I couldn’t resist telling that joke. Half-Minute Hero was a genuine and delightful surprise. One that blew us away (took just about half a minute) at our office at AGG, as a must-own game for the PSP. Developed by Opus and published by Marvelous and X-Seed, Half-Minute Hero on paper would be an experimental idea in game design, but in execution it is like a drug that brings you more than a half minute of rapture, as a matter of fact many times that. Half-Minute Hero is more than a homage to the 8 and 16-bit era RPG, it incessantly pokes fun of everything JRPG not unlike how Gintama does to Jump Manga.
There are 4 modes in Half-Minute Hero but I will only mostly talk about the Hero 30 mode, which solely is worth the entrance price. Unlike all the JRPG out there, Hero 30 mode is one that is created with the opposite of wasting your time in mind. The premise is simple, each episode of Hero 30 (and there are 30 of them) begins by a evil lord casting a doomsday spell which will take exactly 30 sec to take effect. And the hero’s task is to save the world under that time, or the game would end, with the help of the Time Goddess, whose specialty is a Groundhog Day spell (do I need to elaborate?). Her services isn’t free of course and her price will double every time you request her ability. Every episode the hero will begin at exactly level 1 (the game even explained this phenomenon), but there shouldn’t be any complains here. Combat is mostly automatic, with pixels bumping into each other similar to the Book of YS series, and it takes about less than 30 sec to level up to 20.
The Hero 30 Campaign is mostly not challenging. Unlike Demon’s Souls, which is at the different end of the spectrum, a session of Half-Minute Hero is as relaxing as it can be, even with the clock constantly ticking towards oblivion. On average an episode can be completed anywhere between 1.5 to 4 minutes, so if you screwed up it won’t take you a lot of time to regrind your levels. In fact I start to question the validity of calling it grinding, for the negative repetitive laborious connotation it carries. Even with 30 different episodes (the credit does roll at the end of each), Hero 30 never felt repetitive and it can be played at any pace. Each episode manages to be slightly different, some requiring you to seek out enemies, providing you with different paths to the goal, and even side quests and different companions to join your side. Dragon Quest fans will play the game with a constant grin on their face because Hero 30 looks like a replica of the old days.
The other 3 modes feel like afterthought companions to Hero 30, but still charming in their own way, with characters that don’t take themselves seriously and jokes that stimulate nostalgia. Princess 30, a side-scrolling action shooting game, is only fun for the first few levels and quickly got repetitive. Evil Lord 30, a light RTS mostly based on paper-rock-scissor unit logic, is actually my least personal favorite. Their completion will grant you access to Knight 30 and 2 awesome final unlockables (see spoiler down below) which is best to be experienced. Some of the levels within the other modes will at times feel like a drag after the excellent Hero 30 but you are going to feel obligated to play them anyway to unlock the goodies. My advice is to try to mix each campaign in your session in order to savor the excellent Hero 30 mode after the sour grapes.
Half-Minute Hero’s developer should be applauded just for the risk it took, for making fun of itself, and launching a stale genre into a new height that hasn’t been reached for a long time. While the other modes may not be as good, Hero 30 needs to be experienced by every JRPG fan who has grown up with the 8-bit era. Yes, you 30-year-olds who are still playing games. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Spoiler:
Hero 3 mode:
