Time Trax

Intro/Disclaimers:

I’m playing the Sega Genesis version of Time Trax, and running it on a Mac with OpenEmu emulator. If you’re playing on a different version, small details may be different, but the overall walkthrough should still be accurate.

I’m also not going to be detailing where to get all of the “bonus letters” for each level (the ones that spell EXTRA and SELMA) because I myself don’t know where all of them are.

I’m not very good at platformers and 2d shooters, so I apologize if this guide is below your skill level. I’m only creating it because I can’t find a written guide anywhere, just videos of playthroughs.

Cheats:

If you want to activate cheats, go into the options menu. Scroll to the EXIT option, and hold the A + B + C + Left buttons at the same time. Now cheats are enabled. You can select between cheats using the Left and Right buttons.

Option 00: No cheats (cheats still disabled)

Option 01: Six Lives (begin with six lives)

Option 02: Full Energy (begin with a surplus of energy)

Option 03: Level Skip (instantly skip any level by pressing the pause button)

Please note: only one of these can be activated at a time

(Credit to user _0blivion_ on GameFAQs for cheats info)

Level 1: Secret Passage

Right off the bat, you’ll be fired at by a robot sentry thing (I don’t know what they’re called.) It has two guns: a lower one and a higher one. You can pretty easily duck below the higher lasers and jump over the lower ones (if you’re having trouble, the time-stall ability can help with stuff like this.) Return fire on the robot thingy and it’ll break.

Keep heading right. There’s a box you can break, and a ladder. Head down the ladder. There’s an armed guard on your left. He can be defeated in basically the same way as the robot sentry– duck below his bullets, then attack him. Continue left.

There’s a metallic crate you can break here that’ll give you some coins. Keep going and you’ll find a key. Nab it and head back right.

Climb back up the ladder and jump across to the platform on your right (the floor directly by the ladder is spikes that will harm you, so you can’t continue that way.) Over here, there’s another guard. Deal with him, and then jump through the brown trapdoor on the ceiling between the top right and top left platforms. There’s a little secret area here full of stuff, including a 1-UP. Grab everything you want and then leave (go to the spot where you entered and press Down + jump button.) Note: I wasn’t able to get back into the secret area after I left, so make sure you’re absolutely done in there before heading back out.

After leaving the secret area, head down to the bottom of the screen and keep heading right. Jump over the spikes and you’ll end up in an area with a flying drone thing attacking you. Dodge and attack like any other enemy, then climb up the ladders. Attack the guard at the top right and keep moving. Be careful, because these doors in the wall effectively serve as “respawn” points for enemies: even if you kill one, more will keep coming out of the door. Move quickly down the ladder to your right, and kill the other drone thingy. Drop down to the bottom and attack the guard. There’s another crate in the left of this area if you want it, but be careful because another guard may spawn while you’re collecting it.

Head right and jump over the spikes. A spider is going to spawn in. For some reason, these damage you. You can kill it by jumping on its head (like a Goomba in Mario games.) Head up the ladder if you want– there’s just more crates and stuff up here. Continue right. There will be more guards to deal with. Keep heading right.

This next part is incredibly confusing to a new player, so I’m not sure how anyone was supposed to figure it out on their own. Basically, you need to jump and hang from the metal pipe suspended over the spikes on the floor. To do this, jump towards the pipe and press Up to hang onto it. You can then cross with Left and Right, and jump off safely at the other end. Note: If you’re still holding Up, it won’t let you move left or right. You have to jump, press Up, then release and move.

Repeat the process for the next spiky area on the floor. Defeat the guard and keep heading right. Climb the ladder and go right. There’s another sentry thingy. Get rid of it and keep going.

Climb down the ladder and deal with the guard, then jump over the spiky area to your right. There’s another guard here, and this one actually has the audacity to steal our hang-from-a-pipe-on-the-ceiling trick. Get rid of him and go up the ladder. There’s yet another robot sentry up here. Use the same technique as the others. If you want to head left while you’re up here, there’s a crate with a burger in it, which heals some of your health.

Continue right and jump down. Attack the guard. Move quickly because something is firing at you from the bottom of the screen (I have no idea what. I think it’s supposed to be one of the drones.) Keep going right and there’s another guard. Attack him and keep moving. Climb the ladder and break the crates if you want. Then jump down to the bottom right of the screen and attack the robot sentry. It’ll blow up and drop you through the floor into a new area. Break the crates if you want and head downward (you don’t necessarily have to use the ladder.)

Continue down, and there will be another guard, as well as our mysterious enemy firing from the bottom of the screen. Get rid of the guard, then head down. You can completely ignore the robot sentry. Down here, there are two guards and a drone. Don’t worry about the drone and just keep going down. There will be two more guards– defeat them and then continue downwards.

There’s a lone guard here and some crates. One of them has a burger if you want to grab it. Keep going down and you’ll drop into this area’s bossfight.

The bossfight: It’s just a really big dude that you gotta beat up. Your lasers don’t work on him for some reason, so you have to kick and punch him. He’s fast, so the time-stalling ability is a real help here. Also, don’t let him grab you- it drains a lot of health.

Head right and you’ll use a laser to blast through a wall. Level 1 down– you did it!

