Stretch Panic (known as FreakOut in Europe) is a quirky little (and when I say little, I mean little) game where you play as Linda, a young girl, who becomes trapped in a different world and has to save her twelve sisters from the "clutches of the demons of vanity." To help her, she has a possessed scarf that her father gave her that can stretch out and manipulate basically anything that you can touch in the game. Enemies, trees, the ground, the wall, you name it and it can be stretched. This is Stretch Panic's main source of innovation; it's an extremely interesting concept but unfortunately it's not fully realised like it should have been. Don't get me wrong, this is a good game for what it is - it just should be so much more.

I'll get a bit more into the length of the game - and it is awfully short. At the title screen you are greeted by probably the best music in the game. Upon starting a new game you find that the opening sequence is much like a comic, with panels that have text for all the sound effects. Linda is walking down a street with a bunch of presents stacked up in her hands, then a truck rushes past her (knocking down all her presents) and delivers a strange box to her house - her sisters open it up and get sucked inside. Linda decides to venture inside to find out what happened to her sisters. The effects of the room that you are transported to, the Museum of Agony, are very cool; everything is in black and white and has a pencil shading texture to it. This and the opening sequence alone got me psyched up for the game - but then I soon realized that I had no idea what to do. I walked around and button mashed for a bit, figuring out what each button did. I had to read the manual multiple times and still I had to find out what to do myself. Thanks a lot Treasure, for your wonderful tutorial on how to play the game!

After messing around with the controls and using gamer's intuition, I finally found out that I had to have 'points' to open the doors with numbers on them. To get said points I had to go into the EX doors and do something truly unique that I have never experienced in any game ever - I had to use my magical scarf to pinch the gluteus maximus of women with dramatically oversized breasts. Yes, you read this correctly! There are a bunch of women with size omega Z breasts wondering around and to get points you have to squeeze their butts!! Either Treasure has a really unique sense of humor, or they are a crew of crazy, deranged people - but these aren't the only interesting character designs; each of the sisters live in a room and their bodies are transformed into really unique… creatures. Indeed, creativity is where Stretch Panic shines the most.

Once you get enough points, you can open the doors to your sisters' worlds where you're greeted with the monstrosity that you have to defeat in order to transform your sister back to her original form. You do this by using your exorcizing move during the battle (which really makes the fight so much simpler that it's kind of pathetic). All of the sisters change into something depending on their interests and personalities. Cinder is your huge-headed sister (like Linda's wasn't big enough!) who breathes fire, Spinner is your sister who loves athletics and outdoors and turns into… a pickaxe, Miss Mecha is a giant mech and Siren transforms from an angel to a devil. Then there's Fay Soff who also has a huge head and you can rearrange her facial features, Anne Droid V2.1 who is a satellite on a small planet, Jelly-Chan, who like her name implies is made of jelly and Demonica who is so incredibly scary that if you see her you will basically have a heart attack and die. Finally you've got Samantha who has a toy fish attached to her hand and vomits her body weight every time you attack her weak spot, Cyan, a huge alien who must beat by helping the little space invaders around her, Mirage, a butterfly mummy who flies in the sky and turns to stone when she touches water and finally Spirit, a princess who has really long arms and can stretch them like Linda's scarf - and can pull out totems from the ground. Exorcizing a sister reveals what she actually looks like - they're either a morbidly obese, skinny to bulimic proportions or vertically challenged girl elephantitis of the head (like Linda herself). Like I said, the character designs are really interesting and unique, if a little odd. But that's what makes them so good!

The graphics are nice, in a very quirky way - think of the character designs from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and you won't be too far off the mark. These visuals really enhance the creative, oddball effect of the gameplay and they're pretty dark for the most part, which adds a sinister feeling to the proceedings. The worlds are pretty basic but the details on the characters are good; the little design on Linda's scarf is pretty cool to look at and some of the sisters are very well done. There is also a place where you can go to by head-butting the bell in the middle of the Museum, called the Gallery of Shame. Every time you exorcize a sister she is brought here and you can manipulate he body and give her different textures. It's a really neat addition, however it doesn't really add anything to the game.

