YMMV / Time Crisis

• Accidental Innuendo: Rachel shouting "DON'T COME!" in the first game, similar to The House of the Dead 2.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Jack Mathers is, in gameplay terms, Immune to Bullets unless he's holding his gun. Unfortunately, Captain Rush feels the need to wrestle with Jack and kick the aforementioned gun across the room, which makes Jack invincible^note More accurately, his Hit Points don't decrease as a result of a damage threshold; however, you can still shoot Jack for points and to build and maintain your hit chain. That said, this is the point where constantly shooting at Mathers is the best way to rack up points from the hit combos.
  • A similar situation occurs in 5 when Robert is fighting against Keith. The battle becomes roughly 75% Robert vs. the boss, 25% the boss versus players. Unlike the Jack/Captain Rush example, the sequence is a Knife Fight, with Robert and the boss moving incredibly fast on the screen, making it risky to shoot Robert and earn score deductions if players are going for a high score run. Also, unlike Captain Rush, Robert isn't actually trying to help you, and would probably be quite pleased if you ended up getting killed.
• Ass Pull: The reveal in 5: True Mastermind Edition that Keith was set up as a VSSE traitor and that Robert is the traitor can seem absolutely out of nowhere, especially when no motive is given for why the latter turned coat off-screen in the first place.
• Awesome Music: The series' entire soundtrack, but the Japan-only 3D Sound Ensemble takes the cake.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Wild Dog. Every encounter with him is more over-the-top than the last. To wit:
    • Time Crisis 1 has the climatic fight at the heliport, starting off with Richard and a dual-wielding Wild Dog dueling one another over a well, culminating with a final stand amidst explosions and smoke.
    • Time Crisis II: He lost his arm after being defeated by Richard in the previous game, so he had it replaced with a prosthetic arm. Said artificial arm is an Arm Cannon.
    • Time Crisis 3: He gains a flamethrower on his weapon arm, and he brings along an apprentice, Wild Fang, to fight alongside him. Wild Fang is a worthy fight himself, kicking the various heavy objects around the stage at you.
    • Time Crisis 4: First, he uses a grappling hook to pull down your helicopter. Then, when you fight him on foot, he launches artillery from docked fighters at you, traps you against three armed barricades in a Multi-Screen Battle, and finally uses a tractor beam to hurl objects at you.
    • Time Crisis 5: You spend the first three stages, or the entire first half of the game in True Mastermind Edition, trying to finish him off!
  • Time Crisis 4's Stage 2 boss, Jack Mathers, with the protagonists and Captain Rush teaming up to fight him. Giorgio and Evan use their guns as usual while avoiding Jack's weapons, while Rush goes mano a mano in an impromptu wrestling match, while Rush calls out Jack's treason in the most Narm Charm way possible. The fight ends with Rush delivering an uppercut to the boss and a boxing knock-out bell playing during the "Stage Cleared" screen.
  • The final bosses of each game are definitely this, aside from the aforementioned first battle with Wild Dog.
• Best Level Ever: Time Crisis 4 has Stage 1 Area 2 and Stage 3 Area 1, both of which put you in a helicopter with infinite-ammo mounted guns (a mounted machine gun or automatic cannon, depending on stage and character).
  Captain Rush: Just hold down the trigger and keep firing!
• Complete Monster:
  • Wild Dog, mastermind behind the terrorist-for-hire group Wild Dog Organization, is the Arch-Enemy of the VSSE, who has allied himself with dictatorships and warmongering lunatics all for the sake of a payday. Fostering as much chaos as he can, on his own accord, Wild Dog murdered one of his bosses for the sake of taking his robot army to have them take over the world himself; apprenticed an equally-psychopathic disciple named Wild Fang; and, in the mobile spinoff 2nd Strike, tortures the director of DARPA to steal nerve gas and murdered another scientist to keep him quiet. Wild Dog tries to unleash the nerve gas on an entire city, to distract from his real goal: leading a six-pronged nuclear attack to annihilate cities all over the globe, simply for the thrill of it.
  • Time Crisis 3:
    • Giorgio Zott, bloodthirsty leader of the Zagorias Federation, plunges the Mediterranean country of Lukano into a brutal war by forcefully occupying one of its neighboring islands. Kidnapping the resistance forces sent to apprehend him and threatening to execute them all, Zott eventually reveals he simply intends to wipe out all of Lukano with a nuclear bomb, laughing he should have done so ages ago.
