The Longest Five Minutes Review
I’m a sucker for indie RPGs with a unique premise, as they’re usually some of the most interesting games to play. Which is why I was initially excited to get stuck into The Longest Five Minutes’ Switch release. Featuring 8 bit graphics and a chiptune soundtrack, this throwback to old school JRPGs is a nice fit for handhelds like the Switch and PS Vita, while also available on Steam.
From the start of the game you’re already at the end, which is to say the game begins with the final boss. Our hero, Flash Back (a bit on the nose), has lost his memories while facing the Demon King, and over the next five minutes struggles to remember everything leading up to this point while periodically switching back to the final boss fight as the final five minutes of the story unfold.
This method of non linear storytelling was definitely an interesting approach, but everything after that is anything but. As you recall more memories, you play through them as a series of self contained mini story arcs, where you must battle the demons that have appeared in the mysterious fog while completing various side quests, many of which are actually optional. However the more quests you complete during your memories, the more “Reexperience” you earn, although as I found out this means very little, as the difficulty for each memory is essentially scaled to how far through the overall story you are.
I found the combat and encounters to be incredibly dull, and lacking the sort of thoughtful approach usually required for JRPGs. There’s really not a lot to say about the combat, you have physical and magical attacks, and enemies are weak or strong to certain elements, but not enough that it really matters. There was never a point where I had any trouble with enemies that required me to think that hard about what I was doing, and even the bosses were more just damage sponges than anything. None of the bosses required any sort of special strategy, and in fact the majority of them were over in about 4 or 5 turns. If there was a game over screen for failing a fight, I never saw it.
The one thing I did like about the enemies were the design. The demons you face are usually themed for the areas you’re in, and they were nicely designed and interesting to look at. There were a decent variety of them, although some of which are just palette swapped, which is expected for an 8 bit RPG.
An RPG can still stand up on writing alone, which unfortunately The Longest Five Minutes did not. The characters in your party and that you meet along the way weren’t particularly interesting, and they tended to be one dimensional tropes. The one thing that did sort of redeem the story of the game was the fact that you get to make decisions that sort of affect the outcomes towards the end of the game, from what happens in the final boss fight to your final party members at the end, even if it does involve some retconning. However I expected all of this to come together at the end, where instead the entire third act throws it all out the window and introduces new central characters that we’re suddenly supposed to care about.
The Longest Five Minutes is an interesting premise that fails to be held up by any other aspect of the game, which is a bit of a disappointment. It’s a constant downhill slide in enjoyment that has a lot of filler, probably to try and justify the NZ $69.99 price on Steam for what feels like something that was thrown together in RPG maker over a few of weeks. The Longest Five Minutes lives up to it’s title, only because it drags on long past its welcome.
Originally published at The Insatiable Gamer.
