Incredible Crisis

"Real Fun With All The Family!"

Generally speaking, games that try their hand a bit of everything generally don’t work. Incredible Crisis to some extent, breaks that mould and gives us a fantastic cluster of mini-games strung together with a maddening story. One minute you’ll be dancing around with your work colleagues, the next you’ll be shooting down giant teddy bears! Confused? You will be!
You play the average Japanese family called the Tanamatsuri’s. It’s the Nan’s birthday and she wants everyone home for dinner that evening early. You’ll play as the other 4 family members having wild adventures trying to get home in time for tea. Sounds simple enough at the start.
There are 24 mini-games but in truth there’s only about 12 as so many of the games are so similar, it makes you feel a little cheated. For instance, you play the “Titanic Away” game 3 times, and since I found it possibly the least enjoyable game of the lot, it really put a dampener on the game for me.
The other games though are fantastic from Bemani dancing, to outrun style dodge the cars at high-speed chase to (shock horror) multiple-choice questions! There really is no stone left unturned in search for a zany twist on.
Most of the controls of the events boil down to timing, button bashing or aiming. The controls are very easy to pick up, but you’ll most likely have a “head explosion” for the first few goes on each game as you have to get used to the responsiveness of the controls, which vary per game. Although this can prove frustrating, it is ultimately rewarding.
The graphics are nothing special, but they do hold together well, with cartoon-like characters and setting to help out the atmosphere of a cartoon game experience. There are a few annoyances with the viewpoints given when you’re on reaction-based games, but then that just makes the game harder.
Incredible Crisis doesn’t have a learning curve, its more of a wave and it depends on what type of games you like as to whether you can pass them easily or not. One of the hardest games is the mental maths one, which is nigh on impossible first time round. The learning wave may seem strange but it doesn’t affect the life of the game, which, provided you must get an A on every task, could be a while, but the game is easily finished in a few hours if you persevere.
If your after a fantastic feel-good hilarious action filled game, you’ve got one right here, just don’t ever be late for dinner again!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/21/02, Updated 06/30/03