This game started out as a rumored Zelda game for some reason (because of the triforce symbol on the clock thing). It got a bit of hype because of that. What really interested me was the graphics, ad then I heard about the completely random concept. After playing the demos, I was sold.

What is it that made me fall in love with it? Read on and see!

Developer: Opus
Publisher: Xseed Games
Date of Release: October 13, 2009 (and on the 22nd on the PSN)
Platforms: PSP (UMD and PSN release)

Genre: RPG? Shooter? Action? RTS? I don’t know, it’s its own genre
Players: 1 (there’s ad hoc gameplay which I didn’t try)

Looks and sounds
The graphics are great. I love 8-bit sprites. They’re a small step above NES graphics, with the colors being a lot richer and there’s a bit more detail, and closer to FF4 on the SNES. I really like how it looks. I think it’s hilarious that instead of getting more detailed portraits for character faces, you get a big zoom-in on the sprite. It’s definitely not taking itself completely seriously and it just really works. I have no complaints whatsoever with the graphics. Everything looks nice and crisp. The animations aren’t incredible, but they aren’t meant to be. I also think it’s fun that the monsters are a lot more detailed than the human sprites. I don’t know what it is with the game but I love the style.

The sound is not too bad. There’s thankfully no voice acting to complain about. The sound effects are classic stuff. And the music is really nice. There’s some hard rock at multiple areas when the acting is faster or the game is reaching a climax, softer rock music in other section, and some regular Fantasy game music. It sounds really nice overall.

Gameplay
There’s 4 main modes in the game (and 2 special modes when you finish the 4 main ones). All of them are based on one idea: they all have something to do with 30 seconds. Let’s go through all the modes one by one.

Hero 30
This mode is an RPG mode, but it’s incredibly fast-paced. There’s 50 stages in this mode. Each of them have the same basic goal: Defeat the Evil Lord before the world is destroyed. The world gets destroyed in 30 seconds because of a spell of destruction. So you have to level up (you start each stage at level 1), buy equipment, do quests and fight the evil lord before that happens. The battles are all automated, where you (and possibly party members) and the enemy monsters just run forward and ram into each other until either you die or all the monsters die. Also, time stops in villages so you can take your time and plan your next moves. And on the field, movement is similar to NES/SNES RPGs with an bird’s eye views. But wait, 30 seconds isn’t really long. To give a bit of a chance to the player, you can pay money to the Time Goddess to reset the timer. Each time you do that, the price to reset the timer increases, so you can’t really have infinite time.

In villages, you can talk to NPCs, buy herbs (they’re obviously a one-time use, but they heal all HP), buy full healing, talk to NPCs, and buy equipment. Equipment comes in 5 varieties: headgear, weapons, shields, armor and footgear. Those power up a few stats: Attack, Defense, Speed, Weight, Hit and Avoid. All are pretty self-explanatory. The only one that’s different from the usual is Weight. Usually it’s bad in other games because too much weight slows you down, but here it actually lowers the knockback that enemy attacks do, so you can land more attacks. Coupled with high speed you’ll be able to attack fiercely and frequently.

As you complete levels, you get to keep the equipment you buy and bring them to later levels. So you can start with whatever equip you want. But if you go back to an older level, you can only use equipment you got before that level, because otherwise it creates a time paradox (or we could go with the proper excuse that otherwise it would be too easy with some of the best equip). Either way, unless you change your equipment to older stuff before doing an older level, you’ll start out naked. There’s certain equipment that has different effects as well. Some armor and other wear that lets you swim or move faster on certain surfaces, weapons that kill certain enemy types in one hit (like the fly swatter which kills insects, no matter how powerful, with one hit). So you can try going at each level with optimum equipment that will be better depending on what’s going to come at you.

Overall it’s a really fun mode and trying to find the best way to go up against each Evil Lord is really fun. Some have different gimmicks, so it adds variety. It takes a few hours to finish all 50 levels. And there’s tons of replay value if you want to get the best times in all levels, and some levels open alternate paths or have slightly different endings.

Evil Lord 30
This one is another 100 years later, and features an Evil Lord(who is so “fabulous” he’s almost gay) that you could fight in Hero 30 who saw his ways were evil.

Here, he’s trying to turn Millenia(who was previously a beautiful girl but got transformed into a bat) back to a human. So he goes across the world to find a way to do that. But he only traverses the world in the night, because the sun is bad for his skin. It seems they have short nights, because each level can only take 30 seconds, otherwise he runs away to hide from the sun. Like the previous modes, you can get extra time. Killing enemies gives you money, and to reverse time you have to give all your money to the Time Goddess, who hides in golden barrels. But that’s not always a good idea, since money will be stored in the bank after each level and you power up when you get to certain amounts of money.

