30 Second Savior- Half-Minute Hero

While not all four of Half-Minute Hero’s diversions present players with a sensory overwhelming screen-full of sprites, at least two do. Evil Lord 30 expertly blends the bullet dodging of a shmup, with a healthy dose of real-time strategy. Most stages require the player to vanquish an enemy well-protected by legions of defense men. To overtake those guards, players conjure one of three types of monsters; each of which have a Rochambeau-like strength and weakness. Shooters use ranged fireballs to overpower brutes, but are vulnerable to the speedy nimbles, while brutes can defeat nimbles. Each level sends players frantically dodging enemies, spawning beasts of various magnitudes, and collecting coins against a (renewable) thirty second timer, creating a delightful bite-sized recreation perfect for the portable platform.

Princess 30 is a slightly more a conventional shooter, as players traverse a horizontally scrolling playfield. However, a number of elements elevate the mini-game beyond its abridged peers. Like Evil Lord 30, players begin with a thirty seconds to clear each levels objective, although traveling over red carpets supplements the game’s timer. Flanked by a squadron of soldiers, players whiz over an elongated battlefield. Hitting environmental objects or foes slows the regiment’s journey, and temporarily jettisons a few brigade members. By maintaining the size of the Princess’ entourage, the player maximizes their offense barrage, which has the potential to clear a wide path. Although the game isn’t too challenging, stages bring a surprising amount of variety.

Half-Minute Hero’s missteps are exceedingly minor. More mainstream gamers might not appreciate the game’s retro-inspired visuals or the game’s quirky diminutive diversions. PSP owners with a taste for a slightly more eccentric titles should thoroughly enjoy Hero’s enthralling gameplay, and amusing dialog. While the two demos on PSN left me indifferent, after a rigorous playthrough, I’ve become enamored by Half-Minute Hero’s pixilated charms.

In Hero 30, as with the other modes of the game, there’s a reason for these 30 second chunks. A villain is going about the world of Hero 30 teaching a doomsday spell,that ends the world in 30 seconds, to various evil lords. As a traveling hero, you must stop them all. Each stage places you in a new area to explore with towns, caves, monsters, etc. Your goal is to level up, collect the right items, and achieve certain objectives to defeat that area’s evil lord before the 30 second spell is fully cast. In the first stage you learn that you’ll need the time reversal abilities of the “Time Goddess” to achieve your goal. She doesn’t mind as long as you keep her well supplied with your hard earned gold. Hero 30 is very well executed but is a bit on the easy side. Hard mode helps make up for this.

Considering the rushed nature of the game, there’s several hours of gameplay to be had in Half-Minute Hero as a whole. While I agree with DesertEagle’s take for the most part, I have to say I was disappointed with Evil Lord 30 and Princess 30 modes.Their cutting and compressing the RTS and shmup game genres left the games feeling shallow and stunted. In the case of Evil Lord 30, you can often just run past or around enemies to reach your objective. Both modes are over before you know it. I wanted more depth, more stages and more difficulty. Hard mode in both games doesn’t seem to change much. Your high scores and best times carry over between normal and hard, unlike Hero 30 which stores data for both difficulties individually. In the end, Evil Lord 30 and Princess 30 end up feeling like meaningless minigames. It’s a shame as their concepts were sound, but inadequately executed.

After beating all three modes a third mode is unlocked, Knight 30. This mode is much better than Evil Lord 30 and Princess 30 as it is its own unique hybrid game genre built on the 30 second concept. It plays like a beat-em-up with light RTS elements. You are a knight tasked with protecting a heroic sage as he slowly casts a devastating spell to fight the oncoming enemies. By default the sage’s spell will finish casting in 30 seconds, killing all the enemies and completing the stage. Certain factors can speed or slow the casting of the spell and you need to hold off the enemies in the meantime. You can lead the sage to safety or fight the enemies head on,but your HP and stamina is always in jeopardy. If you die your ghost can rush to the sage for ressurection, but if the sage dies it’s game over. Even this mode is not without its problems, as the controls and interface are a bit clunky and it’s over too soon. I would have been happy with just Hero 30 and a greatly expanded and refined Knight 30mode.