Time travel can be a tricky subject to depict in any entertainment medium, be it books, movies, or video games. Still, many fan-favorite games have characters travelling back and forth through time, such as Chrono Trigger or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - the latter spawning a branching Zelda timeline that follows the result of various end conditions. One interesting recent example of a game centering time-based mechanics is Cris Tales, released by Dreams Uncorporated and SYCK in July 2021.
In the Colombia-inspired world of Cris Tales, there are Space and Time Mages, many of whom are born with natural abilities that can be honed through training and practice. Space Mages are what one might expect from traditional elemental magic users, attacking with water, fire, and thunder. Time Mages are more complex and have a wide range of abilities, with protagonist Crisbell able to affect the flow of time alongside her main power to see the past and future at once.
Crisbell is able to channel her abilities through The Sword of Time, leading to the JRPG's primary combat gimmick of sending either side of the battlefield into the past or future to change how enemies behave. However, she also has a handful of additional skills like healing that could label her as Cris Tales' support-focused "white mage" archetype. Easily the most interesting skill in her repertoire is Regression; an idea which fits so well into a time-centric combat system that it could set a standard to follow going forward.
Cris Tales' Regression Skill, Explained
On top of Crisbell having the ability to heal herself or an ally (or the whole party using a later-game Rejuvenation skill), she can also apply buffs and debuffs intertwined with the flow of combat. For example, the Celeritas skill increases a target's speed so they'll appear more frequently on the combat timeline - not unlike the way Pokemon Legends: Arceus is incorporating battle styles so monsters can potentially act more than once in a row. This turn order also affects Regression specifically.
Using the Regression spell, Crisbell can select a target (or a whole group using Regio Regression) and revert them to the way they were a turn prior. Doing so to an ally literally hits the reset button if her teammate takes a huge amount of damage, wastes all of their MP, or is afflicted with a nasty status condition. Where this becomes more brilliant from a game design perspective is in the way enemies can also be targeted, removing any buffs they applied to themselves - particularly useful against the villainous Time Empress who activates a powerful passive health regeneration buff.
Because of how many moving parts exist at once in Cris Tales' battle system, there are plenty of ways this skill proves beneficial. Basic examples would be the Space Mage Christopher using a powerful magic attack and then getting his MP back, or the chance-based Zas getting another chance at using her roulette skills. The android character JKR-721 has perhaps the most interesting use case, as his gimmick revolves around overheating the more he attacks and having to vent off steam at risk of exploding. It turns out that explosion hurts opponents if he overheats on one side of the screen, which means Crisbell can repeatedly regress his turn to restore health and prime additional explosions.
Regression is just one example of how Cris Tales' developers took the time-travel conceit and weaved it into gameplay as well as world design. The indie title has likely caught many peoples' attentions thanks to its hand-drawn animation, but its mechanics are also worthy of note - even if creative director Carlos Andres Rocha Silva told Game Rant that Cris Tales' ambitious scope caused problems in the long-run. There are lingering issues Dreams Uncorporated is still ironing out, but it's easy to see how the game's ideas could carry forward into other time-focused projects.
Cris Tales is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.