Giving you a chance to grab a boob without a slap in the face.
I don't think you could find a more fanatical following for any other game company like there is for Treasure. They have a reputation for creating fun and original games that stand the test of time. I could go through all my favorite memories of Treasure games past, but we're here to talk about Stretch Panic. Here is proof that originality alone is not a basis for a fun game, and that nobody is perfect.
First of all, I need to state up front that this game is weird. So weird, in fact, that its value is raised because of the awe factor. I'm sitting in front of it playing, all the while shaking my head wondering what kind of thought process it takes to come up with this stuff. Maybe they had Tim Burton as a "quirk" consultant. For me though, I love the quirkiness. The Stretch Panic story is about a little girl whose 12 sisters are obsessed with their looks. It hard to gather from the strange intro, but the sisters end up being swept off to some other off-the-wall beauty dimension. The sweet little sister that you control got her scarf possessed, sometime during the chaos, like her sisters. Now she needs to exorcise each one to save them from their vanity.
Cue the video from Take On Me. Here you are in the Museum of Agony, and it looks just like the video. There's white backgrounds with the walls and stairs and structures drawn like pencil sketches. You are in control of Linda, the good sister, and she's nothing but a head and teeny tiny legs. Looks like an orange on a toothpick. You have rudimentary control of Linda with the left analog stick, but don't ask for much with those pieces of straw she walks on. The right analog stick controls your demon-possessed scarf. Pressing R1 throws the scarf out in front of you ready to grab anything it can get its evil hand on. You have full control while it's extended and you'll need it to satisfy the scarf's desire. To stretch!
This, my friends, is the whole game. Use your scarf to grab and stretch things. I don't mean certain things. I mean anything and everything you can see. Hmmm, there's a wall, stretch it out. There's a palm tree, stretch the trunk. There's a girl, stretch her butt. You get the idea. It's an amazing display of technology, but that's the caveat. This really isn't anything more than a technology demo. It's like Treasure is saying to me, "Look what we can do." And I say, "But you forgot to make a game."
Like I said, the object of the game is to exorcise and defeat the disfigured forms of your sisters. This is no action/adventure game. There are doors in the Museum of Agony that lead to the sisters. The doors have a cost of 1-6 coins to open. Once you are inside, it's a boss fight against one of your sisters. That's it. There are no puzzles or platforming, just a boss fight. I'll get back to that. I said you need coins to get into the doors, but how do you get them? There are doors labeled "EX" that cost no coins to enter, and it is in these worlds that you can rack up on coins.
The "EX" worlds are still dreadfully small, and only have one type of enemy in them, the big breasted girls. Ok, make that mega breasted. So huge that they are near impervious from a frontal attack. Attacking, in this game, means stretching a part of their body and snapping it back. Once again, this is the game. Reach out with the scarf, stretch, and snap a part of your enemy. For the boob patrol, you only gain coins if you damage them from behind. Literally, you have to snap their booty to kill them.
You take these coins and open a door to one of your sisters. The fight is really only a slight challenge because there is little chance of getting killed in this game. First you need to get the demon out of your sis by pressing in both analog sticks (cost 5 coins). This extends two more scarves to shake the evil from their body. Once that's over and done with, you can just stretch away until her life meter runs out. There are specific points to stretch that will cause more damage (and gain coins), but you really only need to perform basic attacks. Now, you are back to the Museum and probably in need of more coins. Go back to an EX world and then back to a boss. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
The control to carry out this stretching nonsense is intuitive, but not perfectly executed. It takes a while to get an idea of what you are actually going to grab out in front of you. The depth is a little hard to gauge, and the scarf is very touchy. Plus, you are most likely locked on to the target (L1 button) that you want to stretch which places your character right in your viewing area. This makes it hard to grab a girl's butt because you can't see through your gargantuan cranium.
The graphics fit the theme. The style stays true to the wacky story and character types. There's not much, if any texturing, and there's really nothing to make you say "Wow". It looks like they spent much of the graphical power to make the entire game interactive (stretch-able). This brings me back to the point that this is a great technology demo, just not a great game. The cartoony nature of the visuals is attractive to a point, and at least it keeps the frame rate high and steady.
Treasure true believers; be wary of this new title. It's quirky enough to draw you in for a little while, but don't expect to want to hang around. This game isn't worth the money, but I think it builds a solid foundation for future titles. There are so many possibilities that Treasure has opened up with this new level of environment interaction. They just missed on the fun factor in the first release.
