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Time Master / Video Games

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  • The titular "achrons" in Achron are Time Masters. Players can pause time, slow it down or speed it up, jump to alternate moments in time and generally observe the entire timeline (timewaves and all). This makes them ideal generals for commanding armies in cross-temporal warfare.
  • Alice in Wonderland (2010): The White Rabbit's special ability is freezing and manipulating time.
  • Kamui of Arcana Heart has the Arcana of Time as her default, letting her freeze opponents in time, move at Super-Speed, and use time-delayed copies of herself to evade and add to attacks. Also, as a side-effect of her Arcana, she's Really 700 Years Old.
  • Astral Chain: The Arrow Legion's slow shot can slow down enemies and is the only guaranteed way to cause a slow effect.
  • In Bayonetta, Umbra Witches are capable of slowing down time when they are in danger, allowing them to counterattack to devastating effect. There are also several accessories that further amplify an Umbra Witch's time powers, one of which slow down time automatically if she's struck, and another that allows her to activate this ability at any time she chooses. Lumen Sages, the Umbran Witch counterpart, have their own time-based power called Light Speed, which instead of slowing down time, speeds up time for the Sage. Witches and Sages have also been shown capable of time travelling, Balder the Lumen Sage in the first game, and Bayonetta in the second.
  • This is the only power the protagonist from Braid has, and it gets put to many fascinating uses.
  • St. Germain in Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, though he may be unable to affect anything. Aeon from Castlevania: Judgment is a more normal example, then there's Zephyr from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, and the Chronomage Unique Enemy (the latter two even including references to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's most well known Time Master, Dio Brando.)
  • Chrono Trigger's Big Bad, Lavos, seems to have some influence on time given that his final boss battle takes place against a backdrop that changes to scenes spanning history including his evolution in Chrono Cross.
  • City of Heroes has Time Manipulation as a Buff/Debuff set. It's considered one of the best in terms of performance.
  • Time technology shows up a lot in the Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series, with the original breakthroughs made by Einstein. Red Alert 2 introduces the Chrono Legionnaires, who can teleport around and erase other units from history. In the original manual, it's implied that the chronoshift teleportation is actually a case of Time Stands Still while the unit travels across the map the normal way.
  • Dr. Nefarious Tropy, the self-proclaimed "Master of Time" from the Crash Bandicoot series.
  • Darksiders: War can slow down time using the Chronospheres, while Death can use the Phasewalker to travel to and from a past version of Samael's palace in Shadow's Edge.
  • Darkterror the Faceless Void in Defense of the Ancients has several time related skills, like displacing himself through time while reversing his wounds, make his enemies recover their cooldowns more slowly, and stop time in an area excluding himself. Weaver's ultimate also has traces of this, putting weaver in the position he was a few seconds ago, with the same health as then, it's also implied to be how Disruptor's Glimpse works.note 
  • The Vex from Destiny laugh in the face of "linear progression of time". They not only move units through time from both the past and future, the ontological weaponry they're developing within the Vault of Glass, itself a meeting point of multiple timelines, have the ability to complete remove a subject from the fabric of space and time like they never existed to begin with.
  • Dishonored: Both Corvo and Daud can slow time, rendering only themselves and anything they touch/kill/posses as able to move normally. Upgrading this ability further allows the complete halt of time. Also Daud as the player character in the DLC can upgrade his Arcane bond ability to allow summoned assassin allies to move normally while time is stopped. Corvo and Daud are both immune to each other's bend time even if they don't posses that ability themselves.
  • "Master" might be doing him too much credit, but Gereon Alexius in Dragon Age: Inquisition is the first mage to be able to manipulate time, something that should be impossible even with magic. It's speculated that the Breach altered the rules of magic in Thedas to make it possible. One consequence of this is that he cannot travel back to any time before the Breach occurred. Sadly, this means he cannot travel back in time to save his wife and son from a Darkspawn attack that happened before the Breach. One of the items he drops when he is defeated in a Bad Future is an amulet that reduces skill cooldown times. If he is recruited into the Inquisition, he can continue his research and eventually craft an even better version of it.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Time Mage class from the Final Fantasy series.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the Player Character (with the help of the mysterious Sothis) can use the Divine Pulse to stop and rewind time up to a point. The ability is first demonstrated after the introductory mission, when the protagonist dives in front of Edelgard to protect her from a bandit, seemingly sacrificing their life to do so: with the activation of the Divine Pulse, the protagonist turns back the clock and, with foreknowledge of what is about to happen, drives off the brigand without dying. Notably, they themselves can't move while in the frozen time, but this does leave their mind free to ponder what they will do before reversing time and making their move.
