Well, about the 5 minutes, no one forced me to continue, I wanted to reach the end. I did take longer than needed since I played with no shake to revive otherwise. Had I known about it, I would probably beat all levels in one go. That's probably also why it felted "scripted", if I didn't buy/do things in the right order, then I would most likely lose.
So, it would have taken me less time had I known I could revive them. I do enjoy playing "tower defense" type of games.
For reference, "protect the girl" was a custom map in war3 (back from early 2000s)