Title: The Ambassador Fractured Timelines
Genre: Action, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on PC and Xbox)
Developer|Publisher: tinyDino Games | The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild
Age Rating: EU 16+ | US Teen
Price: UK £13.49 | EU € 14,99 | US $14.99
Release Date: August 13th 2020
Review code provided with many thanks to The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild
Stop the Clocks
A lot of us probably would probably like the ability to stop or slow down time. If I had that ability I would most likely use it to get more sleep and read more books. Sorry, I’m boring. If you have a better use of time stopping abilities feel free to share those in the comments below. Anyway the publisher with the most awesome name has provided us with a code for this time stopping adventure; The Ambassador Fractured Timelines. So lets stop the clock for a few minutes, take a break from life and take a peak at this fantasy adventure.
Become the Ambassador
Meet Gregor. Bearded, attractive and likes walks in the woods and meditation (those last two are how I like to picture Gregor spends his free time). Gregor is a new recruit of the Eternal Fellowship and has been made an Ambassador of Time. Sadly this title doesn’t come with an epic quest where a band of Fellowship hero’s where you drop a shiny object in a volcano. But you are tasked to find out why the Fellowship’s capital has been destroyed. Did I mention this adventure involves travelling across different timelines and using time stopping powers? The plot is fairly straight forward and doesn’t particularly offer anything new to those familiar with time travel storylines. I did however, enjoy chatting with the various NPCs that you encounter on your journey who provide some witty comments as well as explaining what’s going on in the area you’re visiting.
Twin Stick with Thought
The Ambassador is a twin stick shooter with nice pixel graphics based in a fantasy setting. You hop from level to level with the task of wiping out all the enemies in the area. This then opens a portal where you may be able to collect an upgrade, moving on you repeat the process again until you come up against the big bad boss that needs destroying. You then move on through another portal, continuing the process until you win the day. It’s an adventure that will probably take you a good week of playing on and off to finish.
The game tries to put its own twist on the twin stick shooter formula. You have melee weapons that you can fling at enemies as well as a magic weapon that you can switch to in an instant. You need to make your hits count though. This is no arcade action twin stick shooter. Magic is limited and your melee weapons take time to return to your hand much like Thors hammer which funnily enough is an unlockable weapon later in the game. Some enemies only take a few hits but there are also a lot of larger, bulkier enemies which require some thought to defeat. Maybe you need to wait for the right opening or maybe you need a throw a giant rock at them to stun them. This brings us on to Gregors time stopping ability.
Master of Time
At the push of a button Gregor will form a giant purple bubble around himself. This will significantly slow down time for anything caught in this area. This comes in handy when a bridge begins to crumble as you walk across it or to slow down giant blocks that could crush you in an instant. Of course it also does come in very handy when battling the baddies that inhabit the levels. Or to just slow things down when action gets a little too crazy. I enjoyed playing around with the different weapons and magics that you can unlock with some being more favourable than others. You can jump into a menu at any time to adjust your build to make the most of the situation.
Magic Niggles
My main critique is that the game feels a bit repetitive. The game does add extra objectives per level to increase the repeatability such as destroying all the barrels and taking no damage. But I didn’t particularly feel compelled to achieve each of these goals. When you finish the game you also unlock a horde mode. A fun enough experience but again, it’s just about killing all of the enemies. The time stop mechanic is used in clever ways to solve environmental puzzles and it feels a shame this just isn’t utilized a bit more.
Winding it Up
The Ambassador Fractured Timelines is a game that kinda grew on me the more I played it. I liked the strategic gameplay where every hit counts. It’s just a shame there’s not more variety in the level design bar kill all the enemies. Still an entertaining experience from a small development team. I look forward to seeing what tinyDino Games works on next.
Final Verdict: I like it