  • The Big Bad of the Freedom Force series is literally named Time master. He's essentially a Galactus analog with power over Time instead of Cosmos. He is only incapable of controlling his own aging process, so he plans to gain immortality by literally destroying time itself, with the unfortunate side effect of killing everything in the Universe except him, something which doesn't seem to bother him much. He also has the problem (for the heroes) that he can, at any given time, revert himself to when he was at his most powerful, making it impossible to defeat him. In the end, only extremely powerful Applied Phlebotinum or the aid of the Anthropomorphic Personification of Chaos is able to make him stay down.
  • Gacha World: Shishi stops time for two turns after being summoned to deal her attack damage and also a free turn for the player to make whatever move they so desire.
  • In Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Sissel has the powers to go back into time 4 minutes before a person's death. He can do this as many times as he wants as long the body has recently died. There are other Ghost Trick abilities in the game, but Sissel's rewind time powers is often stated to be the most useful of them all.
  • Guild Wars 2 has Chronomancer as an Elite Specialization of the Mesmer class. They have the ability to create wells of altered time that damage or slow enemies or shield and speed up allies, a skill that rewinds them to the health and cooldowns they had on its activation, and the fluff for their inherited Mesmer skills is changed to be time-themed.
  • Henry Stickmin Series: In Completing The Mission's Revenged route, Both Henry and Right Hand Man have "Spirits" that affects time. Right Hand Man's "Bottled Time" can slow down time once enough sand have filled up the bottle and can stop it completely if its full. Henry's Reference can toss a person into a alternate timeline and changes them into their alternative self.
  • Time is an element in I am Setsuna, and the game's Time-elemental party member, Aeterna, can stop or slow the time of enemies, speed up her allies, alter time flow to keep status buffs in effect longer, or combine it with the Space Master aspects of the element to interfere with cosmic laws. While this looks over the top for the scope of RPG game powers, Flavor Text tells you that the Time element is difficult to master on top of being physically and mentally taxing, so even Aeterna's "cosmic law interference" just amounts to messing with the game's probability-based status buffing mechanic. However, the person she's a clone of is capable of causing world-scale Groundhog Day Loops spanning years.
  • Jak and Daxter: In Jak 3, Jak can use one of his Light Eco abilities to slow time in the surrounding area.
  • Journey On: The lore states that the basic healing spell, Restore, rewinds time on injuries to heal the target. The beastman elder states that those who are corrupted have their time flow stopped, granting them immortality. The Darkness itself is connected to time and if Shirley is corrupted enough, she will get flashbacks where she is the Avatar of Darkness, implying that those who are corrupted by the Darkness can exist in multiple points in time.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • The Phantom from Kingdom Hearts possesses the clock tower in Neverland and casts a curse on the party; every time the big hand moves one full minute, a party member is KO'ed and un-revivable for the rest of the fight. It starts with Peter Pan, then Goofy/Donald, and finally ends with killing Sora (you). There's no way to remove the curse and the only way to survive is to cast Stop on the clock and try to beat the Phantom as quickly as possible.
    • Luxord from Kingdom Hearts II has this as his element. He never seems to do anything useful with it, but it sounds cooler than the element of Compulsive Gambling. Though given how he doesn't seem to be a cheater in terms of personality, it's kinda justified in why he shies away from using it onscreen. His powers also mostly manifest through applying Timed Missions to various tasks such as the fight between him and Sora. That said, in 358/2 Days, he's the only one automatically immune to Rewound Defense (the status effect inflicted by "Time"-type attacks).
    • In II, Merlin was able to create a door that led into a world based on Classic Disney Shorts such as Steamboat Willie. In 3D, he is also briefly mentioned as creating a Year Inside, Hour Outside space so Lea could learn to use a Keyblade. Notably, the time travel Merlin uses in II manages to break every rule of Xehanort's method that was established in 3D: You can't change the past, you don't remember time traveling when you're done, a version of yourself must exist at the destination, and you must give up your physical body to do it.
