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History
In 1985, Konami released
Nemesis aka Gradius - a superb horizontal shooter with a
great power-up system, lots of unique levels and
imaginative enemies and bosses. The powerup system was a
revolution at the time. Basically any red coloured enemy
leaves behind a power up capsule when shot. When the
player makes his ship fly over the capsule, it is picked
up and increments the power meter that runs along the
bottom of the screen. At any time the player may elect
to 'cash in' the collected capsules and upgrade the ship
with the power up indicated on the meter. Along with
what are now considered normal power ups (increased fire
power, speed, shield etc.) there is the OPTION power-up.
When this is selected, a ghost ship appears beside your
ship and follows your movements (and duplicates firing).
Depending on the version of the game , you could earn up
to 3 or 4 options, greatly increasing your fire-power.
Another great feature is
that the difficulty is linked to how well powered up you
are - so as you get better at the game and powered up
sooner, the game cranks the challenge level up.
Unfortunately when you get hit once - you lose a life
and ALL of your power-ups, and go back to one of the few
restart points - more or less leaving you for dead -
especially in the later levels of the game despite the
dynamically varying difficulty level. The default speed
of your craft is cripplingly slow - you need at least 1
speed power up to be able to play effectively. Despite
these shortcomings the game is very addictive and the
NES port was a massive seller world-wide. (Incidentally,
the PS2's brilliant Gradius V by Treasure gets around
this problem by leaving your options on screen to be
picked up again by the incoming replacement ship which
gives you a sporting chance)
Another feature of this game
is the relentless nature of the gameplay. While there
are a number of distinct levels, play is continuous -
when you despatch an end of level boss , its onto the
next level without any delay. Each level is split into 3
phases.
Phase 1 - a short flight in
space filled with lots of red enemies , giving you the
opportunity to get powered up before the level proper.
Phase 2 - the level
proper..each enemy is themed with its own enemies, along
with common enemies you see in all levels. Some of these
levels have become quite famous in the gaming
industry..two that spring to mind are :-
* the Easter Island statue
level where, you guessed it, Easter Island heads fire
masses of ring shaped bullets at you from their mouths
* the wall/maze type level
where you fly through a simple maze which has some of
its walls made destructible - made up of lots of small
pieces that you have to shoot through.
Phase 3 - a boss encounter -
sometimes a big tough boss, sometimes just a screen
filled with smaller enemies and in one case (and perhaps
most famously) the boss is 2 volcanoes spurting out load
of rocks for you to shoot and evade. Some boss
encounters are time-based - you don't actually have to
kill the boss - if you survive for long enough you just
end up going onto the next level.
Now, why am I prattling on
about Gradius ? This is supposed to be a Parodius
review. Well Parodius is a parody of Gradius - hence the
name - and I reckon I enjoy the Parodius series of games
more because I have played a lot of Gradius in the past.
However the Parodius series
is a great set of games in its own right.
I will talk about the 1st
Parodius game here to initially compare the series to
Gradius.
Parodius (Parodius Da! in
Japan) 1990
Basically Parodius is
Gradius on LSD..it kind of plays the same way:
Horizontal Shooter CHECK
Power-up meter/capsules
CHECK
Level Structure CHECK
Dynamic difficulty level
CHECK
Very slow default craft
speed CHECK
BUT there are quite a few
differences.....
Graphics
This is where the LSD
influence comes into play. The enemies are weird -
really weird - and there's a fixation on penguins for
some reason - they are everywhere. Every enemy in the
original Gradius has had a magic wand waved over it by a
fairy tanked up on Absinthe - and has morphed into these
weird comedy bad guys.
The level layouts follow the
Gradius structure but are warped in the same way the
enemies are - big , bold colourful levels all with their
own theme. For example level 1 has a pirate theme. You
are attacked in the air by lots of flying yellow birds
and are shot at from the ground by penguins. Some yellow
birds are wearing red bandanas - they release powerup
capsules when shot. There are enemy generators on the
ground that look like pirate treasure chests - which
spew out giant wasps.
The final boss of the 1st
level is a giant parrot in a Captain Hook costume. I say
final boss because the 1st level of Parodius has a very
disturbing mini-boss which is a cross between a cat and
a flying Spanish Galleon - you really do have to see
this game to believe it.
The Gradius Easter Island
heads aren't weird enough for this game - they are
replaced by giant clowns spitting yellow blobs at you.
One of the levels is set in a graveyard - you shoot
skeletons - they explode in a shower of bones you have
to avoid. It starts raining - and your ship sprouts an
umbrella. Another level has you flying through a giant
pinball machine.
Sounds
Mad sounds accompany the
action - each level's music track is usually a superb
remix of some well known classical tunes.
Imagine the Marx Bros and
the Keystone Cops playing the Nutcracker suite - and you
get an idea of the track for level 2 in this game. The
jingle that accompanies a life loss is a hilarious
slightly out of tune trumpet fanfare.
Player Ship
Before playing you select
which type of 'ship' you want. You don't have this
feature in Gradius. You may select from the classic
Gradius ship, a red octopus, a weird cartoon robot with
boxing gloves (from the Pop n Twinbee series of games),
and - surprise surprise - a penguin. Each 'ship' has a
different power-up meter so your selection really does
make a difference. A cute touch is that the powerup
capsules are themed to the ship. The Gradius ship has
normal Gradius capsules, but the penguin has giant
wrapped sweets for capsules. The red octopus (Called Mr.
