The game follows a girl named Kohaku Otori, who finds herself in a middle of a destroyed city, swarmed in malfunctioning security drones. Beside her is the talking sword ExeBreaker (EB for short), who quickly offers her his help. Together, they have to get through the city and destroy the machine that seems to be the root of the disaster.
The game's main feature is, as seen in the title, the ability to rewind time. Pressing a button will take the player back up to three seconds into the past, allowing the player to correct blunders without replaying the whole section. The trade-off, however, is Kohaku's extreme fragility and lack of ranged attacks.
The game has an official website
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COGEN: Sword of Rewind contains examples of:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: In the last stage Kohaku powers up with Akasha's abilities, gaining the ability to fire Akasha's lasers by swinging her sword.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: According to an early conversation, the game takes place in the year 2114.
- Action Dad: Yuji Otori, Kohaku's father, appears as a playable character in a DLC.
- Akashic Records: Referenced several times as, seemingly, the name of Cogen's main database. Akasha's name is also a reference to the concept, as befits a powerful AI.
- Ambiguously Brown: Akasha is dark-skinned, but in stage 3 it's established that she has the same facial features as Kohaku, who is, judging by her name, Japanese. Then again, as an AI, anything is possible for her.
- Attack Reflector: Most projectiles can be sent back to the attacker by hitting them with melee attack. Yuji will uniquely reflect them back at you, each time faster than the last. After fourth hit he, however, will fail to reflect it, and the projectile will stun him, allowing you to get in some hits.
- Automatic New Game: If there's no previous save data, the game will load the tutorial stage right after the settings screen.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: Akasha's DLC stage has some segments where the screen scrolls at a fixed pace, which makes her gameplay even more similar to a Shoot 'Em Up.
- Blackout Basement: Stage 4 has places where lighting works poorly, and you have to whack a control panel a couple of times to illuminate the room. It then inevitably turns off again. The boss of the stage is fought in one such dark room.
- Boss Warning Siren: Before every boss battle, the game displays a red stripe with large "WARNING" in the center, and smaller print on the edges.
- Brain Uploading: Hugo has uploaded his mind into the simulation, while his real self has died. He initially antagonizes Kohaku, because reloading the simulation, like Kohaku intends, would essentially kill him, even if a copy would remain. He also draws a line between himself and "those dinky AIs", stating that he's still human.
- Charged Attack: As a playable character, Akasha lacks the time rewind, so her energy gauge is instead used to charge attacks. Her normal attack is a small bullet, but holding the attack button will consume some energy from the gauge. Consuming one unit results in a huge energy ball, while two units produce a Wave-Motion Gun.
- Clone Angst: Defied. Hugo-K7, a result of Brain Uploading, doesn't care when EB points out that he is not the original. "I'm here, I'm conscious, and I'm self-aware" is all he has to say on the matter.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Stage 3 takes place in a working smelter, and Kohaku even complains about heat, but she's still able to navigate it just fine.
- Cool Sword: ExeBreaker is a black talking BFS that's Made of Indestructium and can rewind time.
- Crossover: One of the DLC characters is Copen in his Luminous Avenger iX 2 incarnation. Conversely, Kohaku appears as a DLC boss in that game.
- Demonic Possession: After EB, desiring to end the simulation in accordance with his programming, rebels, he takes over Yuji's body. This possessed version acts as the game's final boss.
- Dimensional Cutter: Yuji can teleport by slicing open the space before him. He makes heavy use of this ability in his boss battle as well.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: On the second loop, Akasha is stripped of her godlike powers, and placed into EB's former sword vessel. In order to restore her powers, you have to collect all shell script modules, scattered across four stages. Thankfully, they aren't really hidden. Collecting all of them is necessary for the true ending.
- Double Jump: Kohaku can double-jump by default. It's upgraded to triple jump in Casual mode.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: Heavily downplayed. Playing in Casual doesn't record your clear time and the number of defeated enemies, and also locks you out of mission results screen, although the score will still be shown in stage select.
