Stretch Panic

released on Jul 27, 2001

Stretch Panic is an action/platform video game designed by Treasure Co. Ltd. It was a landmark title for the developer as it was their first game to feature movement on a 3D plane; prior to Stretch Panic they had exclusively been a developer of 2D titles. The game revolves around a girl named Linda who has the power to pinch, stretch, and bend objects and enemies with a magic scarf as she battles her evil sisters.


Released on

Genres


More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Ignoring the enemies with the titanic boobs, this game is really charming! A weird primary mechanic that uses the sticks in unique ways compared to other games at the time, the boss fights are varied and interesting and a well-aged art style make it stand out in a lot of ways. Plus, it's one of those games that will make you wonder what the hell you're playing, which is always a plus for me.

(Also just let the enemies with the titanic boobs live their lives. They're icons.)

EVIL eminem be like "so LITTLE fun just to grab a boob"


So this was one of the games of all time.

Stretch Panic came at an interesting point in developer Treasure’s history, perhaps their only game in the 6th generation and beyond that wasn’t either a licensed game or a hyperpolished arcade shooter/shoot ‘em up and it flaunts its weirdness with aplomb. “It’s wackiness and originality will surprise games’s” claims the back of the box, and it’s true. It’s not often you’d have a game from this era that’s so artistically vague within the text itself, amorphously stretching the bosses’ designs, which in the story are considered creations of vanity for numerous petite or plump young girls that their souls need to be excised from. It’s got plenty of color and some decent music and a wacky spirit that doesn’t separate it too far from stuff like Ape Escape before or Katamari after. On paper, a pretty unique context and aesthetic for a boss rush game in line with some of Treasures 16-bit hits like Gunstar Heroes or especially Dynamite Headdy.

That being said, the two underlying problems with all of its good intentions and varied boss fights are the jank of it and the lack of actual design that makes it feel more like what was once a full priced tech demo.

To start with the lack of design, unlike past and future Treasure games such as Gunstar Heroes or Sin and Punishment where each boss fight was preceded by a challenging level, level design is entirely a non-factor. Instead, when not fighting a boss, the only areas that exist in the game are four different areas where the only real enemies called the Bonitas (those INCREDIBLY questionable designs with tiny bodies and breasts substantially bigger than those rubber balls you’d see at a gym) exist to earn points from that need to be grinded out to enter boss doors and exorcise souls (which you only find out how to do from the manual). There’s four of these areas, but even when you unlock more the designs of each are mostly irrelevant. With nothing to do outside of grinding these enemies for points they do little to encourage you to use any ability outside of slingshotting yourself through the environment alone, a concept that almost never comes up during any actual boss fight and can even be pretty annoying if you decide to choose the ice area because of its physics and the camera not accommodating well for the depth perception. This choice reduces anything not done fighting a boss to meaningless level design and point grinding at no limit besides your own patience.

The only thing left to design outside of the bosses that isn’t just in the manual is the ending. It does change depending on how many exorcisms you did, which is nice, but while I understand the vague introduction, especially given the story in the manual I feel like the ending should’ve had more to it to bring everything together. As is, once you defeat the last boss and enter a door the game just stops and hits the credits on you. Thus the intention to say more with this premise is entirely thrown away.

But hey, surely all that stuff would be irrelevant if the boss fights were fun and creative, right? And to be fair, I do enjoy some of these battles. I enjoyed Siren and literally ripping her chorus followers one by one to prevent her from transforming into her deadliest form. I liked Fay Soff and how the method to defeating her is rearranging her body parts like a messed up Mr Potato Head. I enjoyed any boss where you’d have the opportunity to hold them and fling yourself into them like a human slingshot, which you saw plenty of with Miss Mecha, Cyan and Mirage. But there were just as many that missed the mark for me due to either shoddy mechanics or general game jank, which I alluded to earlier.

