Panic Restaurant (NES)

Lucky me! I got invitation to Grand Opening of a restaurant. It’s Panic Restaurant where the foods are moving around and hard to catch. Wait! That doesn’t sound right.

So, today I review Panic Restaurant developed by EIM limited and published by Taito in 1992. As for the title itself, well. It's quite obscured platformer game on NES with cuisine theme. You can tell that the “panic” part of the title is real as it breaks brick wall in panic in the title screen. There’s no option menu or password which is not good sign. Pressing “start” button will start new game directly.

Note: please don’t search for game’s box art of US version. You have been warned.     

It was fine sunny day, until rain of fruit falls on chef Cookie. There’s Indonesian proverb “like getting a durian fall” which means getting unexpected fortune but chef Cookie doesn’t look like getting some good fortune there. On the bright side, the heaviest fruit that fall on his head is pumpkin which has thick rind but still significantly better than getting durian on his head. That fruit has hard thorny rind and you don’t want your head get hit by it, believe me.   

Then the main villain Ohdove flies in with umbrella like Mary Poppins if she’s Waluigi with chef hat, that is. With expensive land rent around here, it’s reasonable Ohdove decides to take over someone else restaurant instead of buy new building. If he was honorable chef, he could make joint venture with Chef Cookie but no he’s evil like that. Anyway, Chef Cookie doesn’t lie on the ground idle, he must reclaim his restaurant from evil Chef Ohdove.

There’s this intermission screen, which shows stage you’re in. There is total 6 stages. First stage is Appetizer with picture of pumpkin which is probably rejected Halloween property because it’s too adorable and not scary enough. But still, I don’t want to eat fruit that has facial feature and arm.

Then there’s the map which shows you where Chef Cookie currently is. Kind of like in Ghost n Goblin series. I know that Ohdove says “C’mon!” is meant to taunt Chef Cookie but I like to think that he encourage Cookie instead. Now I want GnG game where there’s Fire Brand/Red Arreemer in map screen, saying “C’mon!” too.

So off Chef Cookie goes to save his restaurant. The control is d-pad to move him around, “A” button to jump, and “B” button to attack with his frying pan [Eat your heart, PUBG!] that I assume he just bought it this morning, leaving his restaurant so Ohdove take it over. Always remember to lock the door and window before leaving, reader. On the street, Chef Cookie is being attacked by running skinned broilers and pretty carrots which easily reminds me of Chauncey Chantenay in Cuphead.

Then there’s sentient sausage and more carrot ladies at the hallway of the restaurant. Also, I find giant soup spoon as weapon. Chef Cookie takes quite time to swing the frying pan and the giant spoon. But the latter has longer range than the former.    

 

Next room after that hallway is boss fight room and I’m immediately chomped by the boss. Heavy_paincrticialdeath03.wav   

 

Chef Cookie has funny death animation where he spins around first and then drop dead with one foot stand. It’s pretty amusing to see. Heavy_laughlong02.wav

 

Ok. I know where I did wrong. Back then I was scared with the boss because I have no idea what is it, that I stand still in corner where they will attack me next time. So, I have to move to the center immediately and try to whack my pan to the boss. After watching the boss’ death animation, I realize that it’s giant pan full of popcorn. It burst out popcorn and coins upon death. Engineer_mvm_collect_credits03.wav   

 

With that first stage is cleared. I like the jaunty running of Chef Cookie in this stage finish screen. He knows that he’s closer to reclaim his beloved restaurant every stage cleared. God bless him.

 

Coin that you collected from dead enemies, can be used for this slot machine intermission. Betting for each line, costs 1 coin. You can skip this intermission and use the coin for next opportunity but keep in mind that coin that you collected can be lost if you die. Moreover, there’s no free health refill after clearing stage. You can only get health refill after stage in this slot machine intermission.

 

Next stage is soup course or horrible sand creature on soup bowl. It looks scary and unappetizing.   

Look at them, don’t have proper table manner smh. In this stage, the enemies are walking pudding and rolling pizza. I don’t think the pizza is sentient or anything because it doesn’t have leg, arm, or eye. Ohdove rolls it from off-screen, I assume.   

 

This stage introduces us with elevator on the end of hallway which is alternative vertical transport besides ladder. I quiet like it. But the thing is, it moves up and down periodically. So if you miss it, you have to wait it to come down which can be trouble because the game has timer.

 

I found a ladder that leads me to this bonus stage. It says “Catch the fish!”. I hope it’s not Jaws.

