Despite my obsession with Time Crisis, the original game is something that I respect a lot more than I actually enjoy playing. Right away, the hallmarks that characterize the series are present front and center. The trademark cover system becomes key to careful resource management, in that you must time your dodges carefully against incoming attacks while keeping an eye on your remaining ammo and syncing your dodges with necessary reloads. Enemies are color-coded to quickly communicate their threat level (reds will almost immediately damage you, orange vests have trickier weapons with slower attacks but higher accuracy, and blues are your standard fare that tend to shoot like stormtroopers but will eventually find you), with closer enemies easier to spot and hit but generally posing a larger threat, especially enemies with clubs and claws that will never miss. Headshots aren’t required since any hit will immediately down a foe, but higher accuracy is nevertheless rewarded because enemies are often utilizing cover just like you, and nailing enemies when they’re appearing for the first time out of hidden traps and doors or hitting their exposed limbs sticking out of cover saves valuable seconds.
As such, the toughest enemy is not so much Time Crisis’ many goons or the bosses, but rather, the timer itself. It’s simultaneously the original Time Crisis’ biggest draw and biggest con: every action you take contributes to preservation of your remaining time, including optional bright orange enemies that provide little time bonuses upon hit, resulting in a very focused arcade experience. However, as a result, I found the game to be extremely difficult and punishing: you can’t afford to play it safe with the scant time gains you’ll get from clearing each scenario (since the timer is never reset, even after clearing acts or stages), especially because enemies appear in waves that progress only upon clearing all present enemies on screen, and can also waste tons of time if you miss and they duck behind cover. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem, except unlike the other main installments, standard enemies (blues and more competent browns) in the original Time Crisis deal damage based off of bullet thresholds; after a certain number of shots fired your way out of cover, they sometimes have a chance to fire a shot that can actually damage you. There’s no feasible way to distinguish between a shot from these foes that will miss versus actually hitting you, because the animation to duck below cover isn’t faster than the short delay between the red flash of damaging bullets and the actual hit, so it’s impossible to react to. Furthermore, actually getting hit wastes a few seconds because it puts you in a state where you cannot fire or duck below cover to reload, creating further complications especially in scenarios where multiple enemies are on screen firing at you. As a result, it often felt like I was required to memorize spawn locations and pick off enemies immediately to prevent most bullets from being fired altogether, since playing by quick reaction felt unviable when I had to play proactively in scenes where multiple enemies were firing, making it easy to lose track of how many bullets came close to hitting me. This pressure of needing to play almost perfectly was exacerbated by the fact that continues restart you at the beginning of acts instead of resuming where you lost all your lives, and that there is no way to regain lives outside of downing 40 enemies in a row without missing once. I respect what the original was trying to do with its simple toolkit and scoring system, but I can’t deny that the difficulty curve felt ridiculously steep and unwelcoming at times.
Still, I can’t be too much of a downer. It’s classic Time Crisis with a batshit crazy plot involving destructive weapons, kidnapping, and terrorists, alongside extremely cheesy dialogue and corny voice-acting with tons of flashy boss fights in a 3D low-polygonal trap-ridden castle. The exclusive Special Mode in the Playstation edition is a nice cherry on top, with branching paths that decide what environments you traverse resulting in different boss fights, all determined based upon your clear times: not quite as exciting as how they handle branching paths in House of the Dead (i.e. saving civilians, shooting switches, etc), but I respect its presence regardless. While I’ll generally deviate towards the other entries in the series, I’m glad I got to finally explore the ambitious beginnings of my favorite light-gun franchise that set the standard of spectacle for future installments. Now if only I could find those remaining Time Crisis II and 4 cabinets…
As such, the toughest enemy is not so much Time Crisis’ many goons or the bosses, but rather, the timer itself. It’s simultaneously the original Time Crisis’ biggest draw and biggest con: every action you take contributes to preservation of your remaining time, including optional bright orange enemies that provide little time bonuses upon hit, resulting in a very focused arcade experience. However, as a result, I found the game to be extremely difficult and punishing: you can’t afford to play it safe with the scant time gains you’ll get from clearing each scenario (since the timer is never reset, even after clearing acts or stages), especially because enemies appear in waves that progress only upon clearing all present enemies on screen, and can also waste tons of time if you miss and they duck behind cover. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem, except unlike the other main installments, standard enemies (blues and more competent browns) in the original Time Crisis deal damage based off of bullet thresholds; after a certain number of shots fired your way out of cover, they sometimes have a chance to fire a shot that can actually damage you. There’s no feasible way to distinguish between a shot from these foes that will miss versus actually hitting you, because the animation to duck below cover isn’t faster than the short delay between the red flash of damaging bullets and the actual hit, so it’s impossible to react to. Furthermore, actually getting hit wastes a few seconds because it puts you in a state where you cannot fire or duck below cover to reload, creating further complications especially in scenarios where multiple enemies are on screen firing at you. As a result, it often felt like I was required to memorize spawn locations and pick off enemies immediately to prevent most bullets from being fired altogether, since playing by quick reaction felt unviable when I had to play proactively in scenes where multiple enemies were firing, making it easy to lose track of how many bullets came close to hitting me. This pressure of needing to play almost perfectly was exacerbated by the fact that continues restart you at the beginning of acts instead of resuming where you lost all your lives, and that there is no way to regain lives outside of downing 40 enemies in a row without missing once. I respect what the original was trying to do with its simple toolkit and scoring system, but I can’t deny that the difficulty curve felt ridiculously steep and unwelcoming at times.
Still, I can’t be too much of a downer. It’s classic Time Crisis with a batshit crazy plot involving destructive weapons, kidnapping, and terrorists, alongside extremely cheesy dialogue and corny voice-acting with tons of flashy boss fights in a 3D low-polygonal trap-ridden castle. The exclusive Special Mode in the Playstation edition is a nice cherry on top, with branching paths that decide what environments you traverse resulting in different boss fights, all determined based upon your clear times: not quite as exciting as how they handle branching paths in House of the Dead (i.e. saving civilians, shooting switches, etc), but I respect its presence regardless. While I’ll generally deviate towards the other entries in the series, I’m glad I got to finally explore the ambitious beginnings of my favorite light-gun franchise that set the standard of spectacle for future installments. Now if only I could find those remaining Time Crisis II and 4 cabinets…