Video Game / Super Time Force

KOOKABUNGA!

"But wait...what if we...caused...all of this?"
"Sheah right! Unpossible! you didn't invent an army of pissed off robots did ya? No? then we're good here."

— Commander Repeatski and his past self, Game intro.

Super Time Force is an action game created by Toronto-based developer Capybara Games, the brains behind Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP and Below. The gameplay is reminiscent of side-strolling run-and-gun games like Contra, but with the added ability of time travel. When you die or choose to "time out", you can rewind time back to any previous moment, at which point you can select another character and play from there, while your previous copies still perform their actions. This leads to situations where you rewind multiple times to add additional firepower or obtain normally out-of-reach items (Cloxs, Shards, and Glorbs) among other things.

The story begins in Philadelphia, during the year 1987. A man named Doctor Repeatski invents time travel, and immediately the world is overrun by robots. However, Repeatski's future self, now known as Commander Repeatski, comes back with the Super Time Force to save the day, and the days of other time periods. While at the beginning the player starts with three members of the force, French machine-gunner Jean Rambois, Scottish sniper Aimy McKillin, and shield-wielder Shieldy Blockerson throughout the training tutorial. New characters can be found and be unlocked in different time periods as well as with the amount of Shards and Glorbs that are collected in each level.

The game was released on May 14, 2014 for the Xbox One and Xbox 360, on August 25, 2014, The game was released for PC, with an updated edition to game titled Super Time Force Ultra (abbreviated as STFU) The game was later released on September 1, 2015 for the PlayStation 4 and Play Station Vita and earlier the Xbox platforms in April 1, 2015.

You can watch the game's animated trailers/shorts here and here. This game is not to be confused with nor actually a videogame adaption of Power Rangers Time Force.

Super Time Force provides examples of:

