Review: Space Lift Danger Panic!

Fun while it lasts!

By Anthony Vigna. Posted 01/28/2015 09:00 Comment on this     ShareThis
The Final Grade
C
Decent
grade/score info
1up
1-Up Mushroom for...
Great retro aesthetic and chiptune soundtrack; Online leader boards.
1up
Poison Mushroom for...
Gameplay is a bit too simple; Can get tedious in long gaming sessions; Lack of variation.

One of my favorite games on my iPhone is Tiny Dice Dungeon, a retro-styled RPG developed by Spingloaded that incorporates dice rolling into battling. On your turn, you can continuously roll the dice as many times as you want to increase your attack power, but if you roll a one, you lose your turn! This risk and reward system is incredibly simple, yet it’s also what makes the game so addictive. I really enjoyed pressing my luck on my rolls in order to KO my enemies before they could attack me back.

Springloaded’s first 3DS game, Space Lift Danger Panic!, shares a few similarities with Tiny Dice Dungeon. Not only does it utilize a retro aesthetic and chiptune soundtrack, it also has a very simple gameplay mechanic at its core. But while Tiny Dice Dungeon has a simple, yet addictive gameplay mechanic that makes it great, Space Lift Danger Panic! is just plain simple.

In Space Lift Danger Panic!, people are falling from the sky on the top screen and heading towards spikes on the bottom screen. When you tap the bottom of the screen, you create small portals that can bring these people to safety. So, the player must create a series of portals to save as many falling people as possible. If you’re familiar with the Game & Watch games, the gameplay in Space Lift Danger Panic! highly resembles Parachute.

Space Lift Danger Panic!‘s mission mode breaks the game into 40 different levels, each of which can be beaten in about a minute. Every level has floating coins, which can be spent on extra lives to make the game easier. In total, the whole mission mode can be beaten in an hour, but you can get a decent amount of replay value from trying to lose no lives in a single level. There’s also survival mode, which keeps going on until the player loses all of their lives. This mode feels the most like Game & Watch’s Parachute, as the difficulty level continuously rises as you get further into the level.

That’s really all there is to the game. Possible variations, such as power-ups and different falling speeds for the people, are completely nonexistent. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Space Lift Danger Panic! isn’t fun as a whole. I personally found survival mode to be the highlight of the game, as it was a ton of fun to compete against others through the game’s online leader board. The core game itself is also very polished and can be very fun in short bursts. Plus, the game is at a decent value when you consider that it’s only a three dollar game. Unfortunately, I found that the game can get a bit boring and tedious through extended playthroughs that lasted over 20 minutes.

You’ll know exactly what you’re getting into each time you play Space Lift Danger Panic!. The only thing that changes is the amount of people falling down from the screen, and while it’s fun to try to save them all, the gameplay is way too simple to hold your interest over time. Space Lift Danger Panic! is a hard game to recommend to those looking for a unique, deep experience, but it’s a pretty decent game for those looking to kill some time in short bursts.


Nintendojo was provided a copy of this game for review by a third party, though that does not affect our recommendation. For every review, Nintendojo uses a standard criteria.

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