    • The Mysterious Figure from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep demonstrates how a time-wielding boss is done right. One of his tactics involves stopping and rewinding time to recover HP, even reversing the BGM. He has more time-related tricks when he shows up in Dream Drop Distance - in the Japanese version, he even throws out a "TOKI WO TOMARE!". Aside from just using the ability in combat, the "Mysterious Figure"- now known as Young Xehanort- also manipulates the events of the story to his liking using Time Travel.
    • Sora, Aqua, Terra, Ventus, and Riku are capable of casting the Stop spell (and its stronger forms Stopra and Stopga) in combat to freeze common enemies in place in a small area; while frozen, they can be hit without retaliation and will take all the damage at once when the spell wears off. King Mickey takes it a step further in one cutscene in 3D, utilizing Stopza to halt not just a few individuals, but time itself.
    • Master Xehanort himself is also capable of using Stopza, casting it to counter Mickey's Ultima and succeeded at doing so in III.
  • League of Legends:
    • Zilean from holds the title of Chronokeeper, and he lives up to it. He places time bombs (literal ones) on targets that detonate a while later, can rewind time to reduce his cooldowns, and can speed up or slow down time around champions to increasing the movement speed of his allies or decreasing his enemies'. His ultimate ability puts a protective sigil on an ally that will rewind time around them if they die, essentially resurrecting them if they die while the sigil is active. Early-game, his time bombs make him a great nuker, but as the game goes on, he tends to do better in a support role.
    • Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time. Has a time grenade which slows and damages enemies hit by it, another which detonates after a brief pause, creating a zone that slows (and potentially stuns) enemies caught in it. His ultimate reverses time and teleports him to wherever he was four seconds ago, partially healing any damage he took over the previous four seconds and unleashing massive area of effect damage upon his arrival. Most commonly used as a midlane/jungler assassin thanks to his good crowd control, speed boost passive, and ultimate which can be used effectively as an escape or weapon.
  • Moebius the Timestreamer and his predecessors in Legacy of Kain, the guardians of time, are among nine sorcerers chosen at birth to guard different aspects of the world. However, Moebius is an unusual example because he doesn't do things like freeze his enemies or (despite having made the timestreaming chambers,) travel through time himself; in fact, he seldom does anything except talk, but since he has "a certain level of omniscience", he is able to carry on conversations with actual time travellers with no Time-Travel Tense Trouble even if the first time they meet him is centuries into the future. He also knows exactly how history is fated to fall out, and can direct his pawns accordingly. Unfortunately, he's Not So Omniscient After All when a paradox enables history to be shifted onto a different path, and is visibly frightened and out of his depth at such moments. The Elder God has shown similar abilities (and weaknesses), along with the ability to open a passage through time at will.
  • Kea in The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure. When using her Power of Zero, which was one of the seven sacred treasures of Aidios, with some of the powers of Time and Space thrown into the mix as well. She originally awakened her powers when she used it to alter the fate of Lloyd and the others when they were killed in a Bad Future.
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night gives Spyro the ability to slow time, stating it to be the Power of the Purple Dragon.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link in Oracle of Ages (past and present), Ocarina of Time (between child and adult), Majora's Mask (resetting time, slowing time, speeding up time, etc.) and Phantom Hourglass (stopping time). Majora's Mask also mentions a "Goddess of Time" aiding Link through his journey, with the implication that this is a title for Nayru of the Golden Goddesses who created the laws of nature.
  • Malediction: One of Morgan's powers is time manipulation. He can rewind time, and create "time dilation bubbles" that slows down time for anything that enters it (except for Morgan himself).
  • The Mega Man franchise features several bosses that can manipulate time. The player can also do so with a weapon based on the enemy (or chip in the Battle Network timeline).
    • Flash Man, Bright Man and Time Man from the Mega Man (Classic) series all have weapons that can either slow or stop time.
    • There's Dark Necrobat from Mega Man X5, who can also freeze time via Dark Hold.
    • In Mega Man Zero 4, there's Popla Cocapetri. Zero's version of his EX skill, Time Stopper, however only affects a small area whereas his can affect the entire screen. This is explained by Cocapetri using viruses and hacking to forcibly freeze up and shut down machinery (up to and including Reploids) for a time.
    • Chronoforce in Mega Man ZX Advent can slow down time (which when fighting him gives him and his attacks a massive speed boost while it's active), and can also "reverse" time with his Limit Break by firing it off, and then "rewinding" it back to the beginning (this includes any icicles destroyed regenerating in the process). Notably, his "Time Stop" doesn't just slow down enemies, it slows down stage hazards as well.