 

It’s not the infamous shark, thankfully. My goal here is catching these fishes that stupidly jump out of water instead just stay underneath it like common fish does. There’s noticeable time between the artificial hand travel to grab forward and button pressed. So you have to time it right. There’s also bullet bill in its natural habitat and naturally you mustn’t catch it. What? You didn’t know bullet bill naturally lives in sea. You should learn more about Mushroom Kingdom lore, then.     

 

Speaking of Mushroom Kingdom, there’s Goomba but not really. It’s sleeping bulb onion. If you whack it with pan, it will burst into smaller onion. So tap them twice.

 

Then I got killed by exploding apple. They said “An apple a day will keeps doctor away”. They should add “And also kill chef”. There’s so little I can do with 2 health at maximum. But there’s lollipop item right where the apple spawns, which is full heal item. Moreover, I realize that I can whack away the apple piece with my pan. With the precision of enemies and how you have to deal with them, I think this game resembles Castlevania but short-range pan attack instead of long whip. Unless you happen to pick the giant spoon with longer reach. The game become even more similar to the famous Konami’s vampire killing game.

 

You know the game cliché “Chandelier always fall”? But in this game chandeliers drop lighting instead. My mind blown! :o

 

There’s temporary invincible item in this game and it takes form of wok? Yeah, no kidding. Chef Cookie put the wok on his head and start spinning, obliterating anything in his way. Demoman_taunts15.wav

 

Another weapon that you can get is giant fork which Chef Cookie use it as pogo stick. Don’t question how fork can bounce on the ground like the kid jumpy toy. It just works like that. I think this is the worse weapon in this game because it doesn’t add range compared to the pan. You can make Chef Cookie jump higher when using the giant fork if you can press the jump button in right timing but it’s pretty hard for me.

 

Anyway, the boss in this level is... I hope you prepare your heart for it. It’s chickens voluntarily get inside a microwave oven like some kind of Armored Personnel Vehicle that like to jump around. It occasionally unloads some chicken into you that you can smack away with pan or spoon.   

 

With the oven exploding, the chickens within it, are flying to the great chicken coop in the sky. This blows my mind but I just ignore it and collect coins that the oven drops.

 

Next stage is salad and they’re singing. How adorable. They probably sing “Please, don’t eat us!”. No, I won’t.

I find new weapon: plate. Now, I can throw plates at my enemies like Mononobe no Futo. Wonderful!

Chef Cookie need to jump over this bubbling soup via delicate bubbles. The timing for this jump is -needless to say- very strict. If Cookie falls to soup, he dies immediately. That’s quite make sense, no normal human can survive within boiling soup. Is the kitchen oversized or Chef Cookie is small? Either way, this stage reminds me of Monster in My Pocket for some reason.

Suddenly, I get hit by fire from stove. How am I supposed to know that thing is stove? There’s no knob or anything to turn on/off the stove to indicate that the floor is (modern) stove. Anyway, I like the cute tea on the cup. Sadly, it’s enemy.

The elevator in this stage is a kettle being boiled and the lid take me up to upper level. It’s cute concept of elevator.

There’s also enemy toaster that periodically spawn cute toasts. Such a shame I have to hit them with plate. Speaking of it, the plate doesn’t travel straight forward. Its flight path has shallow curve down, thus limiting the range. However, the plate is the best weapon and the only range weapon in this game.

I go into another bonus stage, this time I have to catch the egg (fresh from bird’s cloaca even) with my frying pan. It’s Chicken Farm all over again. But it won’t be that simple because for some reason Chef Cookie’s arm is slippery. His arm doesn’t immediately stop when I stop pressing direction button. There’s slippery momentum to it. What even weirder is sometime birds drop bombs instead of egg from their cloaca. It’s the same level of weirdness as crow in Resident Evil 4 that drops hand grenade when killed.

 

Eventually, I encounter the boss and it’s a sentient wok. Shrimps fall from above, forcing you to take cover under the center platform. Some of them fall into the wok. After cooking them for a while, the wok drops down from the platform and spray fried shrimp at you. That’s the moment where you can hit him with frying pan or any weapon you currently have but be careful of fried shrimps. After that, the wok returns to center platform and repeat the pattern. Because I’m allergic to shrimps, I can see them as deadly projectile.  

We’re halfway there. Next stage is fish course. The fish is either grumpy or Tsundere. I can’t tell for sure. But I know for sure, I don’t want to eat it.  

