The Longest Five Minutes

The Longest Five Minutes is almost the standard definition of an RPG, brought to life with one of the most exciting storytelling techniques for any Switch game. It's a good entry point for those looking to try out NIS America games or RPGs, and interesting enough to keep the attention of more hardcore fans. But without leaning too heavily into the novel flashback dynamic, The Longest Five Minutes doesn't bring much more to the RPG table.

The Longest Five Minutes presents its basic fantasy tale as a series of flashbacks experienced by its amnesiac main character during the game’s final battle. It takes an otherwise generic retro turn-based RPG and turns it into something special. Wait, I’m already at the end of the review? How did I get here?

Have you ever walked through a door and forgot why you came into the next room? Sure, we all have at one time, but how about forgetting you were on a lifelong adventure to face off against a true evil that’s plaguing the land? NIS America’s newest portable RPG (if you take the Nintendo Switch off the dock once in a while) tries to answer that question with The Longest Five Minutes, an RPG focused around temporary amnesia in the most significant battle of your life and trying to remember *cue record scratch noise* just how you ended up in this situation.

The Longest Five Minutes sports an interesting presentation to a basic RPG plot, and despite some shortcomings is worth a look.

There are so many retro-inspired JRPGs nowadays that it's hard to tell which ones are worthwhile. The Longest Five Minutes definitely has a unique story premise but does it offer a satisfying flashback-filled adventure?

The Longest Five Minutes isn’t quite all bad, though. The dialogue is written well and the music is reminiscent of old classic RPGs, but there’s simply not enough difficulty or uniqueness to keep players interested for the full duration. If you’re the most casual of gamers, then you may find the difficulty level suitable, but anyone who’s ever touched any kind of RPG before will undoubtedly find it too easy and not worth the ten or so hours of gameplay.

The final two hours of The Longest Five Minutes feel like they are what the game was designed for. They bring in some genuinely interesting plot points that finally use the flashback structure to their advantage. Nevertheless, after the bland combat and generic storytelling along the way, my enjoyment of the final revelations just left me wondering why the entire game couldn’t have been more like that.