Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius

Game Overview

The Parodius series saw a flurry of updates over a short period of time. Every couple of years or so, Konami would publish out a new game in this parody shooter series (usually to coincide with a new release for one of the mainline entries for Gradius or TwinBee), with the company continuing to prove they had a sense of humor about their own games and their company's history. It was a formula that worked, and worked well, leading to a lot of fans pumping their hard-earned coins (yen, quarters, whatever was appropriate) into their machines.

That said, the quick releases between the third title, Gokujō Parodius!The second game in the Parodius series to hit arcades (and third overall), this title was designed from the ground up to be the most difficult and most engaging of the games, elevating the exerpience to the next level for players., and the fourth title a year later on the Super Famicom, Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius, didn't leave a whole lot of room for innovation. It's another cute ‘em up shooter with a bunch of Konami mascots, all running through weird and funny stages with public domain music playing behind them. While there were more characters included in this package, the basic gameplay remained largely the same.

For some, this staid gameplay might have been fine. Certainly if you had a character you liked and you wanted to spend more time with them, this fourth entry did fit the bill. Still, it did leave the game feeling like more of a half-step for the series than a proper sequel. An expansion pack for the previous game rather than what fans might have been hoping for considering the big steps forward the previous title took over its predecessor, 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. It was something more to sate their appetite for comedic shooting action than a new evolution of the parody series.

The game does have all of the series' weirdness and trademarks, from odd stages to giant, unusual bosses, and a collection of soundtrack cues that will remind you of classic (public domain) songs. It all adds to the strange allure of the title. Of course, that's also how the third game worked as well, and the second, and the first, so it's still par for the course for the series.

Overall, this game seemed more like a retread of the basic material instead of a fully new game, which might go some way to explain why the gameplay was changed up more substantially in the next sequel, Sexy ParodiusThe last title in the series to hit arcades, Sexy Parodius swapped out the standard weird and crazy graphics for, yes, a sexier style (that, okay, was also weird and crazy).. That one added a mission structure to the gameplay, leading us (at the Inverted Dungeon) to think this game was released simply as a hold over for the series while the creators put a little more time into the next big Parodius title. It was just a way to mark time more than an innovative new entry in the mascot franchise.