Space Lift Danger Panic! (Nintendo 3DS) Review

By Dustin Chadwell 23.02.2015

Review for Space Lift Danger Panic! on Nintendo 3DS

Space Lift Danger Panic! is a recently released 3DS indie title, which originally debuted on iOS platforms back in 2012 from developer Springloaded. It's a relatively simple title with touch-screen-only controls, which attempts to meld a sci-fi story with a very basic gameplay mechanic in a way that mostly works, with some retro-themed visuals and music to tie the whole package together. It's also a very short experience, taking at best a couple of hours to complete, but there's some added replay value via online leader-boards and a survival mode that should be enough to prevent players from deleting the game upon completion. Cubed3 delivers the final verdict in this review.

The narrative portion of Space Lift Danger Panic! is told through small bits of text that appear at the beginning of each stage in the story mode. Here, players learn of the Ceranthian people, the denizens of planet Space-StarX5. The story bits that are gradually doled out do a surprisingly solid job of covering a lot of Ceranthian history, with each stage completed bringing players closer to understanding the Ceranthian's current plight. That plight is what drives the actual gameplay featured, wherein the Ceranthian citizens need to be saved from certain doom.

There's not much point in going into great detail regarding the story for this review considering it's not a lengthy experience and unveiling much will likely spoil the experience. However, it is worth mentioning that the story is well-written, succinct, and feels akin to a sci-fi short story. Outside of the solid soundtrack, the story feels like the most important aspect, which is surprising considering that the game appears to be nothing more than a tapping time-waster at first glance.

Screenshot for Space Lift Danger Panic! on Nintendo 3DS

Space Lift Danger Panic! is primarily built around two modes, Mission Mode and Survival. Mission Mode acts as the campaign, or story portion of the game. This is divided up into forty missions, with the first five acting as tutorials that introduce players to the tapping controls, collecting coins, and saving the Ceranthian's from falling to their deaths. From there the missions introduce the aforementioned story elements, which preface each mission selected.

Survival is somewhat self-explanatory, serving as an endless stage of falling Ceranthians, which applies a score to the number caught and uploads that to online leader-boards, which are divided into overall players and friends, and, quite honestly, are not heavily populated on the 3DS.

Screenshot for Space Lift Danger Panic! on Nintendo 3DS

Cubed3 Rating

7/10
Rated 7 out of 10

Very Good - Bronze Award

Rated 7 out of 10

Space Lift Danger Panic! is a solid port of the iOS original, capitalising on the touch-screen controls for the 3DS, with colourful retro graphics and a solid soundtrack to boot. Sometimes those colourful graphics get in the way of the actual gameplay, but for the most part Space Lift Danger Panic! is a fun, albeit short, experience. The surprising winner here is the sci-fi tinged story that ties the entire package together, which is far better than anyone would expect. Are there better, less-expensive ways to play the game? Yes. Barring the ability to do so, though, Space Lift Danger Panic! is worth checking out on the 3DS eShop.

Developer

Springloaded

Publisher

Springloaded

Genre

Action

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  7/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date None   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date None   

Comments

Comments are currently disabled

Subscribe to this topic Subscribe to this topic

If you are a registered member and logged in, you can also subscribe to topics by email.
Sign up today for blogs, games collections, reader reviews and much more
Site Feed
Who's Online?
Azuardo, mikem52

There are 2 members online at the moment.