So the gameplay here is pretty much RTS-based. You control the evil lord moving across the map, and you have a magic circle under you. The magic circle charges up over time, and the more charged-up it is, the stronger the monsters you can summon. There are 3 enemy types to summon. Nimble, shooter and brute. Like Rock/Paper/Scissors, each type is strong against another type. Nimbles beat shooters, shooters beat brutes and brutes beat nimbles. Enemies are always one of those types as well. In addition to the monsters you summon, there are animals on the field. If they touch your magic circle, they’ll fall in love and follow you around. Pressing X also makes any creature in your magic circle move forward, attacking anything on the way. And, by doing some side-quests, you get access to spirits which you can touch during levels and press R to activate. This gives you a certain power which can stun enemies or destroy them. If enemies hit you, your magic circle will become weaker and smaller. Reseting time gets it back to full power.

Not much more to say here. In this mode, the goal is either to kill a certain target, destroy one or multiple statues, or just clear all the enemies. There’s 30 levels once again, and takes a little bit over an hour to complete. It’s a pretty fun mode.

Princess 30
A hundred years later, a King gets cursed, and it’s up to the princess, equipped with a fast-shooting crossbow, to save him.

In this mode, each of the 30 levels involve getting to the end to pick up an item or fight an enemy, and coming back to the castle, all that within 30 seconds. Each of the face buttons make you shoot in the corresponding direction. At first your shots will be going all over the place, but by holding the button the shots become more concentrated in that direction. You have a bunch of knights protecting you as you move across the levels. Each of them will take a hit to protect you, and when only 2 are left enemies can stun you, preventing you to shoot. Knights return to you after some time. Killing enemies and destroying objects spawn money, and money is used both for healing knights, and the time element: there’s red carpets in most levels, and riding on them gives you extra time to finish the level (as long as you have money).

That’s really about it with this one. There’s not that much variety for each level, except for a few boss fights which can be pretty challenging. It takes a bit less than an hour to complete, and while you can try to enhance your times on each level, I don’t find that there’s as much incentive as in Hero 30.

Knight 30
The final main mode is the last in the game’s timeline, taking another 100 year leap in the future.

Here you play as a Knight, and the goal of every level is pretty clear: Protect the Sage long enough for him to cast his spell. His spell takes 30 seconds to cast, and if he’s in movement he’ll stop casting, pausing the counter. The sage can take only a few hits before dying. By pressing X when near him, you can make him follow you around, and if you want to move fast you can charge and carry him around, but only for as long as you have SP left. Other means of protecting him are ramming into enemies to stun them, or picking up and using weapons to stun them. Another element here is traps. Before each level, you can build traps. At first you can only build one per level, but as you level up you can make more. various traps have various effects, like attracting certain types of enemies, blocking enemies, or damaging them. You can place those strategically to better protect the sage. Enemies will either aim straight at you, or go straight for the sage. Other enemy types will be hitting bells, which, if the sound is heard by the sage, will make it take longer to cast the spell, or just plain reset his timer, so you have to destroy the bells.

It’s a pretty interesting mode, and offers quite a bit of challenge. I found though that not building any traps during the night (giving you more time to sleep) is more advantageous s you get more HP to ram enemies and more SP to carry the sage around. Again, there’s 30 levels in this mode(and no alternate paths in this one), and it takes around an hour to complete. And it’s actually pretty fun.

Overall
This is a great game. There’s TONS of gameplay variety through the different modes. Each mode is a game itself and each of them is really well done. They all feel similar since they’re all so fast-paced as well.

There’s actually a pretty fun story in the game. It’s cliche and all, but there’s nice humor(there’s an opponent named CATS…. I think just with that you can guess his dialogue … and that’s just one example) and a few really good plot twists, with each mode having a continuous story despite each mode being 100 years apart.

And each mode can be really replayable as well. And the final mode you unlock will keep your attention for a long time until you figure out how to beat it.

To be pretty frank, this is one of the most interesting games in the PSP’s, and there’s nothing like that on any other system. It’s something most gamers should experience.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- Looks great
- Really fun to play all the modes
- Replayability for most modes
- Can be challenging, especially the very last mode you unlock

Cons
- Hum…. I guess it could be longer. It’s pretty short

The Save Factor
Considering the variety of gameplay and the replayability of the game as a whole, the starting price of 30$ is well worth it.

jobocan Games, Handheld, PSN, psp