Half-Minute Hero
Sep. 7th, 2012 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe Ultimate Evil wishes to destroy the world, but the Time Goddess appears to be on the side of humanity. (Or, at least, can be bribed on our side. She’s pretty greedy.) In each generation, the Time Goddess lends her favor to someone so they can become a Half-Minute Hero.
This is basically a minigame collection, but it obvious started with the “hero” mode, which condenses the entire RPG experience down into a minute or two. The different modes do actually have stories, if silly and tongue-in-cheek ones. The Dark Lord’s story is introduced during the hero’s; the knight’s references the other three; and they all sort of link together via the main villain’s attempts to destroy the world by reviving the Ultimate Evil.
The entire game has an 8-bit pixilated style to it, with a “retro” feel. It reminds me of 3D Dot Game Heroes in that respect. I wish they’d gone slightly more detailed in the super-magnified shots, because some of the characters look stupid blow up that large, but that’s mostly nitpicking. I think the style works.
The stages aren’t incredibly difficult, once you get the knack of the gameplay. The replay value comes from trying to finish them in a certain target time, earn titles and get the highest rankings.
Hero30: A puzzle game disguised as an RPG. You have 30 seconds to defeat the dark lord in each area, which includes all of the leveling up, sidequesting and buying new equipment. However, time stops in villages and you can spend money at the Time Goddess statues to reset the clock to 30 seconds (which often also reverses events that happened in the interim, like a forest burning down or a village being destroyed). The fact that the credits roll after every stage is irritating (though you can fast-forward them), and the logo being an obvious takeoff on the Dragon Quest logo is cute. There are actually 50 stages, though you only need to complete 30 to reach the end, as the others are side paths/alternate routes. This is the longest mode by far, with titles to earn for completing tasks in each stage and lots of things to collect.
DarkLord30: The Dark Lord is searching for a way to remove the curse from his fair Millenia, who was turned into a bat. Dark Lord is shallow, kinda dumb, easily manipulated and prone to falling for tropes, but generally good-natured about it. This is a pseudo-real-time-strategy game, as you move the Dark Lord around the battlefield and summon three types of monsters to fight for you (each with a rock-paper-scissors advantage over specific enemies). Each stage has a 30 second limit, but you can pay all of your money to the Time Goddess to reset the clock—unspent money at the end of each stage goes towards powering up the Dark Lord. There are two major side quests, one that gets you for elemental summons who’ll help you out, and one that tells a bunch of Millenia’s backstory.
Princess30: The Princess is sweet, shy, and polite, except when she picks up her magic crossbow. Then she’s dumb as toast but crazy-badass and will stop and nothing to cure he father’s illness. This game is a rails shooter with some quirks. You need to get back and forth from the castle in 30 seconds (before the Princess’ curfew), with a crowd of soldiers representing your durability and a crossbow that can fire in any direction. The Time Goddess also provides a magic carpet that uses money but reverses time while you stand on it. And there are fairy power-ups you can collect. Some stages are optional, but completing them allows the crowd to move faster or increases your shot power.
Knight30: The Time Goddess has been defeated by a cunning trap, and only one powerful sage and the last of the knights stands in the way of the Ultimate Evil’s revival. In a twist, you need to run down the 30-second limit while keeping monsters away from the sage—the knight can’t kill them, only stun or distract them. I found this to be the least fun, though perhaps the most strategic of the games, at least if you want any kind of reasonable score.
Hero300: A follow-on to the previous stages that completes the plot, it’s in the style of Hero30 but gives you 300 seconds with no resets. This is irritating, because it’s easy to die right at the end, after you spent 5 minutes playing the full stage.
Overall: This is clever and a lot of fun. It’s not terribly difficult once you get the hang of it; I never really got stuck unable to finish a stage, though there are a few I could never get good scores on. Recommended for folks who like a variety of minigames, silly rpg tropes, and strategic puzzles.
This is basically a minigame collection, but it obvious started with the “hero” mode, which condenses the entire RPG experience down into a minute or two. The different modes do actually have stories, if silly and tongue-in-cheek ones. The Dark Lord’s story is introduced during the hero’s; the knight’s references the other three; and they all sort of link together via the main villain’s attempts to destroy the world by reviving the Ultimate Evil.
The entire game has an 8-bit pixilated style to it, with a “retro” feel. It reminds me of 3D Dot Game Heroes in that respect. I wish they’d gone slightly more detailed in the super-magnified shots, because some of the characters look stupid blow up that large, but that’s mostly nitpicking. I think the style works.
The stages aren’t incredibly difficult, once you get the knack of the gameplay. The replay value comes from trying to finish them in a certain target time, earn titles and get the highest rankings.
Hero30: A puzzle game disguised as an RPG. You have 30 seconds to defeat the dark lord in each area, which includes all of the leveling up, sidequesting and buying new equipment. However, time stops in villages and you can spend money at the Time Goddess statues to reset the clock to 30 seconds (which often also reverses events that happened in the interim, like a forest burning down or a village being destroyed). The fact that the credits roll after every stage is irritating (though you can fast-forward them), and the logo being an obvious takeoff on the Dragon Quest logo is cute. There are actually 50 stages, though you only need to complete 30 to reach the end, as the others are side paths/alternate routes. This is the longest mode by far, with titles to earn for completing tasks in each stage and lots of things to collect.
DarkLord30: The Dark Lord is searching for a way to remove the curse from his fair Millenia, who was turned into a bat. Dark Lord is shallow, kinda dumb, easily manipulated and prone to falling for tropes, but generally good-natured about it. This is a pseudo-real-time-strategy game, as you move the Dark Lord around the battlefield and summon three types of monsters to fight for you (each with a rock-paper-scissors advantage over specific enemies). Each stage has a 30 second limit, but you can pay all of your money to the Time Goddess to reset the clock—unspent money at the end of each stage goes towards powering up the Dark Lord. There are two major side quests, one that gets you for elemental summons who’ll help you out, and one that tells a bunch of Millenia’s backstory.
Princess30: The Princess is sweet, shy, and polite, except when she picks up her magic crossbow. Then she’s dumb as toast but crazy-badass and will stop and nothing to cure he father’s illness. This game is a rails shooter with some quirks. You need to get back and forth from the castle in 30 seconds (before the Princess’ curfew), with a crowd of soldiers representing your durability and a crossbow that can fire in any direction. The Time Goddess also provides a magic carpet that uses money but reverses time while you stand on it. And there are fairy power-ups you can collect. Some stages are optional, but completing them allows the crowd to move faster or increases your shot power.
Knight30: The Time Goddess has been defeated by a cunning trap, and only one powerful sage and the last of the knights stands in the way of the Ultimate Evil’s revival. In a twist, you need to run down the 30-second limit while keeping monsters away from the sage—the knight can’t kill them, only stun or distract them. I found this to be the least fun, though perhaps the most strategic of the games, at least if you want any kind of reasonable score.
Hero300: A follow-on to the previous stages that completes the plot, it’s in the style of Hero30 but gives you 300 seconds with no resets. This is irritating, because it’s easy to die right at the end, after you spent 5 minutes playing the full stage.
Overall: This is clever and a lot of fun. It’s not terribly difficult once you get the hang of it; I never really got stuck unable to finish a stage, though there are a few I could never get good scores on. Recommended for folks who like a variety of minigames, silly rpg tropes, and strategic puzzles.