The stage takes place in outdoor but no fish pond as I can see. With flying skewer and chair around, this place is more appropriate for BBQ place instead for fishing. This is my complaint about this game. The meal course and the stage itself or the boss don’t match except, maybe appetizer’s boss stage is pan full of popcorn. If you can treat popcorn as appetizer, that is. Microwave full of chicken is certainly not fitting as soup. Fried shrimps are certainly not salad. So I can guess that this boss stage is not fish related.

 

The stage turns weirder with section full of chain, and steel coil. This is certainly not fishing related. I can see there’s plate weapon over there but I can’t get it. If that steel part on my right didn’t exist, I could get there no problem.

 

On next section there’s enemy cloud that drop lightning. I try to whack it with frying pan but it doesn’t work. I like the Chef Cookie’s pose as if he’s doing air assassination with his trusty pan.

 

The game demands you to deal with the enemies precisely as some of them are strategically positioned, especially in this stage in section with chain that you climb. There are flying skewers ready to fly at you near the climbable chain then this carrot is burrowed near the end of chain. If you don’t want to take damage from her, you have to lure her out of your way and swiftly whack her. It’s not easy thing to do.

You think once you pick the invincibility wok, you’re impervious to any harm (except pit fall) and you can get that 1up icon on the knives safely, right? Tough luck. You will die once you touch those knives. If you can pick the 1up in process, it’s fair trade of life at least. So, the wok doesn’t safe you from spikes unlike invincibility star in Super Mario Bros, I think? If you look carefully at Chef Cookie’s feet, they have same color as his hand and face. Meaning, all this time Chef Cookie is barefoot! That’s horrible violation of work safety standard! No wonder, he dies when stepping on the knife while wearing the wok on his head.  

 

The boss is giant sentient burger. Unless the patty is made of fish meat, the boss is not related to fish. It’s closer to outdoor BBQ theme that I proposed. After jumping around, the burger launches the upper bun and lower bun. Later they fall besides the burger and reform. I forget to tell you that Chef Cookie can crouch though he can’t attack while doing so. I like the fact that Cookie look at the hazard behind him as he crouch. Nice detail.

 

Suddenly, I’m dead in the middle of boss fight although i’m sure I didn’t get hit by any boss’ attack. Turns out: I’m out of time with all those careful dodging or whatnot. Here’s main problem in gameplay: there’s no item that increase time limit or even auto time limit refresh on checkpoint like in Ghouls n Ghost! So, either you finish the level within allotted time or you purposefully die to reset the timer. Either way doesn’t sound fun. At least, we get to see the game over screen which is cute. Chef Cookie given up on his restaurant and just sleep all night. Once you continue, the screen turns daytime, the sign turn into open, and Chef Cookie back in business. There’s no password but thankfully you have unlimited continue.

 

Once, the timer is reset. I can defeat the Big Burger boss with no problem. Next stage is meat course. I like the way the chicken looks surprised because they are about to be eaten.

 

5th stage takes place in freezer room. Restaurant usually put meat on freezer room so hopefully this stage follows the right theme. There’s new enemy: sentient cone ice cream that sometime walk casually or sliding along the floor which makes them faster.

 

You have to be careful with cold gush around this part. Not only the hurt you but also make you frozen a bit, wasting the precious time needlessly.

 

Of course, there’s ice spikes in this stage. Safety inspector will have some word with Chef Cookie after he reclaim this restaurant. Then there’s ice pops moving up slowly. They remind me something…  

Metal Slug X (Neo Geo)

Ah, yes. They look like rocket/missile in Metal Slug X. Or if you want older reference, there’s also rocket/missile in In The Hunt. Anyway, back to the panic restaurant.

So far, I don’t see any meat. But I see hanged fishes. Some of them will fall so be careful.  

Then Chef Cooke dead by falling into ice spikes. If only he wore hard boots instead of barefoot, he would survive this. I had hard time on this platforming section because there’s crumbling platforms and ice pops. If I do the series of jumping continuously, the last ice pop will get me. Turns out, I can wait in platforms that are supported by piped there. Those platforms won’t fall.

 

The boss is -again- not related to the stage’s name. It’s giant ice cream. Although it’s appropriate in freezer room but I’m thinking sentient frozen beef is better for boss in this stage but beggar can’t be picky. Besides jumping around like any boss in nes game, the boss will throw the ice cream from her head, one by one.

 

Once she’s out of ice cream to throw away. She will crushes ice block on the ground either until you fall down or she dies. She’s not the only boss who resort to break the ground and hopefully player will lose footing. Dr. Robotnik does similar thing in Sonic 2, I think. Or final boss in Popful Mail on Sega CD version.

