Have You Played... Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy?
Gotta go fast.
Half Minute Hero is cool as hell. On the face of it, an RPG where you get just 30 seconds to act is a strange concept, but Half Minute Hero has a whole lot more depth than you might think you could find in that time.
The premise is kind of similar to recent hit Minit. The world is going to end in 30 seconds. Pretty intense. Half a minute to save the world from ruin? That doesn’t sound like it’d be worth trying. Thankfully, in Half Minute Hero the Time Goddess comes and helps you out, allowing you to pray (and pay) to start that half minute over. This doesn’t make the speedy aspect redundant though! It becomes more and more expensive with each prayer, so you have to actually pay attention or you're going to run out of funds pretty quickly.
It’s a game from over a decade ago, but it holds up perfectly to this day. Half Minute Hero brilliantly balances the streamlined nature you’d expect of a game with such a tiny time limit, with the RPG elements of grinding maps, engaging dialogue, and an absolute mountain of content. The Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy edition has even more to it, since after completing the main ‘Hero 30’ story, you get the chance to enjoy several different takes on the concept.
You have Evil Lord 30, Princess 30, and Knight 30, all of which tweak the formula in a cool way. Pick up Half Minute Hero - it’s somehow the perfect RPG both for quick dips and long sessions, and will take your mind off of the terrible real world and into a goofy fantasy.