Time Hollow is hollow.

A few months after I finished the PSP version of Shadow of Destiny, I learned of another Konami time-traveling adventure for the Nintendo DS called Time Hollow. The name itself was interesting. The Nintendo DS seemed like the perfect fit for it, too. I learned that you’d be using the stylus to draw time portals to solve mysteries. Indeed, Time Hollow sounded like a well-kept secret on a popular portable. But, and I’m sure you know where this is going, Time Hollow was a letdown. The biggest issue was that it never reached it full potential. If Konami took more time to tap into all that Time Hollow seemed to offer, then it could have been a smash.

The game stars 16 going on 17 year old Ethan Kairos. On the night of his 17th birthday, Ethan has a strange dream where he’s trapped in a burning room. His parents and friends are nowhere to be found. When he wakes up, things get stranger. His room is different. His once alive parents are now dead. His Uncle Derek is head of the household. The only thing that’s the same is his cat, Sox. But, even that has a glaring difference: Sox gifts Ethan with an artifact called the Hollow Pen. Ethan is able to use this pen to open portals through time and make corrections to the past. In doing so, he might be able to set time on its correct path and reunite with his parents.

I loved the idea of this narrative. Ethan is an average boy with friends, schoolwork, parents that love him, etc. and suddenly he gets the ability to correct the past with the Hollow Pen. He takes the mission with grace and courage, too. He doesn’t gripe about his new destiny or the risks it could cause to his reality. Nope, Ethan jumps right in and does what needs to be done. Sadly, Ethan is surrounded by jerks. His uncle is a jerk. His friends are jerks. His teacher is a jerk. The mysterious girl that knows more about Ethan’s destiny than he seems to is a jerk. To add, they have stupid names, too. Someone at Konami was having way too much fun naming the characters things like Ben Fourier, Emily Niner, and Morris Fivet. I love a theme but this was silly. I think the silliest thing was that the city where our adventure takes place was clearly in Japan. But, everyone in Time Hollow was as Caucasian as can be.

The story never went anywhere until the very end, either. There’s a prologue, six chapters, and an epilogue. Things didn’t fully come together until the final chapter. There’s not much build up or intrigue along the way. Relevant info just plopped into Ethan’s lap near the end. The big reveals were interesting. But, it felt like they happened too little, too late. I was glad Ethan had an ending to his tale that he deserved. It just took a lot longer than needed to get there.

To get to the end, as well as through each chapter, Ethan (you) will go through some tedious motions. Unlike Shadow of Destiny, Time Hollow is a point and click adventure meant for the stylus. Buttons can be used for most things, but this is a stylus-focused game. The usual stuff is there: check your surroundings, gather items, get clues, and try to piece them together to fill in the gaps on Ethan’s Flashbacks. A Flashback is like a dreamscape, frozen in time. Ethan needs to gather clues from the townsfolk and items from around town to fill in the blanks. This is a slow process that requires a lot of back and forth; trial and error. You need to talk/examine in the right order, which isn’t always clear. Once a Flashback is filled in, you’ll move to certain area of town to use the Hollow Pen.

This initiates a Dig. You’ll use the stylus to draw a circle to open a portal, find a spot in the past to fix, and close the portal. It’s as simple as it sounds. Correcting the past usually means talking to someone, using an item in the right spot, or examining an object. Ethan will say if it’s right or wrong, so just listening to his verbal cues will give players an idea of what to do. You have a finite number of times you can Dig. If you run out, then it’s game over. Ethan’s cat Sox will be around town with refills in case you need extra. But, it should never come to that. I never worried about running out of pen energy. Nor did I ever need to hunt around town for Sox’s random locations. There’s nothing wrong with simple gameplay. But, it’s the same process from start to end. There’s nothing remarkable that gets unlocked along the way to add some variety. Solving the puzzles behind the Flashbacks is never challenging, either. This lack of variety and difficulty make the journey through time dull.

Time Hollow is pretty. The static images are pleasant to look at, and the characters are well designed. There’s even anime movie sequences tossed in to add some flavor. Minimal voice acting helps drive the story forward. But, once again, this veneer also wares thin before long. Past or present, you’ll be seeing the same stuff and same characters over and over. Maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much had Ethan’s friends and family been nicer, but nope. They’re pretty faces don’t help their sourpuss attitudes.

I finished Time Hollow in about seven hours. It could have been shorter had I followed a guide to figure out how to advance the plot. Finishing the game unlocks new pathways that lead to alternate endings. But, eh. I had enough. When the credits finished rolling (accompanied by a very cringey song) I was ready to play something else. Anything dealing with time travel is prone to plot hole problems. This goes beyond video games: books, movies, short stories. Time Hollow could have been one of the exceptions that handled time travel properly. It didn’t mishandle anything, but it didn’t anything to make it stand out, either. You’re not missing a thing by skipping Time Hollow.

Overall, 5/10: Time Hollow’s name is appropriate because the game is hollow in and of itself. It could have been more, but it ended up being a generic point and click adventure.