Marvelous’ recent PSP release Yuusha 30 (to be published as Half-Minute Hero by Xseed in US) gains a lot of attention in Japan due to its seemingly crazy concept, four different game modes and the amount of artists collaborating for the title. The latest issue of Famitsu PSP+PS3 catch up with the main guys behind the title, Director Kotaro Yoshida (aka UUE) and Producer Kenichiro Takaki, to tell us the origin of the title and how the development process was like.

Yoshida is actually the father of Yuusha 30, he created a Flash game called “30 Seconds Hero” (left) during his free time at his current employer Over Studio and it became the basis of Yuusha. It actually took him only a day to make the game as he doesn’t really play games and hope to create something that won’t take too long to play. Takaki, who was a former employee at the same company, suggested that they should make a retro game for PSP since the system is selling hot at that time. After ruling out a bunch of ideas, Takaki found Yoshida’s game to be the most appealing one because he think office workers won’t have enough time to play games that take a while to finish these days and Yuusha fits perfectly here.

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Another new TV commercial for Yuusha 30 (aka Half-Minute Hero) from Marvelous. The game has been out in Japan for more than three weeks now and sold around 43,000 copies so far.

Planning on getting Yuusha 30? Well, you probably want to wait a little as Xseed has confirmed the title for US release and its new name will be Half-Minute Hero. The game came out in Japan last Thursday and apparently got off to a worrying start with around 13,000 copies start (or 20% of its initial shipment), will see how it does over the weekend. But I will surely get the English version when it come out this fall. Read my many coverage on the game here.

Lunar: Harmony of Silver Star localization for US (to be called Lunar: Silver Star Harmony) is hardly surprising I think but it’s still great to get the confirmation. It’s even better to know that it will probably come out around the same time as the Japanese version, which is this fall. Check out my report on the new stuff in Game Arts’ “graphics power-up” remake of the great RPG classics.

Source: PSPFanboy

Marvelous added a trailer for the Maou30 (Devil King 30) mode of Yuusha 30. This will be the real time strategy part of the game with the devil king as the main character. The game will be out in 20 days in Japan.