NISA and SYUPRO-DX’s The Longest Five Minutes wants you to think about memories. It wants you to think about how we process them, how we use them, and how we cherish them. Memories are how we keep our past, our own personal archives of everything that has ever happened to us. But we don’t always experience them in order, right? It’s not like our brains have little file cabinets we can flip through on demand. Yet, memories are essential. Memories are how our experience is formed, the key to how we learn and grow. Without our memories, could we develop the way we do? The Longest Five Minutes suggests that no, our memories are where our power lives.

The Longest Five Minutes is best described as a visual novel/JRPG hybrid. The bulk of the game’s story is delivered through sequences the player has little control over, as the hero Flash and his friends are locked in a battle to the death against the Demon King, the veritable final boss. A clock in the top-right corner shows us how long the battle goes on and makes us realize how much can happen in mere seconds, driving home a sense of desperation. The metaphor is immediately obvious: this fight is going to take place over five in-universe minutes. And it’s a long five minutes because we’re also dealing with the past.

Flash has the world’s most inconvenient case of sudden amnesia; he can’t remember where he is or why he’s staring the terrifying Demon King in the face. His friends are scrambling to get him to remember anything while struggling to survive at the same time. Flash is useless; without his memories, without the context of what’s going on, who he is, or why he’s fighting, he may as well be a kid off the street who just picked up a sword. But, eventually something happens, and a memory is finally triggered.

This is where the JRPG part kicks in. When Flash recalls each new piece of the puzzle, the first-person perspective shifts to a colorful, adorable old-school JRPG style. The pixel art is bright and colorful and especially pops if you’re sporting an original, OLED Vita. While playing through a memory, Flash and company are able to re-experience the key story beats of your typical JRPG story, comprising dangerous travel, important lessons, and of course dungeon crawling and boss fighting. It’s briskly paced and focuses on only the most important bits when something crucial to what you’d expect playing a larger RPG happens – those key moments when a character learns a new skill, encounters a dire enemy or reaches a crossroads in their own personal development. It’s like a Cliff Notes story that still includes all the meaty character moments.

The memories aren’t linear of course, and as a result, your party’s levels, equipment, and abilities often jump back and forth. However, taking the time to grind can still be rewarding (though is generally unnecessary to win), as on top of your normal level, you have a second set of levels that carries over throughout and awards static bonuses to all your stats. This is a good step to helping the gimmick work, while still making the player feel like they’re moving forward. Unfortunately, it’s not all great, and other parts of the JRPG sections stumble in the opposite direction.

While the experience bonuses carry on throughout, nothing else does. Like I mentioned above, your abilities and equipment are as unstable as your place on the chronological timeline. This also applies to your money and other items in your inventory. It’s tough to grind enough money to buy stuff, and that stuff you buy will vanish once you move on to the next memory. Even if you equip a new, powerful piece of armor you find in a treasure chest, The Longest Five Minutes cares not for your booty. I remember the point where I stopped caring about collectibles being a powerful weapon I found simply vanishing from existence moments later, even despite the next memory taking place immediately after the one I was on.

Still, I enjoyed the combat. The enemy sprites are big, detailed, and don’t look like your typical JRPG enemies. They sit somewhere between an EarthBound and a Dragon Quest, with designs that, while not as wild or creative as either of the above, did have a droll, cartoony presence that made each new encounter fun. Battles are also fast-paced, with plenty of text-skipping and quick animations. It also encourages swapping around party members at times and playing around with your rotating spell allowance.

By the end of the game, you really get a sense of who these characters are, why they’re friends, and why the Demon King (who is excellently localized) must be stopped. And then the visual novel parts really kick in, and you uncover not only some compelling twists but also opportunities for multiple endings and optional memories. By the end of the ten or so hour journey, I found myself wanting more. I’m gunning for the platinum on this one. The Longest Five Minutes leans on its genre mashup gimmick but does so with a clear, focuses narrative goal that is based more on humanity and character development than lore or world-building. 

Hint: You get plenty of MP and powerful healing spells, so don’t be afraid to lean on stat buffs and group heals during boss fights. Also, pay close attention to the text during the final fight. 

by Lucas White