Panic Porcupine

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in Retro Rollers Bundle, along with Polyroll)

Panic Porcupine is a challenging Platformer released on PC in 2022 and then ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2023. And it is absolutely clear right from this game’s intro that it is a loving tribute to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Or perhaps to put it more appropriately, this game plays like what you might expect if one of those sadists who designs those absolutely punishing “kaizo” Mario Maker levels decided to make a knockoff Sonic game.

Yeah, Panic Porcupine is extremely difficult, and even though the game lets you know from the start that you’ll have unlimited lives, you will still find yourself restarting levels over and over and over again because, unlike Sonic, you won’t just lose your rings when you take a hit. This game’s levels are designed with this in mind, filled with spikes, chainsaws, and other things that want to kill you. Less-skilled and less-patient players need not apply here.

There is another problem with this game on Nintendo Switch that has nothing to do with the level design or the challenge level, and that’s the visuals. At a glance, these are a decent knockoff of Sonic’s style, with colorful levels that have a fair amount of personality, and your own porcupine character being adorably googly-eyed, and this is backed by a decent approximation of music you might expect from a Sonic soundtrack.

Unfortunately, the real problem reveals yourself when you scroll the screen, and everything gets blurry. For whatever reason, this game fails to scroll smoothly, and the result is a game that’s really difficult to look at when things get moving, a time when you really need to be sharp-eyed about what’s coming up.

I imagine some players still might get a kick out of Panic Porcupine, who will be okay with dealing with the frustrating restarts and the blurry motion. If you are such a masochist, then I suppose help yourself. But for most players, I suggest you just stick with Sonic.

tl;dr – Panic Porcupine is a Platformer that’s clearly a tribute to the Sonic the Hedgehog series, albeit with sadistic level design. This high challenge level already makes the target audience for this game pretty narrow, and things get worse when you introduce scrolling problems that make the game difficult to look at. As a result, I cannot recommend this game, even to those who love Sonic and enjoy a challenge.

Grade: D+

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