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Half-Minute Hero review

Game: Half-Minute Hero
Platform: PSP
Genre: RPG
Developer: Marvelous Interactive

Reader review by zippdementia

February 17, 2010

Half-Minute Hero is the perfect game for our fast-paced world of high-end releases that you can’t afford to be distracted from for too long. Jason’s review of the game does a great job of covering the details of gameplay and the variety of modes available, so there’s little need to reiterate those facts here. I concur entirely with his sentiments on the game, but I have a few things to add to the discussion of the main RPG mode.

Let’s go over the basics, again, really quick. The goal is simple: save the world in thirty seconds. As a classic 8-bit hero you’ll have to do all the usual old-school RPG tasks to accomplish this. You’ll need to level-grind against pixelated foes, buy better equipment from cardboard NPCs, go on complicated side quests, and keep yourself stocked up on healing herbs. Thankfully, our 8-bit hero knows how to economize his time. This is the only RPG where you can reach level 15 in twenty seconds; the only RPG where you can buy plate mail before the shop vendor has finished saying hello; the only RPG where a side-view pixelated battle of stats manages to be tense.

You know what? That stuff is actually fun when it doesn’t take 80 hours.

Yet, for how fast the game is, it manages to have an incredible amount of depth to it and here’s where I’m going to raise Jason a point on his score. As with any RPG, the goal of an adventure in Half-Minute Hero is to beat the boss in his lair and return peace to the land. And, again as with a normal RPG, your ability to beat the final boss ultimately comes down to your equipment and your levels. But here’s why Half-Minute Hero gets a score boost from me... it’s not actually an RPG. That’s the big joke it has played on the gaming world. It’s actually a puzzle game.

Here’s a situation. You’ve just wandered into a forested country that’s been taken over by a sentient tree who has been the taught the 30-second death spell. Adventure start! At first it seems you only have one option open to you: run around this side of the map, fighting little enemies and slowly leveling, using what little gold you get to pay the Time Goddess to reset the clock until you are strong enough to charge the enemy fortress. But as you wander through the forests you come across a new puzzle. Lurking in the woods is a powerful mushroom monster that kicks your puny hero ass all the way back to town. There, you discover a wandering bard and his faithful (and powerful) dog companion. They offer to join you on your quest... for the hefty price of 300 gold. You glance at the clock. 10 seconds left and paying their price wouldn’t leave you with enough to reset the clock. If you want their help, you’d better be prepared to run the whole way to the overlord’s castle. Maybe it would be better to reset the clock and use the remaining cash to buy a new axe. But will you then be strong enough to conquer the beasts of the forest, or will you be caught in an ever dwindling cycle of leveling while the Time Goddess’ price rises higher and higher? You’ve noticed that the forest creatures seem to be more plentiful at night. Maybe if you try a run in the morning you can get through without being attacked? And, ultimately, which of these options will let you beat the adventure in 35 seconds and thus get the highest hero ranking?

It all comes down to an incredible game of time management that was never expected out of a spoof title. The developers could’ve handed gamers a mediocre one-shot RPG which took no risks and wrapped itself in snarky dialogue to disguise the fact that there wasn’t much of a game supporting it. Instead they handed them a new take on the genre that manages to do some memorable and innovative things... wrapped in snarky dialogue that points out how ridiculous the whole RPG genre is anyway. I mean, there’s a level where you take on CATS from “All Your Base” infamy. That’s made of pure snarky awesome.

The winning equation: there’s more packed into a half-minute of Half-Minute Hero than in hours of half of the RPGs out there.

Rating: 9/10

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