One of my methods of preliminary research for my kusoge column–my dumpster scouting, if you will–involves searching through old forum threads of people describing bad games they played. You kind of have to sift through the obvious mentions of Too Human and the philistines who say something like King’s Field, but sometimes I come across something I’ve never heard of, and I go into it largely sight-unseen.
A brief synopsis, the claim that it’s terrible, and bonus points if someone says “for some reason.” This can be, “The game is about X, for some reason.” Or, alternatively, “My friend and I couldn’t stop playing it, for some reason.”
Mad Panic Coaster was one of those games. Developed by a company not known for game development, released only in Japan, about a concept that hasn’t had its time in the spotlight. It’s perfect.
And it also happens to be my favorite kind of kusoge (crap game), the kind that I really get into.
Victim of gravity
Mad Panic Coaster was released in 1997, exclusively in Japan, by a company called Hakuhodo. Normally, Hakuhodo is an advertising company, but they seem to have very briefly dabbled with game publishing. Aside from Mad Panic Coaster, they did 1999’s Himiko-Den Renge. However, they just published that one. Mad Panic Coaster doesn’t have a development company listed, and most of the people involved aren’t really linked to any other company.
If it was developed in-house, it’s pretty strange subject matter to pick. Essentially, Mad Panic Coaster is a reverse of Roller Coaster Tycoon. Someone has designed a roller coaster for you to die on, and you’re probably going to. You should have waited until a safety rating was established before you got on the ride, but you didn’t.
The story told in the manual (with some great-looking art) tells of a guy who wanted to create the world’s best roller coaster for his child. An accident leaves him horribly disfigured, and also his child grows up to be a disgusting rich person who is no longer interested in roller coasters.
That’s it. That’s what I got. I felt like I was missing a couple of pages, but they’re numbered and definitely all there. To fill in the blanks, I’m going to guess that the heroes, Bakuyan and Kyako, were kidnapped and are being used as surrogate-children-slash-crash-test-dummies. The pair is placed on some hellish murder coasters, and simply have to survive. Which would probably be easier if the cart was actually on a track.
White knuckles
Mad Panic Coaster kind of feels like a cross between F-Zero and a rail shooter. The whole thing moves at mach speed, and you’re constantly fighting to keep yourself from sliding off the edge of the track. Meanwhile, enemies and other hazards drop in ahead of you, and you need to either avoid them or blow them up.
It a great mix of amazing and disturbing. The game moves so quickly, and the hardware never slows down. You can attack by throwing bombs and avoiding obstacles, but you have so little reaction time available that it’s difficult to hit anything. Bombs are thrown at three different distances, and gauging distance in the short amount of time between the enemy appearing, a curve obscuring them, and your cart simply smashing into them is very difficult. Just staying on the track is a huge struggle at first.
When you start, the whole thing can feel impossible as you’re tossed around helplessly. Eventually, you might get the feel for it. However, the further I got into the game, the more I relied on just mashing the attack button to try and take out enemies. It’s so difficult to aim, but if an enemy drives into an explosion, they die.
The way the Gods of Momentum intended
It’s the aesthetic that really makes Mad Panic Coaster worth checking out today. Both the art and music team obviously had a real passion for the title. The whole thing kicks off with a monster-led concert. The characters are extremely expressive, and every level has an unnecessary number of unique enemies that you barely glimpse as you speed by.
While the environments are largely rendered with 3D polygons, the characters are all stylized 2D sprites. The hazy backgrounds and sporadic, nightmarish scenery really capture the feeling and spirit of a carnival ride, while the characters have an edgy, cartoonish style to them. It also looks distinctly PS1. I feel like, if a sequel was ever made, trying to upgrade the graphics to something cleaner, the whole game wouldn’t work quite as well. It needs that unpolished look.
The music is a thrashy punk sound, and while it’s not typically the sort of sound I listen to, I can’t help but think it’s the most appropriate.
Don’t blink
I thought Mad Panic Coaster would be a pretty quick game to get through, but that’s definitely not the case. There are 15 individual tracks to make it through across 5 different zones. Each zone is capped off with a boss battle, which are kind of the low part to the entire game.
Largely the reason why I figured that it would be a very short experience is because Mad Panic Coaster feels like something that was meant for the arcade. Sort of similar to Incredible Crisis. Something about the short levels, the quick action, and the need to frequently retry the same sections repeatedly feels like it was meant to eat quarters. It would have been right at home in one of those full-body experience cabinets that you could sit in. Maybe they could have even had you lean to control it. Unfortunately, it never made it off PS1.
If there’s one part of the whole experience that I don’t like, it’s the fact that you start off being towed up a hill, like you would on an actual roller coaster. It’s a good idea to give a sense of anticipation, but considering that death comes frequently in this game, you’ll probably be sick of seeing it after the third time. It’s completely unskippable.
The difficulty is also all over the place. Up and down. Like some sort of… amusement park ride. The place I got stuck for the longest was actually the first level in the second world. The track is icy and slippery, which proved to be extremely difficult to adjust for. Every once in a while, I’d ace an entire track, while others I’d beat my head against. It can be harsh.
One hell of a ride
While Mad Panic Coaster is a somewhat clunky game because of its impossible demands for fast reactions, it’s hard to get past the team’s obvious affection for the project. If anyone in the company was predicting it would be an extremely obscure title that would never leave Japan, it definitely doesn’t show. The concept is beyond bizarre and extremely limited, but a lot of passion and effort was poured into making it unique.
It’s unfortunate that it has never made it off the PS1, or even out of Japan. For that matter, actually getting a physical copy is a rather expensive endeavor. Considering Hakuhodo isn’t really in the video game business anymore, I have to wonder how hard it would be for a developer to license it for a re-release. Would it be worth it? I just feel like it’s a tragedy that something so bizarre yet fascinating isn’t more accessible.