When it comes to sound, Stretch Panic gets the job done but not much more - apart from the opening theme the music is largely forgettable, although that's not surprising as you'll probably only hear each tune for a few minutes. The sound effects are basic - pinching, hitting, crashing and a ding when you get a point for attacking a weak point for massive damage. There's also voice work, but like the sound effects it's pretty basic. Linda has a few lines like "Oomph!", "All right!", and "Get Funky!" while the sisters have minimal voice work; they're all different but what they say is pretty much the same thing every time. Either a creepy little girl laugh, a malevolent laugh, or a "Dammit!" At least that's what I think they're saying.

Unfortunately, while there was plenty of potential in Stretch Panic, the gameplay should have been much better. First and foremost, using Linda's scarf, the most innovative part of the gameplay, is more of a task than fun. You must first hold R1 to start using the scarf and then you use the right analog stick to move it. However, the scarf can only go so far, which isn't so bad, but it always goes that far. This is a pain because you do not have complete control of it and so it's extremely difficult to pick up something right in front of you. On many occasions I had to try this a few times before I finally got what I was aiming for, despite it being right in front of me, and since you can grab anything and everything you'll be finding yourself grabbing the wall or the floor or some other object that you don't want instead. This sucks, especially when you need to pick stuff up quick (like in Cyan's battle). Add to this a horrible camera and you've got a whole mess of confusion - the camera tends to spin out and lose view of Linda. There is a lock-on feature where you have to hold a button down but this still doesn't guarantee that you will grab anything - it only guarantees that you will lose track of where Linda is and where she's going.

Despite this, Linda has some cool moves. Obviously the most basic is just grabbing an object, which does damage to all enemies even if you just grab and let go, sort of like a pinching attack. If you grab something and hold onto it, then rotate the right analog stick, Linda does a spinning head-butt attack, or click the stick in for a flip. This is Linda's only method of jumping, but you don't really jump that much anyway and I guess it's understandable, considering that she has such a humongous head that's probably hard enough for her body to support, let alone jump with! You can also throw bombs, which is pretty useless considering they're only in about two of the levels, and lastly, you can exorcize Linda's sisters by sending out two additional hands to grab onto them. Then you wiggle the analog sticks around doing even more massive damage and if done correctly, a little demon should fly out and follow you for the rest of the fight.

Another problem is that Linda moves slowly… very slowly… too slowly! It's very troublesome because if you don't move quickly then you're going to get hit, so if the camera spins out and then something comes right at you and you barely have a second to avoid it, getting hit is inevitable. Luckily, none of the sisters are too hard - you'll hardly find yourself dying as long as you figure out the sisters' patterns and can find their weak points. Each sister has one spot that you have to find and then take advantage of, allowing you to deal MASSIVE damage. Most of them are pretty basic while others are more luck than skill. The instruction manual gives you hints on how to beat each of the sisters, but hey, who reads the manual?! The fights are relatively short - you'll be finished within a couple of minutes as long as you can find the weak spot and also use your exorcizing attack at least once. Some of the fights are pretty cool; when you fight Fay Soff everything on her face falls off and you can put the bits back on wherever you like. Fighting Cyan requires you to pick up little space invader guys that are attacked by Cyan and only if they are all up and mobile can you attack Cyan herself. And then there's Samantha, who like I said, after being attacked on her weak spot vomits her body weight every time. Mmm, yummy.

Probably the biggest letdown of Stretch Panic is the length; it took me about an hour and a half to complete it. Yes, an hour and a half! That's probably one of the shortest games I have ever played. Actually, I beat it twice, because the first time I had no idea I was supposed to exorcize your sisters (thanks again, Treasure).

Stretch Panic is a fun game and I'm glad I beat it, even if it was incredibly short. I can't say I loved every moment of it, but there is some entertainment to be had. The scarf grabbing system is very innovative and interesting, but sadly the implementation is clumsy and the potential of the idea is barely tapped. If only the control and camera issues had been fixed and there had been more to the levels, this could have been another oddball Japanese classic. As it is, it's barely more than a demo, ending just when you're starting to get going - by all means pick it up cheat or rent it one weekend, but be warned that it won't keep you wrapped up for long!

Reviewed by Ryan Brenner for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).