Half-Minute HeroLauren: After having experienced the typical RPG grind countless times in my gaming history, I was both intrigued and confused by the concept of Half-Minute Hero. An RPG in which quests must always be completed in 30 seconds, and then the credits roll? I spent the first mission running around like a crazy person, having absolutely no idea what was going on. And yet, I loved it. Once I got the hang of it, I became completely hooked on Half-Minute Hero.
Although I suggested that it's an RPG, Half-Minute Hero is actually several games in one, much like Retro Game Challenge with more flexibility. You start out with the option of Hero 30 (old-school RPG), Princess 30 (side-scrolling/top-down shooter), or Evil Lord 30 (real-time strategy). Once those are complete, additional games open up as well. All of these have a tongue-in-cheek plot driving them forward, and different reasoning behind the 30-second time limit for each stage.
Hero 30 is the longest of the games, and it's basically a high-speed parody of 8-bit RPGs. It starts out with your valiant hero failing to save the world from an evil lord's 30-second spell of doom. However, the Time Goddess appears and offers her help. (For a price, of course.) From that point forward, although you are technically limited to 30 seconds per quest, you can reset the clock at goddess statues and buy yourself more time. However, the cost for doing so increases with each use of the statue, making it impossible to continue on indefinitely. With this limitation, the quests happen like this: Goddess tells you about the quest, timer starts, you quickly level up on random encounters and visit the closest town (which stops the clock, thankfully). Buy equipment and/or heal and find clues about how to complete the quest. Reset your timer as necessary, continuing onward to other towns or dungeons and fighting monsters along the way. There is usually a puzzle involved, and once it's solved, you can defeat the boss of the stage. Although the average quest is straightforward and over within a couple of timer resets, the frenetic pace keeps things fun and interesting.
Hero 30 is laid out in a way reminiscent of early Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy titles. The graphics are intentionally pixellated and simplistic. Enemy encounters take place on a separate screen from the overworld map, and you don't have to do anything during them. Your hero just bounces off the monster until the stronger one wins. It's actually pretty hilarious to watch. Though this may make it seem like the battles lack strategy, the overall quest certainly requires it. You will have to carefully use your seconds and determine how best to spend your money when equipment, healing items, and timer resets are all very important. Due to our greedy goddess friend, money does not carry over from quest to quest, so the hero has to start fresh every time. Fortunately, equipment carries over.
Sound hectic? It is. But it's hilarious in its chaotic nature and easy enough to grasp after the first few tries. There are 30 main quests and 20 sidequests, which kept me busy for about 7 hours. Each quest also has hidden titles that can be unlocked by satisfying certain difficult or strange conditions. And finally, by defeating a total of 108 evil lords (which will require a bit of quest-spamming), a special challenging quest becomes available as well.
From the beginning, you are also able to ease into Half-Minute Hero with Princess 30 - a high-speed shooter. The storyline of this one is even more nonsensical than the last, but it doesn't matter because the gameplay is really fun. Your princess automatically moves forward (some levels are sidescrolling, others are top-down) with her army, firing off a spray of crossbow bolts as she moves. You control her speed and where the arrows are fired. Though most quests are pretty easy, a few will take longer than the standard 30 seconds. The Time Goddess' solution for this is a strip of red carpet in certain locations on the stage. Moving the army over this strip will give you some precious seconds back, while simultaneously robbing you of your hard-earned cash. (It's the only use for the money anyway, though, so you may as well use it.) All in all, Princess 30 was short, simple, and very funny.
