Games of the Abstract: Time Crisis 5 (2015)

 

Developer: Bandai Namco

Publisher: Bandai Namco

One to Two Players

Originally for: Arcade

 

After nine years from Time Crisis 4 (2006), a new sequel to the Namco lightgun shooter franchise came into being during the Unity engine era. That is neither a pointless reference, as not only was this a Unity engine production, but in 2018, Sega used Unity to resurrect the House of the Dead lightgun franchise with Scarlet Dawn, a moment of both legendary companies reviving their lightgun franchises in the high definition gaming era. Sadly we did not get a healthy crop of these types of games in this mould, nor actual ports either, making it the more tragic when the Scarlet Dawn cabinet, a huge sit-in spectacle cabinet, disappeared from the seaside arcade I found it within, replaced by an incredibly inferior Raw Thrills machine based on the Walking Dead. It meant an immediate must, even if pumping a comical amount of coins into it, to beat the Time Crisis 5 machine when I spotted it in the wild, all in fear it would be replaced by an inferior machine the year after.

Time Crisis 5 is an entry back into this absurd action film created in game form, factoring in that the spin-off Razing Storm (2009), which I have softened onto in hindsight, was escalating this franchise from the original. In the first game, you were rescuing the president's daughter, only to get to giant super robots by Razing Storm and Time Crisis 4. By Time Crisis 4, you had swarms of nano-like insect robots as super weapons, nuclear missiles being threatened to be used, and having to use a literal man-bridge to reach the final boss, which has to be one of the best (and funniest) I have encountered in this genre. By the fifth game, in which your new protagonists, a pair of lovable himbos, Luke O'Neil (Player One) with his beach bum tattooed look, and Marc Godart (Player Two) in the most swagger blue suit top for a gun fight combined with white tiger stripe trousers, are for the first stage already with the spin-offs now to pull lore from, trying to get a briefcase away from a figure named Wild Dog, who appeared as the central antagonist back in the original Time Crisis. It is still as ridiculous as part four as a big dumb action film in pace and tone, though the first prominent aspect, beyond the swanky new graphics, is the twin pedals instead of the one that this series created and set its structure around.

The pedal, and how you could hide behind cover, became Time Crisis' innovation, and this time, alongside wisely ditching using the pedal to switch weapons from Time Crisis 4, brings now a left and right one per player. Barring Level 2, the requisite level having a fire fight in a vehicle, a battle helicopter here, this means you in each area can move around enemies. Dodging their shots, you are able to immediately reload by switching cover, and then stand up and take shots, as well as do as before even if this game really emphasises using both sets than the one from previous games. It makes the legs and especially the feet sore, stood up for the whole campaign, but if Time Crisis 6 ever existed and could run with this, this simple add-on provides so much. Alongside the ability to swing around enemies, dodging bosses attacks with glee and always keeping on them, set up with the larger mini-gun enemies in Level 1 with red targets on their weapon's highly flammable fuel tanks, it also means having to switch between the two hiding areas to be able to hit certain goons without cover hiding them. Bosses, with those visible red targets, move to target you, forcing you to switch sides to flank them, weaving between the rest covers and dodge hazards. This simple mechanic adds so much fun and strategy.

Beyond this, Time Crisis 5 has a very simple story, but as I have come to found, I prefer lightgun games actually having a story even if it is really cheesy, rather than a tech demo gallery shooter as I have found in later advancements like VR Agent (2023). Alongside the Player Two character of Time Crisis 2 (1997) betraying you, which was distinct even without prior knowledge as he spends most of the game as a crotchety veteran who feels too old for this, there is also the fact in mind to the original Time Crisis being released a year before Resident Evil (1996), this clearly took inspiration from the later and the boom of zombies popular culture. Here, as a turn in this game, you eventually fight super soldiers who cannot feel pain, experiments who are effectively melee attack undead who you are encouraged, more so than the regular goons, to shot in the head immediately to quickly dispose of in a cavern level.

Beyond this, it is a series of set pieces. This has an inversion of a set piece from Time Crisis 4, taking pot shots at a boss as they are in a prolonged fist fight with one of your friendly NPCs, here the NPC ultimately the villain, but the boss also an American ninja in a room full of priceless but breakable antiques. There is the first level raid of a hotel for Wild Dog, Level 2 an on-helicopter scene against a train, which changes the pace, alongside Wild Dog's end on Level 3, even is vague enough in the explosion he can return. Then you find yourself in a cave, with a super naturally enhanced street punk as a boss, where whilst he attempts summon a dangerous energy blast, zombies act like a shield you need to switch covers to-and-fro between to hit him. My one disappointment with Time Crisis 5, honestly, is the lack of the ridiculous ending to match the humour of a man-bridge from the previous game's final boss, though this one does have them hiding behind an ED-209 stand-in on a hover platform like a coward, with your female lead saving the day by driving an entire helicopter into a missile, and having to hit precise targets to knock a man off a platform to oblivion after putting many bullets into him already. It is appropriately ridiculous to compensate, and that is the operative word. What separated this genre from a mere shooting gallery was when, however, they were influenced by the likes of American action films as with a lot of Japanese video games of certain genres, and the influence was exaggerated in these absurd but earnest games that I fell in love with as with Time Crisis 5 that could also match this tone with their solid gameplay.