Half-Minute Hero is a RetrauxPuzzle Game for the PlayStation Portable.You are a Hero. The Evil Lord is attempting to cast a spell that will destroy the world. The spell takes thirty seconds to cast. Therefore, you have thirty seconds to Save The World.This is the cornerstone of Half Minute Hero, a game which condenses all of the standard RPG tropes into thirty frantic seconds of level grinding, side-questing and monster slaying. Do you rush through the map in order to reach the Evil Lord as fast as possible, at the risk of not being strong enough to defeat him? Or do you chance a time-consuming detour for that Infinity+1 Sword? What about that Quest Giver who could possibly open a shortcut for you? Or the Time Goddess, from whom you can (literally) buy more time? You'll need to think fast if you want to succeed; no-one ever said being a hero was easy.In addition to this mode (known as "Hero 30"), there are five other modes of play available:
Evil Lord 30 is a Real Time Strategy game where you play as the Evil Lord, searching for a way to lift a curse on his beloved Millennia. In the process, you have to summon monsters to fight against the humans who stand in your way.
Princess 30 is a side-scrolling Shoot 'Em Up where a cheerful princess is searching for items that could possibly cure her father's mysterious illness.
Knight 30 (which is only unlocked after the first three modes are beaten) is a Hold the LineEscort Mission where you, the Knight, has to protect a powerful sage so that he can cast a spell to wipe out all of the enemies in the area.
Hero 300, unlocked after completing Knight 30, is the climactic 5-minute finale.
Hero 3 is a 3-second extra stage unlocked after finishing Hero 300. It's as hard as it sounds.
A sequel has been announced under the title Yuusha 30 Second/Half-Minute Hero Second set for release in Japan in August 2011. Siliconera has reported that a translated version will be released in the UK in October 2011. All has remained quiet so far.
Fanfare: A fast-paced, but epic tune, as fitting this game.
Graphics Induced Superdeformed: Somewhat parodied. Take a look at the concept art, and look how much detail is put into the character's clothings, accesories, etc.
Noble Demon / The Dandy: The "Beautiful Evil Lord". Despite his designation as an Evil Lord, he doesn't show much interest in committing any kind of evil.
Overly-Long Gag: It's fair to say that each level of an individual game within Half Minute Hero is based around the lampooning the same tropes as many times as there are levels.
Pretty in Mink: A princess's dress in the sequel is trimmed with white fur.
Sequence Breaking: The games run in chronological order, but the first three can be completed in any order.
Shout Out: The game is filled with them. For example, the item descriptions in the Goddess Room include references to Monty Python, One Piece, and plenty of others.
Talking Is a Free Action: The story dictates that the objective must be accomplished in 30 seconds, but the timer stops during dialogues and in towns (in Hero 30 Normal difficulty only).
If you use your desperation maneuver in Hero 30, giving the Time Goddess all your money without actually having enough to rewind time, then she'll still rewind time. However, time doesn't stop anymore, and when you get down to 10 seconds, you lose all of your equipment. Used carefully, it can win the stage. Used stupidly, well, there's always that "retry" button.
Action Girl: A few join the Hero and provide extra attack power.
Arbitrary Head Count Limit: In "Another Goddess", you're limited to three allies, most of whom require payment to use their services. No such limit exists in Quests 19 and 30, where all of the characters you've met up to that point will lend a helping hand.
Bling of War: There are multiple pieces of golden equipment. In a subversion of the usual video game variety of this trope, they are really expensive but absolutely useless as equipment, just like real solid gold armor would be.
Bonus Dungeon: [PSP version] Quest 25 "Another Goddess" will likely not be available when you first reach it, as the stage will end immediately after starting. When you do get to access it, it has a completely different format than all of the other stages. The par time is 4'30" for a very good reason.
Cast From HP: Hero's Dash ability. It speeds you upand prevents random encounters, so in a game where time is critical, it's certainly worth the HP loss.
