That’s why Super Time Force Ultra is one of the best games about time travel that’s been made. It has everything that you could hope for: Dinosaurs on skateboards, cute cat videos and brutal, extreme murder. Wait a minute…this seems wrong. It seems that the ending of this review was written before the rest of it and the writer is using a cheap gimmick to avoid the fact that they have no clue how to open this review! That can mean only one thing; we need to go back in time and review Super Time Force Ultra in reverse because…REASONS!

One major issue that Super Time Force Ultra has is that it can be extremely tough to follow the action of what’s going on when you’ve gone back in time. By the time you fight the last boss, you can have almost thirty copies of yourself on screen. When all of the copies are on screen and you’re trying to dodge projectiles, it can be nearly impossible to follow exactly what is going on. This is especially frustrating when you’re near the end of a boss fight or a stage and you need to restart the entire encounter.

Presentation wise, the game looks fantastic. The retro aesthetic of Super Time Force Ultra is combined with a sort of hectic insanity that could only be possible through creating several copies of yourself. The character design is unique, to say the least. One character is clearly inspired by the hit television show Dinosaurs while others are inspired by Mad Max and several other pop culture influences. On top of that, the gameplay makes Super Time Force Ultra stick out in a major way. It’s crazy to go back in time and have almost thirty copies of yourself shooting different weapons at a single enemy. It’s a sight to behold but it also becomes one of the games major downfalls.

The gameplay of Super Time Force Ultra is part Contra and part Braid. The main tool of the game is your ability to manipulate time. Let’s say you’re fighting a horde of enemies and you get shot. You can rewind time and bring in another version of yourself to fight along the past version of yourself. If you manage to stop your past self from being killed, not only can you get an extra life, but you gain their power. This means that you can have a character dual wielding a shotgun and grenade launcher. However, later in the game you realize that since you can rewind time, you can create an army of past versions of yourself. This becomes critical in trying to kill off bosses as you have one minute to get through most levels before you run out of time.

Being that you’re a member of the Super Time Force, you can go back in time and recruit several members throughout history to join your crew. You can recruit a Jedi, Merlin and a dolphin, appropriately named Dolphin Lundgren. These characters are often hidden and will require you to use the limited time that you have in order to save them. They each bring a special ability with them, but you’ll likely find a certain set of favorite characters and stick with them. The Steam release of Super Time Force Ultra brings the Pyro and Saxton Hale from Team Fortress 2 and Zoey from Left 4 Dead.

Super Time Force Ultra opens with a scientist finally achieving the secret to time travel. However, moments after he discovers this, a future version of himself, known as Colonel Repeatski visits him and informs him that he is, in fact a nerd and a loser and proceeds to head back into the future. Colonel Repeatski forms a team of time heroes and is able to prevent Earths destruction. From here, they decide to make the future a more awesome place by going through time and “fixing” parts of history, such as stealing the Holy Grail and stopping the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

SCORE: 8.0 out of 10

A code for Super Time Force Ultra was provided to Pixel Related for review