Half-Minute Hero proves a low budget can make a great game with interesting mechanics and lots of charm.
This is the central gameplay mechanic of Half-Minute Hero. Thirty seconds to stop whoever plans on destroying the world now. You gotta wonder why the Time Goddess would take your money in the situation and just only give you thirty seconds time, but I'm not reading too much into it.
Four different main modes are in the game, each of which will be covered. They are: Hero 30 (RPG), Evil Lord 30 (RTS), Princess 30 (shoot-em-up), and Knight 30 (escort/tower defense-ish).
In Hero 30, you assume the role of the stereotypical silent hero (don't worry, you won't find many problems with this if you hate silent protags like myself) almost seemingly chosen at random to save the world. You move around the map, trigger random encounters, level up, do fetch quests, save people, buy equipment, etc. You can tell right off the bat the game is parodying old RPG games and their mechanics. The only major exception is the fact that everything is going in real time, with the thirty second timer on the screen that you have to stop from expiring. Meaning I had to run my ass off, bribe a Goddess, and continue running around saving the world. Despite being rushed and frantic, everything still feels smooth.
There isn't too much to battles, most fighting is done automatically. The only options given to the player are the abilities to rush your enemy at the expense of health to speed up a battle, or retreat. Very similar to Yggdra Union, for any who have played it. But for those who like more control, there is little need to worry about it since your average battle will only last around 2-3 seconds aside from bosses. NPCs do a generally good job at giving you hints to what the hero needs to do next so he can reach each boss, but very little information about how to unlock bonus objectives. This can mean a lot sometimes, as doing a different bonus objective can sometimes unlock a different route you can take through the multiple path progression system or perhaps a special piece of equipment for an upcoming fight. It's not too difficult to progress, as it takes maybe only one or two fights to level up (you start each stage at level one) and most bosses only require a low level to beat. The game is even nice enough to tell you when you're power is high enough to beat the stage boss with ease.
Combative friendly NPCs will also join you from time to time, but half the time later in the game the most they can do is get knocked out in a couple hits. Luckily the system brings them back to full health after each fight, or else I'd probably just leave them for dead half the time. Though if you die, you're simply teleported away back to the start area with low health. Generally, you won't find any problems with difficulty thanks to this. A stage restart here or there for when I screwed up an objective or took too much time, but it was hardly a nuisance because of how short an individual stage is. Most last about a minute on average, with earlier stages capable of being beat within the first thirty seconds and later taking around three minutes. Ranks based on time/money/kills and the bonus objectives give plenty of replay value to the first main thirty stages given to you. Later modes you can unlock create interesting add-ons to the Hero 30 gameplay, giving or taking time and upping the difficulty dramatically.
In Evil Lord 30, you take the role this time of a narcissistic and beautiful... well, Evil Lord. He is capable of summoning monsters to do his bidding mostly consisting of, you guessed wrong, good stuff! For someone called Evil Lord (literally), most missions seem to involve you rescuing and helping people, though this is probably because he's easily manipulated with such simple things like "A truly beautiful person would rescue her." His gameplay is pretty simple: you have a mana circle around you that is used to summon monsters of varying strengths, depending on the charge of the circle and your level (you keep levels at the end of each fight, unlike in Hero 30), which you send into combat. Since the Evil Lord needs to be out and about to command his minions, he can be hit by enemies. This won't kill him, but it will shorten his mana circle leaving him with weaker units. You can restore your power by going to visit the Time Goddess who you can find hanging out in randomly placed barrels around the map. Of course, the thirty second time limit is still here (this time because it's almost sun up, which would force him back into his castle), so you'll require her ability to set the clock back again - for money, as usual.
The RTS system involved is a simple one. There are three different types of units you can summon: Nimbles, Brutes, and Ranged...s, that work like the old tried and true Rock, Paper, Scissors system. You can also find NPC monsters in some maps that the beautiful lord can charm with his looks into fighting with you. Your minions will mostly just follow you around the map, since the only direct order you can really give them is to charge in whichever direction you point them to. Even though it makes sense that the slow and lumbering Brute units would be weak against the Ranged unit's superior range, sending the wrong unit will leave you with no units instantly, often with little or no damage against the opponent.
Chaos is born from this in later fights that involve many different enemy unit types attacking you all at once, making it almost a game of summoning random units and hoping for the best. You'll also find that many fights can be avoided altogether by simply running by (the Evil Lord is much quicker than most of his enemies) and gunning straight for the objective point. Four uber attacks (called the Fabulous Foursome) are supplied to help this issue that you can pick up on most maps. Each has a different effect, like damaging enemies or causing tremors to slow enemies down, but rarely do they serve any useful purpose in large scale fights you would think they were built for. Aside from these few complaints, it usually works very well and can become thrilling when chaos is born the situation, not because of the at times difficult mechanics. As with Hero 30, all the stages have high replay value and I ended up playing through them multiple times for better ranks, though Evil Lord 30 is probably the easiest.
Next up is Princess 30 where you play as, again you guessed it, a Princess. Arguably I'd say this is the weakest mode. The Princess is trying to find items that can cure her father with the aide of her loyal soldiers, but with that pesky thirty seconds still on top of the screen (this time because of a royal curfew). With her crossbow and soldiers nice enough to carry her around and act as meatshields, you charge out of the castle towards the objective, and back again through hordes of monster. The gameplay is very reminiscent of most shoot-em-up games you'll find. Since the goal here is speed, certain terrains are placed around that you must avoid and will slow you down and sometimes damage you if you hit them. The Princess herself can only be knocked out for a few seconds stopping her from attacking, but if your soldiers die too much in the process of protecting her, your unit speed will slow down dramatically and you'll also have to pay more money for funeral services at the end of the stage. More soldiers will show up for reinforcements if you need them, which I often did.
