(WiiWare) Chronos Twins DX

Posted 3 years ago By - Justin Arruda

Chronos Twins DX is a platform game where the hook is that you control your character in two time periods simultaneously. When I first learned this, I thought, “Why did it take so long for somebody to make a game like this? And why isn’t it on the DS?” Turns out the WiiWare title is a remake of a 2007 DS game released in Europe. Has North America been missing out?

Gameplay
The story in Chronos Twins DX is really secondary to the gameplay and clearly just an excuse for the main game mechanic. A series of comic style pictures accompanied by captions quickly explain that you must kill a monster not only to save the world, but also because it killed your brother.

To do this, you must guide Nec through two planes of existence concurrently. Lucky (or unlucky) for you, what happens in one plane will affect you in the other. For example, jumping into a pit in the top screen does not mean death as long as you land on a platform in the bottom screen. These basic movements will increase in difficulty until you are forced to take very specific steps in order to get past obstacles. In later stages, you will be able to single out one version of yourself so that you can affect items in the opposite screen. Push a block in the past so that your future self is able to reach a ledge.

The game controls very simply, but will eventually anger you with how complex the maneuvering can get. It’s at these times you question whether the developers have picked the best control scheme. I would argue that Chronos Twins controls are a 16-bit equivalent to how many people feel about current Resident Evil controls. They’re not unusable, and they may work in the context of their respective games, but why go backwards when standards have been raised?

Ask gamers what the ‘jump’ button is, and most will say the ‘A’ button. When developers like EnjoyUp assign jump to the ‘C’ and ‘Z’ buttons behind the nunchuk, it just feels off. Likewise, when you can’t run and shoot at the same time, the gamer feels unnecessarily shackled. And the feeling of being at a frustrating disadvantage is multiplied when you have to dodge boss attacks on two screens.

Getting back to the double screen feature, one of the more unique abilities you have to develop for this game is focusing on not being focused. What I mean by this is that you can’t allow yourself to concentrate on one part of the screen for too long. If you do, you will almost assuredly take damage on the opposite screen. You must learn to trick your eyes into seeing everything without looking at anything. Sort of like those MagicEye pictures that were all the rage back in the ‘90s. It can be tough at times, but navigating your way through two screens of lasers and falling bullets without being hit is the most rewarding feeling you will have playing this game.

Graphics & Audio
Chronos Twins is a port of a DS game, and the production value confirms this. If I was to describe the graphics and audio in one word, it would be muddled.

Obviously, coming from the DS, I wouldn’t expect too much from the sound department, and that’s what you get. The occasional “danger” warning will emit from the Wii remote, but it sounds like an NES sample. Music and other sound effects are adequate, but not memorable.

Graphically, it appears that the DS game was just magnified for the Wii. The resolution is not sharp and everything seems to bleed together. At one point in particular there are various poison springs spouting from the ground. You are supposed to avoid the red ones. Too many times I would die because I could not see the red fountains on the floor. Even the HUD is difficult to read because of blurred letters.  If you look up screens from the DS version, you’ll see how much more crisp and colourful the game should be.

Value
The WiiWare version of this game will run you 1000 Nintendo Points. The main game should only take you 2-3 hours to complete, but you can run through it again on hard if you want to unlock another mode. The truth is I did not have any desire to play through this game a second time, especially if it meant finding even more of the game to play. I don’t think 1000 points is a terrible value if you happen to like the game, but it would be much easier to recommend taking a risk for 500 points.

Overall
There is no doubt that Chronos Twins DX has a very unusual mechanic that will make curious gamers intrigued.  However, I can’t help but feel the execution is lacking in many regards. It’s not that anything is truly awful about the game, it’s just that nothing about feels particularly polished or upgraded.

I’d suggest that if you really want to play this game, download the DSi version. It’s cheaper and probably looks better. The bottom line is that Chronos Twins DX feels like a generic SNES game that you rented once or twice because of its potential, but never bought because of how it failed to live up to it.