It's About Time

Lucina is a kind and determined princess who was taught swordplay at a young age. After her father was murdered and her mother was killed in battle, Lucina entered a portal to the past that was opened by a divine dragon. Upon arriving in the past, Lucina passes herself off as the legendary swordsman, Marth – who was the main character in the first Fire Emblem game. (Lucina is a descendant of Marth and even inherited his legendary sword, so it was a fitting disguise.) Lucina is driven by a desire to save the world and prevent the dark future from ever happening, but she takes the time to bond with the younger versions of her parents that she meets and has childish moments around them. She gets along with her father so well that she worries she’ll doom her parents’ relationship. That’s some serious Marty McFly shit right there.

Blinx the Time Sweeper is an anthropomorphic cat and an employee of a “Time Factory” dedicated to the creation, distribution, and maintenance of time across the entire dimensional axis. With the help of a magic vacuum cleaner, Blinx exerts control over time in five distinct ways. He can slow down time, speed up time, reverse time, or stop time altogether. His most creative form of time manipulation allows him to record his actions and effectively make shadow copies of himself. Blinx: The Time Sweeper was promoted as the “The World’s First 4D Action Game,” and Blinx was supposed to be Microsoft’s answer to characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot. Most Xbox owners were too busy playing Halo to acknowledge him, but it wouldn’t be proper if I didn’t acknowledge him here.

Sgt. Cortez is the least fleshed-out character on this list from a personality standpoint, and that’s precisely why he deserves to be on it. More so than anyone else on this list, Cortez is defined almost entirely by his time traveling escapades. As the leader of an elite team of space marines, Cortez spearheads the resistance against an alien race known as TimeSplitters who travel through time, space, and dimensions. The battle-hardened veteran can adapt to any combat situation, and this flexibility comes in handy as he pursues the TimeSplitters. He squares off against gangsters in prohibition-era Chicago, duels with gunslingers in the wild west, and carefully navigates through a robot factory in the 24th century. Whether he’s battling stone golems in ancient Aztec temples or blasting aliens on a space station, his missions never fail to surprise.

Originally released in arcades in 1985, Time Gal is an interactive movie in the vein of Dragon’s Lair that uses full-motion video to display on-screen action. The game begins with the theft of a time travel device in the year 4001 AD, and the story follows Reika’s exploits to pursue the thief through time. Her adventures take her as far back as 70,000,000 BC, and each time period she visits presents its own threats. Reika is able to neutralize most of these threats with her laser gun, but she can also stop time completely in order to allow herself more time to make decisions. Reika shrieks when she’s in trouble and is scantily clad throughout her adventure, but she’s one of gaming’s first leading ladies and a legit action heroine. She battles dinosaurs in the past and races hoverboards in the future, but she never loses her carefree attitude.

Maxine Caulfield is an aspiring photographer and High School senior who discovered she had an ability to control time after she saved her childhood friend from being killed in one of the school’s bathrooms. Max is a self-conscious introvert who would rather observe the world around her than take part in it. Although some of her classmates think she’s standoffish, Max is intuitive, resourceful, and compassionate. Max is able to control time in a number of different ways. She can reverse time in short lapses, see visions of future events, or stop time entirely. She can also go back to a specific period in time by focusing on photographs from the era. Some of Max’s abilities take a toll on her body in the form of headaches, nosebleeds, and unconsciousness, but she’s brave enough to put herself in harm’s way in order to protect those she cares about.

Lena Oxton (call sign: Tracer) was presumed dead when the experimental teleporting aircraft she was testing malfunctioned. It was later discovered that her molecules were merely desynchronized from the flow of time. Fortunately, a “chronal accelerator” stabilized Tracer and allowed her to control time as she saw fit. Her “Blink” ability lets her skip forward and instantly transports her several yards away. Her “Recall” ability, meanwhile, allows her to bounce back in time by reverting her health and physical location to precisely where they were a few seconds earlier. She excels at eluding attackers and sneaking past enemy lines, and she’s easily one of the most unique characters in Overwatch. Her playful nature and sexy poses triggered regressive critics, but Tracer became the de facto mascot of the game despite the faux outrage.

In Braid, time travel is uses as both a narrative device and a gameplay mechanic. In some stages, Tim demonstrates an ability to rewind time to undo his actions. The game later introduces objects that are not affected by time manipulation, and Tim is required to change the synchronization between objects in order to proceed. By the final stage of the game, Tim obtains a magic ring that warps the flow of time around it. Tim is supposedly searching for a princess who has been snatched by a horrible monster, but it’s eventually revealed that Tim is the monster. The events of the game were actually presented to the player in reverse, and the true story involves Tim fleeing from the castle after he was caught being a perv. In other words, the flow of time had effectively been reversed for the entire game!

The Prince’s ability to control the flow of time in the Sands of Time trilogy allowed him to correct his mistakes and gave players a safety net. The Prince could rewind time if he missed a jump or fell into a trap, and he could also slow down time or freeze his enemies in place when engaged in battle. His actions did not come without a price, however, and a mystical being known as the Dahaka was formed from the Sands of Time in order to correct the changes that had been made. After being pursued by the Dahaka, the Prince set out to prevent the Sands of Time from being created in the first place. Unfortunately, this plan just resulted in a dark manifestation of the Prince being created. In the end, the Prince finally learned to accept the consequences of his own actions rather than trying to erase them through time manipulation.

Ocarina of Time is divided into two distinct time periods. When the game begins, Link is a young child exploring a peaceful Hyrule. After claiming the Master Sword in the Temple of Time, he’s sealed away for seven years and emerges in a world overrun with chaos and destruction. The child and adult versions of Link have different abilities and can use different weapons during their adventures. By removing or placing the Master Sword in the Temple, Link is free to move back and forth between eras at his discretion. Link became known as the Hero of Time due to his actions in the game, but his time traveling adventures did not end there. In Majora’s Mask, Link finds himself in a Groundhog Day-inspired time loop and relives the events of the same three days over and over again in an effort to stop an impending catastrophe.

Crono is an unassuming hero who begins traveling through time after a science experiment goes awry. His quest begins with a simple mission of rescuing a girl and returning safely to his own era, but Crono soon finds himself on a mission to save the future from a parasitic alien. Crono fights dinosaurs in the prehistoric era, marches into battle in the middle ages, and travels to a post-apocalyptic future where destitute humans and sentient robots struggle to survive. Crono is a silent protagonist, but his personality is informed by his experiences. He meets a colorful cast of characters from different eras, and he is largely defined by the company he keeps. At the beginning of the game, Crono is depicted as a sleepy teenager who still gets an allowance from his mom. By the end of his adventure, he is literally the savior of humanity.