Fighting in this mode is more annoying than fun, due simply to the fact that some enemies can take thousands of god damned arrows from your crossbow later on. And while I have fun trying to avoid whatever is chasing after me and (try to) kill it, I'd usually start ramming into other weaker enemies and various obstacles that appear too fast for you to avoid or even see half the time. Everything is fine with the gameplay itself, but the developers shouldn't have kept the nearly invincible enemies typical of shoot-em-ups with the short time limit.
They tried to make things easier by placing fairies here and there that give you power ups, like 360 degree firing radius or enchanced arrows, but they barely last long enough to do anything. Another mechanic put in is the frenzy bar. This acts like the game's form of overdrive that increases your speed and temporarily makes your solders invincible. You begin to fill it whenever you deal damage and destroy something, but it will also go down everytime you are the one being hit. As stated before, it happens a lot, especially when you most need something like this. Even when I did get the luxury of its use, it lasts only a few seconds. This may be a lot of time considering the whole thirty seconds thing going on, but don't expect this to really ever work when you most need it to. Arguably the weakest link of the game, the mix between the central mechanics and the usual shoot-em-up doesn't work out well. Though most of those who like the genre are probably used to difficult and at times frustrating games.
And finally you have Knight 30, where they change things up a little and have two protagonists. The Sage, a somewhat sarcastic spellcaster, and the Knight assigned to protect him. This Knight, however, is not exactly the best in the land, so the best he can do is distract and knock out the monsters. Probably the most basic of the four modes, you simply have to keep monsters away from the sage while she casts her spell to destroy the monsters. You can easily guess how much time this takes. Yep, the game really loves the number thirty. Protecting a single person for thirty seconds sounds pretty easy. Sadly, it kind of is.
Monsters can and will try to surround her, but since you have the ability to piggyback her (her casting stops while moving) and run away, the average monster won't be able to do anything. One of the Knight's few talents is building traps, and before every battle you are given a chance to make whatever traps you may need, at the expense of sleep which will shorten your running time. Afterwards, you'll receive experience based on your rank achieved that increases your profeciency with these tools. Unfortunately, you'll rarely NEED them. Plenty of items are already supplied on the battlefield that you can use to distract whatever is chasing the Sage. Sure, they might not be as effective in some situations, but when you take into account you lose a lot of stamina making those traps, seldom did I bother using them until at the end where they magically became broken and let me win stages without being hit once.
It's still hard at moments, but not nearly as much as you'd expect from an escort and defense game. Whether this is good or bad depends on the player. Parts were intense, having me race around the map praying I'd be fast enough, and others just had me sitting there while the enemies on the other side of the map take a couple years to reach me. It has a decent replay value if you want to experiment with traps and try to find any uses in certain fights.
It may seem like there was a lot of complaining about each mode, and there was, but somehow everything comes together to round up fun gameplay.
For a pretty crazy game, the developers matched it with pretty crazy dialogue. The main story is again a parody of old style RPG/adventure games. Some nefarious enemy has a secret plot to destroy the world and the heroes must rise up and stop him. NPCs will actually make fun of these cliches with humor that often comes close to breaking the fourth wall. Almost nothing in this game is taken seriously, and it makes fun of itself frequently. Despite having a purposely cliche RPG-style story, the general end sequences still manage to be enthralling and intense. There are even a few sad moments that somehow tugged at my heart strings with characters I had only known for the past five minutes.
Helping the game's story is the terrific soundtrack made by various composers and musicians, and with songs that range from metal to classical orchestras. Each song is pretty short (most only around a minute and a half), but you'll only barely notice the loop on some of the actual long stages. There sadly no voice acting, which I would have liked to see in a few parts.
The thing that probably stands out the most in Half-Minute Hero (besides the half minute thing), is its graphics. Games that came out ten years ago looked better, maybe even before that. This, however, is actually where a lot of the charm for this game comes from. Sprites and environments looked like they were ripped right out of an old 8-bit Final Fantasy game, pretty much cementing the fact Half-Minute Hero was meant to be a full out parody on some level. Details are still put in, such as in Hero 30 where you can visibly see new equipment on the Hero. This weird combination will have you laughing when you see your Hero wear a swimming tube, fur boots, ridiculous wig, cuirass body armor and weilding a massive lance. Unless you really, [i]really[/i] care about graphics, it'll be hard to escape this weird charm it emits.
If you're the type to want something big to complete, you'll do just fine with this game. A pretty large compendium is produced giving you the percentage of enemies and items you have found, including the artwork that comes along with getting the rest. All in all, completing this will clock you in at around ten hours if you don't try to get the highest rank on all the maps. There's also an ad-hoc mode put in to pass the time with friends, provided you have any around that also own the game. Since I don't (at the time of writing), I sadly cannot comment on how this mode works.
There's a lot to love about this game, despite a few flaws here and there. It oozes its own unique charm, between the retro design and chaotic and fast-paced gameplay. With all the different game modes inside, it can appeal to a lot of people. If you're looking for something unique and creative, I highly recommend checking this game out.