• Awesome Aussie: SAXTON HAAAAAAALE!
• Action Girl: Aimy McKillin, Melanie Gibson, and Cleo, as well as Zoey.
• Anti-Villain: Dr. Infinity's goal is to stop the STF and his past self from completely messing up time.
• Badass Adorable: Cleo may be a wild, razor boomerang throwing, post apocalypse survivor, but she's still a little girl who sleeps in a pet bed between adventures.
• Big Bad: Dr. Infinity is the main antagonist trying to stop the STF, for some reason. It's a very good reason, though.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor, poor Davy in one of the animated trailers.
• Brave Scot: Aimy McKillin.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Jef Leppard and Cleo have blonde hair, (The latter used to have black hair) Jean Rambois and Melanie have a shade of brunette, while Aimy is the only redhead. Shieldy's is unknown due to wearing a helmet.
• Book Ends: The first boss is also the final boss. Well, the first part of the final level at any rate.
• Catchphrase: Zackasaurus commonly says "Kookabunga!", and spray paints it on dinosaur eggs when first encountered.
• Charged Attack: Each character has one, which does different things like shooting a rapid-fire Spread Shot or piercing laser.
• Chest of Medals: Commander Repeatski's chest is entirely covered in medals.
• Chainsaw Good: Stash has this ability along side with his shotgun weapon.
• Deadly Upgrade: The Ultra characters are super powerful versions of regular characters that can deal crazy damage but last for only TEN SECONDS before violently blowing up the area around them. Which is awesome for when you need stuff to just die. Just be warned that you can't use them that often.
• Death as Game Mechanic: You respawn at the start of the level and an NPC representing your past life spawns that takes every action you did in your previous life. So if you kill an enemy and then die, this NPC will kill that enemy and die and you can move on and do other stuff.
• Death Cry Echo: Playable characters do this when they die.
• Drunk with Power: Commander Repeatski. He saves dinosaurs from extinction, steals the Holy Grail, and destroys Heaven just because he can.
• Eyepatch of Power: Parodied with Commander Repeatski, who has two eyepatches, covering both eyes.
• Evolving Attack: The general effect of what happens when you team up two of the same character, though most obvious with Cleo as she can summon boomerangs while charging.
• The Faceless: At least to the STF, as Dr. Infinity covers his face with a digital display that he's always holding up to hide the fact that he's Commander Repeatski.
• Forced Transformation: Merlin's charge attack turns enemies into Woodland Creatures.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • The team is known as the Super Temporal Infinite Manipulation Expert Force.
  • The PC/PS4/Vita/(Later) Xbox release adds Ultra to the title, making the game's acronym STFU.
• Guest Fighter:
  • Only in the Steam edition, Super Time Force Ultra, includes Zoey from Left 4 Dead and the Pyro and Saxton Hale from Team Fortress 2 as playable characters. The GOG.com distribution of the game does not figure those guest characters.
  • The PS4 and Vita versions of STFU include Sony president Shuhei Yoshida, who attacks using a cell phone that shoots emoticons and Twitter messages; Sir Galahad from The Order: 1886, and the hooded journeyman from...uh, Journey (2012).
• I Hate Past Me: Dr. Infinity isn't particularly fond of his previous self, also known as Commander Repeatski.
• Jerkass: Commander Repeatski. He makes himself cry in the very intro to the game!
• Manchild:
  • Cmdr. Repeatski. He talks with a mix of texting lingo and childish remarks. His missions reports have stickers and cookies on them. His attempts to fix history are very short-sighted and selfish, concerned more with things like saving a restaurant chain and prevent the extinction of the dinosaurs rather than stopping wars or pandemics.
  • Dr. Infinity greets the Super Time Force with playground-level name calling each time they meet. It's a hint he's the future Repeatski.
• Meaningful Name: Oh, so much.
  • Repeatski invented time travel, and uses it a lot.
  • Aimy McKillin is the team's sniper.
  • Shieldy Blockerson can use his shield to block shots and can also throw down defensive barriers.
  • Dolphin Lundgren is a dolphin.
• My Own Grampa: One of the consequences stated in the opening scroll is "accidentally dating your mother".
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Every playable character can only take one hit before dying, unless they save a comrade and absorb his/her temporal essence, then they can take one extra hit.
• One-Hit Polykill: Aimy's charged attack fires a laser that pierces walls and enemies.
• 1-Up: Glorbs give you one extra time rewind upon pickup.
• Power-Up: The concept is toyed with in this game: if one of your characters die, and with another character you avert their demise, you can collect your saved comrade, allowing you to use their charge attack alongside your own and absorb one extra hit without dying.
• Rainbow Speak: Every instance of "time" and "travel" is colored red, and "super" is colored blue. Even in mundane sentences.
• Retraux: The art direction of the pixel graphics are vividly colorful and very fluid in animation.
• Rule of Cool: Repeatski's motivation for going to 1,000,000 BC is to save the dinosaurs from extinction, because dinosaurs are awesome.
• Running Gag: Each and every beginning level has random characters get crushed by the time beacon.
  • You'll even find random people making out to each other in every level.
• Score Screen: When you complete a level, a window pops up showing how long you took to complete it, and how many collectibles you picked up.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The Super Time Force's mission is to jump through time, correct history's dumb mistakes, and kill stuff that never should have happened.
• Shield Bash: This is Shieldy's basic attack.
• Spread Shot: Jean's charged attack shoots a rapid-fire version of this.
• Sequel Hook: After the credits when you beat the game in Super Hardcore Mode, An extra ending reveals the Looker and his sister talk into the idea of destroying the Super Time Force.
  Looker: That was a very enjoyable look, Sister.
  Sister: Yes brother, I agree. The Super Time Force are really good looking.
  Looker: We should probably destroy them though, don’t you think?
  Sister: Oh most assuredly. The Super Time Force must die for the good of all dimensional life.
  Looker: Ok, cool. So we’re on the same page.
  Sister: Ya, Totally.
  • This is, however, very confusing when you paid more attention to normal mode’s ending, Which had Repeatski’s commander self explaining to his alternate versions (his past self as a scientist and as Dr. Infinity) to "take old space-time for another spin around the block." As all three did what he said, the entire earth exploded (again!), closing in to the game’s logo. In the Looker scene, It shows Repeatski himself and the rest of the Super Time Force alive and well on a parade float. This leaves you wondering if he and the rest would have died after destroying earth, or it could be just the Looker's view in order to jump into the event where they're at after saving 198X.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Melanie Gibson's shotgun pellets literally poof out of existence when they get too far, but boy do they tear up bad guys.
• Shout-Out: The references are pretty plentiful.
  • 199X is inspired by the post apocalyptic wastelands similar of the Mad Max trilogy. With placements like New Homez Depots and the "Funderdome". The Max Rockatansky-look alike is even the poor sod who gets crushed by the time beacon thing.
  • The time of your arrival in the Medieval Period is "Hammer Time".
• Super Spit: Zackasaurus's charge attack is corrosive spit.
• That Liar Lies: When confronted with Dr. Infinity's claims that the Super Time Force has done far more harm than good, Commander Repeatski denies it and insists those are lies before eventually breaking down and admitting Infinity is right.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Lou Don Jim's charge is a boomerang version of this.
• Time Travel: The game's plot, and the main mechanic.
• Timed Mission: Every level is timed. Usually, it starts at 60 seconds, but there are pickups that extend the limit.
• The Squad: The Super Time Force themselves.
• Title Scream: Occurs at the title screen. SUPER, TIME FORCE!
• The '80s / The '90s : The game's setting (198X) and pop culture references.
• The Reveal: In the end of the game's normal difficulty mode, Dr. Infinity is really Repeatski the whole time trying to stop his future self from changing history.
• Toilet Humor: Squirty Harry. He is a living pile of feces that uses his farts as a weapon (even setting them on fire with his revolver).
• Too Dumb to Live: Repeatski. He demands that you get 7-year-old Cleo from the future after he gets bored of dealing with her as an infant, he ignores the fact that reviving the dinosaurs was a bad idea because he thinks they'll work out all the kinks, steals the Holy Grail to save a bankrupt medieval themed restaurant, and he thinks some "sooper chime forbs or something" are what ruined 199X because the guy he was talking to mumbled.
• Video-Game Lives: The time rewinds work like this. You start each level with 30, and lose one each time you die, run out of time, or voluntarily time-out.
  • The Ultra characters only have five.
• Wilhelm Scream: Two bosses die like this
• Worth It: The "Risk" stated in the opening scroll.
• Year X: Two time periods you visit are 198X and 199X.

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