    • Rescue Mission: Jake Hernandez is a slimy, smug traitor to the Lukano Liberation Army, who turns over his allies to be executed by Zott's dictatorship simply to line his pockets. When his attempt to capture VSSE agent Alicia Winston fails, Jake sics his armed goons onto her in the middle of a populated street, endangering many civilians while Jake personally takes multiple citizens as hostages. Planning to steal one of Zott's nuclear warheads and sell it on the Black Market, Jake reacts to his defeat by trying to set off the nuke in the middle of Zott's base and kill everyone inside.
  • Time Crisis 4: Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Barrows, stymied by the US Army's failure to recognize his achievements in service, decides to destroy the entire country in revenge. Developing a weapon known as "Terror Bites" that devour their victims, Barrows uses the Terror Bites to destroy everything he can, having an entire military base massacred by them and wiping out waves of the National Guard sent to stop him. In the end, Barrows has his men fly out across the USA, intending to have every single major city bombed to rubble to destroy the US.
  • Time Crisis 5: Robert Baxter, a rogue VSSE agent and one of the protagonists of Time Crisis 2, is shockingly revealed to be the mastermind behind the events of 5, having murdered his own ally Christy and framed his longtime friend Keith Martin for it. Intent on erasing the VSSE entirely, Baxter reveals he has possession of a drug that reduces those affected by it to violent, mindless zombies, testing it on dozens and intending to deploy it all over the planet to reset the world and put himself on top.
• Contested Sequel: Time Crisis 5 is either loved for its unique dual pedal system and musical throwbacks to previous Time Crisis games, or disliked for either its plot twist of Robert Baxter betraying the VSSE and murdering Christy Ryan, which some feel was random, forced, and overall disrespectful to these characters.
• Demonic Spiders: The first game never tells players any warning if a shot will hit or not (though the rule about red Mooks always being accurate still applies; if you see them, duck). Later games are at least kind enough to show the distinct red reticule effect a split-second before the harmful bullet hits.
  • The Clawmen from Time Crisis 3 deserve a mention: quick, agile and jumps all over the place, making targeting them difficult, with the penchant of appearing suddenly in front of you and attack with their claws, which never misses on account of being a melee strike. To make matters worse they tend to show up out of nowhere, if you don't know where they make a sneak attack you will get hit. If this is your first time facing them in 3, chances are you'll lose a few lives to them. Oh, and the end of Stage 2 features a boss version of them; see That One Boss below.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Several, with the major ones being Buff Bryant from Time Crisis II, Victor Zahn, Randy Garrett, and Alicia and Daniel Winston from 3, and Marcus Black and Gregory Barrows from Time Crisis 4.
• Even Better Sequel: The reason why the sequels are better than the first:
  • They now had the two-player mode that can linked together or split-screen.
  • The protagonists now had dialogue.
  • Wild Dog now serves as the second-to-last boss, with the Big Bad now serving as the Final Boss.
  • Despite Wild Dog is openly shown collaborating with his client had done again in the second game, the third game onward the connection between him and the actual villain is implied at best.
  • There are now had Crisis Sightings (the red reticule that warns you that an enemy shot will inflict damage).
  • Time now resets after each scene and only count down during actual gameplay.
  • Running out of time only reduce the life by one.
  • There are now Scoring Points.
  • There is no Timed Mode unlike the first game.
  • Bosses would simply stick in the third area of each stage, except in Time Crisis 5 where the Final Boss once again has their own area.
  • Your handgun has nine bullets, and the threshold for reloading is shorter.
  • There are now alternate weapons.
  • "Bonus" enemies now award bonus points or ammo for other weapons.
  • There are now stages set aboard some of transport (train in 2, ATV and then a train in 3, helicopter in 4, a bike in 5).
• Friendly Fandoms: With House of the Dead, both of them being long-running arcade gun games with a niche score-chasing scene.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Just try playing Time Crisis II after you learn the twist that Robert Baxter, II's 2P character, is a VSSE traitor in 5, Playing as Robert will harden the blow even stronger.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series were quite recognizable in Southeast Asia, where most arcade have a machine of at least one entry even after arcades are waning (though nowadays most of the arcade machines are either refurbished or busted due to age).
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Time Crisis II Big Bad Ernesto Diaz presents an interconnected network of 64 satellites called StarLine. (Which is actually a nuclear orbital weapon platform not afiliated by any military) In 2018, Elon Musk revealed a satellite constellation project called Starlink, which similarly will begin by putting 60 satellites into orbit, though hopefully none of them will be nukes.
  • The antagonist group of Time Crisis 4 use Terror-Bite microdrones and UCAVs as part of their scheme, i.e. drone warfare. Fast forward to 2019, when Namco releases another game where the antagonist group uses drone warfare.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Wild Dog, who refuses to die. He's come back so many times that fans have given up hope that he's Killed Off for Real and assume his latest defeat to simply be yet another one where he walks away from.
