Weapon Orbs in Timespinner

Timespinner's main influence can be found in the Castlevania series, with the Game Boy Advance instalments in particular forming a keystone. Animations and combat seem to heavily lean on these influences and the battle orbs you pick up along the way are a sort of streamlined version of multiple ideas.

First of all the orbs are featured as a catch-all for all kinds of weaponry. One orb will simply shoot a bullet, another will present a limited range melee strike. Aside from their weapon characteristics in terms of speed and range, they also feature additional effects. The Blood Orb can drain health from enemies, the Eye Orb allows you to notice otherwise hidden pathways.

You can equip two orbs at once and you always have two of the same type of orb. So you can specialise with two orbs of the same type, or for instance combine a short range and long range orb to complement each other.

In this way, the orbs kind of resemble Soma's souls mechanic from Aria of Sorrow. There the souls were also used for passive and an additional button-assigned effect. Timespinner also does this, but relegates these two additional effects to items you can craft. Each orb you pick up allows for a passive and button-assigned enabling item to be crafted, creating three expression in total per orb theme.

Most of the joy from Timespinner's main gameplay loop comes from mixing and matching these orbs and items, and the game also allows you to quickly switch between three load-outs. I do find the additional effects needing to be crafted to be rather tedious. It only seems to be employed as a resource sink (you can readily buy the necessary resources at one of the game's shops) and at least one of them unlocks an exploration mechanic making it really strange to be hidden away behind a seemingly optional effect.