quickly swerve 15 feet side to side on a motorbike, tire squealing sounds and all.
Thankfully, I think the True Mastermind stuff is a better package so it's worth the price of admission by the end. The pedal-shifting mechanic gets put to great use in a boss fight where you're trying to shoot one of two people who are entangled in a brawl. The zombie stuff is an absolute waste but when you throw everything at the wall, some things don't stick, right?
TC4's weapon-swap system returns but it feels almost completely forgotten. There are a few segments that specifically call for the machine gun but there aren't different enemy types for your other guns to spec against, so I found myself mostly sticking to the handgun. I switched to shotgun and grenade when I felt it was appropriate but those moments were a handful for the whole run and I couldn't say that they felt particularly effective.
I think it was between 7-8 credits for the whole run but I wasn't counting too hard. May try to attack it again in the future, especially since the scoreboard hinted at point opportunities that I didn't hit at all??
i respect the madman that made a fully functional PC port of this game
Oh hell yeah! This is the kind of stupid dumb fun that I love. Over the top story, mindless gameplay, Try hard characters. This is 100% dudes rock cheese fest and I love it.
split pedals let you dodge everything, and IR gun tracking has always sucked