  • Richard Miller, the only protagonist who never had a partner or backup and has gone through three separate mission's worth of baddies. The games themselves refer to him explicitly as the One-Man Army for a reason. His Superboss status in the console-exclusive content for 2 and 4 only solidifies this.
• Memetic Mutation: There's a new Time Crisis game coming out, does Wild Dog finally die in it?^ExplanationWild Dog always looks like he gets killed in an explosion in every game, only to come back no worse for the wear in the next (except in Time Crisis II, where he's had one arm amputated and replaced with an Arm Cannon).
• Moral Event Horizon: Wild Dog in the first game had a moment that pissed off most players when he shoots Rachel in the back and laughs as Richard Miller cradles her wounded body before the boss battle takes place.
  • Giorgio Zott from 3 had his moment when he tried to execute Daniel, Alicia's brother, during a standoff with Alan and Wesley.
  • In Alicia's "Rescue Missions" for the console version of 3, you fight the traitorous Jake Hernandez in a crowded area, where not only does he turn it into an active war zone, but does it in lieu of innocent civilians (something no other villain, not even Wild Dog, has ever done). He also grabs a young girl and an elderly women to use as Human Shields as he shoots at you. What does he do after he's done with them? Throws her to the floor, and kick her on the back. You hardly feel sorry about killing him at the end of Alicia's campaign.
  • Gregory Barrows' endgame in 4 was when he used the UCAVs to nuke the entire United States.
  • In the fifth game, Robert Baxter went rogue on the VSSE by selling out their intelligence to terrorist organizations around the world. Three months before the events of the game, he killed Christy Ryan, the Damsel in Distress from the second game who had been investigating the traitor's identity. He proceeded to frame his ex-partner Keith Martin as the traitor and Christy's murderer. Note that Christy Ryan happened to be Keith's girlfriend.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The series-traditional "area cleared" chord, often backed by the "thud" of each line of the Score Screen popping up.
• Narm: Not only Captain Will(iam) Rush's name, but some of his lines when fighting Jack Mathers.
  Rush: "What are you planning to do with those Terror Bites?"
  Jack: "We're going to DESTROY this country!"
  Rush: "WHERE IS YOUR PATRIOTISM?"
  Jack: "What GOOD is PATRIOTISM?"
  • This whole fight is full of this, especially with Beth narrating the "wrestling match" between Rush and Jack, Jerry Lawler-style (minus all the loudness). And then there's the "F...!"
  • And who could forget this incredible one from the first game.
  Rachel: "Don't come! It's a trap! Oh no!"
  • Wild Dog's voice in Project Titan. Why did they give him such an unfitting, yet cheesy and high-pitched voice? In fact, he seems to have gone a few octaves too high by 5. Nearly half of what he says in the games bear mention.
  Wild Dog: "Hey Miller, check out my new toy!"
  • Also from Project Titan is a random chef (complete with stereotypical French accent) who attacks Miller for no real reason in the third part of the first level.
  "You are not invited to dinnair!"
  • Barrows had this to say during his Final Boss introduction.
    "You two are —(pause, as if he's unsure about what he is saying) —gonna die here!"
  • Mooks in Time Crisis 2 will occasionally yell out "SHUCKS!" when shot. And not in a pained way, either, making it sound like they're merely abashed to have speeding hot lead rip holes through their bodies.
  • The two mooks at the end of the second stage cutscene in 2, who ask no one in particular, "Did you get them?" right before they get shot and their chopper hijacked by Keith and Robert barely surviving a train wreck.
• Narm Charm:
  • Wild Dog's final line in 2, while cheesy, retains its badass factor as he manically laughs just as he blows himself up.
    "VSSE! You fools!" BOOM
  • Captain Rush's impromptu wrestling match with Jack Mathers in 4, full of amusing lines that are evocative of face-vs-heel wrestling banter. It's hard not to enjoy blasting Jack with hundreds of bullets while they verbally trash one another.
    Rush: You...you're a disgrace to your country! YOU TOOK AN OATH OF LOYALTY TO YOUR COUNTRY!
    Jack: That oath meant nuthin'!
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Terror Bites in 4; their Leitmotif doesn't make it any better. In the "Complete Mission" mode for the console version, they're shown eating some of the terrorists alive.
