Insert Credit: A Sidelong Glance At Ghoul Panic

It’s no real surprise I’m sure, but I like Light Gun games. Like, a lot. A real lot. I’d probably go as far as to say the Rail Shooter is one of my favourite game genres- there’s something so damned fun about the extremely simple gameplay style of “shoot and don’t die” that has kept me a solid fan of the genre and all it’s variations since I was big enough to hold a plastic light gun in my hand. The House Of The Dead is definitely my all time favourite Rail Shooter, no question, but there are quite a few that come damn close. One of them is Ghoul Panic.

Yeah, I can hear the cries of “huh?” and “you what mate?” from here. So let me pull you back in to familiar territory for a second; you’ve heard of Point Blank, right? If you haven’t, Point Blank is a series of arcade-based (later ported to the PS1 and DS) Light Gun games that, instead of pitting you against an army of the undead or a renegade terrorist faction, put you in the roles of Dr. Don and Dr. Dan, two hapless adventure types with handguns that across the series find themselves in all manner of bizarre escapades, from shooting cardboard cutouts of bank robbers (and avoiding cutouts of bombs that act like actual bombs), having to avoid death by meteor, and in one instance using their handguns to sheer a sheep. The game’s are set up more like virtual shooting galleries with tons of different minigames that operate on slightly varying sets of rules- some challenges require quick shooting to pass, some give you limited bullet stocks (or even giving you but one single bullet), others have you shooting targets only of your corresponding colour, and so on and so fourth, combining these different challenges with an incredibly demented sense of humour, a simple artstyle that relied solely on the use of two dimensional sprites, and an abundance of personality to spare, and as a result they have a massive cult following that borders on being mainstream, and are fondly remembered until this day.

Ghoul Panic is exactly like that, but with anthromorphic cats, tons of ghouls, and it has bosses.

Known under the frankly awesome name Oh! Bakyuuun in Japan, Ghoul Panic is apparently the result of a team-up between Namco and Eighting/Raizing, but it seems the latter company(/companies) are the primary ones responsible for the development of the game, as the arcade version does not credit Namco at all from what I've seen. I couldn't tell you which of the two still owns the license though. Not that it matters much; I’m hardly holding my breath for a sequel. It came out in arcades in the year 1999, and a port made it to the Playstation in 2000, but only in Europe and Japan. The story is as follows; a town that’s presumably somewhere in America (or Europe, damned if I know) is plagued by the legacy and myths surrounding a massive mansion at it’s heart, so huge it towers over most of the surrounding neighborhood. Tales of a demented Witch that has lived there for hundreds of years with her ghoulish family, turning any trespassers into a huge collection of cats. Many people have disappeared in their attempts to find out the truth.

Somewhere along the line, if the ending of the game is any indication, pretty much the entire town sans two people wound up disappearing into the towering manor, putting us in the role of the two survivors; plucky young go-getter and all around badass Lisa, and her punk-with-a-heart-of-gold (and the dexterity of a soggy plank) friend Kevin, who decide to take up arms and storming the house. Upon arrival, they are greeted by the Witch from all the tales- winner of the Most Anime Looking Human Award ten years in a row, Witchina. Yes, really. After a brief introduction, Witchina does her party piece and turns our two heroes into cats- but as they have Special Protagonist Powers, they don’t turn into the same yellow kittens as everyone else, and are still more then capable of kicking undead ass. Which they proceed to do in abundance-; they plow through an army of ghouls and ghosts, pick apart skeletons, take part in arbitrary target shooting games, turn an undead turkey dinner into a roast worthy of thanksgiving using a single bullet (again, yes, really), and use unnecessary violence against a ghost that just wants a quick smooch. All of this is handled in a similar manner to Point Blank from a gameplay standpoint- the Mansion is spread through three stages with four minigames in each, for a total of 12, each randomly generated each time you play and balanced depending on difficulty. Some stages require you to shoot ghosts solely of your colour, some give you limited ammo stocks to deal with threats, some have you rapidly shooting at things to destroy them before the timer runs out, some are target shooting stages where you have to rack up points, there are a few challenges where you’re given one single bullet to neutralize a target, and of course there are plenty of stages where you’re given infinite ammo and just have to let loose in a room full of ghosts, the objective being to kill an amount designated before the round started. There are also two variants on a Maze game, one where you have to traverse the maze with use of a map to find three cats, planning the best route, and one where you’re given no map and just have to find a cat by pure chance, with a few fake chests that turn into monsters upon being shot to make things much more difficult. Lives are lost the same way as well; by shooting targets of the opposite colour, bomb-ghosts, kittens, or by failing the challenge.As mentioned above though, the main way the game differs from Point Blank is it’s inclusion of The House Of The Dead-styled boss encounters, where you take on Witchina’s incredibly bizarre family unit- her younger brother Frankie, a baby automaton who summons little fireball spitting robots to fight for him whilst jumping around on a pogo stick, before he transforms into a hulking undead behemoth that throws stone blocks at you, jumps around a lot, and occasionally comes in to punch your damn lights out; her father Vladdie, an obvious Dracula analogue and possibly a homage to the second boss from the first House Of The Dead, The Hangedman, if his playstyle in his first form (dropping bats around whilst floating around and posing in the most mincing manner possible) is any indication, although about halfway through he transforms into a smaller bat creature that spits fireballs and takes nosedives in your general direction; and then finally, Witchina herself, who between many repetitions of her noblewoman's laugh pose and soundbyte, flies around on her crystal-tipped staff, alternating between firing electric balls and swords at you. Ah, but what comes after Witchina...? Why, Mommy of course!

