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RAdvantage is bringing you tips for some of the hardest achievements on the site. As always, our DMs remain open at RANews, if you have tips for any 100 point or other very difficult achievements you have earned please let us and the rest of the community know.

Tip Provided By:

Whynot15 Whynot15


Game Console Genre
Power Rangers: Time Force Game Boy Color Action

Power Rangers: Time Force is a licensed 2D platformer/beat ‘em up based on the popular Power Rangers franchise.

While Time Force does throw a few minor wrinkles in the gameplay, such as QTEs, branching paths, and Megazord fights, the game is linear and generic, doing little to stand out among countless other GBC platformers. Despite this, I felt the game deserves a little more attention:

  • The graphics and audio are fairly solid for the GBC, especially in terms of the (sadly repetitive) Megazord cutscenes sprinkled throughout the game.
  • The game has very little coverage online. Outside a few videos and passwords, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything resembling hints or tips, or even move lists.
  • Arguably the biggest reason in conjunction with 2: on hard mode, the game is TOUGH. Time limits go from barely mattering on easy to requiring you to never stop moving on Hard. While not the most challenging game on the GBC, a game with this level of challenge deserves a guide.

What this guide won’t provide: Level walkthroughs - the game is extremely linear and almost all of the only “secrets” (the extra Vortex Shots) are harder to miss than to get. Most boss fights - the bosses tend to be pretty similar, aside from a few exceptions I mention in the guide. The biggest challenge is reaching them with enough time remaining.

What it will provide: General hard mode tips - how to survive in this race against time. How to reach the “secret” levels How to take down the final boss, unsurprisingly the toughest part of the game.

Mastery Roadmap

The game has 36 achievements across nine levels. Aside from one progression-based achievement, each level has four achievements*: Beat the level on easy or normal Beat the level on Hard Beat the level without losing a ranger Collect both extra Vortex Shots

The difficulty achievements are not stackable**, meaning a minimum of two playthroughs of each level is needed for mastery. I advise you to play easy mode first - the layout of levels won’t change and you have plenty of time to get to know the stages at your leisure. You can also complete the Vortex Collector and Perfect achievements for each stage without too much stress. Once you’ve completed that, hard mode is where the real challenge lies.

*Currently, Fabled City in the Future is missing its Vortex Collector achievement. A revision request is pending to revise this. **A revision request has also been made to make difficulty achievements stackable. TBD if this will change. Even if it does, I still recommend splitting the achievements across an easy and a hard run.

Hard Mode General tips

  • Do NOT stop moving. You should be constantly moving forward and making progress if you want to reach the boss with enough time to beat them. It often pays to take damage rather than wait for a hazard to disappear or skip a health powerup to save precious seconds.
  • Prioritize grabbing every time powerup is feasible and defeating any enemy in your way to get their clock pickups. Time is typically a much bigger worry than your health (although losing a ranger late into a screen can be devastating and cost you a run as well).
  • Don’t be afraid to ditch one or both extra vortexes on some levels. The Vortex Shot QTE is fairly easy. That said, at least one extra shot in each level is thrown at your face, and having an extra margin of error never hurts.
  • The sabers (the second weapon in the pause screen) are your friends for 90% of the game, especially outside boss fights. Equip them to tear through mooks quickly.
  • Switching weapons pauses the game and stops the clock, so don’t be afraid to switch to your fists to get through barriers while saving energy.
  • The speed boost (activated by pressing select and B with full energy) is situational, but it does have moments where it can save a good chunk of time. Notably, the start of the jungle level lets you bypass some platforming on the first screen by using it.
  • If you die during a boss fight, the boss will regain all his health while the time limit will remain the same. On later levels, this can doom a run. Don’t be afraid to purposely lose your first ranger to the boss to go to a fresh ranger without wasting time. This is almost essential for some hard mode bosses (such as Nadira and Rencik) to ensure you get through the level with enough time and have the optimal ranger for the boss.
  • As an addition to this, each boss has a time powerup in their arena. If you want to squeeze a little extra time, you could run into a boss arena, grab the time, and purposely lose all but your last ranger to get up to 40 seconds of extra time (minus the time it takes to grab and lose your ranger) at the boss.

Megazord fights

The Megazord fights are the second phase of nearly every boss fight in this game. Controlling your zord is sluggish and the fights are honestly not all that fun. Thankfully, you can retry the Megazord fight as many times as you’d like once you reach it. Unfortunately, there is no password specific to the Megazord fights. You need to clear a level fully in one go. Always pick the Red Zord for his blocking capabilities. Constantly pausing/unpausing is helpful and borderline necessary for the final boss on hard. If done correctly, you’ll be able to see the enemy’s “wind up” for whatever move they will do. Mash attack as soon as you unpause if you’re close enough and pause on an early frame. Block up/down (depending on the attack) if you’re too far to hit or paused too late. Enemies prioritize using their special bar ASAP. Use this to your advantage by watching the bar and start blocking during the “stun” animation of the block/hit that gets them to half a bar. Even better, launch a counterattack to make them waste their energy and score a hit if you’re close enough. If the pausing is boring, try mashing attack after landing a hit. You can often score several additional hits before they get their guard up. I recommend waiting for a full bar to unleash your special attack. It will put a huge dent in their health. It also never misses and makes you invulnerable until your special finishes.

