Review: Minit

The protagonist Minit dies every 60 seconds, then resurrects in his house and within a minute tries to have time to do something. On a funny character, similar to a duck, a curse is imposed - as soon as he picked up a sword lying on the shore, as a timer appeared in the corner of the screen at once. Where to go and what to do, he does not know, and only with the help of the player the hero will be able to get rid of the ailment.

The basic idea of Minit is largely original, but still not entirely new. Long ago on the PSP came out  Half-Minute Hero, where you had to overcome the villain in 30 seconds. But there were several simplifications: in the settlements time stopped, for a small amount the timer restarted, new allies appeared, who helped in the battles. In Minit nothing like this - if the character has three seconds to live, nothing will save him. 

Where more the game reminds the old The Legend of Zelda , lost all colors, except black and white. Despite terribly up-to-date graphics, the charm of Minitis not deprived - the characters are pleased with the comic design, in the dialogs there are jokes, and the locations differ from each other as much as possible with such a visual style. 

Leaving the first house, you hardly know what to do next. You run out to the seashore, you hit the crabs with the sword, you go into the next location, you die. You come to life in the same house, you go upstairs, cutting bushes, you see a creature near the cave, it warns of danger. You descend, you see nothing because of pitch darkness, again you die. Stress because of the timer you do not test - the zones are not too far apart, so in case of death you simply go along the same path, but you do it faster. 

Thanks to such mechanics in Minitin due course you start to think over the plan of actions for 60 seconds forward, remembering an arrangement of objects and understanding, with what purpose you are directed to the certain zone. Therefore, the hero does not resurrect himself - the player himself decides when he is ready to move on. If you do not have time to reach the necessary object in time, you are looking for other ways or you are not distracted by conversations with the inhabitants. A separate button is responsible for instant death - when you realize that time is short, you can quickly die and start the race anew.

Several amusing episodes are associated with the timer. One of the characters, for example, very slowly pronounces the words. For the first time I started a conversation with him when the timer was 20 seconds, and he diligently reprimanded each letter and stalled time. Three seconds left, then two, one, and he never finished the sentence. There are some large locations where you can not run from one end to the other in the allotted time. This will help accelerate shoes, for seven coins sold in a shoe store. But only to accumulate this amount without searching for secret passages and rooms is impossible.


There are a lot of hiding places in Minit , so after going through the main story (which lasts a little over two hours) there will be something else to do for at least an hour. After the credits you can either continue the journey for the sake of searching for collector's things, or go to conquer the "New Game +". In it, the conditions are slightly more complicated, although the essence remains the same - you also die in a few seconds and reborn, as you press the button. But there will be many surprises on the way - either the objects will be in other places, or there will be more opponents. Almost all the components of the gameplay are subject to modifications, including the timer and the health of the character.

However, it is not necessary to play the game twice, and it is not as complex as it might seem due to a non-vanishing timer. The collected "hearts", increasing the health reserve, remain after death on the spot. Found objects, like watering cans with water, neatly stacked near the house of the protagonist. The mansions in which the character resurrects are placed in several copies around the world - where were the last time before death, there and reborn. A little confused is that when you visit the hero of the house the timer does not restart, but this again emphasizes the desire of developers to deprive the player of the opportunity to somehow affect the time. 

We can say that this way the passage was stretched and without her unique mechanics Minit would have managed to pass much faster. But this is its basis, the core, without which the game would become uninteresting. You remember the location of opponents and are looking for ways to get around them so that you do not waste precious seconds fighting. You keep in mind the solutions of simple puzzles that you unravel on the move to quickly run through some area and get into the next zone. And the fact that the player has only 60 seconds, and not 15 or 30 minutes, allows you not to be upset because of every failed race. Well, you lost a few seconds, so what? Then he revived - and ran back.
The map is not so huge that you can forget about the location of certain zones. Having received the next item, you begin to scroll in your head, where you saw objects that you can now interact with. It reminds the old Zelds - so, in A Link to the Past, the link with the glove could raise stones blocking the way, and you almost remembered exactly where they were seen during the study. And in the very first part of the bracelet allowed to move boulders to seek secrets. Here the same thing happens - different things are used both for the passage of the plot, and for finding hidden chests with coins.

Feeling that you have done something at the last second, it is difficult to convey, but here it will arise constantly. Especially in those moments when in a minute he managed to see the new location and look around all the objects placed there, and to find a hiding place or solve a simple puzzle. From the design of puzzles you do not come to the same delight as I experienced in the recent Gorgoa, but thanks to the timer and other restrictions (at first the hero can not swim and moves quite slowly) the gameplay pleases at every step. 

The authors managed to achieve diversity in the game process, despite the simplest management: one button here is responsible for the attack, the other for the death. Except for the keys to move (or stick on the gamepad), this is the end of the possibilities. 

ScoldMinit wants only for the story line, which seemed to try to raise some unusual topic, but did not. A certain little man in a cap constantly suggests a duck to go to the plant, since it has a cursed sword with it, and eventually the player becomes aware of what is being said and why the hero was sent there. History is schematic, as in the same "Zeldah", but it was possible to repeat the experience of Celeste - to bring the genre to a new level and offer something deeper.


But not all games should delight stories and make the player think about the important. Minit is cheap, goes through the evening and brings back memories of classic projects. She takes from them all the best, and with the exception of graphics, none of her components seem to be outdated. And the original gameplay mechanics makes it unlike other adventures. And in your collection there will be another game with a chic soundtrack - this has already become the visiting card of Devolver Digital and the games it publishes. 

Rate:8/10