Cerebus Syndrome: As fun as the game is most of the time, things get really bittersweet in the last two missions.
Cool Horse: Hero can get a horse in some levels, which allows him to dash without consuming HP.
Collision Damage: Battles are conducted by ramming the hero(es) into the enemy. Both parties take damage on contact, similar to Ys.
Deal with the Devil: One path has the Hero making a deal with a powerful demon and gaining huge stat and HP boosts. This power is granted for three more stages in this path, at the end of which the Hero's soul is due to her. The Time Goddess saves him from this fate (at a hefty price, naturally).
Notably, those four levels are almost impossible to die on. The devil is true to their word: you become damn near unstoppable.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If you die, you're teleported to the start of the map with 10 HP and no further penalty. The only way to lose in most cases is to run out of time.
Determinator: The Beautiful Evil Lord. Even if you defeat him in battle (which takes ridiculous amounts of grinding), he still refuses to stop the spell until he gets Millenia back.
Fridge Logic: In-universe example: "The giant evil lord's weak point is his feet?! Why was Sebastian having such a hard time?"
Genre Deconstruction: Makes you wonder why you spend hours and hours grinding in almost any other RPG.
Takes the World Map trope and its apparent ultrafast travel to its logical conclusion, by allowing the hero to cross whole continents in less than 30 in-universe seconds.
Global Airship: Can't have a console JRPG without one! Only in this case, it doesn't prevent random encounters and it's actually a dragon.
Heroic Mime: Notably, Hero is the only one of the game's four main protagonists who exhibits this trope.
Hopeless Boss Fight: [XBLA version] The first encounter with Demon Overlord Hol (who appears at the same relative time as the PSP's Goddess of Judgment). Regardless of how much grinding you've done, you'll still get killed in one hit.
Informed Equipment: Averted, despite the very low-resolution sprites. Your character can be reduced to his underwear if he loses his equipment or starts without any.
Level Grinding: Extremely accelerated compared to other role-playing games. It's not unusual to gain a dozen of levels within a minute.
That said, you will have to grind to get some of the Titles.
Limited Wardrobe: The Time Goddess complains how her only outfit is unsuitable for the snow-covered northern region.
Loin Cloth: One piece of body gear. When Hero gets it, the Time Goddess asks if he's cold.
Love Makes You Crazy: The Beautiful Lord went nuts after Millennia was kidnapped.
Metal Slime: A few maps have a rare monster in a specific tile that drops huge amounts of gold. The money is usually for an expensive piece of equipment in the same level.
Money Spider: Played straight in all but two quests: "The Have-Nots", where you can only earn money from completing quests (and even then, only up to 10 times each), and "Turtle and Hermit", the only quest without any Random Encounters at all.
Non-Standard Game Over: A few instances can lead to a premature end of your journey, such as not breaking the dam in "Change the Current" to regulate the currents, or not giving the Goddess the money she requires to break your Deal with the Devil.
Palette Swap: A few Evil Lords on the southern continent share sprites with earlier Evil Lords. Lampshaded for all its worth.
Power-Up Mount: The horse, and later on Syldonix the dragon.
Random Encounters: There are actually a couple of quests without them, and it's a problem because you need them for money and experience.
Restart at Level One: As a side effect of the Time Goddess using her power to turn back time, the hero's level is reset to 1 after each level.
Shout Out: Lots. There's even a retro-themed level with graphics reminiscent of the original green-screened Game Boy and a boss named CATS. (And yes, it does reference that meme).
The secret/hidden mission "The Two Goddesses" changes the "Hero 30" logo to 'Valhalla Knights 30', and the enemy in this mission is not a Dark Lord but the other game's Goddess of Judgment.
Timey Wimey Ball: In some cases, turning back time resets events, like undestroying villages or reversing an avalanche. In others, turning back time does nothing, like making the mole coerced into causing earthquakes not reappear when freed. In addition, you keep your gold, exp, and items.
