Time Hollow (DS) Review

Time is a funny thing to play around within the entertainment industry. On one hand, it offers countless possibilities for many engrossing storylines, and an opportunity to compel the viewer to play/watch on to discover more. On the other hand, it can serve to be very confusing to the average audience. Time Hollow is an exclusive adventure game designed specifically for the Nintendo DS. It comes from the makers of the cult classic PS2 game, Shadow of Memories, which also dealt with time. So, considering the writer’s history with time as a narrative mechanic, is Time Hollow a largely hollow experience or a fully fleshed out one?

In Time Hollow, players will take on the role of Ethan Kairos, a young boy who is just about to turn 17 years old. We begin the adventure with Ethan sitting at the dinner table with his parents, enjoying a home cooked meal. This is the point where we are introduced to Ethan’s parents, and it makes for a brilliant exposition. Later that night, when Ethan is getting ready for bed, he hears a commotion outside his room, which he decides to simply ignore and go to sleep. That night, Ethan has terrible nightmares about his parents in some trouble at a local restaurant. He wakes up in a sweat, happy to find it was only a dream. However, not all is right, as Ethan’s parents are nowhere to be found and Ethan’s uncle, Derek, is suddenly his primary caretaker. Finding a mysterious pen (the Hollow Pen) taped to his cat, Ethan soon discovers it has time altering powers and sets out on a quest to restore his parents existence. Along the way he will discover some shocking secrets about his family’s history and the people around him. In addition, Ethan will come across disastrous circumstances that he may change by altering events in the past.

Time Hollow’s plot may sound a little cliched, but it deals with several important themes that make it much more compelling than your average time travel title. Firstly, most of the gameplay focuses on the consequences of playing around with time, and the things Ethan must do in order to correct them. Almost everything Ethan changes in the past will have an effect on what happens in the present. Secondly, the game deals a lot with the futility of attempting to change one’s fate, and players will find this out as they play further. Finally, the game incorporates some very existentialist themes into its characters and it really raises some questions about our existence in this world. All-in-all, Time Hollow’s story and characterisation fit perfectly for a game of this genre.

The game’s graphical style lends itself very well to the characterisation of the protagonist and his friends. The game takes a very typical anime style of presentation, with beautifully detailed and animated close up portraits being used when in conversation, and comic book style effects to depict important events. Occasionally there are fully animated FMVs, similar to Professor Layton, and these look brilliant and are quite unexpected in such a low-key title. All-in-all, the animation and art direction lend themselves perfectly to ensuring the characters convey the appropriate emotions during their conversations. Some players may be put off by the generic Japanime look, but to be honest, it just works.

What also works in Time Hollow is the gameplay. Time Hollow is primarily an adventure game – there are no guns, there is no combat and most importantly, there is no certainty in what will happen next. Players can use their stylus to touch objects in Ethan’s environment to examine them, as well as talk to characters to find out details – and it’s details that you’ll be needing during your Time Hollow adventure. Before each “chapter” of Time Hollow, players are presented with still images, called “flashbacks”, which depict events that have occurred in Ethan’s current time frame. The idea behind the game is to “confirm” which flashbacks are correct by collecting information as to their whereabouts, what time and day the event occurred and such, and then modifying the past in order to ensure that the flashbacks do not happen.

After collecting all the information, Ethan must right the wrongs of the past in order to change the future. It is during this time that players can use their stylus, as Ethan uses the Hollow Pen, to open a “hole”. Through this hole is the “past version” of the environment, in which Ethan must modify in order to prevent the event from occurring. An example of this could be visiting an area where a young woman gets into a car accident. Opening a hole would actually allow Ethan to see the precise moment when she gets into her car, and allow him to either take her keys out of her bag or cause an event to prevent her from getting in her car, consequently preventing her from getting into a car crash that Ethan witnessed previously. It’s an example you won’t find in the game, but it’s the kind of things that you’ll be doing in Time Hollow, and you’ll find that for every action you take, you’ll find something else has gone wrong.

What doesn’t go wrong however, is the game’s soundtracks. Time Hollow features a very dramatic Japanese theme song that plays in the opening credits of the game, similar to something you’d expect to see on a morning cartoon show – along with some truly chilling tracks that even got me nervous about what was going on in Ethan’s world. The game is all about immersion and Time Hollow’s soundtrack does a brilliant job in getting the player into the world and sharing Ethan’s problems.

In terms of how long the game will last, there are probably around about 8-10 hours packed in here, which alters depending on how clever you are with working out where to go next. There isn’t a whole heap of replay value in the form of tangible unlockables, however, though there is something that I thoroughly recommend to players who have completed the game – start a new game with your save data, you’ll come across a very nice treat and a very nice conclusion to the story.

Although Time Hollow is a game that will no doubt fall under everyone’s radar, it’s actually a very enjoyable adventure game with a deep and twisted story that compels gamers to continue playing. The game has an almost nostalgic Saturday morning cartoon feel with several mysteries per chapter and players scrambling to solve them in order to find Ethan’s parents. What’s perhaps most appealing about Time Hollow though, is that although it takes some liberties with implementing time travel, it stays entirely realistic and keeps everything relatively normal without outside supernatural interference. Although the time mechanic of the game’s narrative may put off younger players and confuse them, Time Hollow is a DS adventure game that almost everyone should try.

Graphics 9.0

Gameplay 8.0

Sound 8.0

Tilt 8.0

Value 9.9