Review for The Longest Five Minutes. Game for Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation Vita, the video game was released on 28/07/2016 The version for PC came out on 13/02/2018 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 13/02/2018
Any lover of old-fashioned JRPGs knows: the way to the final boss is arduous, full of ups and downs, obstacles and difficulties. A path dotted with victories, failures, training and grinding sessions, cities, villages, ships and airships. All to get to that fateful moment, to the final boss. Whatever it is, it is the goal of all players.
The Longest Five Minutes, title published in the West by NIS America and developed by Nippon Ichi Software (the creators of Disgaea) e SYUPRO-DX and due out on February 16th on PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch in Europe (on February 13th on PC all over the world), it distorts all this.
A curious title, then, but will the basic idea have worked?
A hero ... forgetful?
The game starts, precisely, from the final boss. Our protagonists are fighting the Demon King when, suddenly, the Hero, Flash, completely loses his memory. There certainly couldn't have been a worse time.
The title, in our case, is quite emblematic: the clash with the Demon King will take place like a cutscene and will last 5 minutes and, in this time frame, Flash will absolutely have to recover all his memories in order to fight and defeat the fearsome boss. . All this thanks to the help of his trusted friends and fellow adventurers, Regent, the Black Wizard, Yuzu, the Nun and Clover, the White Magician. The classic old-fashioned RPG group, in short.
The concept, therefore, seems to be original, albeit simple: the player will have to retrace the entire adventure of Flash and his companions, divided into separate memories.
A role-playing game… classic?
We come to the main problem of The Longest Five Minutes. The game, at first and inattentive glance, appears to be a classic pixel art RPG, but that's not really the case.
The very structure that has been given to the title does not allow it to be defined as such. Memories are, as already mentioned, separated from each other and completely disconnected, if not, of course, by plot. This means that a healing item or weapon purchased in one memory will not be present in the next.
Each fragment grants the protagonists a certain level of experience, a set of weapons and armor, and a precise amount of money to spend. Everything we earn later, by defeating monsters and completing dungeons, will disappear once that memory is over. This, on the one hand, might seem convenient, since you can spend everything you have at the first shop you find. On the other hand, it loses that charm of role-playing games, where buying a new sword for our hero meant spending those few, hard-earned money and was considered a real upgrade.
There is therefore no sense of success in the personalization and growth of a character. The only facet that could satisfy a minimum the player is the level of "ReExperience". By fighting enemies and completing the various "Missions", 2 or 3 secondary tasks available for each memory, the player, of course, will get experience, which will also increase the level of memories, which will give small upgrades to the statistics, permanent even in the following fragments. The sense of dissatisfaction and lack of progression, however, remains.
A story in rewind
The gimmick used to create the storyline might seem pretty mundane - and indeed it is - but within The Longest Five Minutes it worked pretty well. Even if the charm of reliving a story “on the contrary” vanishes after the first 4 or 5 memories, having something different and more peculiar in your hands could satisfy and entertain even the most accustomed to role-playing games. Of course, the plot that is then outlined is quite basic: a world overwhelmed by demons in which our hero must restore peace, but the game has a very evident peculiarity from the beginning. He doesn't take himself seriously.
For example, our Dark Magician, Regent, hates the very thought of following the path dictated by his parents, who would like to see him one day become a great sorcerer. Instead, he wants to become the most famous rock singer of all time. This irreverent and fun atmosphere, combined with the nice and interesting dialogues, however, is not enough to make the story less trivial and we will find ourselves, after the first hours of play, accelerating the pace.
The game is simple, too simple. There was not a single moment during the run in which it was necessary to stop and grind a bit, also thanks to the fact that when starting a new fragment, the level of the characters is adapted to that of the enemies of the area.
The OSTs are instead pleasant and refer to the old glories in 8 Bit, those to which The Longest Five Minutes is inspired, failing in part. However, it remains, in some of its features, rather pleasant.
Ultimately The Longest Five Minutes has partially failed in its intent. The desire to recreate a classic old-fashioned JRPG environment failed due to the basic structure dissected into memories, disconnected from each other. The sense of dissatisfaction and lack of progression are coupled with a banal and obvious plot. The funny dialogue and a pleasant OST are not enough to elevate the title above a full pass.
► The Longest Five Minutes is a JRPG type game developed by Nippon Ichi and published by NIS America for Nintendo Switch, PC and PlayStation Vita, the video game was released on 28/07/2016 The version for PC came out on 13/02/2018 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 13/02/2018