Justified in that you've got a goddess who controls time on your side, so naturally she'd rewind it in whatever way is most convenient.
This is actually critical at one point: If you pay her enough, the Time Goddess erases your Deal with the Devil, but not anything you did with the Devil's power.
Videogame Cruelty Punishment: If you try to go to the Goddess Statue without enough money to pay for a time reversal, you'll still get the clock reset to 30 seconds, but you'll lose all of your equipment after 20 seconds, and the timer no longer stops while you're exploring towns. Good luck trying to finish a level after that happens without doing a lot of Level Grinding beforehand.
You can avert this by holding back on the last zombie for a few seconds.
With This Herring: You start the game with nothing more than the clothes on your back, are told the world is going to be destroyed in thirty seconds and find out that you're going to have to pay for the privilege of granting yourself the time to save the world. Does the king offer to help in any way? Ha, no.
Brainwashed and Crazy: Most of the villagers, after coming in contact with Noire's statues.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer / Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass / The Dandy : Yes, all 3 tropes combined. The Evil Lord is a vain idiot obsessed with his looks and beauty, but hes also a force to be reckoned with, as anyone who underestimates him soon learns.
Love Redeems: Millenia is responsible for turning him from an actual Evil Lord into a vain protector.
Made of Iron: Your Evil Lord can't be killed, but colliding with enemies will reduce the size of his mana circle. If it gets too small, he will only be able to summon weak monsters until the stage ends. Or you reset the time.
More Dakka: The Princess' crossbow has a ridiculously high fire rate. One particular fairy power-up allows her to deal death in all directions for a few seconds.
Upgrade Artifact: The crossbow radically alters the Princess' personality to that of a slightly arrogant Action Girl when she holds it. The "Hard Material" and "Very Hard Material" make your crossbow more powerful.
Tropes that apply to Knight 30:
After the End: The scenario begins with Noire killing the Time Goddess, ushering in two centuries' worth of darkness.
Collision Damage: The only way to defend the sage initially is to get yourself killed by colliding into the enemy.
Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If you die, you need to return to the Sage to get revived. This happens as the clock runs down, so it's possible to finish a stage while walking around as a ghost.
Sprint Shoes: Like Hero, Knight has a Dash ability. In his case, it depletes stamina instead of HP, and stamina regenerates quickly, so it's less of a trade-off. However, it does have the downside that if Knight completely runs out of stamina, he'll fall on his face.
Big Damn Heroes: If you lose the first fight with the Ultimate Evil Lord, you're teleported to a small island with no exit. Syldonix, the dragon you rescued in Hero 30, arrives shortly after to return you to the battle to try again.
The End of the World as We Know It: For serious this time. The world will be destroyed in 5 minutes, and since the Time Goddess was killed, you don't get to turn back the clock at all. She gets better, but not until the ending.
God in Human Form: The sage is actually a mortal incarnation of the Time Goddess.
Marathon Level: The world this time is a collection of compressed areas representing the continents of each main character. Each area has a hard time limit. At certain points in the timer, time freezes in each area and you lose if you don't escape it before then.
Putting the Band Back Together: A variation, as the band all lived in different eras and never previously lived at the same time, save for the Evil Lord.
No Plot? No Problem!: Most of the game was composed of only Excuse Plot, but Hero 3 has absolutely no plot. It's just the Time Goddess daring you to beat this level.
Red Sky, Take Warning: In Hero 30, the sky gradually turns red as time runs down. Here, it's red all the time. That is, all the time when it's not purple which is an even more threatening situation.
Ridiculous Future Inflation: Since the world is going to end in such a short time, all of the vendors happily gouge their prices by 500% or more. Good thing all of the monsters in this mode are Money Spiders.
Up to Eleven: All right...so you've saved the world in 30 seconds...multiple times. Let's see you try to do it in just three.
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