Healthy food gets a bad rap. When someone talks about eating better and dieting, immediately we think of vegan, soy-based patties and imitation chicken stock. We forget about the delicious and natural fruits and vegetables that make up a complete diet. I can’t help but imagine a world where when you ate something bad, you could balance it out by eating something good. Did you eat a giant, greasy hamburger for lunch? Then follow it up with some carrots and celery and you are all square. Fruits and vegetables would lead the fight to lower cholesterol and to ensure eternal health.
I believe this is the exact conversation the creative leads of Last Limb studios had with each other before pitching their newest game, Organic Panic. This action, puzzle platformer is set in a world where Meat and Cheese have gone corrupt and only the dynamic team of Cherry, Kiwi, Carrot, and Potato can save the day and restore balance. You must jump, swim, and stomp your way to the completion of over two hundred stylized levels in both single player and co-op. But are the overwhelming number of levels enough to produce a blue ribbon holder at the county fair?
Organic Panic’s story is fun and quirky. It is told through a comic book-style slideshow that is completely optional. You can either click to start with the story and then tap right bumper to move through each slide, or you can just click on the first level and start fighting the meat. I found this design choice to be a little weird because as I said before, the story was fun and it has a message. I believe the world is a metaphor for our bodies and the balance you are trying to restore is our health and diet. I really wish Last Limb had spent the time to animate the story, putting it out in front of us to shine. I think many people will just skip the story, and that is a shame.
Organic Panic is structured with multiple chapters, each corresponding to various numbers of stages. You start as Cherry, who has a special power: shooting sand that can harm the Meat and Cheese and that can also cut through various materials. As you progress, you unlock Kiwi, who can swim and shoot water that drowns enemies and allows you to reach higher areas. Carrot and Potato are locked away until later levels. The characters show interesting variety though they have absolutely no personality. While the story idea is good, character development is not a strong point. You sometimes play a level as just one character, or you have the opportunity to switch between characters on the fly to progress through different obstacles.
The level structure is the weakest point of Organic Panic. A great puzzle game usually has a few mechanics that build upon each other as you progress through the levels. Each level gets slightly harder as you master the mechanics. Organic Panic has a few really cool mechanics (water gun, fireball, wall climb, etc.) but the level is always one structure. In order to get the gold star, you must complete the following three objectives: collect the purple gem, kill all enemies, and enter the end portal. This formula never changes. Obstacles are added each level, but the idea never evolves past the three-step formula. I never really felt challenged to combine the multiple talents of the characters together in order to solve a puzzle in a strategic way, leading to the coveted eureka moment, the moment when you struggle to complete a puzzle and it finally dawns on you. Most of the Organic Panic puzzles are solved in a minute or less. The more than two hundred puzzles do make this a ten-hour endeavor, though.
Another issue was made evident through the combat system. So much of the actual killing of enemies either came down to drowning them with Kiwi or lighting them on fire with Carrot. Cherry always dies as her health was not high enough to fight them. This game is labeled as an action, puzzle platformer. I kind of wish the action part was removed as the combat never feels right. Organic Panic feels heavily inspired by Super Meat Boy, a 2010 Xbox 360 arcade game, and I would like to have seen the developers follow that format just a little bit more. The drowning of enemies works well and has a puzzle element to it, but the other weapons usually end with your death three out of four times as you try to get lucky and hit the enemy enough times before they destroy you. If the focus was more on stealth or strategy while jumping around obstacles, Organic Panic could have been a much tighter experience.
Summary
I want to stress that Organic Panic is not a bad game; it is actually a pretty darn good game. There are minor issues that make the game feel as if it is trying to check too many boxes instead of showcasing what it does best. The overall plot and the character abilities are definite high points, the platforming mechanics are tight and control well, and the puzzles are good even though they lack variety. The action piece does not fit and hurts the full potential of this generally solid game. If you are a fan of the puzzle platformer genre, Organic Panic should not be missed.
Joshua was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 42 articles across game reviews, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative.