half minute hero is what my ex used to call me

-

Click for Gameplay Trailer - Preview

-
I Like:
+ incredibly sympathetic humor
+ incredibly motivating short-term gameplay
+ demanding bonus objectives to tactics and toss
+ excellent retro music
+ short but funny multiplayer
+ cool insider allusions
+ short loading time

I Dont Like:
- the main objectives of the quests too easy

By the time you finished reading the name of this title, you would have wasted a great deal of time which could have been spent saving the world. Time is the central theme in this game, with everything centering on the precious seconds wasting away. The Time Goddess has chosen you out of countless others to save the world, which you must do in a mere 30 seconds; otherwise, the Spell of Destruction cast by the local bad-guy will release a cataclysmic event upon the world.

Half-Minute Hero revels in its clichés, and its story holds up for this reason alone. There is a terrific feeling of satire in every line, and pop culture references and genre in-jokes pervade the text. The terrific 8-bit visuals only add to this, particularly the blown up, super-pixellated sprites.
The entire game is an homage to the classic RPG formula that we've grown accustomed to over the years. Even the music has an 8-bit charm to it, but manages to avoid the tinny, ear-splitting quality of the old days, providing the perfect atmosphere for the wacky adventures that occur every thirty seconds.

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.
The game also generates a brilliant sense of progression. While your level will return to one in each stage, your entire inventory transfers from its previous point.
So not only do you get the feeling of becoming bigger and better during each stage, but watching as your hero turns from a weedy sprout in plain clothes armed with a stick to a mighty warrior in full armour and an axe bigger than most of your enemies results in a particularly proud feeling.
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.

If all four modes are completed, the game will be the final available: Hero 300. This game mode is identical to hero 30, with the exception that there is only one map, 300 seconds instead of thirty you have, and the timer can not be reset. For those who is still a crazy challenge an optional mode available on completion of the game, with the title Hero 3. I'll leave that one to your imagination.

Half-Minute Hero also comes equipped with multiplayer which, like the rest of the game, is also very simple to understand but also very enjoyable to play. You choose an area and then you and someone else have to go around and complete the quest in that stage.
Interaction with the other player is actually minimal, you might occasionally stray into their fight or see them shopping as you are leaving the village. The multiplayer is enhanced by the way that it has the same timer for both players, forcing the players not only to compete against each other but work together for mutual gain. The more you pray the more it costs to reset the timer, so it becomes a very thrilling event as the timer closes on zero and you’re both unwilling to foot the bill for the reset.

Overall, Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy is a very nice game with fantastic characters. The parody of an RPG is great and the jump to the 8-bit style is awesome.
If the music had a bit more variety and if minor tweaks were made to the graphics, the game would have been slightly more enjoyable. Its definitely worth the investment and you will get a satisfaction and longevity way beyond its price tag.

Score: 79 / 100


Sorry for my bad english. This is my review account, because the low playtime.
Thanks for reading! If you Like my Review, give me a Thumbs up in Steam.
Your help is greatly appreciated :)

My Curator Page: Sub
My Steam Group: GameTrailers and Reviews
My YouTube Channel: Steam Reviews

Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy is a set of different campaigns each with their own playstyle. The first playstyle resembles a RPG, the second is a top down action game where you play as an evil summoner, the third is a top down shooter for lack of a better term. Each campaign has at least 30 lands (levels) that have a 30 second countdown with the potential to get more time. This is a dialog heavy game with a comedy slant if you couldn't tell from the Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy in the title. I'm happy there's a one button skip everything. I didn't need to read anything, because its all so simple.

The first campaign is the main appeal. In 'Hero 30' you have 30 seconds in each land to save the world. In the first land, you'll meet the Time Goddess. For a price she'll reset the timer back to 30 seconds. Each time you need her, she charges more and more. The only time the clock isn't counting down is in the towns. If you don't have enough money to reset the clock, the goddess will still grant you a reset, but she'll repossess your weapons and the timer will forever count down to 0 even in towns. There is a world map consisting of lines and dots where the lands are.

