Incredible Crisis

"Calling this game weird barely scratches the surface."

Every now and then, a Japanese game comes to the USA and Europe, and it is so incredibly weird that it is worth playing just to see how crazy it actually is. Incredible Crisis is one of those games. But this is a really weird game that is actually fun to play. But how does it achieve this? Read on to find out.

Story: 10/10
The story is ridiculous, which is what makes it so funny. The grandmother reminds her family it is her birthday. Unsurprisingly, they all forgot. She wants them home early. Throughout the day, Taneo gets chased by a giant stone globe and falls for a beautiful woman, Etsuko does some shopping but becomes involved with a gang of wolves and a giant teddy bear, Tsuyoshi gets shrunk to the size of an ant and Ririka tries to reunite a lost UFO with its mother. It is completely crazy, and fits the game perfectly.

Graphics: 4/10
This is the worst part of the game. The backgrounds are often completely flat, whereas the characters are blocky, unpolished and uninspired. There also appear to be some very noticeable edges on many objects. This game looks like it came out in 1996, not 2000! Clearly Titus focused more on the other sections of the game.

Sound: 8/10
The music is brilliant! It is under the genre of Japanese ska, and fits the wackiness of the game perfectly. The sound effects are appropriate for the game, meaning that they are very weird. The voices are not so good, however. The characters usually only shout one or two separate things, which gets annoying after a while. For example, Taneo constantly seems to shout, ‘YE-WEH!' which is funny the first time, but not after you have heard it seven or eight times. However, the music is good enough to disguise this uninspired voice work and make the game feel more charismatic.

Gameplay: 8/10
In this game, you play several minigames while going through each of the four family members' day. There are about twenty-four minigames in total. These minigames involve all of the things I have mentioned in the story section, and many others, including fighting a teddy bear, being chased by a giant stone ball, flooding out a man's boat (three separate times!) and many other wacky games. Most of these involve a vast amount of button mashing which is guaranteed to leave your fingers in blisters within a few minutes, although there are some other types of games, such as playing to a rhythm or copying a pattern, to add a little bit of variety to the game and stop it going stale too quickly. Overall, the concept of this game is great and original.

Most of the games are very fun, with only a few exceptions (like the one where you have to go shopping), if only because of the hilarious results you get, regardless as to whether you fail or succeed. For example, if you fail a challenge, they make scream in a very humorous way, and if you succeed, they will jump about wildly, making a complete spectacle of themselves. Something is bound to come up to amuse you. Another thing about this game is that it is extremely addictive. I cannot explain why, but something about this just makes you want to keep coming back to find out what happens next, even if you fail a particular minigame over and over again.

There is one major flaw that stops this game scoring higher, and that flaw is frustration. Unless you are incredibly lucky, or extremely good at playing video games, you will almost certainly find a number of challenges to be extremely difficult. If you have an anger management problem, you may find yourself throwing your console out of the window. That is how frustrating this game is. In addition, there is no multiplayer, which is a real shame. I can clearly imagine what it would be like to play some of these games with friends.

Once you get past the initial frustration of this game, however, this game is great fun, even if it does involve a lot of button mashing. There just seems to be something unique about it that makes you want to play it.

Replay Value: 5/10
Due to the frustration that this game will cause you, chances are that once you have completed this game once, you will never want to play it again. Ultimately, you can easily complete this within a few days, even though some of the minigames in this game are very hard.

Pros:
Great minigames.
Completely insane.
Extremely addictive.
Brilliant music.
Awesome storyline.
Very funny.
Interesting concept.

Cons:
Poor graphics.
Frustrating at times.
Voices could be better.
Can be completed within a week.
No multiplayer.

Buy, rent or avoid: This game makes a great rental, because you can probably beat this game within the time that you have the game. If you buy this game, it will end up collecting dust on your shelf once you have completed it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/08

Game Release: Incredible Crisis (EU, 11/24/00)