Zeit2 is a side-scrolling space shooter with time manipulation as part of the action. The player must sail a ship through several waves of opponents while remaining alive to go to the next one. The spacecraft can be maneuvered to any location on the screen, and shooting is accomplished by pressing a single button. The craft is swallowed by a blue sphere representing the player’s health, also indicated as a percentage in the top left corner. The number goes from 0% to 200%, with many parameters influencing it. A certain amount of health is lost for each bullet fired. However, it can be recovered by defeating foes. It also counts down whenever the percentage exceeds 100. The majority of the adversaries appear on the screen’s right side. Regular competitors can be avoided or shot, but enemies with a blue halo must be defeated before they exit through the left side, as they drain health. Destroying multiple blue halo foes in a row rewards you with a combo bonus bar at the top of the screen.
Several power-ups are available, which can be obtained by destroying foes or opening capsules. These grant additional health or a shockwave that destroys everything on the screen. Another is the ability to travel across time. Time is accrued in the screen’s bottom left corner due to these power-ups or by destroying adversaries. When blue halo opponents cross the left side of the screen (or at any point when time travel energy is available), the player can engage in time travel for a set amount of time to rewind the gameplay, temporarily rendering the screen grey. When time moves again, a black shadow replays the ship’s activities (moving around, firing). In contrast, the leading boat can help by correcting mistakes or shooting adversaries that passed by only a moment before.
Other foes hide in space-time and can only be defeated quickly before time returns to the place where the power-up was activated, and the black shadow vanishes. There is also a button to advance time. All points are doubled during that time. After completing numerous levels and eliminating level bosses, the ship gains access to new attacks like the beam shot and chain shot and new powers like a faster fire rate. These can be employed regularly, as the beam shot generates a powerful laser during time travel. The player can blast the dark shadow of themself to create a shockwave or split it into a giant vertical laser with the beam shot.
In addition to the standard Arcade mode are Wave, Time Limit, Survival, Tactics, Score Attack, and Challenge modes. All of these variants on the fundamental gameplay are available.