Stretch Panic feels like a one button game trying to test a new kind of control. Outside of basic option confirms, the face buttons are useless while the directional pad is given no use and left bumper activates a Zelda esque targeting system that still isn’t a true lock on. Instead the control is entirely to move with the left stick, move the scarf with the right stick and launch it with the right bumper to hold and pull. It works adequately most of the time, but some of the time it fails to do what it’s supposed to. A moment where you’re meant to grab onto a boss and pull may be held for either slightly too long or not long enough at little indication (Samantha was particularly bad about this imprecise level of pull, Cinder had issues with imprecisely hoping you could grab her adams apple and not a part right next to it without getting sucked up) and the Scarf Bomb technique you’re meant to do for exorcising the bosses is incredibly janky relative to the cost of using it. It costs 5 points (gotten from either grinding the Bonitas or one by one in hitting boss weak points precisely) and feels like it unnecessarily deactivates when you don’t want to. Holding the enemy without getting hit? Completely fair, it makes sense taking damage would punish you. But randomly detaching your scarf even when both sticks are pushed and you aren’t hurt? That feels unfair more often than not since there’s a good chance the damage dealt wasn’t even high if the exorcism wasn’t completed. It doesn’t work as reliably as it needs to for such a core mechanic with a defined cost.

Speaking of not working reliably, Demonika, which takes the cake as my least favorite boss in this game. She exists in a circular arena with doors, grates and stain glass windows. The only way to make her vulnerable is to pull a door or stain glass window her shadow is residing in, and if she fully breaks a door or grate it’s an instant Game Over. Trying to find which of numerous different doors and grates she could be trying to pop out of relies on a level of awareness and surround sound the PlayStation 2 wasn’t quite capable of yet. It can feel like a crapshoot if you can actually do big damage if she stops in a window or if she spends almost the whole time trying to break open floor grates and doors where your only retaliation is chip damage. Due to the aforementioned detachment issue I was only able to complete the exorcism through attaching to one door that shot lasers and didn’t spawn enemies. One time when trying to do it via the stain glass window it broke early for an instant game over before the exorcism was finished!

Camera controls are entirely done with the bumpers and not unlike Ape Escape this can lead to some issues of not being able to see where you’re going, even moreso here due to how close the camera is to your character and the amount of bombs and missiles certain bosses drop headed your way. The final boss in particular can potentially have so many cannons and missiles and bombs on the screen that the framerate can drop to slideshow level in a game where the camera is so close and cleaning out an arena can be more roundabout than you’d hope. Even flat areas where no thing to interact with exists besides the Bonitas can lag the game; it’s disappointing that the simplistic textures couldn’t lead to stronger performance.

Despite my complaining, Stretch Panic is still a very short game; you aren’t dealing with these mechanics for overly long and if you’re playing in a PS2 emulator with a scan of the manual it shouldn’t cost much besides an afternoon. But minus the deaths and wavering amount of continues the game isn’t THAT much shorter than other Treasure efforts which offered more fun bosses and a stronger, smoother game feel.
As is, Stretch Panic is a paradigm shift, a memorable mixed bag of an experience that exists as a tech demo for a style Treasure would sadly never adapt in when refining their shooters and needing license games to pay the bills. Perhaps the logical conclusion of the scarf pulling in this game would be seen with pulling the string bosses and environments apart in Kirby’s Epic Yarn. As for Stretch Panic itself, I admire the effort and creativity, but the lack of clarity and consistently fun game feel makes it something I’ll likely not ever go back to.

a weird, but wildly unique game from an amazing studio. its more then just the giant boob enemies but also not really

it could be fleshed out more (a LOT more) but as it is, it's a very interesting tech demo for Treasure's 128-bit endeavors. the jiggly-stretchity physics are the PS2's equivalent to Seven Force and all of Alien Soldier on the Mega Drive

A weird fun Treasure game that's experimental with its mechanics. Its alot of fun once you get in the groove wi!th the controls! Music is really bumpin too.

Camera is a bit wonky though, really my only gripe.