Gokujō Parodius!

Game Overview

With two successful parody shooters under their belt – ParodiusThe first game in what would become Konami's parody mascot space shooter crossover series. Featuring gameplay taking from Gradius and TwinBee, this is s strange, silly, hard-as-nails title released only for the ASCII MSX. and sequel Parodius Da!The sequel to the MSX-only Parodius, this second game pushes the format slightly forward with more colorful graphics and a couple of more characters. Most importantly, though, it moves the series to arcades where it could really find its audience. – the company had something of a winning formula on their hands. They could take the mascots from various games in their repertoire, smash them together with silly stages and public domain music, and create a new shooting experience that arcade fans would line up to play. The first game in the series arrived in 1988 for the MSX, followed two short years later by the sequel in arcades (and eventually other consoles) in 1990. This allowed Konami to indulge their sillier side (something they became known for in a variety of parody games they published over the years, see also Demon Castle Special: I'm Kid DraculaA parody game for the Castlevania series, developed by Konami. This fun and silly platformer was released, at the time, exclusively for the Famicom with no Western release. It only officially came to international shores as part of the Castlevania Anniversary Collection.), all while shooter fans had great games to devour.

It did still take a surprisingly long time (in arcade years) for Konami to unleash the next game in the series: Gokujō Parodius ～Kako no Eikō o Motomete～(aka Gokujō Parodius! – Pursuing the Past Glory or, simply, Fantastic Voyage), but the wait was certainly worth it as this was the company’s biggest, silliest, most over-the-top entry in the Parodius series yet, and fans once again absolutely ate it up.

For the third entry, Konami unleashed an absolute mascot parade. The developers settled on eight characters for the game (up from four in the previous two) as many arcade fighters at the time featured at least eight (and while this was a shooter and not a fighter, it was thought that parity with those games was a good idea). This led to a roster featuring first and second player versions of returning characters Vic Viper and Lord British, TwinBee and WinBee, Pentarou and Hanako, and Takosuke and Belial, plus new additions of bunny-girls Hikaru and Akane, fish Mambo and Samba, pigs Michael and Gabriel, and stickmen Koitsu and Aitsu. The later ports even included more characters, including Goemon and Ebisumaru, Upa and Rupa, and (important for this site) Dracula-kun and Kid Dracula from I'm Kid Dracula (aka AlucardOne of three heroes recruited by Trevor Belmont on his quest to defeat Dracula, Alucard was the son of Dracula who turned from his fathers evil, battling against his cursed family line again and again.). It was a massive amount of characters that encouraged replayability time and again.

For this third entry into the series the company absolutely went all in, cranking the humor and silliness up to 11. It was a delightfully fun effort, but the difficulty of the title was increased as well, intending to frustrate players so they kept pumping in quarters, kept trying again, and kept forcing their way through the game. The game actively taunts the players, mocking them for losing, all so they fight back and play harder.

And it worked. The game was another success for the series upon release in arcades in 1994, spawning not just a port for the Super Famicom later that year, Jikkyō Oshaberi ParodiusA home console exclusive edition of the Parodius series, this fourth entry came out just a year after the arcade-ready Fantastic Journey, and featured much of the same gameplay and style of its predecessor., but also a quickly developed, console-only sequel the very next year. Konami was sitting on a very popular series, and, at the time, no end was in sight for the strange, silly, very funny parody shooter series. The hits would keep coming, and Konami was working their magic overtime.