i just beat Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy
at least i think so? i beat princess and evil lord 30, and ive been told thats supposed to unlock knight 30, but it just kinda didnt. i wanted to do more of the side modes but i guess since i completed the main campaign i can say its beat? whatever i cant play any more
so yknow how xbox won the 7th gen console war right? the wii focused on a casual market, so its only competition was with the ps3. fortunately, the ps3 cost 599 us dollars (my internet is fucked right now but i promise thats over $1000 today) and was built in such a roundabout bullshit way that yeah you could technically get higher specs, but 3rd parties had no idea what they were doing, so all commercial comparisons made it look bad. i bring this up for irony's sake, because considering that the ps3's fatal flaw as inaccessibility, the psp was a hotbed for indie games. it was popular enough to attract creative devs, but not popular enough to attract shovelware, and digital distribution taking off right about then means that its off to the fuckin races
enter half minute hero, which would later be released as half minute hero super mega neo climax ultimate boy (which ill be calling HMHSMNCUB for short) on steam. congrats on landing the lucrative supermega sponsership!
the main mode is called hero 30, and it works like this. each level is basically an ultra-condensed jrpg. random encounters last like one second, you can usually cross the entire levels map in like 15 seconds, and itll usually that about half a minute to level up enough to beat the levels boss. which is great because every level has a time limit of 30 seconds. theres like a statue you can pray to for more time, but it costs more money each time, and you usually only need to use it like twice max
yeah, the first thing that tipped me off to this being a handheld game is the level structure. you ever notice how few handheld/mobile games there are with long levels or open worlds? the exception is genshin-style gachas, which only really took off to keep up with how phones are powerful enough to emulate a ps4 now. if you ever wondered why luigis mansion dark moon was the only one in the series with a short mission structure, its because its the only game in the series native to 3ds. its to match the ethos of "play a little then move on" that most in-your-pocket games find success with. itd be awkward if you were in the middle of a triple-a cinematic moment when your bus got to your stop
anyway! the game is fun enough. it fulfills the niche its trying to fulfill pretty well, i think. i can imagine busting this out on a steam deck (i dont have a steam deck) on a road trip or something, busting through a few levels. a lot of the levels near the end (im talking level 30 out of 31) took way too long in my opinion, the punishment for failure being that you lose like 20 minutes of gameplay is like a jumpscare in a game that was so fast-paced until then. but other than that, target hit, congrats game
it does a lot for replayability too, which was super important when it came out and still underappreciated now. i was a pretty poor kid, so i ended up just replaying levels in mario 3d land over and over again. games with seemingly endless content like final fantasy tactics a2 were like a godsend, you can just keep playing and playing forever! nowadays i feel like people value shorter games more then ever, but that might just be that im an adult with spending power, so ive got a life with errands and shit AND ive got like a million other games on my backlog.
but i digress. there are titles that you can earn based on your performance in a level, some of which are mutually exclusive. they mostly exist to point you towards scenarios they accounted for and dont want the player to miss out on. like, theres a title for if you reach a village before lava is meant to destroy it, which gives unique dialog. theres also a bunch of equipment in each level that you usually have to go out of your way to grind for, and you dont have a lot of time to waste in this game so it asks for juuuuust enough strategy.
oh yeah, the dialog. this game has a pretty irreverent tone. it likes to parody jrpg conventions, with the villains pointing out that their apocalypse spell will kill them too, and npcs in distress snork mimimimimi snork mimimimi. sorry i dozed off for a sec, im just kinda sick of irony. i feel like i dont have to tell you that it kidna sucks when something is afraid to take itself seriously. that said, i feel like the game does a good job at keeping the tone consistent and keeping it from being annoying. believe it or not, this game doesnt wanna waste your time, so it keeps the quips brief. also the skip button is lightning fast. all in all, not to my taste, but it does what it sets out to do well, so its hard to really insult it for that
theres also, allegedly, a ton of additional modes to unlock when you beat the main game. they shake up the gameplay WAY more than i was expecting, they have totally different fundamental mechanics. evil lord 30 is about summoning different minions suited for different tasks to defeat enemies, like a real-time strategy instead of a jrpg. i love the magic circle mechanic, its so simple but it does a great job of building risk/reward when the time limit is still a major factor. then theres princess 30, which is a fucking shoot em up? theyre all complete with 30 levels and stories that are just as fleshed out as the main campaign (for what thats worth), although there arent the same depths of branching paths and optional equipment. i was VERY presently surprised
but uh... thats where it ended for me. theres supposed to be knight 30 but it just kinda didnt unlock, even though it says online its supposed to show up after you beat the first three modes, which i did. its a shame i couldnt play around with it, but im not unsatisfied with the experience i had. it used to go on sale for like 3 bucks but it hasnt budged from the full $11 since last year, so... i guess i lucked out? personally, i think thats a prefectly acceptable asking price if youve got some space change on you, especially if youre more of a completionist type and you know youre gonna squeeze the extra value out of getting all the titles and shit. for everyone else, its worth a shot if you dont mind more repetitive gameplay loops. if you dont die and skip all the cutscenes and everything you could probably beat this game before the refund window is up, so there ya go
half-minute verdict. i had fun, but i dunno if i would buy it for 10 bucks. humour was meh but i liked the gameplay gimmick and i really like the replay value. wish it didnt screw me outta knight 30
