YMMV / Time Commando

• Camera Screw: Due to the fixed angles that change as soon as you cross certain points in the screen it's easy to get confused especially if you happen to be fighting enemies near said points with the camera angles changing all the time.
• Catharsis Factor: Playing the game with cheat codes to get all weapons, infinite ammo, no reload will turn any level into this. Especially the Wild West and Modern Wars ones.
• Cult Classic: While Time Commando never became very popular it still has a small fanbase due to its combat system and memorable soundtrack.
• Goddamn Bats: Some of the enemies you fight aren't too dangerous, but have a knack for wasting your precious time.
  • Ninjas in the Feudal Japan level are quick and very annoying to deal with until you get a hold of a good weapon.
  • The flying androids in the Future. Your laser gun isn't a hitscan weapon and you have to lead them. The confusing screen perspective doesn't help much.
  • The sword and shield enemies in the European Medieval Ages. They're not strong, but can take a lot of hits and will waste a lot of your precious time.
• Demonic Spiders: Every level has at least one tough enemy that can give you a lot trouble.
  • The Knight enemies in the European Middle Ages are big, hit like a truck with their attacks and can take A TON of punishment before dying.
  • Gun-toting enemies in the Wild West, which 99% of enemies are this, especially in early parts of the level where you might run out of ammo fighting all of them.
  • Most Modern Wars enemies are also difficult due to the upper entry, but machine gun mooks are even deadlier since they fire a hail of bullets that will make short work of your health bar and some segments you fight more than one of them.
  • The Green lizard-like cyborg... thing you have to fight twice in the Future. It's an extremely annoying enemy that dodges your lasers with telepathic precision but even if you hit it this enemy takes minimum damage from ranged weapons, counterattacks with lasers of its own at medium distance and the moment you get close it will lunge at you with a fast melee attack. Fighting it during the first Future level is very frustrating since its only weakness (the Grenade) is only found in the second Future level and even then you have to be careful so the enemy won't avoid the delayed explosion.
• Disappointing Last Level: The final level is pretty lackluster compared to the rest of the game: it has no exploration, just boss fights, and only one rather bland weapon to collect.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common complaint is that the game is very short, you can finish it in under 2 hours if you don't mind searching for secrets.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Stanley's triumphant "Oh yeah!" upon finding a hidden bonus is very nice to hear.
  • The crunchy sounds of gun reloading is strangely satisfying to hear.
• Older Than They Think: The combat is deceptively deep with weapons having very different damage, reach and speed, which you had to pay attention to... a full 13 years before Demon's Souls.
• Porting Disaster: The Saturn version, released exclusively in Japan, suffers from a worse framerate, lower quality character models that lack dithering, and a nasty Game-Breaking Bug that crashes the game upon reaching a specific point in the second Future level, rendering the game unwinnable.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Secret searching is intentionally vague and not even hinted at in any difficulty higher than Easy which can be a problem for anyone that starts playing the game on said higher difficulties, especially in the Feudal Japan 2nd level where you must interact with a vase that looks like a piece of the background to proceed to the last stretch of the level.
  • You lose one Heart Container if you die, this can be very punishing if you're having trouble in certain levels and you can easily lose the rest of your lives because of that.
  • Stanley gets knocked back whenever he gets hit preventing him from acting for a moment. Keep in mind this game has no Mercy Invincibility (until you lose one life) and combat is usually fast-paced so this can easily keep you stunlocked in an annoying Cycle of Hurting, especially when fighting two or more enemies.
• Surprise Difficulty: The game looks like a brainless 3D Beat 'em Up, right? You'd be surprised how careful you actually need to be during combat, especially on higher difficulties and how strict the time limit can be.
• That One Boss:
  • The Skeleton Knight at the end of the European Middle Ages. It's a very tanky enemy that loves to power through your own attacks and its weakness is the Crossbow which has very little ammo. To make things worse the boss loves to dodge the crossbow bolts and reloading is very slow and you can bet the Skeleton will not let you ready a second shot easily.
  • The Wizard in the second level of Medieval Europe can bobble between this and Goddamned Boss territory. He teleports everywhere, uses magic blasts that deals a lot of damage and the only weapons that can hurt him are crossbow shots, which the ammo is very scarce or a magic blast of your own, which is ridiculously delayed.
  • For similar reasons the last boss in the Modern Wars level a War Tank is this. One of the few things that can hurt it is the RPG which has a slow traveling time and a VERY long reload time. You can also use grenades, but you'll have to get very close to the boss which is a very bad idea.
• That One Level:
  • European Middle Ages is full to the brim with tough enemy encouters that are a bit too good at blocking and counterattacking you while having also one of the most irritating bosses of the game: the Wizard. Suffice to say, this is when the game really stops going easy on you.
  • Wild West and Modern Wars levels are brutal on Hard difficulty. Tons of enemies, some that don't show up in lower difficulties, with ranged weapons and all of them hit like a truck being able to eat whole bars of life in one or two attacks.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Some of the 2nd, or even 3rd, slot weapons you get in the game can barely have any use before you get something better. Special mention goes to the knife in the Roman Empire level, which you'll probably use for one enemy to get his gladius and replace the dinky knife for the rest of the level (and the next one!).
  • Ally entities, which the game has exactly only one.
  • Enemy in-fighting is possible and could bring a lot of interesting combat depth, but only one level, the second European Middle Ages, really nudges players to do this in order to deal with two very tough enemies.

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