Developer/Publisher: Marvelous Entertainment/Xseed
Genre: RPG/Action
Price: $29.99 (Also Available on PSN)
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Verdict: This game abominates the 2009 PSP lineup. No, that doesn’t make sense. But keep reading, and it will. It’s a good thing.
Pros: Fast-paced gameplay; charming characters; hilarious dialogue
Cons: No auto-save, so remember to save often, even if you’ll be tempted to just keep playing constantly without doing so
I’m in love. Not with a girl…OK, there’s someone I like, but my real love is Half Minute Hero. This game came into my life, and charmed the pants right off of me. Half Minute Hero, I love you. Your fast-paced gameplay, laced with RPG satire and humor struck a chord with me, and wormed a way into my heart like it was a missing piece.
Your first thought about Half Minute Hero is likely something along the lines of “heh heh, Half Minute Hero. Sounds dirty.” Well, 12 year old boy, you’re a 12 year old boy. Our slightly more mature readers may think “How does a game that takes place in 30 second increments be lasting or varied? How could an RPG that plays in only 30 seconds be compelling?” Well, first off, the 30 second aspect really only refers to a recurring theme – you have to either finish your mission before a 30 second timer (that can be turned back in various ways) finishes, or in some modes, survive for 30 seconds.
The main mode of the game, and the one that upon its announcement made the biggest splash, is the Hero 30 mode. The story in this mode is that there are a bunch of evil lords who have learned a spell from the evil wizard Noire that can destroy the world. Only drawback? This spell takes 30 seconds to cast. Must have been some real good engineers working on that spell. You are the hero that has been tasked to stop these evil lords from casting this spell. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
Thankfully, you have some help from the heavens – the Time Goddess is here to help you, by allowing you to rewind time in order to make your job just that much easier. However, her services don’t come for free. She doesn’t want your eternal love and devotion or to follow a bunch of silly rules from a book that could be easily misinterpreted, no, she just wants your money, and she makes that pretty explicit when you first meet, making her the most honest deity of all time.
So you now get the opportunity to rewind time with just a small donation to the Time Goddess, this should make your job REEEEAL easy, right? Wrong. Like anyone with a hot product, the more you need of time reversal, the higher the price. This is a brilliant balancing tactic – it forces you to be quick on your feet as you can’t just run around leveling up and paying a small fee each time from gold you’ve picked up – because there’s only so much money you could get from fighting enemies, eventually rewinding time will get too expensive, so you have to complete your mission. This conceit isn’t just limited to the Hero 30 mode – other modes feature similar Time Goddess elements.
So, Hero 30 mode. Basically, the idea is that you have to go through the whole RPG progression – start out from level 1 (as your level gets reset by the Time Goddess at the start of every level), fight enemies for gold and experience points, complete quests for people, and defeat the evil lord, all without ever letting that timer reach zero. You wander around the maps fighting enemies in random encounters – in order to fight, your character just walks right and hits enemies in his way. There are no action menus to select from, and given how much frantic running around you’ll be doing, you may be thinking, “This isn’t much of an RPG. This is an action game! NOOOO!” That was the surprise in playing this game – it’s not much of an RPG at all, beyond the typical RPG elements like random encounters, leveling, and buying equipment, and the RPG themes present.
So this was a game that defied my expectations, for sure – I wasn’t expecting a game that had Wario Ware-esque pace as you’re speeding around the game’s levels, trying to complete everything and frantically rushing to a Time Goddess statue so you don’t, you know, doom the world to destruction. Or in this case, get a game over and have to start again from the beginning of the level. What’s cool is that the levels give you some alternate methods to complete levels. These can either unlock achievements for the level, and in some case, can unlock alternate level paths to take down the storyline. It’s fairly simple stuff, but it’s all pretty cool.
The fast-paced gameplay is fun, but what makes it great is that the game has this brilliant sense of humor about it, and is a great satire of RPGs. Every level of Hero 30 is introduced as if it were a new entry in a series, like level 21 is introduced as Hero 30 XXI. Oh, and at the end of every level, the credits play every time like it’s a monumental occasion that you beat the level. The characters are all very whimsical (especially the Time Goddess and her explicit love of money) while playing into their character roles. The dialogue is also just A-grade, with many laugh out loud moments. Based on the story and dialogue alone, this game is worth a runthrough just to enjoy it, although the gameplay is up to snuff as well.
Oh, and that’s just the Hero 30 mode. There are 5 other modes that you can unlock that share the same spirit of whimsy and satire of the Hero 30 mode, but play completely differently. The Evil Lord 30 mode has you play as a narcissistic evil lord (who you encounter in the Hero 30 mode) who’s trying to help the love of his life who’s been transformed into a bat to not be a bat any more. He also confuses the word “dominate” with “abominate.” All of a sudden, that Verdict up above makes sense! This mode is a strategy mode, where you summon up enemies of 3 types (Nimble beats Shooters, Shooters beat Brutes, Brutes beat Nimbles) in order to accomplish your goal before the 30 seconds are up (and the sun comes up, hurting your girl/bat Millennia, and damaging your precious skin), but you can pay all the money you’ve currently got in order to rewind the clock at barrels where the Time Goddess is residing. However, you want to try and hold on to all of your money because it goes into a bank, which when it is filled up, will make your summons more powerful.
The Evil Lord 30 mode is a surprising change of pace from the Hero 30 mode – it plays completely differently, and while the summoning elements aren’t quite as fun as the frantic mad dash of the Hero 30 mode, it’s still a unique experience that defies your expectations. There are 6 modes in this game, and each one plays differently from the other – like the Princess 30 mode is a fast-paced scrolling shooter. That was the LAST thing I expected to be playing when I picked up this game. I expected the satire of RPG characters and traditions and I got that in spades, with a healthy dose of humor. The translation team deserve a round of applause for the great work they did on making the game be funny for American audiences, as this game has a ton of charm and character. In a lesser localization team’s hands, this game probably wouldn’t have been as charming. Bravo.
So what I had in playing Half Minute Hero was a game that charmed me, addicted me, and entertained me, albeit in ways I never would have expected the game to do so with. I can’t say that a game has ever defied my expectations in such a way, but playing it was just such a wondrous experience, and this is truly one of the best PSP games I’ve played. If you have a PSP, and love being entertained, get Half Minute Hero. It plays like little before it, serves as a great satire of RPGs, even for people who hate RPGs, as the action elements will entertain those gamers, yet RPG fans will enjoy the RPG elements and the way it references and satires elements of the genre. Half Minute Hero is one of the most entertaining games on the PSP, even if it manages to do it in ways you would never expect.
Popularity: unranked [?]