Branching paths

There are two instances of branching paths in the early game. To play all the levels (and thus earn all the achievements), you will need to go back to levels 2 and 3 respectively, so save your passwords!

Level 2

You get your choice of the stage (Jungle or Underwater Base). Simply pick one, complete the level, then use your password to level 2 to pick the other.

Level 3

This is slightly more involved. When you reach the boss arena, you’ll find two bosses - Gluto and Nadira. Once you defeat one boss, the other will escape. Each boss has a unique level 4 (Fabled City in the Past for Nadira and Fabled City in the Future for Gluto). You’ll need to replay level 3 twice and defeat a different boss each time to play both levels.

Gluto

Gluto is easy. You find him at the bottom of the boss stage. Corner him and spam melee for an easy win. Nadira will flee to Fabled City (in the past).

Nadira

Nadira is much trickier. Choose the blue or pink ranger. Blue is probably optimal, but I ended up doing this the first time with Pink. Yellow and especially Green make this fight extremely difficult at best - their attack speed is too slow for this fight. In the boss arena, equip blaster and head up the first ladder you find to reach Nadira. Crouch and stay crouched. Nadira remains in this tiny top corner all fight. She has two moves.

  • Fade out (becoming immune to attacks, but still able to damage you on touch) and fade into a random place in the corner. Wait for her to start fading back in and fire a shot. With blue or pink, you should be able to hit her just as she becomes solid, even if she immediately teleports again.
  • Shoots fireballs. If you’re crouched, these will never hit you. There’s no reason not to stay crouched all fight. Keep this firing pattern up. If you run out of energy, there is an energy pickup to the right, but try to wait until you’re completely out before grabbing. Get through this annoying fight and Gluto will escape to Fabled City (in the future).

Final Level (hard mode)

Pick red Ranger to start - this is especially important, as it will affect your starting location when the level starts. Trying to fight Ransik in the opening fight has no impact on anything, so just run into him to trigger the cutscene and start the level properly. The level is different from the others - instead of trying to reach a boss fight at the end, the level is a continuous circle. You need to find and rescue the other four rangers (by bumping into them) to complete the level and get to the final boss. Go down to rescue the green ranger, then backtrack up and follow the level counterclockwise. The level itself is relatively straightforward from here on. Your final ranger rescue should be the pink ranger.

Final Boss - Ransik

Ransik is a tough out and can even provide a slight challenge on easy. Follow along to learn how to put this guy in his place. You will likely have all rangers still alive heading into the final boss, but the irreplaceable one is Yellow. You MUST have the yellow ranger alive (preferably at full health) to have a chance against Ransik. If you enter the fight as anyone but Yellow, rush into Ransik until your ranger is down and you can switch to Yellow. The damage you do to Ransik won’t carry over, but you could try to grab the time powerup in the top right for some extra seconds. You can keep grabbing the time and losing your ranger with all but your last ranger (as described earlier) to squeeze in some extra time, but you’ll need to be quick for this to benefit you. I defeated Ransek on hard without this time trick, so it’s certainly not mandatory. Once you have yellow, select the Vortex Blaster. walk to the right until you see Ransik. Ransik only has one move - a fast slide kick. Wait for Ransik to lift his arm up and IMMEDIATELY fire a shot. You should see him enter a “hurt” animation (it somewhat looks like he’s falling while on one leg). If you do it too early, he’ll enter a “Blocking animation” (his arm is somewhat shielding his face). This means he will take no (or at least much less damage) and will instantly fire off a kick. Once you hit him, run away from him (while keeping him on screen), wait for the next arm lift, and fire again. When you reach the ladder closest to the left or right edge of the arena, quickly climb it and jump as soon as you reach the top. Ransik will sometimes jump at you when you reach the top - most of the time, an immediate jump will let you evade this. Once you reach the top platform, quickly run off the platform and wait for Ransik to chase you, then repeat the process of blasting him right before his kick. Do this several times and you’ll trigger the Vortex Shot QTE per usual. Yellow has slower shots than most other rangers, making the window to hit Ransik much tighter than others. His higher damage output is necessary to defeat Ransik without running out of time.

Alternate Strategies

While I have had no luck replicating this, there is a video on YouTube showing a player locking Ransik against the left-most ladder. If you’re feeling up to a challenge, you can try your luck at making this work, but I have doubts there is a consistent way to trigger this. I have also watched videos using special melee combos (especially yellows midair kick flurry) to pummel Ransik working. I have had no luck pulling off the best melee combos consistently, but again, an option for those looking for an alternative.

Final Boss (Zord Phase)

Ransik is a pretty typical Zord fight, albeit one who will take MASSIVE amounts of health from you with each hit. His special can be especially crushing if you don’t block or counter, taking roughly 2/3rds of your entire health bar (and sometimes followed up with a sliding kick that will eat the last third). The pause trick is almost mandatory, as is knowing he’ll spam his special as soon as he reaches half a bar of special. Stick to the same strategies as before and you should inevitably prevail.