Pan-Dimensional Conga Combat

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-4 Co-Op / Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Pan-Dimensional Conga Combat, released in 2018 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023, is an Arcade-style game that takes the basic gameplay of the classic game Snake and rather than having players concerned with avoiding their own tail, they instead are focused on using that tail to take out enemies as they fly around the screen.

It’s a decent premise, and not having to worry about colliding with your own tail may make it seem like this would be easier than Snake, but there are a few factors working against that. First, it doesn’t take long for the screen to become a mess of enemies. But second, your control over your character is extremely loose and it takes a while for your movement to reflect what you’re trying to do. This is actually pretty frustrating, as it makes the game feel like the difficulty is artificially inflated due to its poor controls.

You might expect multiplayer to be a bit more fun, as everyone is operating with this same handicap, but I’m sorry to say that multiplayer is far worse, as the entire screen becomes a mess of things happening that’s far too difficult to track. Those I was playing with who weren’t put off by the game’s flash graphics and poor controls quickly became exasperated with how difficult it was to even parse what was going on.

Speaking of those graphics, Pan-Dimensional Conga Combat makes use of decent 2D pixel art visuals that have any number of flashy or screen-warping effects happening based on what’s going on. This is joined by a really catchy fast-paced soundtrack (the game’s page on Nintendo.com describes it as “heavyweight acid/chip/funk”) that would really elevate this game if the gameplay were better.

In the end, while really I like elements of the presentation, overall I just did not find Pan-Dimensional Conga Combat to be enjoyable at all. The controls are too unresponsive, and the multiplayer is far too chaotic, making for something that looks and sounds like it should be fun, but just isn’t.

tl;dr – Pan-Dimensional Conga Combat is an Arcade-style game where players try to take out enemies by catching them in their long snakelike tail. The concept is good, and the soundtrack is excellent, but the gameplay is far too unresponsive and the visuals are far too chaotic in multiplayer. The result is a game that seems like it should be a lot more fun than it actually is.

Grade: D+

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