- Emotionless Girl: Akasha always speaks in a quiet, even voice, and claims to feel nothing when observing the world. Which is clearly not even remotely true.
- Eternal Engine: Stage 2 is full of presses and conveyor belts, with EB noting that this is all equipment for construction of something very large-scale.
- Fusion Dance: In the final stage, Akasha temporarily fuses with Kohaku in order to gain enough power to take on ExeBreaker-possessed Yuji. It works as a power booster, leaving Kohaku in control and giving her the ability to fire homing Sword Beams. Visually, it recolors Kohaku's clothes into Akasha's white-and-pink palette, and gives her yellow eyes. It's called "Saphed Sher" mode, and Kohaku's dialogue boxes display this name in place of her own.
- Gameplay Grading: After each stage, the game will grade your performance, based on clear time, amount of defeated enemies, death count, and a number of arbitrary challenges, sum up the scores, and give you a letter grade.
- Genki Girl: Kohaku is very cheerful, and isn't particularly fazed by having to cut through a robot horde. On the first level, the only thing she worries about is the safety of her family.Kohaku: If there's one thing I've got, it's energy.
- A God I Am Not: Akasha is effectively omnipotent inside simulation, and Kohaku even calls her a "digital goddess" at one point. Akasha, however, denies such epithets, saying that she's merely an AI doing her job.
- Hint System: Lose enough times to the boss, and EB will give Kohaku a piece of advice about avoidance of certain attacks.
- Hollywood Hacking: The entirety of Akasha's stage is just her going through a firewall designed by Hugo. It's just like any other level, except with stronger enemies and more Spikes of Doom.
- Homing Lasers: Akasha's lasers curve in mid-air, chasing after you or simply tracing a pattern.
- Immortality Hurts: While not actually immortality, EB's rewinding of Kohaku's deaths still leaves her with memories of dying, with all the corresponding pain of being shot, burned, crushed, etc.. She complains about it in several post-return-to-checkpoint chats.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Level 2 is full of platforms that fully or partially consist of conveyor belts. It's unlikely that they can actually transport anything, given that most of them hang in midair. The boss room of the area also features them, and the boss can change their directions.
- In-Series Nickname:
- Kohaku almost always calls ExeBreaker just "EB". Other characters take after her.
- Late in the game, Kohaku calls her ExeBreaker-possessed father "ExeDad" (or "Papa-B" in Japanese). Hugo finds this nickname absolutely ridiculous.
- Lethal Lava Land: Stage 3 takes place in a working smelter, and you start less than two meters away from a pit filled with molten metal. In some places the background shows literal rivers of liquid metal.
- Minimalist Cast: The cast of the main game consists of Kohaku, ExeBreaker, Yuji, Hugo, and Akasha. Other characters are mentioned, but have no bearing on the story.
- Noodle Incident: Apparently, Kohaku has been in a plane crash, and then fought a bear with her bare hands. And then there was some kind of "stupid sea urchin alien thing". Worst. Day. Ever.
- Oddly Shaped Sword: EB has a rectangular blade, with ridges on flat sides, indents on the edge, and a handle that's connected to the blade only with a bunch of tiny connectors.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: In stage 5 some bits of platforms or background are replaced by numbers and symbols, a sign that the simulation is starting to break down.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Kohaku dies in one hit from anything. Justified, as an unarmored teenage girl wouldn't be able to tank missiles or energy beams anyway. Time gauge allows you to rewind up to three hits, but Kohaku still dies before rewinding, so there's no way to survive if damage is unavoidable. Casual mode, however, averts this and gives you a three-hit barrier, that's renewed at every checkpoint.
- The Place: The game takes place in the Cogen City.