Level 2: The Laboratory

Right off the bat, you’ll be shot at by laser-wielding scientists. Duck below the beams and return fire. Go right.

There’s a laser firing at you that can easily be ducked under. Use the time-stall ability to get to the source of the laser. If you’re willing to risk being fired on, you can actually destroy these with your own laser. If not, use the time-stall ability and go past the laser up the ladder. There’s another scientist up here. Get rid of her and then go right past the ceiling laser (to the left is just crates and more lasers.) Climb down the ladder and dispatch the guard. Go right past the laser and up the ladder. Go right through the sliding door thing (you’ll have to use the time-stall ability to get through.) Dispatch the scientist. Continue forward past the diagonal lasers and down the stairs.

Through the sliding door, there are more guards. Get rid of them, go up the ladder, and head right. There’s another diagonal laser to pass through here, made trickier by the respawning guards shooting at you. Slip past with the time-stall ability and go down the ladder. There’s another guard down here to deal with. If you want, you can head left to get a crate with a burger in it. Head right until you reach the area under the stairs, encountering one scientist and two guards along the way. You can break the crates if you like, then head up the ladder to the left of the stair area. Go left. Take care of the guards along the way until you get to the laser firing horizontally at you. This next part is somewhat tricky (or at least, it was for me.) Use the time-stall ability to duck beneath the laser, then pop back up and return fire. If you manage to do this correctly, the laser will be destroyed and you can dart over and grab the small gray rectangle lying on the ground beside it. Return to the right, and go through the sliding door. The gray rectangle seems to be a keycard of some sort, because the door won’t open without it. Go down the stairs. Break the crate if you like for a burger. Then go up the ladder. Dispatch the scientist and head right to drop down into the bossfight.

The bossfight: I will level with you– in my personal experience, this fight is terrible. Not terrible as in “difficult,” but terrible as in “makes no sense and takes forever.” Basically, there’s a guy standing in the middle of the screen with a big laser thing mounted on the wall. You can’t hurt him directly (because of reasons, I guess???) so you have to attack the laser thing directly. You can only do that when it gets within range, which is only the bottom row of the grid it moves on. You have to wait for it to get to the bottom part of the grid (while dodging the laser) and then return fire on it without getting hit. And it spends the vast majority of the fight completely out of firing range. Even when it comes within range, hitting it is still tricky– it only seems to let you hit it one shot at a time (at least on my version) and if you miss, you have to wait for it to get within range again.

I sincerely hope that your luck with this fight is better than mine. But if it isn’t, and you’re thinking of quitting, then I don’t think there’s any shame in using the “skip level” cheat specifically to skip this fight, especially if you’ve already played through the entire level up to this point. (cheats at beginning of walkthrough)

Once the laser guy is defeated, he’ll flee, and you’ll follow him. Level 2 down!

Level 3: The Smithsonian

Immediately you’ll be faced with a green “G.I. Joe” sort of enemy. These guys can’t be K.O.ed by your laser alone, so you’ll have to stun and then punch or kick him. Also, be careful once you do manage to defeat them– they sometimes drop explosives that deal damage if you’re in the immediate area. Continue to the right. Once you reach the first gap in the balcony, jump over it. If you fall, you can hang onto the light fixture thingy and jump back up, like with the metal pipe in Level 1. Note: this level has a *lot* of these, so if you’re struggling with that specific mechanic, now would be a good time to practice. You have to hold Up and jump at the same time to jump back onto the balcony.

Drop down into the second balcony gap. Head right, dispose of the guard, and jump over the bust in the hallway. Go to the next gap in the balcony and swing back up. Dispatch the G.I. Joe guy. You can head left if you like for some crates, then head back right and down the stairs.

This next bit is fast-paced, so stay calm. First, you’ll have to fight another G.I. Joe. Then, a spiky metal scaffolding thing is going to roll towards you. Head right. There will be a bust on the floor that you’ll have to attack to get out of your way, followed by another G.I. Joe. The next obstacle on your path will be an indestructible bust that you have to push to get out of the way, followed by yet another Joe. Once you’ve passed them, there’ll be another breakable bust and two more unbreakable ones. Get past them and keep going. There will be a crate if you have time to grab it, followed by a G.I. Joe. Make your way over to one final breakable bust and destroy it. Stand against the wall it was next to. The spiky scaffolding will stop just shy of you. Carefully grab onto the gap in the balcony and swing up. Head right and drop down again.

Head right, getting rid of any guards who may be lurking in the hallway. Once you get to another gap in the balcony, grab it and swing up. Dispatch the G.I. Joe and jump down again. Head right, fight the guard, and swing back up through the next gap in the balcony (seriously, I told you there would be a *lot* of balcony gaps.) Head right and get rid of the G.I. Joe. Keep going. There’s a crate at the far end of the hallway you can collect if you’d like. Jump down into yet another balcony gap. The unbreakable bust here doesn’t seem to do anything, so don’t bother with it. Get rid of the guard and keep going right. Mind the falling dinosaur skull.

No bossfight for this segment– Level 3 down!

[This guide is still a work in progress. I'll gradually add all of the levels in my free time.]