In short, thank you for reading this review. Buy this game.
Oh, you actually want to know what it's about? OK. Half-Minute Hero is basically a collection of four gameplay modes that revolve around one of four characters -- the Hero, the Princess, the Knight, and the Evil Lord. These tales span hundreds of years, but they are all connected by the fact that the Ultimate Evil is back and trying to end the world; it'll be up to you and these characters to stop the bad men.
Our video review is longer than most levels in this game. Sorry.
Of course, the story is actually in the backseat for most of this game because Half-Minute Hero is so eye-catching and funny. For starters, the game features these carefully drawn images that setup whatever story part you're about to get into, but once you start playing, you're treated to this parody of an 8-bit classic. You're looking at a flat, 2D world where you're a little sprite zipping around a bright map. When you run into the Time Goddess or villager, their giant blown up sprite will appear on the screen to talk in a blurred, jaggy mess that's meant to look goofy.
When a carpenter's wife thanks you for finding her husband's hammer so that he can work again or you watch your hero rush in from the left and his enemy rush in from the right and the hit points fly off as they run into each other over and over again, it's going to be hard not crack a smile and find this title earning a special place in your heart.
So, let's talk about how this title actually plays. The first of the modes is Hero 30. This is the one that's gotten the most coverage here on IGN. You'll start as a simple blond boy who gets charged with saving the world. Seems an evil dude has been wandering the countryside giving slightly less evil dudes a spell that destroys the Earth in 30 seconds, and it's up to you to stop these plots. Along for the ride is the Time Goddess. Aside from briefing you on the situation every time you start a quest, the Goddess will also give you a fresh 30 seconds every time you pray to one of her statues. The catch is that praying costs money, and the price of prayer goes up each time you use it.
Now, you'll be earning these gold shillings by battling the monsters roaming the maps. Just like the RPGs of old, you'll walk around the map, enter into a random battle, and be transported to the fight screen. Rather than input any attacks, you and the monster will just run at each other from different sides of the screen while HP flies off of each character. The battle will continue like this until one of your health meters is empty.
When you're hurtin' for health, you can pop into the towns you pass on the map (which stops time) and purchase healing items such as herbs and soups. This is also where you'll get new weapons and armor as well as talk to people to find out about locations you need to hit up.
The battles you're engaging in are also causing you to level-up at an alarming rate, so expect to be struggling with low level guys one second and creaming them the next. When your level's to the point that you can cream the baddie casting the spell, "You>Evil" pops up on the screen and you can rush to the boss.
All of that is super-technical and I'm sorry for it. The thing is that Hero 30 is the best mode in the game, and it might not sound awesome until you sit down and play it. When you run into the woods on a map, the fight screen changes to there. Before you set out on a quest, you can dig through all the equipment you've purchased and choose what you want to wear. When you start a quest, there's a big title screen like you're starting a massive RPG and when you beat said quest, the credits roll like you just put in 35 hours. You can buy and ride a horse, the Goddess is full of funny quips, and one of the girls the Hero befriends at the end actually leads to a touching/bittersweet moment. On top of all that, there are different endings for quests based on how you decided to tackle the situation -- befriend someone or ignore them -- and you get to fly around on a dragon for a couple of levels and it flips the point of view so you're flying over the 2D world on a 2D sprite in a 3D way.
It's just awesome.
Coming in a close second on my favorite modes of the game is Princess 30. Here, the King has fallen ill and it's up to the Princess to venture out into the unforgiving world and find items that could save her dad. Of course, it turns out the Ultimate Evil has a hand in all this, but no one knows how. With fear afoot, the Queen is only willing to leave the castle door open for 30 seconds so you have to get out there, get past the monsters, get the item, and get back.
How this works is that there's a team of castle guards carrying the Princess around on a mini-throne. She's armed with a crossbow, and it's up to you to decide how fast or slow she's going forward or backward while firing in the N-E-S-W directions via the face buttons. If you stay on roads, you go faster. When creatures bump into your soldiers, you lose them for a while and move a bit slower. When you befriend the Time Goddess, she'll throw out special carpet that gobbles up your coins but restores the clock.
