Game

Panic!, also known as Switch in Japan, is one of the games that, to those in the know, is a MUST get for the Sega CD. It’s a cult classic that sold like shit at the time, and reviewed about as well. Developed by Sega, it was not released here by Sega. Instead, Data East did the work to translate it, which is interesting to me.

The story is that all machines on the planet are infected by a virus. They are all literally sick. They do random things, often just throwing up. A program, called “Panic!”, was designed to fix the situation and return things to normal. You play as Slap and his dog Stick, very fun names, who must travel to the center of the madness and turn on Panic!.

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In order to do this, as you enter a room, you are met with what’s going on in that room, then shown some buttons. Each button does something different. Some transport you to other rooms, some do gags. Some do both!

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There are 20 levels in Panic, and most of the traveling moves you from right to left, looping around. The map balloons out in the middle, before going back into a point near the end. And that’s it! What, you might say? That’s it? Where’s the gameplay? Well that’s the thing. There isn’t any. This game is literally just… you press buttons, and watch things happen.

There are 964 gags, though you don’t NEARLY have to watch all of them, and in order to watch all of them you basically need to game over upwards of like, 7 times, due to the way the game works. You CAN game over. Either by just beating the game, or by going to the SKULL ROOMS where a member of your family tells you to stop playing games and bullies you, or by blowing up all the monuments. Some buttons are “booby trapped”, and you get to watch famous monuments blow up and collapse. Collapse em all and it’s game over, which you’d need to do to get 100% gags anyway. Also, exits are considered gags, and some are one way. So that throws complications in too.

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I worry I’m being reductive when I say “that’s all” to Panic. This is an EXTREMELY interesting, and fun, game. And there’s barely any game here. The humor and style is off the charts, the animation is quite good for the Sega CD, it’s smooth and flows well, and it’s very, VERY Terry Gilliam. You can tell that the devs of this LOVES Monty Python.

Occasionally you’ll also see scenes with these little creatures, and a voice over. The US voice over is kinda rough, but it’s not TERRIBLE. They didn’t really have to change that much, honestly. There’s even a Mega CD Bios room, which they didn’t change, at all, for the Sega CD version, even though the Sega CD Bios are NOTHING like that. There is a SINGLE room they changed, and by changed I mean literally just removed, and it was killed with kanji and would be hard to bring over here, so fair.

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Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention, the game’s sound effects are fucking fantastic. It’s literally just one dude making all the sounds with his mouth. Gun sounds? Mouth. Explosions? Mouth. Twisting moving things? Mouth. Zippy zaps? You better believe its mouth time.

There are so many fun and creative rooms here, and yes, not all the jokes or humor land. There’s a lot of vomit and grossy kinda stuff, but it’s for kids, who cares. A lot of it is REALLY fun, or cute, or clever. I think my favorite room is the Mona Lisa room, though there are other great contendors.

I don’t recommend 100%ing this game, but frankly, even if you do, it’s just 8 hours of watching funny animations. Pace yourself. Without that, it’s an hour or two and well worth your time.