The little lands each have a few towns, caves, a castle and a boss. The only place to explore is the overworld. Towns, bosses and caves are all single screens. Combat is automatic, your character will bump into the enemies and do damage. When time is of the essence, you can run, but that costs health. When you die, you respawn with minimal health. Sometimes its quicker to die, respawn and use the Time Goddess statues in town than risk a game over from running out of time. You can also run from combat. When each land begins you start at level 1, but you can quickly grind your way back up with most battles giving you a level or two.

Before going into each land you can equip weapons and armor, but you won't be able to change them while in the land. You can only buy new things to equip them in a land. Each piece of gear has its own weight, making you slower, but preventing knock back from enemies. If you get knocked back off screen from an enemy, you don't die, but the battle has ended. So it becomes a push-of-war. If you buy equipment in further lands, the game will not let you use the gear in previous lands. Other equipment has special uses like the swimmers ring which does uh.... I forget. Some weapons are insta-kills against certain types of foes, the bug swatter, the demon slaying silver sword. It makes for nice choice when replaying a lands for the 30th time trying to kill a giant sub boss far tougher than the main boss.

Towns consist of single screens with many NPCs. Each land has at least two side quests. The world map highlights the name of each quest to give you a vague hint. Some of which unlock other lands. Its not that difficult. Most if not all lands can be finished in under 2 minutes. The tricky part is the two extra quests and fitting them in while beating the boss before you run out of time or money. Hero 30 makes use of time, because the 30 seconds are an entire day, so different events happen at different times. You may see the tide come in and block a path or a destructive fire destroy a town. Its a nice touch. After each land, the credits scroll by. Every time! Like you've just watched a 30 minute episode in under a minute! Then you are taken to a hint screen where four people don't ever have much to say unless you missed an extra path to a hidden land. Some of the lands are setup in such a way that even if you beat a level your path doesn't continue without completing certain quests.

There is a multiplayer where you can compete with people online on different lands to see who is the fastest. In a fast paced game, it makes it even faster. Plus there are leader boards for each land of the Hero 30 campaign. The game will also notify you of where your Steam friend was where you are in each land. To keep pushing the pace, your friend will beat the land in 3 2 1. It will even show you their recorded ghost in the land or your own depending who was faster.

The second campaign, 'Evil Lord 30' is a top down action game that feels more enjoyable and deeper than the Hero 30. You have three spells that summon different types of creatures. Ranged creatures, brutes that bluntly melee and nimble which dodge attacks from enemy supporters. You also have the ability to push them into battle, but I never used it. Around you is a magical set of circles. The larger your outer circle, the more powerful the creatures are. The inner circle is your current magical power to make those creatures. If you get hit, the outer maximum circle shrinks. The time goddess can restore the size though. This time the goddess hides in golden barrels and takes all the money you have each time you use her. Luckily each enemy drops coins. The goal of each land is to kill, destroy or touch something.

The third campaign 'Princess 30' is the top down shooter. You are a princess surounded by your soldiers and can shoot north, south, east and west. The longer you shoot in a direction the more focused your arrows become. When you take a hit, you lose some of your soldiers, which is your firepower. When you leave the castle you dash one direction, then collect an item at the end or defeat a boss. Then you dash back. All with the 30 second timer ticking down. If you run over a red carpet, you gain time. There are even fairies to pick up for additional firepower. It felt like a fun minigame, but it was the same every time, just with different enemies. In fact all of these feel like minigames turned into a campaign. Its perfect for on the go like a PSP or DS.

'Knight 30' is a top down action strategy game where you are a knight defending a sage against monsters. This fourth campaign needs to be unlocked. It can be more difficult than the others. When the mage is standing still on her own, the 30 second clock will count down to 0. Once it reaches zero you complete the area. Control wise you can grab and use the sage or other objects. You can dash, call the sage over to you and set traps such as fences, spikes, bombs and scarecrows to bait birds. When you dash it will drain your stamina. Without any stamina you put down what you're carrying. If you die, your spirit rises and will need to touch the sage before you can do anything else. If the sage dies, its game over. It is more difficult than the other modes since there is a lot to keep track of. Its interesting and employs strategy.

