Time Loader from Meta Publishing and Flazm is a 1990s-infused story-driven physics-based puzzle platformer on Nintendo Switch. Check our Time Loader review!

 

Time Loader from Meta Publishing and Flazm is a 1990s-infused story-driven physics-based puzzle platformer on Nintendo Switch. For this one, you’ll be playing as a charming robotic vehicle, solving a variety of puzzles in a very fun experience. Once you get started, you’ll get an intro cutscene in which you see your creator having an accident by tripping over a red car, which sends him falling towards the ground. This, unfortunately, leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, confined to a wheelchair. Your creator decides to use a time machine to send you back to 1995 so that you can destroy the red car. Why? Simple! No red car, no accident!

 

You’ll control your robotic vehicle with the left analog stick, using the ZR button to grab onto objects. This can be used to grab onto a structure and then swing around to reach new heights. Once you are holding an object, you can use the right analog stick to aim and review its overall trajectory before throwing it with the ZL button. It can jump with the B button, which will make it easier to explore each area. Thanks to the robotic vehicle’s considerably large wheels, it will be able to climb over some surfaces that aren’t too tall for its size.

To interact with objects, press the Y button. Press up on the D-Pad, and you’ll get to check out the map screen, which will help to point you in the right direction of your next goal. By exploring the map, you’ll end up finding upgrades for the robotic vehicle so that you can take on additional puzzles. You might, for example, run into a shelf that is a bit too high for you to jump on top of it. How can you solve this conundrum? Perhaps if you locate a screwdriver on a nearby toolbox, you can use it to unscrew some of the shelf’s supports so that you can then use it as a ramp!

 

As is the case for the creator, the AI for the robotic vehicle is fully voice acted, which means you’ll be hearing it talk about the different goals you need to complete, as well as the obstacles you run into. You’ll also get to hear other voices, between a radio or a TV being on here and there, or when you find the creator’s diary from when he was young. Or perhaps you’ll hear the AI talk when you, say, interact with a switch to turn a light off so that you can save some energy and save the planet.

 

You’ll be able to have different outcomes for the story based on the actions you take during your time travel jump to 1995. The red car can quickly be found within 5 minutes of starting Time Loader, which would mean that your adventure would then be over since you’ve changed the past… right? Well, it turns out that even after you destroy it by sending it down the garbage disposal and tearing it to pieces, the AI runs a divergence analysis and finds out there’s another element that will set Adam into the path of the accident that left him crippled.

Time Loader is a charming and fun 1990s-infused story-driven physics-based puzzle platformer that looks and feels great on Nintendo’s console. It’s a short journey that shouldn’t take you more than 2-3 hours to beat on average, but the game does offer different endings to increase the replay value. There are also hidden items to locate, which will add secret signs to the map. Can you collect all of them and find out what will happen? Time Loader has an excellent graphical presentation, solid voice acting, as well as a charming soundtrack that will accompany you during your run through the past. Time Loader is out today on Nintendo Switch with a $14.99 asking price.

Disclaimer
This Time Loader review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Meta Publishing.