Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior Review – Time After Time

Have you ever wanted to be in two places at once? We’ve all been there—and Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior cranks that idea up to 11, literally. This debut title from Sand Door Studio combines puzzle mechanics with hack-and-slash gameplay, creating something that feels new and fresh.

You play as Imë, a legendary warrior who has been blessed by the goddess Qhomera. She has some timey-wimey powers, much like Sargon from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, that lets her stack up clones of herself from previous time loops to clear out arenas.

The idea of multiple time clones isn’t necessarily new in gaming, but the way it’s implemented in Lysfanga makes it feel more like a puzzle game by way of action combat. It feels unique, but its novel gameplay is perhaps the only strength it has going for it.

 Timing Is Everything

When I first saw Lysfanga last summer, my colleague Andrew Otton and I were pleasantly surprised by its ingenuity. When the gameplay clicks, it feels clever; there are processes you have to think through, but there’s enough leeway for you to make mistakes—or be stylish.

In the game, you have to clear out arenas full of enemies, but you’ll die after 10 or so seconds. On death, you restart, but whatever you did in the first loop is re-done by a time clone of yourself called a Remnant. That ability stacks and repeats until you run out of Remnants or enemies. By the end, I could have 13 clones out there, which was more than enough.

Lysfanga does a fantastic job of introducing and layering mechanics throughout the game to keep you on your toes, which is welcome considering there are more than 80 levels here for the main story.

For example, one enemy will block every front-facing attack. So you can use your first loop to keep attacking its shield, and then follow up with a second loop that has free access to its back. But then partway through, you get a special ability that freezes enemies in place, so you could knock this guy out in one loop.

Stages get more complex, adding things like connected portals, alternating doorways, and explosive enemies. A common one is Twin enemies, which both have to be killed within seconds of each other. If you prioritize them, they’re no big deal; but once you have to juggle all these other obstacles, it starts to get tricky—and more engaging.

The game pauses at the start of each arena, giving you space to survey and plan. You’ve got to think about what order you’ll tackle enemies, what pathways you’ll unlock, how to time simultaneous kills, when to unleash your big super attack, and so on.

It sounds like a lot of spinning plates because it is. But there’s a lot of fun in leaning into and trying to control the chaos. There’s probably a “perfect” way to run each level, but I found it more fun to make mistakes and let future me fix the problem.

Being In the Loop

To keep up with the chaos, you get a lot of tools to take on these increased challenges. However, in the middle part of Lysfanga, I found myself getting a tiny bit annoyed with the power scaling.

You can’t make your basic attacks stronger, and there’s a slight drought in special abilities I found useful. It just interrupted the pace when I had to wail on some enemies for more than two combo cycles.

But perseverance pays off. Toward the late game, I found a plethora of active spells, passive runes, and massive powers that synergize well with the three different weapons. There’s enough variety here that you can tackle each level in all sorts of ways, though certain abilities might be more effective than others, depending on the stage. Yet I never felt funneled toward one specific loadout.

There’s room to express yourself in the puzzle-combat system of Lysfanga, which, to me, is a sign of a good action game. There are very few terrible ways to finish a level because all sorts of options feel viable, to different extents. You get a lot of choices, and it gives you the opportunity to feel good about your choices.

The boss fights also make great use of the time loop mechanic, and they’re often a welcome change of pace. After clearing rooms of small armies, it’s nice focusing all your time powers on (mostly) one target, and it feels really cool seeing all your Remnants work together in a smaller space.

A Tale Lost to Time

Unfortunately, once the novelty of the puzzle-combat mechanics wears off, there’s not much that kept me deeply invested in the world of Lysfanga. The story itself is just fine but nothing memorable. It’s a classic tale of betrayal and redemption between siblings, with an antagonist whose motivations are as predictable as they are basic.

The plot is simple, and it doesn’t dominate your screen time. However, any sense of character development is lost to the story; it feels more like characters change because that’s what the narrative needs, not because the characters grow. It leads to character turns that feel out of place, unearned, or underwhelming.

Imë has moments of playfulness and frustration that make her feel more realized as a person, but most everyone else is either stilted and stiff, or as archetypical as they come. It doesn’t help that most of the side characters are golems with similar designs, apart from color swaps.

All this adds up to the cutscenes feeling more like non-critical filler. Unfortunately, the game’s approach to collectibles feels just as unnecessary, too. Between each arena, I found wide, winding spaces that often led to corners and dead ends. Most of them gave me an in-game currency to buy skins for Imë.

This is a short single-player game, and I’m already someone who doesn’t care much about skins. So I’m personally really underwhelmed by that. What makes it worse is I couldn’t completely write out exploration, because every 10th or so time, the scenic route gave me a useful powerup that would give me more Remnants.

Exciting, gameplay-critical items are hidden the same way as disappointing, non-essential items, but at a ratio of what felt like one to 10. It just brought the pace of the game to a grinding halt between the more intense, interesting puzzle-fight sequences.

Luckily, if Lysfanga’s combat ends up being your absolute jam, you’re in luck. Each of the 80+ stages has an optional target time, testing your abilities to efficiently clean up these arenas. Furthermore, an NPC remixes each stage with new challenges, daring you to finish familiar levels with unfamiliar twists.

Those optional remixed stages are tied to the post-game, where you can learn more about an ancient legendary warrior by finishing them. For my money, though, I found myself so disinterested in the world or story that it wasn’t a strong motivator for me. Your mileage may vary.

Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior Review – Final Thoughts

I rolled credits in a little under nine hours, which felt like the perfect length for a game like Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior. Its unique approach to combat brings together the best of the action and puzzle genres, giving it a strong foundation for fun.

For those who really dig it, Sand Door Studio offers a lot more for you to chew on. But the generally weak story likely won’t stick with me, and the dull approach to collectibles and exploration makes the overall pacing feel just a little bit off.

It’s the kind of game that demos perfectly; if the gameplay loop feels great for you, the full game is absolutely worth your time.

Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior was reviewed on PC via Steam with a code provided by the publisher over roughly 9 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.