Soup's on! Panic Restaurant serves up utterly fun gameplay that is sure to satisfy your appetite!
One difference between the Japanese and US versions is that in Japan, the main character is a kid, while in America, he is an aged chef who bears more than a passing resemblance to Mario. The cover art is a bit off the mark, but the game itself looks great, featuring colorful backgrounds in most levels, and good sized characters, with Cookie himself standing as tall as Mario stands in Super Mario Bros. 3. As I mentioned above, the plot to the game is that Cookie's restaurant, which is called Eaten, has been taken over by Ohdove, a mad chef with an eye patch over one eye (gee, stereotypical villain look, no?). Not only does Cookie have to deal with his the mad chef, however, but Ohdove seems to have slipped in an ingredient into the food to make it mutant, and even the appliances are doing his bidding! Cookie must make his way through 6 stages to put an end to Ohdove's madness.
The stages themselves all have clever names, too, and a menu appears at the start of each level to show you which one you are on currently, and how deep into the restaurant you have progressed. The stages go in the following order: appetizer, soup, salad, fish, meat, and dessert. In each level, there are multiple types of enemies to fight, some of which recur in later levels, and most of which drop coins which can aid Cookie at the end of each stage. Cookie starts off with a frying pan, but can also use one of five other weapons: a spoon that he swings like a baseball bat (one of the best weapons in the game), plates that he throws like frisbees (another useful weapon), a fork that he bounces on like a pogo stick (even the book speaks lowly of this weapon - particularly avoid it in areas where there is dangerous terrain overhead, such as burners and spikes), a huge pan that fits over Cookie's head and makes him temporarily invincible, and eggs he can throw in arcs like the battle axes in Castlevania (these only appear at the end of the game). With the exception of the eggs, the first hit Cookie takes after taking a special weapon returns him to his frying pan. Remember when I said this game is very fun to play? The levels themselves are very reminiscent of Mega Man's and Mario's adventures, with ladders and objects like the spikes (kitchen knives in stage 4) acting like the spikes in Mega Man's games. If you have played any Mega Man game, you will remember well how fun it always is to play through the levels, even if the plots in some of the games got hokey after a while. Unfortunately, the levels are considerably shorter than those in Mega Man games, so the fun factor is admittedly slightly lower than the afforementioned classics.
As I said before, the graphics are pretty good, with decent sized characters. The backgrounds aren't as detailed as, say, Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse, but they do very appropriately fit each stage, and Taito deserves credit for the animations of some of the characters and backgrounds in this game! A few examples are the bouncing of Cookie's mustache as he walks, the jiggling of the custard when the custard plates stand still, and the bubbling of the boiling water in the pans of stage 3. The music in the game is really fun to listen to, but the effects are slightly limited, so a point or two got taken off on that. Still, though, it does have a pretty fun soundtrack that, like the backgrounds, seems to complement each level well, and the effects that are present are fun to listen to as well. Speaking of the levels, you, appropriately enough, start the game outside the restaurant, attempting to get in. You will fight carrots, bouncing hot dogs, and running roast chickens. Should you succeed, which I would hope so, you will meet the first boss - a popcorn popper that, when it takes 3 hits, blows its top and shoots popcorn at you. In the beginning, Cookie is very fragile, so watch out for the flying snack food! His other attack shouldn't be a problem. In stage 2, you are in the indoor dining area, fending off dancing plates of custard, rolling pizzas, apples that slice themselves up and spread wide as they fall to try to hit you (these offer no coins), and onions that take 2 hits to put away. Watch out for electricity falling from chandeliers as well. The boss here is a microwave that houses chickens, which come running at you. Once again, no coins from the chickens, and hitting them will not get rid of them permanently - somehow the microwave always has some for you until it itself is taken care of. In stage 3, Cookie is in the kitchen and must watch out for burners on the stoves and boiling hot water in the pans. He can catch a ride on bubbles coming from the latter, but if he misses a step, his goose is cooked! As if that weren't enough, Cookie must also contend with more hot dogs, slugs inside coffee cups, slithering eggs, toasters that fire toast his way, and a menacing wok as the boss. The wok gathers falling shrimp into itself, and after a while, fires breaded shrimp into the air, leaving it to rain on Cookie. Stage 4, the outdoor dining area, marks the return of the carrots and chickens, along with more slugs, divebombing shishkabobs, leaping lawn chairs (no coins from these), clouds that let loose lightning bolts (these are indestructable), and a giant bouncing hamburger, whose buns tend to attack separately from the patty, as the boss. Stage 5 sees Cookie step into the freezer, where the terrain is slippery, and he can be frozen solid by icy blasts from vents while falling down pathways. Fish on hooks often fall here, and Cookie must also contend with more pizzas, skating ice cream cones, and popsicles that rise up from the floor. The boss is a giant three scoop ice cream cone that shoots blobs of ice cream at Cookie (until it has no fire to fire), and also breaks out the floor with the tip of the cone. In stage 6, the cellar, the slugs return yet again, and thre are also floating, cape wearing pumpkins (hmm... I guess it's Halloween when this game takes place), fish jumping out of waterfalls, and French fry containers that jump and shoot their fries at you as they descend (no coins from the fries). The battle with Ohdove is unique - he is in a huge flying pan, as is Cookie, and they have a big air battle. I don't want to spoil everything, so I will let you figure out how to beat Ohdove.
What aabout all those coins, you might be asking? The coins are used at the end of each stage to play a slot machine. You can bet up to 5 coins to win at straight lines across or diagonally. 3 chef hats give Cookie an extra life, 3 lollipops or 3 pieces of candy give Cookie the benefits of those items (I will explain below), and 3 dollar signs give Cookie 10,000 points. The X's are bad news altogether. The chef hats, lollipops, and candy can also be found in each stage. The lollipop extends Cookie's life meter, from 2 hearts in the beginning to a maximum of 4 (after which they fill up Cookie's lost energy completely), and candy gives Cookie back one lost heart. Also, there are additional bonus stages hidden in the regular levels. They are found by going up certain ladders in stages 2-5. As a rule of thumb, if it appears you don't have to go up a ladder, chances are there's a bonus stage at the top. In stages 2 and 5, you can find the fish catching bonus stage. You control a hand in this stage that can extend upward to catch the fish for 100 points apiece at the end of the stage. Watch out for the black fish, though - they're explosive, and catching one of those ends the bonus stage. In stages 3 and 4, you can find the egg catching bonus stage, in which you guide Cookie's hand as he holds a frying pan to catch eggs dropped by bird flying overhead. Sometimes they drop bombs, though, so be careful - they have the same result as the black fish in the fishing bonus stage! When the bonus stage ends, either by running out of time or by you being blown up, you receive 100 points for each egg or fish that you caught. Extra lives are awarded for scoring 20,000 points and every 50,000 points thereafter.
All in all, this is a thoroughly enjoyable game, though it is admittedly an easy one to complete. It is challenging to beat the game in one life and collect everything, but even without continues, just beating it alone isn't difficult to do. Still, among the many classic games released for the NES, Panic Restaurant tends to get lost in the shuffle, which is rather disappointing. This very underrated game is also a rare one, scoring a B+ on Mike Etler's rarity list (which is a step below extremely rare by his standards). I bought this game at a bargain price of $5.95 + tax in 1996 when a local video store was getting rid of its remaining NES games, and I feel like I got a really good deal, considering that it came complete with the box and booklet (although the box is cut to accomodate the plastic cases that they often used at video stores). If you can find this game, by all means try it out - the plot may be far out, but that's just the icing on this cake!