  • The Hamlin Battalion in 4 are a company of the U.S. military whose casus belli are supposed mistreatment and lack of recognition for their achievements. It would be one thing if they just lashed out against other companies of the country's armed forces or went for the military higher-ups, but they instead decide to commit treason outright by targeting population centers with their Terror Bites. This comes to a head in the final stage where they launch UCAVs to nuke major U.S. cities, and the final area consists of National Guard soldiers forming a human pyramid so that the VSSE agents can reach Barrows and stop him before the drones can turn all of America into a radioactive wasteland. Rush urgently reminds the two agents of what's at stake as the final battle starts:
    Rush: Climb! Stop those UCAVs at all costs! If we don't stop him, the entire country will go down in flames! WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN!
  • 5's fifth stage has you fight enemies that cannot "feel pain or fear". With the lifeless way they move and attack, they're zombies in all but name. And the Big Bad wants to spread the drug that causes this around the world, starting with New York...
  • Series fans will get the chills hearing this from a character who they thought was an ally for nearly 20 years at the end of 5's Stage 4:
    Robert Baxter: If you had just died, this would've all gone according to plan.
• Polished Port: To compensate for the late release of the home port of Time Crisis II (the arcade game was released in 1997, the Sony PlayStation 2 port arrived in late 2001), it featured completely redone and updated graphics and additional cut scenes to make the transitions between levels more natural and expanded the story (what little there is, anyway), including bonus levels, extra modes, and unlockable content to extend longevity.
• The Scrappy: Jakov Kinisky from 2 falls into this since his treatment of Christy Ryan was utterly reprehensible, and he wasn't cool like Buff Bryant or entertaining like Ernesto Diaz enough to make up for it. It also didn't help his voice actor decided to use the cheesiest, most grating Russian accent available when voicing him, or that his fight has him running away like a coward through most of it.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The time limits in the first game are harsh and borderline unfair, especially if using a controller on the PS1 port since you're unable to be as fast/accurate as a light gun.
  • In the third game's PS2 port, the hostages and allied soldiers in the Rescue Mission mode aren't a well-liked mechanic, as you lose an entire life each time you shoot one of them (rather than losing points), something that is incongruous with the rest of the series.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop:
  • Time Crisis 2 onwards are generally easier to get into, mostly thanks to the timer always starting at 40 seconds after changing action points and resetting whenever you lose a life (including when the timer hits 0, which no longer is an instant game over), as well as having an indicator whether a bullet will hit you or not. (bullets that will definitely hit you are in red, subsequent games will keep this mechanic).
  • Project Titan has a light auto-aim for controller players, getting an extra life now requires only 30 "hits" instead of 40 kills (So if you hit an enemy multiple times for a longer death animation, each hit counts towards an extra life.) and time limits are more designed around a controller like 1's Special Mission. (While the Arcade mode of the PS1 port was unaltered from the original Light Gun time limits.)
  • After the third game induced a Sequel Difficulty Spike with faster killing bullets and challenging gimmicks like a relatively tanky ninja boss, a stage set amidst obstructive smoke effects, and a Final Boss who can quickly change switch between Sword and Gun, 4 dials back some of the harder elements. None of the bosses have any particularly surprising gimmicks, the Terror-Bites can be annoying but it takes a lot of "sub-damage" from most of them to lose one life, and Multi-Screen Battles only dock a life at worst if you can't keep up with the waves of enemies. From a scoring standpoint, it's easier as well: there's now a visible combo gauge that lets you know how much time until your combo resets, and the streak bonus has been changed from being awarded based on hits without missing to based on your combo and the maximum streak bonus has been reduced, meaning that the game is more lenient on the player's mistakes.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike:
  • Whether as a response to 2 or because the outsourcing resulted in devs that weren't as on-the-ball about balancing, 3 is probably one of the harder games in the main series, filled with split-second surprise attacks, almost double the prior game's length resulting in what can feel like a Marathon Level, and tanky bosses that are particularly brutal.
  • 5 is a minor example (atleast the True Mastermind Edition of the game), as it has six stages instead of three stages that the previous games have (or in the case of 4, three stages, and a prolouge), you also don't get as much points, but aside from those two changes, it's not any harder than 4.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: Diligent players who have studied the Air Force Bases in Colorado have noticed that Stage 3 in 4 is basically Schriever Air Force Base (now Schriever Space Force Base), deliberately renamed in-game to avoid direct lawsuits.
• Shocking Moments:
  • 5: True Mastermind Edition pulls a one-two punch in Stage 4 when Keith is revealed as the apparent traitor, then at the end of the same stage when Keith reveals Robert as the real traitor.
