Incredible Crisis

Incredible Crisis is a Minigame Game for the PlayStation, revolving around the efforts of the Tanamatsuri family to get home in time for a birthday party for the family matriarch, Hatsu. But all sorts of crazy events conspire to make this harder than it seems. The game follows the other four family members through their day, and all the craziness they run into. Among other things:

• Taneo, the father, is chased out of his office building by a giant globe, falls dozens of stories, is sent careening the wrong way down a busy highway while strapped to a stretcher, and gets seduced and nearly blown up by a femme fatale coworker.
• Etsuko, the mother, is kidnapped by bank robbers, who force her to help them capture and activate a super-weapon disguised as a golden pig. She manages to snowboard to her escape, only to be forced to jump into a jet fighter and battle a rampaging teddy bear monster.
• Tsuyoshi, the younger son, gets shrunk by mysterious alien rays while hanging out at the park, and has to dodge giant creepy-crawlies and get home safely.
• Ririka, the older daughter, dodges class (and the wrath of her chalk-throwing teacher) in order to go shopping, only to encounter a tiny alien UFO and get caught up in trying to reunite it with the "mother" ship.

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Tropes used in Incredible Crisis include:

• Action Mom: Etsuko.
• Anachronic Order: The game follows the viewpoint of one character at a time, so some things that aren't explained (why is a giant bear with Ririka's grimacing face on it attacking?) get answered later (because the baby ship accidentally grew Ririka's teddy bear).
• Big Bad: The closet thing to one is the unnamed femme fatale. While not a major part in Taneo's and Ririko's stories (although she tries to kill them, for some reason), she's the leader of the wolf-masked robbers in Etsuko's story. She forces Etsuko to steal the golden pig and decode its message.
• Brick Joke: In Ririka's storyline, we find out what she told her father to convince him to help protect the alien mothership, way back during Taneo's part of the game.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The massage mini-game in Taneo's story.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The game has four different story-lines, each covering a different member of the family.
• Gameplay Grading: Your grade is determined by how well you do in a mini-game, and an overall chapter grade is given based on those grades. Getting an overall rank of A grants an extra life, while A+ grants two lives.
  • The requirements for A+ are lower than you might think. It's possible that, in a 2-minigame chapter, you get a D on one and an A on the other, yet still get an A+ overall.
• Gameplay Roulette: Mini-games range from a Pop Quiz, to a Rhythm Game, to a Simon Says Mini Game, to a Stealth-Based Mission.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Tsuyoshi's section of the game. The guy who owns the boat in the "Titanic Away" minigames gets shrunk too.
• Minigame Game
• Pop Quiz: One of Taneo's mini-games.
• Pressure Plate: Etsuko's second mini-game, where she must replace a golden pig with several items that will equal its weight, to avoid getting crushed by ceiling spikes.
• Rhythm Game: "Taneo's Dance Fever" and "Etsuko and the Golden Pig".
• Running Gag: The recurring "Titanic Away" game, and the giant globe.
  • Also, each story ends with the family member in question finally arriving home in some absurd way, much to the shock of Haruko.
• Sadist Teacher: Ririka's teacher, who throws his seemingly limitless supply of chalk at the kids who make too much noise or even move too much.
• Salaryman: Taneo.
• Shaggy Dog Story: "Nerd on a Wire" has Taneo trying to get off a flagpole before it breaks. After you clear the minigame, he loses his balance and falls off anyway.
  • Etsuko's first mini-game too. She successfully evades from the bank robbers, only to be captured by a fourth one standing outside the door.
• Shout-Out:
  • A number of these in the names of the mini-games ("Titanic Away", "Independence Bay", "Looks Like Top Gun", etc). There are also references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET the Extraterrestrial during Ririka's section.
  • Failing any of the "Titanic Away" mini-games results in the boat owner angrily chasing the character to the front of the ship, and grabs him/her in a way that's reminiscent to a certain scene in Titanic.
• Simon Says Mini Game: One of Ririka's mini-games. The mothership even looks similar to one!
• A Simple Plan: Who knew getting to your house could be such a grueling task?
• Sprint Meter: Present in one of Taneo's mini-games, where he must run away from a globe. A similar one is also Tsuyoshi's final mini-game, except he has to out-run a mantis.
• Squashed Flat: Happens to Taneo if he gets run over by the giant globe in "Bowling Inferno", and after getting hit by a falling refrigerator in "Elevator of Doom!".
• Stealth-Based Mission: Etsuko's first mini-game.
• The Stinger: After the credits, a giant globe in space (with the Incredible Crisis flag) hurtles towards a house...
• To Be Continued: ...and ends with "To be continued". Unfortunately, there was never a sequel.