    • Mega Man Battle Network:
  • Mortal Kombat:
  • NEO: The World Ends with You: Rindo's latent ability allows him to rewind time, but it only activates if it's completely necessary and cannot be used at will. Fret later coins this "Replay", and every time Rindo uses it, the leftover Soul from the timelines he erases turn into the Soul Pulvis, bird-like Noise that are instrumental to The Man Behind the Man's plan.
  • Marquai from Nexus Clash is the patron god of time, but is also the patron of ingenuity and so is always looking for ways to screw with time or use it differently than he did before. Sometimes this confers Time Master powers on his followers as well.
  • In Nova Drift, the Temporal Shield slows down everything around your ship.
  • Ōkami:
    • Lechku and Nechku are clockwork owl demons who can stop time, leading to a somewhat disturbing sight as the screen turns golden and Amaterasu freezes as the giant demon marches step at a time towards you.
    • Although much less pronounced, Amaterasu also gains the Veil of Mist ability that lets her slow time for a few seconds.
  • Tracer from Overwatch can manipulate her own personal time. She can move forward in time so quickly it looks like a Flash Step, or rewind her time to be back where she was three seconds ago.
  • Atlas from Paladins is a man from the future with advanced tech that can control time. He can rewind his enemies' time back a few seconds, rewind himself back a few seconds, create a stasis wall that slows down and disintegrates projectiles, and his ultimate ability exiles enemies from time for a few seconds.
  • Pokémon:
    • Celebi (who can travel through time), Dialga (who is the deity of time), and Terapagos (who can pull other beings through time).
    • In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers games, Darkrai can travel through time as well. It sort of makes sense, since he could learn Roar of Time in a special event in the main games. He also corrupted the aforementioned Dialga into Primal Dialga, which also helps.
  • In Psychonauts 2, Helmut Fullbear teaches Chronokinesis to Raz while in his mind, which grants Raz the power to slow down any speeding object.
  • Quantum Break: Jack Joyce gains the ability to control time after a failed time-machine experiment. His abilities include:
    • Time Blast, which breaks time in a focused area with destructive results.
    • Time Rush, which allows him to run while time is frozen.
    • Time Dodge, a quick dash out of harm's way.
    • Time Shield, a protective bubble that can deflect bullets.
    • Time Stop, which freezes time in a focused area, including opponents and objects.
  • The Zoni from the Ratchet & Clank series are this, but are closer to Time Police in how they operate - they can control and maintain the flow of time with the Great Clock which acts as their homeworld, but they're also able to slow time manually and are immune to any changes to the timestream such as someone stopping time, an ability they can pass onto others. Clank, as the son of the Zoni's leader Orvus, also counts.
  • RosenkreuzStilette gives us Sichte Meister, who serves as an Expy of Dio, Flash Man and Sakuya, being able to use her ability, Die geplante Zukunft, manipulate time and use a variety of attacks while time is stopped. According to her profile, whenever Die geplante Zukunft is used, it happens to have a profound effect on history.
  • Time Lord in SaGa Frontier. Due to the game's lack of Game Play And Story Segregation, there isn't anything stopping him from freezing time and attacking you.
  • Skullgirls:
    • Aeon is the deity of time, and so has complete control over it. Her prospective gameplay (that's right, she's a candidate for DLC) involves summoning mirror images of other cast members from alternate timelines to attack for her (including ones where they become the next Skullgirl), slowing time, stopping it, unwinding it, taking seconds off the match timer and capturing a bubble in time and all attacks executed within it to be unleashed again later.
    • One of the would-be DLC characters Isaac was a time traveler who could use his powers to speed up the countdown timer as well as jump back in time to fight alongside his past self.
  • Sly Cooper: One of Sly's abilities he can obtain is being able to slow down time. Murray can also stop time with one of his special skills.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic has this power, but doesn't use it very much (if at all). His rival, Shadow the Hedgehog, uses it much more often, to the point where it can be considered a part of his Elemental Powers. The resident Kid from the Future, Silver the Hedgehog, doesn't have this power naturally, but is only relevant to the plot when he time travels.
    • In Sonic Generations, the Time Eater can also manipulate time during the final battle with it; in fact, the words sung in its theme, Dominus Tempus, translate roughly to "Master of Time".
  • South Park: The Fractured but Whole has the player learning various time-altering farts that can be used in both combat and to solve environmental puzzles. You can reverse time (which cancels an opponent's turn in combat), stop time (which lets you land a few free hits for a few seconds) and even summon a past version of yourself to help you out. Near the end you can actually time travel, which is only used for plot purposes.
