Incredible timing
This week I was supposed to be doing Brave Fencer Musashi. However, I forgot to save at one point and lost more than two hours of progress, which really took the wind out of my sails. Years of autosave have completely atrophied my “save early, save often” instinct. So I needed something else on my shelf that I could play in short order. Incredible Crisis wasn’t something I had played before, but it seemed like it would fit the bill.
I knew two things about this game: it’s weird, and it’s really short. Oh, wait. That also means that I don’t know if it’s good or not. Did I choose the right column for it? Oh no, what if it’s bad? I really should have done more homework first.
Incredible credentials
Actually, if I had done my homework, I probably would have been reassured that Kenichi Nishi of Chibi-Robo and Love-de-Lic fame worked on the script for Incredible Crisis. Beyond that, hm…
In any case, Incredible Crisis released in 1999 in arcade and PS1 in Japan under the name Tondemo Crisis. Tondemo means “ridiculous” or “outrageous,” so the translation is pretty accurate. In 2000, it was localized in Europe and North America by none other than Titus Interactive. I generally know Titus as being one of the worst publishers of the early 3D era, being responsible for games such as Carmageddon 64 and Superman (on N64). I have a phrase that references their logo, “It ain’t no fun if there’s a fox on the box.” Incredible Crisis is one of the rare exceptions.
That’s probably largely because they only handled the localization of the game. Polygon Magic handled development and Tokuma Shoten Publishing published it in Japan. The translation is rather faithful, at the very least, but they cut out two of the 26 mini-games because they relied heavily on kanji. It’s kind of obvious, but also not that big of a loss because 24 is already a lot of mini-games.
Incredible concept
Incredible Crisis is really just a string of disparate mini-games connected by a narrative. It’s sort of like if WarioWare had longer microgames and more cohesive progression.
Surprisingly, Incredible Crisis isn’t quite as weird as I expected. It starts with the patriarch of the family, Taneo, exercising with his co-workers at the office through some light disco. Then he’s chased by a vengeful objet d’art. It’s not long before he abandons the holy institution of marriage to fuck a woman in a ferris wheel, only to have her leave a bomb behind as she jumps into a helicopter. Typical. I guess they were aiming for a scenario that most people would find relatable.
Taneo’s wife, Etsuko, on the other hand, finds herself helping some furries rob a bank. After decoding a piggybank by performing a musical number, she escapes via snowboard before returning home in a Harrier Jet.
Meanwhile, one of the family kids gets shrunk by an enormous teddy bear and chased by a praying mantis. The daughter skips school to go shopping before finally returning an alien back to its mothership.
All this is just so the family can avoid the wrath of the matriarchal grandparent. It’s her birthday, and she just wants everyone to be together for dinner, the selfish coot.
Incredible narrative
While the mundane themes of family life permeate the narrative, the mini-games also bare a similar level of humdrum. Many of the levels mirror slice-of-life dramas like Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones. One mini-game has you trying to balance the weight of your groceries so you can disarm the trap beneath a piggy bank. A few of them have you avoiding obstacles as you coast to your destination, and a bunch of them have you furiously mashing the X button.
Incredible Crisis is rather enjoyable. It can feel unfair at times as you try to grapple with timing, rules, and controls based on a short instructional window. They’re not particularly complicated, but some of them can take a few attempts to get perfect. It really succeeds by presenting you with something new at every turn. There are a lot of attempts to screw with you, but it’s all enjoyable fun.
As it turns out, though, it really only takes 2-3 hours to finish Incredible Crisis for the first time. This is taking failures and game overs into consideration. I suppose if you have flaccid thumbs, it might be a bit more of a challenge, but I found it just right when it came to getting acclimated on the fly.
If there’s one major downside, it’s that the difficulty is kind of all over the place. This might just be a case of how quickly you adapt to certain concepts, but there would be some that I’d drop a slew of lives on, while the very next one I’d clear in one attempt.
Incredible header
However, I think a lot of the complaints are only a problem if you take Incredible Crisis seriously, and I don’t think that’s the right mindset to go into it with. It’s clearly just here to entertain while telling the tragic story of a lonely old woman who just wants to spend her birthday with her family.
Everything is told through lavish cutscenes that make the smart decision of sticking with the low-poly visuals of the actual gameplay. Many PS1 games aimed for some manner of realistic CG cutscenes, that kind of feel isolated from the actual gameplay. Having the cutscenes mimic the in-engine graphics helps everything flow together. It’s enough that I’d like to see a remaster of the game with the visuals upscaled and cleaned up but otherwise intact. They’re masterfully done, and I think they would shine better without having to deal with compression artifacts.
Incredible Crisis isn’t exactly a revolutionary game, but it’s a charming and lovingly assembled game that sparkles under its bright personality. It makes me want to retch having to give Titus props for anything, but I appreciate them for having brought this title to us. It seems like a risky venture since it is extremely Japanese and was released during a time when we weren’t quite acclimated to the country’s unique culture. But here it is. Thank you, Titus. Ugh. I suddenly feel like I need to brush my teeth.
For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!