And finally, there's Evil Lord 30. Your "hero" in this case is an effeminate evil lord who's attempting to save his cursed girlfriend. He is capable of summoning three types of creatures to fight for him. It ends up being a glorified game of rock-paper-scissors - you summon Enemy Y to eliminate Enemy X, Z to eliminate Y, and so on. Of course, the enemy is just as capable of destroying your units in the blink of an eye if you happen to have the wrong ones around. This one is a bit more challenging due to the increased strategy combined with the time limit. The evil lord also has his own limitations - he moves slowly (and thus can't make it to the Time Goddess shops quickly - yes, she has shops for this one) and his mana pool is limited. After summoning several creatures, the mana pool shrinks and anything summoned beyond that point is as weak as a paper doll. Resetting the timer fixes this problem, but being hit by an enemy worsens it. Because of this, I found a couple of the boss fights to be tough. Completing the few sidequests was quite important for strengthening the Evil Lord's mana pool for later story missions. To be honest, I didn't have quite as much fun with Evil Lord 30 as I did with Hero and Princess. Maybe I'm just not an RTS-er.
Upon beating the three regular play modes, another one unlocks - Knight 30. In a style similar to Ico, you (the knight) lead around a vulnerable sage while protecting him from enemies. You can take his hand and guide him away from danger, and drive enemies away with body slams or weapons. The knight himself isn't too much stronger than the sage - you'll find yourself dying on occasion. However, you can then guide your soul to the sage so that you can be revived. The main goal of all Knight 30 missions is to protect the sage for 30 seconds at all costs, after which he'll cast a Doom spell on all the enemies and end the stage. Knight 30 was my least favourite of all the games in Half Minute Hero, but again, that could just be personal taste. The humour seemed to get a bit muted at this point as well.
After Knight 30, two more challenges await. First, there is Hero 300 - a "quest" in which you have 300 seconds to beat the entire game. There's no Time Goddess for this one, so it's truly only 300 seconds. You'll end up spending a heck of a lot more time on it than that, however, unless you've watched a video walkthrough. The tough part is that there are many towns, dungeons, and branching pathways, and there are only a handful of paths that will actually safely get you to where you need to go, with the right equipment, and at the right level. Levelling is absolutely critical for the many sub-bosses throughout Hero 300, and especially for the final boss, but it must be done at the right time on the right enemies, else you'll risk failure. One level can be the difference between victory and defeat, and it can be hard to judge this without a guide or a lot of trial and error. There is a bit of flexibility, but still only a small margin of error in what equipment you should have and what level you should be by the time you encounter each boss. Of course, once you know what to do and repeat it multiple times, you'll be able to beat the boss with plenty of time to spare. The challenge of Hero 300 is finding out exactly what path to take without wasting a fraction of a second. I found the challenge quite frustrating after so many tries, but satisfying upon completion despite its somewhat rigid requirements. Beating Hero 300 gives you the real ending credits of Half-Minute Hero.
Finally, one last bonus quest - Hero 3. Yes, Hero 3. As in, 3 seconds. Thankfully, the Time Goddess is back and can reset your clock again. That's going to be very, very necessary. The quest is overall fairly short, but there are a few towns, a few equipment changes, and a certain amount of levels to obtain before confronting the final boss. So, you have to rush out into the field, try to get through one or two enemy encounters, and get back into town to reset the timer while making liberal use of the Dash button. Then, you proceed from town to town in the same way, trying to gauge what equipment to bother with and what level to reach before proceeding. This can also be tough, since the price of resetting the timer constantly increases and you'll eventually just have to go for it. It's also perfectly possible to get an instant game over because you misjudged the distance to the nearest town by a tenth of a second. But since only a little time goes into this quest overall as compared to Hero 300, I didn't find the losses frustrating. Beating it was also satisfying, and it was worth playing even just to laugh at the sheer absurdity of its concept. (Incidentally, returning to Hero 30 quests after completing Hero 3 was also very amusing in itself. Suddenly, it seemed like a very slow-paced game. Many times I found myself thinking, "Oh yeah, 1.5 seconds left? Plenty of time for another fight. 0.4 seconds? Oh yeah, I'll get back to town in time.")
