Chrono Gear: Warden of Time

“The controls are smooth and snappy, the combat is satisfying and quick, the enemy and boss variety is amazing, the level and environment design is breathtaking, the artstyle is beautiful, and the music... ohhhh the music... there's 86 tracks in this game, most of which I would gladly be listening to outside the context of Hololive... not a single track feels out of place, and the production quality is out of this world.”

“And then the soundtrack: the soundtrack is made up of 86 tracks, some of which are remixes of existing Hololive songs and some are fully original, all of which are fantastic.”

“So many tracks in the OST make me think 'oh, this is also my favorite.' The music moves through the different emotions and vibes throughout the game so well.”

“The gameplay is absolutely fantastic, between really fluid and fun to control movement, mechanics being introduced and expanded upon incredible well as the game progresses, and the way it all ties in to the characters and story just made it a joy to play from start to finish.”

“Pitch-perfect physics and tight controls, killer level design, inventive mechanics, and fantastic boss fights--this game does every bit of gameplay well.”

“It controls smoothly, its fundamentals are simple but engagingly inventive, there's constant creativity present in its levels' designs and mechanical features, and its learning/difficulty curve is competently paced.”

“The pixel art is gorgeous and brilliantly blended with modern graphical effects, creating a unique experience that feels old-school without being showy.”

“Most of the game's graphics are beautiful pixel art, with tons of expressive sprites and fun, creative designs, interspersed with some old anime-style cutscenes.”

“The graphics and pixel art are wonderful to look at; some backgrounds are real lookers, and there's an impressive amount of detail in the levels, character sprites, and animations.”

“The writing clearly showed a love for the talents and a desire to share a heartwarming story about regret and self acceptance.”

“Both parties have lost people dear to them and where the game could have explained a way for the titular chrono gear to bring these people back, they chose to respect the growth of the plot and its characters throughout the game and go for a somewhat sad, but more heartfelt ending.”

“While I expected the many endearing and whimsical interactions from our favourite Hololive members, what I did not expect was an emotionally devastating but beautiful tale, hints of which are sprinkled throughout the story from the very moment you begin the game.”

“The dialogue is a perfect blend of goofy humor and self-aware vtuber references with enough serious moments to give the characters depth, and I thoroughly loved this cast—I'm only familiar with a few of the hololive talents outside of this game, and never felt out of my depth!”

“Something I want to praise especially is the writing; for those unaware this game is based on the talents of Hololive and their personalities have been captured brilliantly but of course fiction'd up to tell a fantasy story, and while there are lots of references that fans will get a kick out of I think the writing is so witty, funny and heartwarming that anyone can enjoy it.”

“The gameplay was fun and heart pumping, the music is kickass and filled with various nods to Hololive songs, the writing got multiple laughs out of me in the funny moments and got me invested in the dramatic moments, the animation for both the cutscenes and the game is a spectacle to witness for yourself and the game is filled with so many references, easter eggs and so much love for Hololive.”

“A very well refined 2D platformer, with replay value to each stage and a very fun potential for speedrunning with the use of time abilities.”

“There is quite a bit of replayability as well, for those who enjoy speedrunning stages for faster clear times or chasing higher scores and hunting down all the collectables.”

“Something else I was shocked by was the length of the game. Fan games are often short, and considering how polished and high effort it is, I was expecting it to be something like 2-3 hours. I'm just over 8 hours in on normal difficulty and it looks like there's another hour or two to go. There's a lot to see here and some decent replay value in other difficulties and some Sonic-inspired alternate paths through parts of the levels. This ain't no fan game, it's a full indie release.”

“Every level comes at you with something new, the soundtrack and atmosphere are indescribable and the story gets intense.”

“This game's art direction is gorgeous, with stunning pixel art, beautiful animations, lively facial expressions, and some shockingly creepy atmosphere and designs when the game wants to get spooky on you!”

“The music and visuals are also really good, offering great spectacles during boss fights and levels, or being very atmospheric.”

“Performance is very smooth too, no bugs, no lag, just pure temporal bliss.”

“You're better off playing on desktop, preferably Linux desktop, as the performance there is excellent.”

“My only issue was personal skill problems, not game optimization.”

“I love Kronii's character development.”

“But I think I completely stopped caring about who is doing what and why around the midway mark and just focused on enjoying the levels that I liked and enjoying the character designs.”