Overall, everything feels very easy even with a 30 second timer. I never ran out of time in all 30 lands of Evil Lord and Princess. They were a breeze. For the hardcore out there, you can unlock Hero 300 and Hero 3. The 'Hero' campaigns all have a good dynamic of gold vs time, forcing you to complete each land before you can't earn enough gold to reset the clock. The non Hero campaigns feel more fun than the Hero campaigns even if they end quickly. I also have to question why the game says the 360 controller is the Ultimate way to play and then has keys for everything on screen instead of buttons.

Best 30 seconds of your life! this game is so intense it keeps you on your toes in all game modes. You never get to rest (unless you go in cities). All in all it's a really great game for the adrenaline seeker (cause if you didnt ask for adrenaline you'll get too much) lol. It's a def must get imo.

If you've played many RPGs from the NES and SNES era (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Breath of Fire, Lufia, etc.), then you'll probably find this game hilarious. I know I did. In each level, you have 30 seconds to defeat the local evil lord before he casts the spell of destruction and destroys the entire world. Like, 30 actual seconds, so the gameplay can be quite fast-paced. You fight enemies for gold and xp/levels, buy stuff in towns, talk to people and do sidequests all in this short time limit, but you can turn back the clock by paying the time goddess increasingly large sums of gold. Very fun game, almost like a fast-paced puzzle game dressed up as an oldschool RPG. The levels are short and varied, which made it all too easy for me to lose large chunks of time to the game without noticing.

This edition of the game has two graphic modes, an "anime" style, which looks really amateurish and terrible IMO, and a "retro" style, which looks like a SNES game and is nostalgic and awesome.

The other game modes are fun, too, especially Princess 30, which plays mostly like a scrolling shmup. Hero 300 is pretty epic, too.

First played on the PSP and was ultimately hooked onto it, has lots of replayability because of the leaderboards and there are alot of other ways to finish a stage rather than grind for levels then kill, interesting plot and a recommended game for everyone.

Holy♥♥♥♥jesuschristthisgameistoofastwhydoesthetimegoddessneedmymoneyanywaysIhateyoutimegoddess.

A fun and unique take on JRPGs, Half Minute Hero doesn't overstay its welcome and it ends before its formula gets old. Right now you're best off getting the sequel because you get this game for free with it and it seems like 2 improves on 1 pretty well.

For a pick-up-and-play adventure RPG, this one hits a great formula.

Have you ever wished you could combine traditional RPG gameplay with incredibly fast-paced action? This is the game for you. It's silly as all hell, and great casual fun. There's a LOT of content there, too - make sure you set it to "original graphics mode" to access the completely different princess and evil lord campaigns.

This is the greatest sexual innuendo simulator in the history of forever. Forever. It's great at simulating the innuendo of a premature jump. Everyone everywhere should play it.

Seriously though, while the game is great, you should really focus on getting the sequel first, as it's a MASTERPIECE.

A chief gave me comfy sandals for saving the world from mass destruction from a really ♥♥♥♥ed off tree.
10/10. Would save again.

Fun but not very good unless you use a controller. 8.5/10

Fun for thirty seconds, best thirty seconds of my life. Golden hammers and steel armor.

This game may feel like an elaborate joke and a commentary on the JRPG genre, but it is still fun. It also needs the player to use a surprising amount of strategy considering its ridiculous mechanics. Totally worth it on a sale day.

If you like RPG's and game similar to them i totally recommend this game! It has an enjoyable story and some great music. Give it a try, I'm sure you will come to like the game and its awesome story.

Its interesting and pretty enjoyable. Until someone doesn't reset the time... >.>

It's exciting! I want to play 2.

I also have the game on psp and I completed it in some 30+ hours if my memory serves well.
Really great game, a refreshing take for those who want the old school jRPG feel but don't have the patience for their usual slow pace.
I find that jRPGs often have strange, unsatisfying endings. And despite the fact that this game feels like it doesn't really have a plot at first, the plot actually adds up over time and actually have an ending I liked!

For me as a SNES lover, this game gave me a feel I didn't think I would ever get again, highly recommended!

A RPG where you to need to get gold, level up, complete quests, buy weapons, armor, and other equipment, battle monsters, run around the entire stage, find the evil lord's castle, defeat the boss and save the world from ultimate destruction all within 30 seconds. Do you think you can handle it? :)