In all its games, Half-Minute Hero has intentionally simplistic graphics. It's still very colourful, though, and fits in perfectly with the theme. HMH also features some surprisingly good artwork in story scenes and unlockable collections. Here's another surprise: the music is fantastic. Fantastic. From the epic title screen music to the cheerful overworld theme of Hero 30 to the head-banging metal tunes of Evil Lord 30, it's all absolutely wonderful. It's great to see such effort put into the art and music departments for a game that was intended to be completely silly.
At times, it frustrated me. Most of the time, I zoomed around having fun. And often, HMH made me laugh, either from its jokes or completely over-the-top nature. Apparently it only took 20 hours, but it felt like much longer than that, in a good way. There are two words I can use to sum up the entire experience of Half-Minute Hero: chaotic fun. Even if that concept doesn't appeal to you, I'd still recommend this game to just about anyone. There's sure to be at least a game or two in there that will easily make it worth your time.
Anthony: I like a game like Half-Minute Hero for a few reasons. For one, it’s perfect for portable gaming, allowing for quick bursts of fun gameplay with absolutely no threat of not being able to save. For two, its modes offer pretty diverse gameplay, and even a decent slab of replay value if you desire being a completionist. And three, it’s just a good natured and silly game all around. For its mere $20 asking price now, you’d be hard pressed to get more pure entertainment for your dollar.
As Lauren highlighted, the fantastic music is the biggest surprise of the game. Some of the game’s songs genuinely kick butt, with others being quite grand and amusingly juxtaposed to the overemphasized pixellated characters. The second surprise was the unlockable artwork section, which had surprisingly detailed and impressive artistic renditions of… the silly blocky pixel characters? It’s odd, but a good kind of odd.
For anyone who plays, the inevitable question will be which of the games they like/dislike the least. I played all but Hero 300, and honestly I’d be hard pressed to say which I enjoyed most. Hero 30 certainly was the most “complete” game, but I also found a bit more satisfaction in Evil Lord 30’s battles simply because they required a measure more of challenge, even when it was annoying. Princess 30 is so fast and hectic that I can barely comment on it, but to that extent, I can see why it might be a favorite for players. Knight 30 was entertaining at times, but I felt like the gimmick really petered out as the game wore on, and was probably my least favorite as a result.
Hero 3 was a blast even though it shouldn’t count. I specifically avoided Hero 300 because I didn’t like the concept… wandering around for multiple 5 minute instances until I find the exact combination of things to do wasn’t really my idea of fun.
There are minor issues I have, but caveat this with the fact that regardless of these, the game is just plain fun. There’s a pretty hefty amount of repetition for each game: Hero 30 will always be Fight random enemies – find the flag – fight the boss. Princess 30 is always Hold attack button and move around screen. Evil Lord 30 is always Walk into ambushes and press the correct buttons. Knight 30 is always Dash away with the sage into a safe area. As a result, it’s almost better to mix it up between what you play, or the “this again…” feeling may kick in before long. Also, while hunting for bonus titles/items and better scores in Hero 30 is an intriguing venture, it would be nice to have a hint or two how to receive the bonus titles listed. Sometimes you can infer them from the title, other times I was utterly clueless even after multiple attempts. It’s worthy of note that Hero 30 has some pretty shrewd puzzles and secrets to be found if you put forth the effort.
The humor is well appreciated throughout. Some bits are just grin-inducing, but others illicit laughs just in their general absurdity and in finding excuses to have yet another quest appear. It knocks on the fourth wall and mocks the player to amusingly appropriate levels. As with any game that’s 100% parody yet has to keep making story/dialog, eventually the jokes wear thin and may just have you skipping scenes… but I’d rather skip scenes because a story is silly than it being groan-inducingly bad.
In the end, Half-Minute Hero was a lively jaunt through controlled gaming chaos. Any game that makes you feel like you have “plenty of time” with 1 second left to go clearly has a different approach to the world in general. It may not be particularly long, it may not be particularly deep, and its heroes are blocky pixels with 30 seconds of screen time, but dang if it isn’t a fun ride. Here’s hoping for a sequel.
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