Half Minute Hero.... time to dust off your PSP!

[Tanukitsune]

Half Minute Hero is a dream come true to anybody who wants to play JRPGS, but doesn't have 200+ hours to spare. As the name implies you have a 30 second time limit to prevent the bad guy from casting a spell of doom that will destroy everything, except... You'll never really beat in in 30 seconds! Fortunately the Time Goddess is here to help and for a fee, she's a greedy lass, she'll restart the timer but each time the fee with be bigger and bigger until you will be unable to make enough money in time, but you probably won't need to reset time that many times....

The game is ridiculously fun and funny, but it doesn't seem to be making fun of JRPGs, which is what I was expecting it to, and it's fun to discover than most levels, the game has 30, have more than one way to be resolved, maybe you'll rent a boat and cross the ocean? Or maybe go through the longer trail through the mountains? Also the game is nice enough to tell you when you're strong enough to best the boss of the level.

The controls are ridiculously simple, when you enter battle you fight automatically, but you can dash to make the fight go faster, which reduced your HP, you can also dash out of battle. The game is also nice enough to stop time in town to buy equipment and herbs, you can only carry one, but you never need more than one.

You'd think 30 levels isn't enough for a retail game, well... it doesn't end there! The game has two more modes, each one takes place 100 years after the other and is different from each other...

Evil Lord 30 is a basically a strategy game in 30 seconds, you play as a not really evil summoner who can summon fast, strong or long range units, it's rock, paper, scissors except the longer you wait, the bigger the summon, and if you get hit, you MP reduce and you can't summon as easily as before and obviously the Time Goddess is here to take your money to make time go back and any money left will go to leveling your character.

Princess 30 is a shooter, the princess has a 30 second curfew and a legion of soldier, if she gets hit she loses soldiers and slows down, but once again the Time Goddess will gladly take your money to turn back time. And like most shooters, it has power ups if the form of fairies...

Once you beat the first three modes you unlock Knight 30, one of the more interesting modes. In this one, you're a knight resurrected by a sage who asks you to protect him while he goes on a quest to save the land with his spell of doom that.. you guess it! It takes 30 seconds to prepare! As a knight you must protect the sage from monsters until he can banish them with the spell, you can't defeat them, you can only stun them, you can also get the sage out of the way, but while he moves he can't do the spell. If you die you can be resurrected by the sage, but I didn't die that much. Another interesting thing is that each night before the battle the knight can spend some time making traps, but since he sleeps less he has less stamina and hit points... and frankly I prefer not using the traps, although they do make some levels much easier.. In this mode the Time Goddess is dead, but that doesn't matter since you're supposed to survive 30 seconds instead of finish your goal in 30 seconds...

After beating this mode you get the grand finale, it's the same as the first mode, only with a 300 second limit and no Time Goddess, which makes it the most interesting and challenging mode yet, since every area has it's own time limit and you will lose if it ends and you're still in it. And if you beat it you get a full ending and a special extra mode.... THREE SECOND HERO? Thank God this isn't part of the story and it's just an extra challenge, because this is just too much! You only have enough time for ONE battle to make enough money to reset the timer...

All I can say this is the most fun I've had with a jRPG in ages, although I barely play them to begin with....

[toblix]

Sounds fun, but also so stressful I would never be able to play it. Also, it's for PSP, no?

[Tanukitsune]

Yes, but it's not really that stressful, except maybe a bit for the 300 Hero mode. Like I said you can simply pay the Goddess for more time and you only get a lower ranking if you take too much time, but you usually only need to reset it once or twice.

I hate stressful games, I DESPISE timers, but I didn't find this stressful at all thanks to the Time Goddess, she's like Ocarina of Time of the game? Since the final mode doesn't have her, it's kinda stressful, but you just have to figure what is necessary and what isn't, if you spend too much time getting all the equipment you'll never make it in time!

[Irishjohn]

Yes, but it's not really that stressful, except maybe a bit for the 300 Hero mode. Like I said you can simply pay the Goddess for more time and you only get a lower ranking if you take too much time, but you usually only need to reset it once or twice.

I hate stressful games, I DESPISE timers, but I didn't find this stressful at all thanks to the Time Goddess, she's like Ocarina of Time of the game? Since the final mode doesn't have her, it's kinda stressful, but you just have to figure what is necessary and what isn't, if you spend too much time getting all the equipment you'll never make it in time!

I second this, the game wasn't stressful at all. Really nice game, definitely worth a try for the video game/JRPG humour alone!

[miffy495]

Huh, that's weird. I was sure I'd talked about this in the game's original thread. I guess I didn't. Oh well. I beat this game about 6 months ago and enjoyed pretty much every second of it. 'Blix, don't worry about stress. It only really gets going a few times. For the most part, it's a very light-hearted affair that is (as one would expect) great for playing in short bursts. Tanu has written a lot already that I probably don't need to add to, but I'll throw in my support and say that someone with a PSP who thinks this game sounds even remotely interesting should give it a try. It really is great fun.

[Tanukitsune]

Huh? I searched for "Half Minute Hero" without the hyphen and it didn't show up, I thought the hyphenated version would show up, I guess no?

[miffy495]

Nope. I had to search twice, first without the hyphen, then with. If I hadn't been sure that there had been an earlier thread, I would've given up after the first attempt too...

[Sno]

An updated version of this just came out on XBLA, always really wanted to play it, so i went ahead and bought it. Really, really loving it. Pretty funny game too, a lot of very sharp parody of 16-bit JRPG's.

Also seems like a pretty insane value for ten bucks, this is a lot of game.

The new MP is really cool too, kind of antagonistic co-op, has a bit of a four swords vibe, but it's a bit glitchy. (And has some pretty ass backwards UI that only a japanese game could have.)

Edit: Boo hiss, this is not cool.

The XBLA version is missing the extra game modes, and in their place are just single extra levels in the style of the main game.

I feel cheated.

Edited July 2, 2011 by Sno