Half minute game
Just finished this game and though that I write couple lines about this. I won't go on to details on what kind of game this is, because chances that everyone interested know what this is. Also the name tells quite well what this is about. I used just under 8h to finish the games. Only the extra 3 sec hero is to be done. Probably will try to do it because it seems to unlock the music player. And the music is one of the better things in this game. Anyway I can say that I enjoyed the retro feel and the quick tempo gameplay. Usually I suck big time with any time limitation on games but here I did quite well. Biggest problem I have with Half Minute Hero is that fact that because this acts like a traditional 8-bit RPG on speed the so called story looses interested after couple of stages. It is impressive that the developers have created a small story to each stage. But because these stages are so short and there are so many you are not really getting a proper feel of a real story and you will end up skipping them and get even less. Which is even build-in. [Start] on the cutscenes fast forwarded straight to action.
Funnily enough, according to Wikipedia's entry for Half Minute Hero. The game won two PSP RPG titles in 2009. Not sure if this tells more about PSP's RPG selection or how different my view is about RPGs. OK granted there is same set of characters throughout the games different stages for different sections (ie. princess/evil lord). But in start of each stage you loose your gear/gained stats(rpg lvl's) and because you've been rushing through the daft stories you are left with nothing when the final end credits roll. Everything comes together in the last stage where you do a 300sec stage with full squad, but starting from scratch again. Hardly a renown RPG feature?
To give some sort of grade I would settle for solid 7/10. Pro's for the retro feel graphics and decent "soundtrack". Con's would be few annoying stages(freaking bellboy!), general shortness and lack of feel a proper game feel.
posted under my Playfire blog earlier
