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Sacred Reviews: Hello Panda

"Hello Panda" is a vertical shoot'em up developed by hima using Game Maker Studio that feels highly dated in one way. This is because the game is stuffed to the brim with pop culture references such as one of the bosses being a nod to the 1992 film Sister Act of all things.



As you can imagine this game being full of pop culture references also means those references are getting really old considering this game was released back in 2008. In fact, some of those references like The Matrix (1999) were already quite dated when this game came out. There is a reason professional comedians try to avoid pop culture references in movies since those references will eventually date the movie. This also applies to games as well, but I'm guessing most people playing this game now a days are either die-hard fans of this genre or old enough to appreciate just how dated the references in this game are.

The Story
Summary

The player gets to take on the roll of one of the members of the Hello Pandas a small gang comprised of three of the deadliest criminals alive. A small criminal gang willing to kill anyone in order to get their hands on anything that exists in this world and it appears the Hello Pandas current target is a super weapon that appears to most people to be a painting known as "The Son Of The Sun". Of course, if they want to get said painting their going to have to deal with a whole bunch of security first and some of them are also into wearing animal masks. I guess everyone wants to be part of the ANBU from "Naruto" in this game. Of course, even when you win you still can't rest easy since there are still three more copies of this "painting" out there and when you retrieved the first one you appear to have broken it, but I suppose the second painting is a mission for another time.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

Like a lot of comedy games this project is kind of ride or die when it comes to it's comedy. Admittedly the underlying game is pretty solid, but it's also repetitive. As a result this game comes to rely on it's whacky plot and dated pop culture references to keep the player invested enough to reach the end. And to be fair, this combo is pretty effective in my opinion.

Gameplay

On the gameplay front the game is a pretty basic vertical shoot'em up at first glance. As such you can spam your regular attack by simply holding down the z key, you can activate your special attack by pressing x key if you have enough blood stored up, you can upgrade your weapon using the c key if you have enough blood stored up, and you can activate your super move by pressing the space bar. And the super moves in this game truly are super and make you feel powerful when you activate them. In fact, your super move is the equivalent of the bomb in most other games of this type. The only notable difference between this game and a lot of other entries in the genre is that you have an infinite number of continues. As such even someone whose dodging skills are rather mediocre in my opinion can get through this game.

Outside of that slight tweak to the usual formula you have your usual staple of dealing with regular enemies and a mid-boss before being confronted with a multi-phase boss fight where you'll need to carefully dodge swarms of incoming bullets while trying to take out your opponent at the same time.



You can also parry a bullet by pressing the attack key just before it hits you, but you have to stop firing in order for this to work. To be honest, I never found a use for this considering I was more than willing to just press yes when presented with the continue option, but I imagine someone more obsessed with getting a high score would love this feature.

Though if I had to pick one thing that bothered me about this game is that a lot of enemies are shamelessly recycled between stages. Admittedly the ones on the next stage have a slightly different paint job, but their movement is still fundamentally the same so they tend to be rather easy to deal with. And it does get a bit repetitive shooting the same types of enemies over and over and over again as you advance through the game.

Graphics

The game manages to look rather stylish with it's color scheme that is largely dominated by the colors black and red. Though considering the Hello Pandas get their powers from consuming the blood of their enemies. It only makes sense for the game to look like lakes of crimson have been sprayed everywhere.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game relies on music from several movies such as Sister Act, The Matrix, and Kill Bill. Thankfully this wide variety of music works rather well in my opinion due to the referential nature of this game.

Conclusion

"Hello Panda" is a fun game in my opinion and the ability to continue as many times as you want means even people that aren't particularly good at bullet hell games can get through this one. At the same time the highly dated references might be a problem for some people. After all, a lot of the references in this game are over 25 years old at this point in time and only getting older. Oh well, I suppose this just makes this game ever more niche for an older audience that grew up with these movies.