{"id":4842,"date":"2026-06-27T17:40:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/?p=4842"},"modified":"2026-06-28T09:37:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:07:57","slug":"faithful-to-its-legacy-distinct-in-its-path-crushed-in-time-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/review\/faithful-to-its-legacy-distinct-in-its-path-crushed-in-time-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Faithful to Its Legacy, Distinct in Its Path | Crushed in Time Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some of the best spin-offs are born from ideas that deserve far more than a brief appearance. Crushed in Time does exactly that, bringing back Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson\u2014the duo who previously stole the spotlight in one of the most memorable chapters of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension\u2014for an entirely new standalone adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, time travel, cleverly crafted puzzles, and the developers’ signature brand of humor take center stage. But can this spin-off, despite stepping away from the narrative formula that made Wrong Dimension so memorable, remain just as unpredictable and entertaining from beginning to end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Story and Narrative<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crushed in Time involves a strange disappearance of one of the characters in a video game and the players are soon drawn into the world of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The story begins when the two detectives get a mysterious letter. What seems like an easy case at the beginning, soon becomes a lot more complicated, with time travel as the main driving force of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game\u2019s biggest narrative weapon is its unpredictability. The game Crushed in Time keeps players on their toes with a number of well-placed twists and ever-changing directions. That feeling of not knowing, that’s what makes it an adventure, it keeps the curiosity going and the mystery interesting till the very end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Time travel is far more than a narrative device in Crushed in Time\u2014it plays a central role in the game’s puzzle design as well. Players are constantly moved between different versions of the same game world and across multiple points in time during the adventure, allowing the developers to create puzzle scenarios that feel genuinely inventive and unlike those found in most games of the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every leap through time offers not only a unique visual identity but a new layer of puzzle solving opportunities, from rough prototypes to fully remastered versions of the very same environments. In this way, time travel never feels like a cheap storytelling trick but instead becomes one of the game\u2019s defining gameplay mechanics, seamlessly blending narrative and interactivity into some of its most memorable moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gameplay Core<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chemistry between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a key part of the game\u2019s appeal. Their banter is sharp, the balance of wit and charm slowly making both characters genuinely likeable. Meanwhile, Emmet and Emma are far more than supporting characters. Their witty banter and playful retorts help anchor the light-hearted tone of the game, making sure even its most complex puzzles and elaborate time-travel sequences never feel like a chore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crushed in Time is basically a puzzle design. It starts out as a typical point-and-click adventure, but a lot of the gameplay involves dragging and dropping objects, characters and parts of the environment to manipulate them. In practice it plays more like a \u201cpoint-and-drag\u201d adventure than a traditional point-and-click game. This deceptively simple interaction system provides developers with remarkable creative freedom, allowing them to craft a steady stream of inventive, surprising, and often delightfully unconventional puzzle scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the great strengths of Crushed in Time is its refusal to linger too long on any one idea. There is a new mechanic or new gameplay scenario introduced in nearly every chapter so it is rarely repetitive. Even in the bigger chunks, like Chapter Nine, where players are tasked with solving a fair amount of puzzles to recruit various characters, the game manages to avoid repetition by putting a different twist on each puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game also isn\u2019t afraid to veer away from its core puzzle structure. Some chapters introduce brand new types of gameplay, from turn-based battle inspired sequences to puzzles around reassembling a photograph. These constant design changes help to keep things fresh throughout the adventure, and mostly they succeed in keeping the experience interesting well into its second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, not all experiments hit their mark. For instance, the photography-based puzzle sequence tasks players with recreating a reference image by moving characters around and changing their height by using different objects placed beneath them. The idea is certainly inventive, but the execution can occasionally feel clunky. Adjusting each character\u2019s placement can often seem more tiresome than intellectually rewarding, and turns what should be an inventive puzzle into a rather time-consuming exercise in trial and error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Humor at its peak<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another area where Crushed in Time excels is humor. The game never loses the smile on the player’s face. From clever callbacks to There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension to the witty exchanges between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, throughout the adventure. The fourth-wall breaks aren\u2019t quite as bold or frequent as in Wrong Dimension but the series\u2019 trademark self-awareness is still very much on display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An especially delightful example is when players are solving puzzles by directly dragging and dropping characters around the environment. Instead of just ignoring the player\u2019s interference, the characters react with witty comments and facial expressions, turning a simple gameplay mechanic into something comedic. These moments are the perfect examples of the playful spirit that defined There Is No Game, showing that Crushed in Time never loses its comedic identity, even without leaning as much on fourth-wall humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pacing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a lot happening for Crushed in Time but it does struggle to keep the momentum at times. Much of the adventure is based on puzzle solving and the player\u2019s constant interaction with the world. However, the game does toss in a long sequence of cutscenes near the end of chapter Eight and the beginning of chapter Nine, and it noticeably slows down its otherwise snappy pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This issue is even more apparent when you compare it to There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, a game that kept players hooked in the story almost all the way through. Crushed in Time is still a fun and unpredictable story, but the final chapters lean more on cinematically-driven sequences at the expense of player agency. It means that the dynamic energy that defines the rest of the adventure inevitably wears off in the final stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Verdict<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crushed in Time never quite maintains the near-flawless pace of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension for its entire length. It\u2019s more reliant on cutscenes, which can sometimes take away from player involvement, with some sections feeling less interactive than the previous game. But the game never forgets its biggest strength: its ability to surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creative puzzles, a wide variety of gameplay ideas, razor-sharp wit, an inventive use of time travel and the wonderfully entertaining dynamic between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson all combine to make an experience that constantly defies expectations. Crushed in Time takes a different path to There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, but it manages to establish its own identity, providing a spin-off that is consistently engaging, refreshingly unpredictable, and well worth the journey from start to finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This review is based on the PC version<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Score: 86\/100<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of the best spin-offs are born from ideas that deserve far more than a brief appearance. Crushed in Time does exactly that, bringing back Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson\u2014the duo who previously stole the spotlight in one of the most memorable chapters of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension\u2014for an entirely new standalone adventure. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":523,"featured_media":4843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4856,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions\/4856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bazinameh.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}