Year released: 1989 (NES)

Number of Players: 1

Go back in time to stop aliens in the late 2900's from changing the past.

Graphics: You have some pretty nice color sets, but everything is plain.

Play control: Left, right, up, and down on the control pad to move in those directions. Actually, down moves down-left and up moves up-right. The game's 3/4 view is on a slant, I guess. A button to jump, B button to attack, and select to switch weapons (you start out each stage using your fists and feet and get others as you move on in that stage).

Sound: The music is appropriate and so are the sound effects. They both get old pretty quick, though.

Challenge: Find just what quirk makes an orb accessible. Find four orbs, go to the end of the level, fight the boss, collect the fifth orb, move on to the next level. You also have to watch enemies and deal with them in a fashion similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games (TMNT II-IV).

Gameplay: Just as the Wario Lands II-4, Milon's Secret Castle, and M.C. Kids put together platforming and puzzle (not the Tetris kind of puzzle, obviously), Time Lord mixes beat-'em-up (in previous reviews called gauntlet fighting) and puzzle. Man oh man, could there be anything more perfect...?! A two player mode would seem nice, but due to the puzzle nature of Time Lord, it would just be kinda stupid. Most of the time, you'll know where an orb is (either by finding a quirk by accident or by sight), and just need to figure out how to use the quirk to get the orb. When I say "quirk," I mean that the normal rules of gameplay bend. For example, in the medieval level, at one part, you jump and attack, which adds a mid-air jump just when you attack. That is, jump, then fall a bit, then attack, you hear a weird noise, and you go up from where you are in mid-air and then down again. At this point, you know an orb is nearby, and you need to find out how to use this quirk to get it.

Bottom line: I bought it because I liked the name.
Time Lord forms a relationship I'm really glad to see--puzzle and beat-'em-up. They're both great, and it's good that they actually work when they're put together into a single genre. Only thing wrong with this game is the fact that lives are few and continues none, meaning you'll have to put up with solving the puzzles over and over again many times before you reach the game's end. Perhaps Game Genie is the answer to that problem.

Submissions and rebuttals should be e-mailed to nintendofanssite@yahoo.com. Proper credit will be given, and please tell me if you don't want your e-mail revealed on the site.