Time loop games that are actually good?

Kabuki Actor said:
The game loops for being someone's spiritual nightmare
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It doesn't have to involve literal temporal travel, just that the narrative repeats over and over ad infinitum. On a fundamental level, even shutter island could count as a timeloop plot.
 
I really enjoyed Energy Breaker for SNES. It's loosely connected to Lufia.

There's no official western release but there is a fan translation.
 

Ephemeral_Fantasia_North_American_PS2_box_art.jpg

Ephemeral Fantasia​

Ephemeral Fantasia is similar to The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask in that the story transpires over a constantly looping period of five days. This is caused by a time loop created by the main antagonist, Xelpherpolis. In order for the time loop to be halted, Mouse must travel through the same five days multiple times. This game follows Mouse, who has been summoned by a powerful figure on a remote island to compose a song. Xelpherpolis invites Mouse to play at his wedding, no doubt because of his fame as an excellent musician. Of course, Xelpherpolis doesn't expect him to solve the mystery of the island and free its inhabitants.
 
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maybe this is just an autistic distinction but i feel like people are confusing time travel and time loop in this thread.

Majora's Mask and Outer Wilds is a time loop, because you are continually replaying the same fixed segments trying to change events through your actions.

prince of persia is time travel, where if you fuck up you just go back a few seconds and do something else.

it's not the ending in prince of persia you're trying to change, it's the goal you are trying to reach. where as in majora's mask and outer wilds, we know the ending. that's the problem.

same thing with Chrono Trigger, that's not about a time loop, that's a story with time travel. it's not like when Lavos pops out he resets the time line to continue feeding. Lavos is the end of that story. time loops inherently don't have an end. because it's a loop. that's what you're doing as the player, trying to break it.

does that make sense or am i insane
 
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Jesus H Christ said:
The problem with time-travel, time loops, etc... in temporal mechanics, is that it requires multidimensional time.
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I like the idea that any changes to the past were part of the past all along (the Novikov self-consistency principle). For example, someone goes back in time to stop the creation of the first atom bomb, but somehow their actions to stop the invention help to finish it. Or at least their efforts fail somehow.

Of course that doesn't look good for free will, unless one thinks of free will from a timeless perspective where all choices are made in one eternal moment.
 
Prince of Persia entirely bases it's gameplay on Time Looping which is extremely fun and sometimes frustrating. Blinx also did something similar although less successful.

Star Ocean : Til the End of Time's plot I think would count as a timeloop.
 
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DerKryptid said:
It doesn't have to involve literal temporal travel, just that the narrative repeats over and over ad infinitum. On a fundamental level, even shutter island could count as a timeloop plot.
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Super meat boy showed you replays of each and every death concurrently after a successful attempt at a level showing you your improvement over countless failures and deaths until your success and you get to watch yourself win over all your other previous fails.
 
Grub said:
Super meat boy showed you replays of each and every death concurrently after a successful attempt at a level showing you your improvement over countless failures and deaths until your success and you get to watch yourself win over all your other previous fails.
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This is the proper and only way to do a timeloop :winner:
 
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Yeah the difference between time loop and time travel makes sense, it's hard to think of true time loop games, and it feels like there's some overlap.
There's that game called Twelve Minutes. It has a neat loop.
That visual novel that used to be popular, doki doki literature club had a bit of a time loop where everything became progressively more messed up.
Bravely default 1 has one at the end for a secret ending. You have to beat the game like 12 times, and everytime you do characters start freaking out telling you to stop.
FF 13-2 sort of has one but it's more just bullshit time travel.
I feel like I remember one of the kingdom hearts game had one kinda, I think 358/2 days.
 
Grub said:
Super meat boy showed you replays of each and every death concurrently after a successful attempt at a level showing you your improvement over countless failures and deaths until your success and you get to watch yourself win over all your other previous fails.
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If I recall correctly, one of the bosses was essentially a giant amalgamation of all the versions of you that died. Plus, the cutscene prior to the final level had the main character repeatedly dying and respawning out of thin air, much to Dr. Fetus' frustration.
 
Mojo Thief said:
I recently played through The Forgotten City and I enjoyed it overall. It's basically Groundhog Day in a mystery adventure game format, except that you keep what you collected between loops.
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Forgotten City is a poorly written heap of shit. It pats itself on the back for its deep conversation system, but prohibits you from making any significant choices as to how you approach conversations, thrust a bunch of "but thou must!" decisions on you, and injects tons of modern day politics on an ancient Roman city/populace.

You get trapped on this weird ass underground cave where dudes are trying to murder you and one of the first people you encounter is some faggot bemoaning gay bigotry.

Fuck that game.
 
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