{"id":92953,"date":"2019-05-03T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/panty_party"},"modified":"2019-05-03T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T16:00:00","slug":"review-panty-party-nothing-to-get-your-knickers-in-a-twist-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/05\/03\/review-panty-party-nothing-to-get-your-knickers-in-a-twist-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Panty Party \u2013 Nothing To Get Your Knickers In A Twist Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/7d3b5a75a8195\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/7d3b5a75a8195\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96251\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96251\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p><em>\u201cWarning!\u201d NO HENTAI contents in this game! All you get is funny and stupid panties!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is the warning on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendo.com\/games\/detail\/panty-party-switch\/\">Nintendo\u2019s game page<\/a> and it\u2019s worth bearing in mind. The page features the word \u2018panty\u2019 or \u2018panties\u2019 no fewer than 19 times, but also reiterates what you\u2019re getting. \u2018A story of nonsense and fools brought to you by panties\u2019 is promised, and developer HorngYeuan Digital certainly delivers on that. Despite what you may have previously believed, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/panty_party\">Panty Party<\/a><\/strong> is a simple hack and slash-style game where you, as a pair of panties, combat enemy panties in an epic tale of true love and twisted knickers.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96236\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96236\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Yurika\u2019s train journey to school is delayed, not by leaves on the line, but a panty (the undergarments are constantly referring to in the singular). Frustrated, the student bumps into the offending smalls in the middle of the street. Somewhat taken aback, the floating, talking panty known as Baka Pan is equally surprised to find a human that can see and understand her. Mistaking Yurika\u2019s panty-based ambivalence (any old pair will do) for an egalitarian love for all types, Baka Pan deduces that she must be a Warrior of Love. The disbelieving Yurika promptly transforms into a pair of undies and must lead the fight against Panzi and a band of unloved panties intent on brainwashing all humans and forcing them to think panties are their only true love\u2026<\/p>\n<p>As you can tell, it\u2019s absolutely barmy. Encountering panties of all shapes and sizes, Yurika\u2019s journey takes you through Japanese suburbs and beyond, eventually to Panzi\u2019s secret base which is located\u2026 well, following the &#8216;logic&#8217; of the narrative, you can probably guess where it\u2019s located. You\u2019ll engage in floaty, bland street brawls which become more interesting after the first few episodes of Story mode (there are twenty in total), and the hack and slash combat certainly isn\u2019t the worst we\u2019ve encountered.<\/p>\n<p>You dodge left and right using \u2018L\u2019 and \u2018R\u2019 respectively, and this becomes imperative in later stages. Jump is on \u2018B\u2019 and the remaining face buttons are used for attacks. Panties flutter around like birds and your jump is tied to a meter that enables you to float for several seconds. Aiming the reticule at enemy panties and attacking engages a sticky lock-on camera, although it loses its target frequently and we\u2019d have preferred it to remain locked regardless \u2013 too often we had to move our thumb from the weapon buttons to the right stick just to track enemy panties. The lack of gyro camera control sticks out like a sore thumb in this day-and-age, but everything about the game\u2019s presentation indicates this was built to a strict budget, text formatting errors and all.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96252\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96252\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Every hit you land builds your \u2018Passion\u2019 meter; once full, unleashing it with \u2018ZL\u2019 enables you to get temporary buffs or unique abilities. As you probably <em>wouldn\u2019t<\/em> expect, the panties brandish a variety of armaments, from \u2018guns\u2019 to bladed weapons; the sight of a pair of white panties emitting a hail of bullets with appropriate machine gun sounds gives you a good idea of the incongruity the game thrives on.<\/p>\n<p>Weapons vary per panty and you unlock new pairs by fulfilling certain time or score requirements per episode. You\u2019ll likely get comfortable with just one pair, but it\u2019s worth experimenting, especially with later unlocks. Managing which of the attacking panties to take down first becomes a priority as you progress, adding a little strategy to proceedings. A brief cooldown bar applies to projectiles preventing you from spamming long-distance attacks, which encourages a varied approach. Combat is a little floaty and imprecise &#8211; and very much <em>not<\/em> <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/bayonetta\">Bayonetta<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; but it&#8217;s not awful, either.<\/p>\n<p>Technically, there\u2019s nothing that should challenge the hardware here \u2013 in terms of takes on Japanese suburbs, things like 3DS\u2019 <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/3ds-eshop\/attack_of_the_friday_monsters_a_tokyo_tale\">Attack of the Friday Monsters<\/a><\/strong> or even the 20-year-old <strong>Shenmue<\/strong> offer far more visual detail than you get here. Environments are reused and you\u2019re boxed in by invisible walls that show an electrified honeycomb pattern when you brush against them. Disappointing framerate drops abound throughout, especially in more complex, panty-heavy arenas.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96249\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/96249\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Panty Party Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Perhaps surprisingly, the writing and the story aren\u2019t terrible. Ridiculous, yes, but the Japanese dialogue is delivered with such energy that, juxtaposed with the silly premise, it creates an odd sort of narrative draw. \u2018Who is this mysterious Panzi figure?\u2019, \u2018How exactly does a true love of panties lead to transmogrification?\u2019 and \u2018What am I doing with my life?\u2019 are just <em>some<\/em> of the questions the game provokes \u2013 the fact it manages to intrigue you <em>at all<\/em> is unexpected, though. The main menu theme might embed itself in your head, too, although the music is otherwise tediously repetitive.<\/p>\n<p>That it\u2019s not stringing you along with salacious shots of barely-legal lovelies is actually endearing and refreshing, in a way. Beyond a curious preoccupation with \u2018punishment\u2019 \u2013 and a somewhat unsavoury habit of referring to high school girls as \u2018expired\u2019, it\u2019s just a bunch of anime pants and the odd <em>double entendre<\/em>. Unless a pristine digital gusset gets you going, you\u2019re out of luck if you\u2019re coming to Panty Party for titillation.<\/p>\n<p>Arcade mode removes the narrative and sets you through a branching path of encounters made up of panties and locations from Story mode. Multiplayer mode enables local split screen for up to four players (human or AI) to do battle for a set time in one of nine locations. An auto-lock-on camera <em>is<\/em> available here, primarily because using a single Joy-Con removes the second analogue. We expected the framerate to take a huge dive in this mode, but it wasn\u2019t as bad as we\u2019d imagined and that goes for the multiplayer as a whole. There are many <em>better<\/em> ways to pass time with your pals on Switch, but if you insist on throwing a Panty Party, you might squeeze a couple of rounds out of it before somebody suggests <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/super_smash_bros_ultimate\">Smash<\/a><\/strong> or <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/mario_kart_8_deluxe\">Mario Kart<\/a><\/strong> instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Panty Party is not unenjoyable. Don\u2019t be tricked into thinking you\u2019ll be ogling barely dressed girls \u2013 the panties themselves are the stars here. Bayonetta is an infinitely more alluring proposition in absolutely every way, but Panty Party\u2019s hack-and-slash style gameplay isn\u2019t without merit and there\u2019s a certain bizarre joyfulness to it. It\u2019s mostly-harmless, repetitive nonsense that you\u2019ll blow through in an afternoon, but we\u2019d be lying if we said it didn\u2019t raise a grin or two through its sheer WTF-ness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWarning!\u201d NO HENTAI contents in this game! All you get is funny and stupid panties! This is the warning on Nintendo\u2019s game page and it\u2019s worth bearing in mind. The page features the word \u2018panty\u2019 or \u2018panties\u2019 no fewer than 19 times, but also reiterates what you\u2019re getting. \u2018A story of nonsense and fools brought [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}