Half-Minute Hero outed for XBLA

By Robert Purchese Published 1 March, 2011

The Super Mega Neo Climax Edition.

Deliciously frantic PlayStation Portable role-playing game Half-Minute Hero appears to be making the transition to Xbox Live Arcade.

Gamerbytes noticed that the Australian Game Rating board lists Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Edition as a Microsoft-published product.

That doesn't confirm an XBLA release, but the probability is high.

Any other game details are not known, but the snazzy subtitle suggests something has changed.

Half-Minute Hero, released early 2010, is a Japanese RPG - and the only one I recall that can be finished in 45 seconds. The game's bonkers premise is to save the world in 30 seconds. If you don't, evil baddie person will smite the world to smithereens. Visiting town or village hubs replenishes and pauses your clock, but all other adventure, including battle, whittles away at the precious half-minute.

Eurogamer loved it; score: 8/10. "In its self-assured execution and endlessly inventive subversion of cliché, Half-Minute Hero succeeds in becoming a masterful reinvention of that which it parodies, simultaneously celebrating the form while overhauling the function of one of gaming's oldest templates to create something fresh and imaginative," wrote reviewer Simon Parkin.

Half-Minute Hero on PSP.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (10) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • PaletteSwap #1 1 year ago

    I loved this game on PSP and it is great to see it released on more platforms.
    However, how is this more likely to be an XBLA game rather than a W7 mobile title?
    At this point, all the classification says is that MS will publish a new version of the game.

  • Toothball #2 1 year ago

    Excellent news, I enjoyed the PSP version tremendously. I do hope it shows up on XBLA though, as I'm stuck with my current phone for another year so would have no chance of playing it on a W7 Phone for at least that long.

  • Monkey_Puncher #3 1 year ago

    Microsoft might not have many retail exclusives this year, but they sure are doing a lot of great things with XBLA of late.

  • andywilkie35 #4 1 year ago

    Cool beans, still after the PSP version but if this turns out better then BOSH

  • Bernkastel #5 1 year ago

    They forgot "hyper" and "ultra".

  • JeroenZM #6 1 year ago

    I love this game, great storyline too. However, and this is a bit off-topic, I'm slightly pissed off that all of my PSP games are eventually rereleased for a much smaller price on digital distribution. And it's not like the games were released 5 years ago, but pretty recently. A title like Chinatown Wars comes to mind too. Gives me less incentive to purchase the next PSP actually. But I'm glad that the X-Box users can enjoy this game now.

  • Ror1984 #7 1 year ago

    I never got around to this on PSP, so I'm quite interested in checking it out. It seems like it would make a good mobile title for WP7 (and I'd rather play it on WP7), but hopefully it will get released on both that and XBLA.

  • Mr_Wizard #8 1 year ago

    You shouldn't have the headline "Half-Minute Hero outed for XBLA" then admit in the article there's no actual platform confirmation.

  • Gojiratron #9 1 year ago

    Cool.

    The PSP version's great fun so I'm pleased that it's getting a new audience.

  • jonsaan #10 1 year ago

    It's great fun..for a while. It gets old fast.