  • In Space Channel 5 Part 2, the Japanese version mentions that Purge has the ability to bend spacetime.
  • Time in Sunless Skies is already a rather fickle and manipulable parameter by itself, but Her Enduring Majesty is the one who has the authority to control it, either directly or not, within Albion. She rewards her favourites with months to prolong their lives, while those who displease her are condemned to the Midnight Cells, where every minute lasts a day. And it's implied she could easily fix the Wefts of Unraveled Time if she actually bothered (a task that requires a downsized Hour-Loom for you to even attempt to knit time back together), but apparently finds it beneath her.
  • In Super Lesbian Animal RPG, any party member can cast time manipulating spells to speed themselves up or slow enemies down if they equip the Chronomancer spellbook. Another example is Roy, one of Javis's four 'sons', a being created from a fragment of Javis's life force and who possesses time manipulation abilities. In battle, Roy can fast forward time, forcing the party to auto-attack, or re-wind time and repeat his own attacks in a single combat turn.
  • In Super Paper Mario, Count Bleck is capable of slowing the player in his battle.
  • Tales of Maj'Eyal has the Chronomancer classes, Temporal Warden and Paradox Mage.
    • Temporal Wardens can slow enemies or speed themselves, split the timeline for a few turns and choose the best one when the effect expires, boost damage by pulling in future attacks, and detect traps by seeing into the future.
    • The Paradox mage class is unlocked by letting your future self kill you. They can Send damage into the future for a time, summon temporal clones, randomly teleport enemies, and can attempt to Ret-Gone hostiles out of existence.
  • Tales of Monkey Island: LeChuck near the end of Chapter 5. When he sees the Vaycaylian warriors throwing their javelins at him at Winslow's order, the villain uses his voodoo power to make Time Stand Still for those outside of LeChuck's ship, making the entirety of the ship seem more like a parody of Year Inside, Hour Outside. Strangely enough, the Crossroads (and Morgan LeFlay for that matter) don't seem to be affected by the voodoo time freeze.
  • Tales of Xillia 2 has the aptly named Chronos, who's one of the three prime Spirits who watch over the world and a major antagonist. He initially only uses his time manipulation to speed up his movements, but in later fights, will stop time completely for a brief moment and can even reset the battle to its beginning. The reality-warping abilities of Ludger's Chromatus are the only thing that keeps him from being completely unbeatable.
  • The Final Boss of Thumper can speed up and slow down the level tempo, completely disorienting the player.
  • The Hero from Timeshift has the ability to slow down, stop and reverse time by using his Beta Suit.
  • Touhou Project:
  • Undertale plays with this trope: Any sufficiently determined individual can escape death by winding back time and returning to a save point. Flowey, being filled with Determination, took advantage of this ability until the human came along and their Determination overpowered his. In the neutral routes, when Flowey absorbs the six human souls, he gains the ability to create and return to save points, which he uses to try and get any attacks that miss to hit. Well, he does that along with rewinding time to bring himself to full health after he loses all his hit points and repeatably resurrecting the player character in order to kill them over and over again. If he hadn't stopped to gloat and instead had just killed the player character permanently as soon as he had the chance, Flowey would have won.
  • The eponymous character in Viewtiful Joe can speed up or slow down time, though it's explained in-game as 'visual effects', as the game takes place within a movie film.
  • The Slow spell in Warcraft II obviously slows its target, but what's relevant is that the manual explains this as happening by "warping the very patterns of time that surround [the] target," unlike the converse Haste spell, which merely "magically increas[es] the speed at which a body generates vital energy."
  • Alexander in The Watchmaker (2018) was given this ability in his quest to fix the clock tower and restore the flow of time to normal.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • When the Titans shaped Azeroth, they chose five breeds of dragon, empowered each of them, and gave them dominion over certain aspects of the world. The Bronze Dragonflight was charged with guarding Azeroth's timeways. Bronze dragonflight questgivers meet your character and get confused about whether they have met you before, they send you to important times in history so you can stop someone else from screwing them up, and their leader is long-missing and is implied to be a bad guy now.
    • Nozdormu was even granted knowledge of the exact place and time of his own death, so fighting him would be completely stupid. As soon as the fight goes poorly for him, he will just restart the fight from its time of origin and try a different tactic.

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