 

The last stage is Dessert although the name should be more fitting for the very precious stage we had been! But I can’t get more angrier as I witness the cutest pudding that I’ve ever seen. Anyway, last stage. Here we go!

 

And it’s freaking sewer level! I know that every nes game should have sewer level but sewer is the least healthy stage for game with cuisine theme. Not even the smiling pumpkin enemy can calm me down. I just going to whack them with my bloody pan.

 

Another enemy type in this stage is fish from waterfall. Despite the cuisine theme of this game, I don’t think those fish is safe to eat given they come from waterfall of freaking sewer! Besides, they’re 80% mouth.

 

Meat skewer enemies are back. But there’s new enemy type. I think they’re pasta holder. They jump and, on their way down they shoot barrage of pasta. They’re pretty tricky to defeat but not impossible. They mostly vulnerable before jumping and you can smash away the pasta projectile with well-timed pan smack.

After delving deeper into sewer…

 

Finally, we meet Ohdove. So, are we going to fight? No. He runs away with flying wok powered with a single balloon.

 

Somehow, Chef Cookie manages to find spare flying wok in off screen. Although it looks sad, our wok looks modern because it has jet propeller. This moment reminds me of Gadget Twins. Not a good sign.  

 

The final boss fight is indeed not good. Ohdove move to left or right side and able to shoot 3-way carrot projectiles. On the other hand, my woks move slower than his. My frying pan smash is replaced with lobbing egg. The egg throw certainly has more range than the frying pan but it’s not much saving grace for this boss fight, especially when I can only throw 1 egg at a time. To defeat Ohdove: you have to hit the balloon with egg about 6 times however -like- every 2 times he’s on the right side he will pump the balloon, restoring it to full health. There are few cases of boss in games, that can heal themselves and it’s terrible idea! Although Ohdove is final boss so he kind of have privilege to heal his vehicle to full health, it’s still terrible gameplay design. If only Cookie has something sharper than egg, like Chef Knife, which is appropriate with restaurant theme! Anyway somehow, I manage to burst the balloon in time. I think if I attack him from closer range, the egg throw rate becomes faster because it lands on the balloon faster thus allowing me to throw another egg faster.

 

After he defeats Ohdove, Cookie’s wok gone berserk and explodes luckily, he manage to grab a balloon to slow down his fall on the restaurant’s roof. Later he stands on the entrance of the restaurant and making victory sign. Happy end.    

 

EIM limited’s Panic Restaurant (1992) is decent and cute platformer game. I very fond of the restaurant theme. However, I’m still baffled with the inconsistency of boss with the stage’s theme. Then the final stage is freaking sewer! It could be rooftop or office room. Restaurant need place for administration, you know? The final boss fight turns into horizontal shoot em up with intuitive automatic turn around, which is surprising at first. The initial weapon: frying pan, is quite cumbersome to use. It’s too slow and short. If it’s 50% longer, the frying pan becomes more adequate as initial weapon. Thankfully the extra weapons are useful (except the fork) although you will lose them if you get hit once, which is cruel design. On the other hand, it only takes 1 hit to defeat any of lesser enemies. As I have mentioned before that the lacks of item to restore timer, is quite troublesome. The game is pretty hard with strategic enemy placement and small health pool which is only 2 or you can max it out up to 4 with bonus in slot machine intermission. It is worth to mention that the enemies will respawn as soon as their spawning point is away from your screen. So, if you avoid the flying skewer by running way back, it will respawn. So you either avoid it while moving forward or give it precise pan whack. Although the enemy respawn mechanism is generally detrimental, it can be useful for coin “farming”. However, don’t let the coin “farming” makes you forget about the time limit. The score is kind of pointless because you don’t get 1up for reaching certain score or there’s no top score board that memorize your top score. The slot machine section is random in usefulness. It’s only beneficial if you got dozens of coins otherwise it’s useless. The best prizes are extra maximum health and extra lives. The bonus stages are fun and such but they’re not useful because you only get bonus score in them. The music is jolly and good. While the sound effect is rather good. The graphic is cute and gorgeous.

Panic Restaurant (1992) is quite good platformer game although you can’t underestimate the difficulty level despite the cute graphic. I like to give it credit for having niche plot. Most game protagonists try hard to rescue damsel in distress whereas Chef Cookie fight to reclaim his restaurant. It’s pretty reasonable story because without the restaurant, where else Cookie can work? It’s important matter of line of work. It’s so realistic!