Chronos Twins is a 2D side scroller by EnjoyUp and is it's debut game on the Nintendo DS, and for it's first game it's done rather well.

The story is that an alien species gets attacked by an unknown entity and takes over their home planet of Skyla. With their forces getting destroyed and not being able to harm the enemy, they are forced to retreat from their planet. Enraged by this and wanting their planet back, they send a 'Llhedar', who are "suited for these kind of tasks" to the past to stop this menace since the elders decided that the attacker known as 'Twime' must of opened a time gate thus making it immune to every attack. Sounds like a standard sci-fi story, but there's a twist in it. Nasx, the main characters brother gets sent to the past to take on Twime but fails and dies in the process since it is then revealed that Twime, is infact, living in two times making it almost impossible to kill.

As time passes, the scientists that made the time machine alters it so that you also exist in 2 times, the past and the present. Now you take up the role as Nec to take out Twime to save Skyla and also to avenge his brothers death.

Sounds simple enough to do, go kill Twime and save the day. But the game play itself is far from simple. Chronos Twins has a unique game play design where you control two Necs at the same time, one Nec on the bottom screen for the past and another on the top screen for the present. Throughout the game you encounter several obstacles and you need to use both screens simultaneously for a unique and puzzling adventure. If you come across a block hanging from a ceiling in the present, you can't move your character in the past and vise versa. So to advance you must skid under the block. Easy. But soon afterwards you will find yourself being chased by an alien in a fiery cave and will have to run to get away from it, but there's obstacles in both times you must get past such as pieces of rock falling, lava bursting out from below along with having to jump on platforms to progress and if you can't pass one, your other self can't advance.

It's this unique feature that makes the game more interesting later on in the game with more puzzles. As you progress and as challenges become that much harder, you gain the ability to freeze one of your characters allowing one character to advance so your other character can progress. One such puzzle is barricade on one screen rendering that character useless, so you must freeze him and advance with the other character to push back a block so when you unfreeze your character you may continue. But this is only scratching the surface.

At first playing Chronos Twins will seem easy enough, shoot enemies use both screens to get both characters to advance, but soon after you say these words you'll deeply regret it. Chronos Twins does have a learning curve for new players to get use to the controls and concept, but it is highly likely that you will get frustrated with the game. Though after a few deaths you will see yourself easily passing places you got stuck at previously. You will find it hard at moments to keep an eye on both screens with enemies appearing randomly and if there's a steady flow, you may find yourself be caught off guard and forget which button shoots on what screen which will lead to the heroes death. If it's not enemies you get frustrated with then it will be with overcoming the obstacles that make you forget to watch both screens at once and even the familiar continue screen can get on your nerves. After you get past the part where you keep dying, you will be very satisfied with what you accomplished, well for fifteen seconds until you get stuck again.

You have two very important gauges on the screens being your life and energy. Energy is the bar that shows how many 'transports' you have left, which is the science lab teleporting you back to your last check point and your life just showing you many lives you have left. But with death quickly approaching you will soon those precious bars gone. If you started a stage with one life and energy bar, you will see the continue screens several times. Within a minute you might see that continue screen all over again if you don't watch yourself and repeating the same thing will feel very repetitive and for a bonus your gauges will only fill up if your lucky enough to find an orb to replenish them, or if you enter a new level which is every three stages and the amount you end one stage with will be saved for the next so if in a rage you turn of your DS, you will start back with the same amount of energy and life.

The controls for the game are fairly simple, D-Pad to move your characters simultaneously, X Button to shot on the top screen and B for the bottom screen and A and Y to make your characters jump. As previously mentioned, even the controls are simple enough, you may find yourself confusing them when there is a lot going on at once.

For a first attempt the game does very well, even with the frustration factor. If your a fan of side scrollers or love challenging games, this is for you. Even with the SNES like graphics and not much to do apart from killing alien scum, you will barely notice them as you'll be immersed in only focusing on advancing throughout the game and praising yourself for getting past a hard part. With the unique game play of Chronos Twins and making full use of both screens, this is definitely an adventure you will want to play.