Again, that complicated description is summing up a pretty simple game that's a ton of fun. This is like an arcade shoot'em that's set in a palace's front yard rather than space or some war. I didn't find the gameplay that difficult and cranked through the 30 missions pretty quickly, but I still enjoyed myself immensely.
The final two modes are a bit simpler to explain. Evil Lord 30 is a real-time strategy game. Colored bad guys are coming at you, and you need to summon the appropriate troop to cancel out the incoming attack. It's like rock/paper/scissors; brutes beat nimbles, shooters beat brutes, etc. You'll have 30 seconds to beat these guys, but you can stop by the Goddess' booths to replenish that with the cash you've earned. Meanwhile, Knight 30 flips the script and makes you want the clock to hit zero. See, this Sage is trying to cast a spell to get rid of area monsters, but he needs 30 seconds to do it. As long as he's standing there, the spell is in progress and the clock is counting down. The Knight can buff enemies back, but he often needs to pick up the Sage and run him to a safer area. While the Sage is being carried, the clock is paused.
The Knight mode was interesting enough and I enjoyed running the Sage around, but it was a bit easy. Meanwhile, summoning in Evil Lord was a bit too boring for me. I just mashed buttons until everyone was defeated and I never seemed to be on the verge of running out of time because the Goddess pretty much accepted whatever I had to offer.
All four of these modes have the option to play on Normal or Hard and completing them unlocks a couple of other cool modes that unite our heroes and wrap up the story. It's not worth spoiling everything here, but you need to know that there's more than just 120 missions -- although that's still nothing to sneeze at, right? In addition to that, the game backs an ad-hoc multiplayer mode for up to four people to duke it out in.
This multiplayer mode is basically Hero 30 -- you fight monsters and a boss but not each other -- with a couple of tweaks. For starters, the clock doesn't stop counting down when someone goes into a town. This means that even though you're trying to best the other players to determine who the True Hero is, you should communicate so someone's saving the day. Next, you start off with nothing each and every game. You're going to have to run into battle and earn enough money for a sword to earn enough money to get some time to earn enough money to keep playing. At the end, you'll probably end up fighting the boss together -- you can see the other players on the screen, so it's a good idea to head to the big bosses when they do -- and then one of you will get named the True Hero based on how much butt you kicked.
These addendums to the Hero 30 format actually make for a pretty frantic fight. This morning I was on the train yelling at IGN's Jim Reilly to buy more time because I was out of cash and time was about up. Still, any time I rushed a troll guarding a bridge or whatever, Jim popped up to fight alongside me to make sure he was getting the similar number of points that I was. Sadly, there are only three maps and there's no game sharing, so I don't know how much use this mode will get.
There aren't many "Sadly…" moments in Half-Minute Hero, but there are a few dings in this otherwise awesome affair. Although I dig the 8-bit styling of the title, the menus could use a bit of sheen because they do come off a bit too basic; this is the same for the odd blue load bar that pops up on a gray background when you try to load a mode. I could've also done for a better way at connecting the stories. In the beginning, Hero 30, Princess 30, and Evil Lord 30 are all unlocked, so I wasn't aware that they were really connected. I just started hopping between them, and it wasn't until I finished one of them that I realized there was a strong link.
This separation actually held me up a bit in the game. You're going to need to beat all three of the open modes to unlock Knight 30. Then, you'll need to beat Knight 30 to unlock the final few modes. Trouble is I was kind of bored with Evil Lord 30, so I didn't want to play it. I just left it there and did the stuff around it. I would've preferred the modes to unlock one by one as you go so that it's clearer for the story and that each mode is mandatory.
Pulling things back in the positive direction, you should know that the music is outstanding in this title. This is a simple game with no voice acting, but the tunes are spot-on with the emotion and the moments of the story. I enjoyed the music throughout, but I found myself completely loving it during that Hero/girl level I was talking about earlier. When the story gets soft and sad, the music reflects the mood perfectly.