Yes, the matriarch of the household is in fact fucking Satan, basically. And holy hell, Mama Mia is hard as balls and has the most varied attack pattern, which includes spitting gunk from her back tendrils, throwing her back tendrils at you, flinging fireballs at you, and breathing fire at you. She also has freakishly detailed jiggle physics, which is easily the most frightening thing in the entire game. Beating her, however, saves the whole town, reverts everyone back to human form, frees the haunted house from it’s evil influence, and sends the bitter momma’s girl Witchina packing, swearing revenge. However, as this game never got a sequel, that revenge still remains unfulfilled. What a shame.

There’s also another gameplay element by way of the Gems. One level in each stage will be a “Gem” level, with the level in question usually being the most difficult one on the board, but beating it will win you said Gem, which comes

into play during the boss encounter; if you collect a Gem on a board, it will take away about a fifth of that board’s bosses healthbar. Collecting all three gems does the same thing to Mama Mia.The Playstation port adds a fair few extra modes alongside the Arcade Mode, which is pretty typical of a Namco Light Gun game port. The main meat and potatoes of the extra modes is Adventure mode, which has completely new opening and ending cutscenes made entirely for this mode alone (as well as completely new models of Kevin and Lisa’s human forms that don’t appear anywhere else), and has you clearing the mansion from the attic down to the basement. You are basically able to roam each floor as you wish, entering rooms, some that contain either randomised minigames, or ones that contain three chests (only one of which you can shoot), which will either hold items or nada. There are certain items you will need to progress, from keys to things like Sledgehammers and X-Ray Glasses, which are used to unlock boss areas usually. The gems also return in this mode, and have much the same effect as before. You can also find items that add minor cosmetic changes to your character models (largely pointless, given you only really see them on the result screen), and there are a few little secrets on each floor, including messages on the walls that give you hints on how to progress; these hints aren’t textured onto the walls however, so you can only really find them by bumping into random bits of wall until you get a prompt telling you you’ve found it. The biggest change to the mode is the addition of a fifth boss for the top floor, Mummy, who is... a Mummy. And apparently also a baby, if the dialog is any indication. Unfortunately, his A.I. is absolutely pathetic, and he usually spends most of his time just walking or jumping around the boss arena and not actually attacking you- even then, his sole attack is pounding the ground to send easilky-destroyed chunks of it flying at you. The other bosses play much the same as in arcade mode however. Beating Adventure mode unlocks Remix mode, which is a variant of the Arcade mode that shuffles around the challenges, and adds Mummy into the arcade roster, bringing the game up to four boards and five bosses in conventional play. There’s also Survival mode, which is pretty self explanatory; keep playing the minigames in a randomised order until you lose all your lives, and Practice mode, which is actually quite deep; all the different challenge variants are broken down into categories for you to select, you are given the choice to select what difficulty you want to attempt the challenge on, which will change up the challenge parameters, and they even allow you to fight the bosses, again with the option to select your difficulty. The most unique addition, though, is Party Mode, which can be played by up to 8 people (using, if I remember correct, a single controller), and puts the players in the roll of little ghosts in tiny cars, traversing a Mario Party-style board, with all that description entails.The game’s atmosphere is much in line with Point Blank- even with it’s thematic framing, it always stays cutesy and cartoony, and never makes any attempt to genuinely frighten and disturb. The general design of the whole game is really well done, too; it feels like a fairly neat blend of Western and Eastern artstyles, but never leans too far in either direction; I’d say it almost feels reminiscent of Osamu Tezuka’s art sensibilities, if not reminiscent of his actual art style. The kittens you rescue have some extremely exaggerated expressions (as do Lisa and Kevin) and reactions to being hurt, the ghosts have a wonderfully rubber-like consistency at times, the Skeletons have the most ridiculous animations possible (and in some stages, ridiculous costumes to match), and there’s that whole “shooting a haunted turkey to turn it into dinner” minigame I mentioned above; at no point does the game take itself too seriously, and even during the Mama Mia fight, arguably the games “dark turn”, it’s no more despairing then any other part of the game. The characters are all extremely charming- and in some cases fucking adorable- and every one of them has oodles of personality, even with very little written dialog and zero spoken dialog (although there are at least vocalisations; Witchina’s laughter for example), and even the mansion the game takes place in feels like a character more then a location, with it’s eccentric interior design and strange unearthly inhabitants. The gameplay is just as tight as Point Blank’s, and the blend of the minigame laden levels and House Of The Dead style boss encounters feels natural, and the flow between each style of gameplay is as smooth as butter. The music is just as cartoony and upbeat as everything else, but with very few “stock” creepy music tropes, which adds a nice sense of identity to the game’s score. In fact, there are many music tracks that almost sound like they’d fit in a Mario game, but none of the music feels like it doesn’t belong.I find it hard to recommend the game, not because of any fault on the games part, but because of a lack of an American version of the PS1 port; I didn’t actually know it never made it over there outside of arcades until I did this article. And that’s a huge shame, because this underrated little gem is an essential addition to any collection, and while it’s gameplay is simple, it is always extremely fun, and I find myself coming back to it for a bit of mindless fun nearly always. If you’re the type to chip a PS1 for foreign exclusives as is, then I’d say have a go at importing the European release. Because of that circumstance, I'm linking to a playthrough of the arcade release HERE, and I've also embedded the video below.

~ Decon, 09/10/13

Images collected from gamefaqs, spong, jeuxvideo, emuparadise, and vgmuseum