- Poor Communication Kills: Hugo is responsible for most obstacles in stages 2-4, because he would die if the simulation ends, and he didn't believe Kohaku would stop if he asked. When he actually talks with Kohaku, he's surprised that he could have talked it over.Hugo: You've left a trail of destruction in your wake, but now you're telling me I could've reasoned with you all along?
- Purposely Overpowered:
- When you unlock the aforementioned 11th-Hour Superpower in normal gameplay, it allows you to tear through just about every stage. Homing Sword Beams make short work of most enemies, and unlimited dash greatly reduces the difficulty of platforming sections. However, its unlock stage is very short and easy, and the final boss isn't really made easier by these tricks.
- Akasha, in her DLC, plays like a Deathsmiles character, meaning that she brings Shoot 'Em Up into a platform game. She can fly in any direction without limits, packs ranged attacks, and has the Casual mode three-hit barrier by default. Her only weakness is her inability to rewind time. All challenge in her stages comes from extremely tight spaces with tons of enemies, and small amount of checkpoints.
- Tactical Suicide Boss:
- The very first boss can't be harmed by sword strikes, Fortunately, one of its attacks throws bombs all over the place, which can be redirected back at it with relative ease.
- Similarly, stage 3 boss has an attack that causes it to overheat and expose its heatsink. If you hit it several times, it stops and for some reason exposes its core as well, allowing you to damage it.
- Talking Weapon: ExeBreaker can talk, and often explains stuff to Kohaku. His initial speech pattern is essentially "robot butler", but after the first stage, Kohaku asks him to change it to the one based on her father.
- Temporary Platform: A rather unique take. There are platforms that have to be charged with time gauge, effectively your own hit points, before they can be stepped on. Naturally, they disappear once the time you've put into them has passed.
- This Is a Drill: There is an enemy type that is essentially a flying drill. They always lurk in Bottomless Pits, and fly straight up when you try to get past them.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Kohaku affirms several times that she's not willing to kill, even indirectly. That's why she refuses to go through with ending the simulation, as it would effectively kill Hugo and Akasha. Luckily for her, all normal enemies in the game are non-sentient robots.
- Time Rewind Mechanic: The game's main feature is the ability to turn back time in order to avoid fatal mistakes, but no further than three seconds. After rewind, the game rounds down the remaining time to the full second, meaning that you can use it no more than three times without recharging, even if you rewind very small portions of time. The time gauge quickly recharges, but with the game's fast-paced combat, it's very easy to die again. If you die with less than half a second remaining in the gauge, you go straight back to the checkpoint.
- Totally Radical: Growing tired of EB's "robot butler" speech, Kohaku asks him to speak more casually. In response, EB gives an impression of a teen from 2001. Kohaku quickly asks him to revert it.EB: Ugh, you are, like, SO demanding, Kohaku! OMG I'm totally kidding girlie! We're like, sooo tight.
- Unfulfilled Purpose Misery: EB was literally made to end the simulation, so he doesn't appreciate when Kohaku starts having second thoughts. It turns out to be a big deal, as his stress, born from the apparent dissonance between his purpose and his wielders' actions, leads to him snapping, possessing Yuji, and becoming the game's Big Bad.
- Wall Jump: You can jump after clinging to a wall, but double jump and air dash are restored only after you properly land or use a rewind. It means that you can't reliably wall jump on a single wall, but can do so in a narrow shaft, in double-wall fashion. The latter trick is taught to you right in the tutorial level.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Akasha can fire huge beams of energy as one of her attacks. As a playable character, it consumes two energy charges.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Said word-by-word by Yuji, possessed by EB, when the boss of stage 3 SP, overcharged by a piece of Akasha's shell script module, fails to defeat Kohaku. Said boss then decides to return the module to Akasha and attacks EB, giving Kohaku time to escape.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After you beat stage 5, you are given some exposition and get dumped back to the first stage, now with harder enemies and a rewind gauge that doesn't recharge on its own. It's regarded as a new set of stages, subtitled "SP".
