So there’s 12 months in a year, ~30 days in a month, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. And in Half-Minute Hero for the Sony PSP from XSeed Games, you’ve only got 30 of those seconds to complete a level. I’ve got to admit that the idea of a video game where you only had 30 seconds to complete the level sounded rather intriguing, I mean how tough can a game be if it only takes half a minute to complete a mission? Yeah right. I’ve also come to the realization that this game’s programmers subscribe to the notion that Rome was built in a day.

Analog Clock

In Half-Minute Hero, there are four different gaming modes in which to watch the timer count down your 30 seconds for the level:

There’s Hero 30 Mode, in which you have 30 seconds to help the Hero gather tools, solve problems, and defeat the Evil Lord. Basically this game involves running… A lot of running. To help save time, the monster/enemy engagements that occur in this game are performed automatically. That’s right, why bother yourself with actually having to play the game? In fact, it is somewhat encouraged to avoid these engagements altogether, I mean you only have 30 seconds after all. And speaking of those 30 seconds, there is a way to replenish time on the clock, and that is to pray-to/pay-off the Time Goddess. So in a sense, your 30 seconds can last minutes depending on your religious devotion to time, and more importantly, the amount of cash you’ve got in your purse.

In Evil Lord 30 Mode, you have 30 seconds in which to strategize and summon your monsters, which consist of Brutes, Nimbles, and Shooters, to battle and defeat the enemy hordes, which also consists of Brutes, Nimbles, and Shooters. The game describes this mode as a bit like Rock-Paper-Scissors in that one type of monster is better at defeating a second type of monster while losing to the third type of monster. The strategy is to quickly figure out which monster to use for a given enemy in order to quickly dispatch them and finish the level in the allotted 30 seconds. This mode can be rather frustrating, because of course you won’t be facing just one type of monster per level, so you’ll have to think fast and make sure the right type of monster is engaging a particular enemy. Oh, and if you need more time to finish the level, once again there is a Time Goddess Statue. If you touch it, the clock resets to 30 seconds, but it’s gonna cost you money.

Princess 30 Mode is a shooting game in which you have 30 seconds to leave the castle, carried by your soldiers, shoot your way through the enemy hordes, collect a particular item and return to the castle before curfew (30 seconds) at which time the drawbridge is raised. The interesting aspect of this game is that the Princess is carried by her troops, who besides carrying her, also help protect her. During battle, as troops are injured or killed as they take hits from the enemy, their ability to move the Princess quickly begins to fade, making it more difficult to get back to the castle before curfew. The more enemies that the Princess vanquishes with her trusty crossbow, the more the morale of her soldiers increases, allowing them to move her faster. And once again, there is a way of increasing time on the clock at the cost of money by walking across the Time Goddess Carpet.

Finally, there is Knight 30 Mode in which you play the Knight who is protecting a Sage from the enemy hordes. The Sage is in the process of casting a spell and it’s gonna take him, you guessed it, 30 seconds in which to perform the spell. As the Knight, you can pick up rocks and stick to fight back the enemy hordes or use items that the Knight has made during his off time. The Knight also has the ability to move the Sage around in order to place him in areas of better defense. If the Knight should die during battle, his spirit can go to the Sage and be revived. One last thing: unlike the previous three modes, there is no paying off the Time Goddess to increase the time on the clock, which makes sense because why would you want to increase the time it takes for the Sage to cast his spell?

Digital Clock

So as I started playing the game, I was enjoying the opening graphics when all of a sudden, they went all pixilated on me… For some reason, the designers of this game decided to go old school and use 8-bit graphics for the characters and environments. Why? I don’t know. But the result can be somewhat annoying. There are times when it’s hard enough to see what’s happening on the small Sony PSP screen playing a regular video game let alone one that has gone all pixilated in 8-bit graphics. Other than that, the game captures the movements of the old Adventure style games of the past. So if you’re looking for that old school look, then this might just be your game.

Hour Glass

According to the back of the box, Half-Minute Hero consists of over 100 levels totaling more than 20 hours of game play, 30 seconds at a time. Okay, so let’s do the math. For the moment, let’s say that you don’t complete the mission the first time and you have to start over, or that you’re beginning to run out of time and you have to pay off the Time Goddess to reset the clock. And let’s say that you have to do either of these thing about 10 times per level meaning that rather taking 30 seconds to complete a level, it actually takes you 30 times 10, or 300 seconds, to complete a level. With 100 levels, that calculates out to 30,000 seconds to complete most of the game play. Since there are 3,600 seconds in an hour, dividing 30,000 by 3,600 gives us 8.33 hours. So what’s up with the remaining 11.67 hours of the game time that is claimed on the back of the box? Well as far as I can figure, it is taken up by the endless prattle (in the form of printed text) between the 8-bit characters before, after, and during the challenges. Trust me when I say that some of the conversations took more than half-a-minute just to get through. And most them were as pointless as discussions on the weather. Yeah, as a game player, I could have done without those conversations.

Overall Impressions

Okay I’ll admit it, the idea of a video game where you have to think fast and act fast to solve the level in 30 seconds really intrigues me. However, Half-Minute Hero for the Sony PSP with its 8-bit graphics and the character’s endless blah, blah, blah left me rather flat. So with that in mind, I’m giving it 4 out of 8 Dancing Elephants. Better luck next time.

Parting Thoughts

What’s with my luck lately? This is the second game where I’ve had to deal with the endless discussion on the color of the sky between characters in a video game. The first was Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter for the Nintendo DS. Gee, I really hope this isn’t an emerging trend. I hope, I hope, I hope.

In the Interest of Full Disclosure: We received a free copy of this game for review purposes.