A half-minute to glory. If you loved that concept the first time around, maybe you'll come back for more.

A cute, speedy twist on the time-consuming grinding so common to old-school role-playing adventures, last year's Half-Minute Hero for the PSP really resonated with veteran RPGers. You needed to complete your quests in 30 seconds or less, which means that you had to have your speed shoes on. Now, Marvelous Entertainment has announced a sequel, which is set to arrive in Japan in November. Half-Minute Hero 2 will keep the old-fashioned graphical style, but we can expect some tweaks to the 30-second time limit format. The cool part is that players will actually be able to stop the clock in certain situations, and overall, there will be 90 quests across 5 story scenarios to attack. Demons are everywhere and it's your job to banish them all back to hell, seal the door, and save a schoolgirl and her peers who have been caught in the chaos. Lastly, we'll get 4-player co-op and competitive action, a quest editor, and a new Survival Mode. Oh yes, this little sequel should have it all. Retro gaming seems to be alive and well in several different forms on the PSP, doesn't it?

Personally, I kinda liked the grinding in older RPGs and I never seemed to mind the required time. Even so, this here is an interesting idea.