• Special Effect Failure: In the Rescue Mission mode of Time Crisis 3's PS2 port, right before Stage 3 begins, Alicia performs a Battle Strip to demonstrate getting into action. Problem is, she goes from wearing a very revealing civilian outfit with a small midriff-revealing bustier and a miniskirt to a military uniform that covers her from the neck down to her knees, meaning she somehow covers herself up by removing clothes.
• Spiritual Adaptation: With Mission Control speaking to you during gameplay, a focus on taking down terrorists in the United States, multiple segments where you get an alternate weapon to use, and a release date of 2006, you'd be forgiven for mistaking Time Crisis 4 as a sequel to Ghost Squad (2004).
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Some songs in 2, particularly the Final Boss theme and the end credits is similar to "Hummel Gets the Rockets" from The Rock.
• Tear Jerker: Robert being the VSSE traitor. He and Keith used to be partners, working side by side on VSSE missions together, and was the Player 2 character of Time Crisis II. Fast-forward to Time Crisis 5 and Robert's turned heel and gone rogue. During the hunt for him, he assassinates Christy, the VSSE auditor he and Keith helped rescue during Time Crisis II, who had since become Keith's girlfriend. He casts suspicion on Keith, fingering him to the VSSE as the likely perpetrator. Keith is forced to go on the run trying to find the real culprit and clear his name, not knowing his ex-partner had set him up all along. It doesn't help that Keith looks to be in pretty bad shape during Time Crisis 5, with his general unkempt appearance and an eyepatch.
• That One Boss:
  • Sherudo from the first game is a knife-thrower, to which knives are really hard to time when it comes to dodging. Worse, he brings a bunch of knife-throwing lackeys to cover him! In the Sony PlayStation port, it becomes possible to shoot them out of the air, provided you're ridiculously good or lucky. Hitting whoever threw them seemed to make a thrown knife miss as well.
  • The Dual Boss, Phobos and Deimos from Project Titan. They attack in unison with lightning speed, spams their Flechette Storm on the players, and moves around so quickly hitting them in mid-air seems impossible. Keep in mind you're playing as Richard Miller, the sole agent who relies entirely on his dinky little pistol, so you cannot rely on a faster and far more useful weapon at this point. Also more often than not they have a habit of launching a smoke grenade at Richard, which, while avoidable by ducking, will result in the area being shrouded by thick, black smoke, impeding visibility as well.
  • Randy Garrett from Time Crisis 3 is a boss version of the Clawmen, who are already Demonic Spiders; unlike those Clawmen, he also has multiple lifebars. He also brings along two other upgraded Clawmen as lackeys with their own health bars. Just like the regular Clawmen, Randy and his lackeys are quick and agile, giving players minimal time to react when they lunge at the screen. Oh, he also has a wrist rocket launcher that can easily catch players off-guard just as easily.
• That One Level:
  • The second last level of the final stage in Time Crisis 3. It features a chaotic gunfight in a library in flames. The biggest thing here is that smoke will cloud your vision and red soldiers can show up in corners of the level and because of the smoke you might not notice their pinpoint bullet flying until it's too late.
  • In the console port of Time Crisis 3, there's the third stage of the Rescue Mission mode. Here, you have to deal with not only the usual enemy soldiers, but there are also innocent bystanders running all over the place. Unlike in other games where shooting an ally or innocent merely takes points away, in this mode shooting an innocent or an ally takes off an entire life.
• That One Sidequest: The original game is the only one in the series where you can obtain extra lives. But the way to do so is extremely difficult: you have to kill 40 enemies without missing a single shot!
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • While Project Titan has Kantaris officially escaped, with Miller hinted to be in search on her, no sequels have shed light on the ultimate outcome for Kantaris, despite Wild Dog and Wild Fang's continuous appearances in later games.
  • In Time Crisis 5: True Mastermind Edition, the biggest Plot Twist, perhaps that of the entire series, is that Robert Baxter has turned against the VSSE and wants to bring a Zombie Apocalypse down on the planet. Sure, the series has had traitorous characters before, such as Jake Hernandez in 3's Rescue Mission mode and an entire company of the U.S. military in 4, but this twist is far more personal as this character was one of the protagonists of Time Crisis II, whereas the above two examples of traitors already turned coat before they were formally introduced and are never playable at any point. Exactly why this happened has never been stated; the most that is revealed is that they want to "reset the world". There's also the fact that in the midst of his rebellion against the VSSE, he also killed Christy Ryan, the Damsel in Distress of II who had started dating Keith Martin, the other protagonist of that game. Fans are hoping that if a console port is released, whatever console-exclusive content it has will shed more light on these matters.

---