Minutes Review

There are a variety of titles you come across as a gamer, some you’ll enjoy due to the story, some will entertain you with their flashy graphics whilst others will entice you into a world of engrossing gameplay. Minutes is a simply title, no graphical prowess, there is no story to speak of and well there isn’t a great deal to do but what you have to do must be achieved within a minute.

You control a circle which you move around the screen trying to collect the light energy whilst dodging the dark energy, light energy generates points whilst dark energy damages the player, too much damage and that’s the end of your circular adventures. You are able to increase/decrease the size of your circle to let the light energy hit you, so you need to plan ahead and plan very quickly because all you have is a minute to achieve the scores you require. There are also score multipliers involved which help you reach your targets more quickly.

The fundamental idea behind Minutes is to enlarge your circle to increase the multiplier when you are collecting the light energy but then reduce your size when you need to dodge the dark energy. There’s an element of the risk vs reward idea, it may be worth taking a couple of hits so you can make the most of the light energy on offer, though bear in mind this means you won’t get one of the trophies for that level i.e. the take no damage trophy.

There are 60 levels on offer. The first few are very simple and slow just getting you into the gist of things. Then the pace increases frantically as you move through the levels. Luckily there are a variety of power ups that are available ranging from shields to the ability to slow down time. You only need to achieve a certain target to get through to the next level, however you can go back and try to perfect the level by hitting all the targets i.e. above a certain score, not receiving damage etc.

One issue with Minutes is that each level plays out the same way, for example level 10 the pattern of the light and dark energy is the same each time you play it. So it becomes a case of memorising the pattern, so whilst Minutes is addictive in a ‘play one more time’ way it also becomes very repetitive as there is no variation in how a particular level sets up. Once you’ve memorised a level then it’s just down to your ability to follow what you’ve memorised to hit every target. There is a daily challenge which you can play, it’s just like the rest of the level but you only get one chance to post a real score.

Graphically Minutes is very little to look at, considering the simplistic mechanics this is not a bad thing. Everything is clear to the eye and easily recognisable, it’s quite the abstract title. Musically Minutes has a dance track that works well with what you are trying to do. The issue with a game like Minutes is considering how simple the premise is, and how much next generational power is not in use, there should be a lot more depth to it in terms of levels, targets etc. Minutes could easily be a playable side game in something like GTA.

Minutes is a game that takes minutes to play but hours to master, however as much as it is addictive Minutes lacks anything besides achieving high scores to entice you back to it. Once you’ve completed the 60 levels which may only take 3/4 hours then you’re not going to want to go back to it unless you fancy topping the daily challenge high scores. Give Minutes a few moments of your time as it a unique if lacking experience.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.