Parodius for some reason) has a jellyfish for powerup
capsules and the twinbee robot has a weird planet Saturn
shaped power pill for capsules. At the start of each
level, each ship has its own personal theme tune
playing.
Bosses
I have touched on this - but
in the 1st game alone - you face, among others, a giant
indestructable Go-Go dancer (you have to fly between her
legs to prevent her stomping on you), an giant parrot
wearing an "Uncle Sam" hat (my forum avatar is how this
boss looks when beaten) and a giant puffer fish. Some of
the bosses are Gradius bosses warped into the Parodius
universe - given a candy coating and served up to fit
into this weirdest of games. The last boss in Gradius is
a giant brain that doesn't do much and is a walkover -
in Parodius you have a giant red octopus as a final boss
which is a wimp as well...just a few shots with a
standard weapon is enough to despatch him. He shouts "I
am strong!" at you when you first encounter him - he
isn't.
Bells
Parodius has bells (similar
to the Pop’n’Twinbee games). Sometimes a red enemy will
leave a bell behind instead of a powerup capsule. Grab
it for points - or shoot it. After a certain number of
hits the bell will change colour - pick the bell up for
a special power up ranging from a massive smart bomb
(blue) to a megaphone (white bell) that blasts enemies
with weird phrases such as "Shaving is boring".
There is a 2 player option
which , like Gradius is alternate-turn based.
If you finish the game, you
unlock an Omake level which is a special level designed
for high score chasing - excellent fun.
Parodius was only the first
of a series...I worry about the staff at Konami who
thought this stuff up. Each time they must have sat down
and thought how they could outdo the previous game and
in my opinion they were successful and I’ve no idea what
they were smoking at design meetings. Each game in the
series is madder than the preceding one!
The first game, simply
called Parodius and the second game, called Fantastic
Journey are packaged together in one disk - and offers
incredible value for money.
Parodius 2 - Fantastic
Journey (Gokujou Parodius in Japan) 1994.
This game is simply bigger,
louder and better than the original.
You have around 11
characters to choose from; each with male and female
versions. One of the maddest being a stick man standing
on a paper aeroplane that sports a condom shaped shield
when sufficiently powered up!
The 2 player mode is
simultaneous now - increasing the mayhem..on really busy
sections (of which there are many) its hard for my old
eyes to keep up. The 2 player simultaneous play offers
for some great tactics. With proper selection of
complementary characters and/or weapons you can cut
swathes through the enemies. There's even a really neat
feature where if you keep hitting the other player - the
character eventually goes into some sort of mad mode -
morphing into a fireball and shooting in all directions
for a short time before returning to what passes for
normal in this game. It offers great scope for getting
though some of the tougher levels. In 2 player mode,
play continues if someone loses a life - no restart
points as in the first game.
Level 1 has you flying
through one of those vending machines in which you
attempt to win a soft toy with a crane. The soundtrack
of this level is a mad remix of "In The Mood" playing in
the background - with what sounds like support vocals by
chickens on the "Wah Waaaah" bit.
The boss is a giant panda in
a tutu......
Level 2 is an underwater
level - the catship from the original game makes a
reappearance in submarine form. It is in this level that
there is a brilliant example of the level of detail in
this game. The stick man character on the paper plane (Koitsu)
drops missiles in the shape of himself - normally they
run along the ground until they either trip up or run
into an enemy and explode (sometimes they stop to tie
their laces!). Under the water they float to the top
wearing a life preserver! Superb...there are hordes of
beautiful touches like this all the way through the
game. The track on this level is a Suza marching band
tune given the Parodius makeover.
Other highlights....a level
where you have to blast through a giant cake dodging
falling strawberries, kiwi fruit and Jolly Ranchers
sweets; and a high speed chase level through a maze
(with the William tell Overture playing) ending with a
battle against a robotised set of traffic lights.
One of the bosses in this
game is a giant Gradius powerup symbol - that fires
powerup symbols at you!!!
Finishing the game unlocks a
special score challenge level (really tough this time).
Overall
I find this series of games
an endless source of amusement and challenge. Resist the
unlimited continues and you will get more out these
games. You can also select auto or manual power up in
all of the games. In auto power the game decides when to
power your ship up for you. Keep to manual power up for
a real challenge.
As I have said before, the
level of detail in these games, especially in the second
game, is astounding - there is so much going on it is
hard to believe that the Saturn can keep up - but being
the 2D powerhouse it is, it does.
In all both of these games
there is only one place where I have encountered
slowdown;
It is in level 2 of
Fantastic Journey when the enormous screen filling
cat-submarine sprite rotates. It happens 3 times in the
level and is only in effect for a couple of seconds -
and it's actually a blessing on this occasion because of
the ridiculous number of enemies on-screen - but I
wonder if it is deliberate given the incredible amount
of activity in other scenes in this game that don't have
slowdown.
Both of these games come
highly recommended to shooter fans who don't take life
too seriously.
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