Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack

"The best Saturn shootemup I ever played. Also the only Saturn shootemup I ever played."

Parodius, slightly better known as Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack, is a compilation of the first two Parodius games: Parodius, and Fantastic Journey (never originally released outside of Japan, where it was called Gokujou Parodius). The Parodius games are essentially a parody of the classic side-scrolling shooter series Gradius, often described as Gradius on crack/LSD/etc. References to Gradius, other Konami games, and (apparently) Japanese pop culture are packed into these games, and I'm sure members of Parodius Team were also on the staff of Konami Krazy Racers - it has the same obsession with penguins, includes Takosuke from Fantastic Journey, and it actually doesn't have a dedicated ''serious'' Gradius track - all include some form of Paro reference.

''NO PARKING HERE!''

Gameplay - 9/10
The basic gameplay here is almost identical to Gradius, and is the same in both games. Fly around the screen, shooting everything that moves, and avoid getting hit by enemy bullets. Killing certain enemies also gets you a power up capsule - the selectable characters (4 in Parodius, 8 in Fantastic Journey) have different powerup sequences, but they usually follow the same pattern: Speed Up, Missile, Double, Laser, Option, OH!, Shield. Most are self explanatory, Options are mini-ships that follow yours and can also shoot, and OH!(or ''?'' in Parodius)... Find out yourself. Heh heh. Bells (from the Twinbee series) also appear occasionally, they change colour when shot. If you get a colour other than yellow, you get powers such as the megaphone (which shoots hilarious Engrish phrases, some of which are between paragraphs in this review), a bomb which kills everything on screen, and a giant invincible ship. There are three different control/powerup methods: Auto - one button for shooting/missiles/bellpower, instant revival, powerups are handled automatically, but you can only get one level of speed up and option, and can't choose if you want Double or Missile. Semi Auto (only available in FJ) combines shooting/missiles/bellpower into one button and powers up automatically, but you can also do it manually. Manual has seperate buttons for shooting, missiles/bellpower, and power up. The Saturn conversion is pretty well-done, but there is massive slowdown when the cat submarine turns round and all the fish are onscreen in level 2. (though nowhere near as much as the PSX version, which from what I heard contains unbearable slowdown in many places) The original Parodius is pretty hard, especially with a limited number of continues (the SNES, GB, NES and other versions gave infinite continues), but Fantastic Journey has a more reasonable difficulty level.

''OH!S.T.U.D''

Story - 5/10
Story, yeah, the story... Even having the UK version doesn't make figuring out the story any easier, it's not in the damn manual. In Parodius, you have to defeat a giant octopus for some reason. In Fantastic Journey, after defeating the octopus, the original 4 characters get in a fight or something, then 3 of them plus 5 new ones go off to defeat another giant octopus (female this time) and get its treasure from a spaceship/penguin nightclub orbiting a moon inhabited by rabbit chefs. Screwed up? You bet. Anyway, this seems to be as good a place as any to introduce the characters... Parodius has four selectable characters: Vic Viper, the spaceship from Gradius; a strangely purple Twinbee from the series of the same name; Octopus (not Takosuke), umm.. an octopus; and Pentarou, the penguin from Konami's mid-80s classic Antarctic Adventure. Fantastic Journey includes Vic Viper; a naturally-coloured (yellow and blue) Twinbee; Takosuke, the son of Octopus; the eternally ass-kicking Pentarou; Mambo, a fish (apparently its powerups resemble those of the ship in R-Type); Hikaru, a bunny girl riding a phallic rocket; Michael, a flying pig; and Koitsu, a stickman semi-infamous for his ''Guy Shield'', aka an inflated transparent condom. Unfortunately, Goemon, Kid Dracula, and Upa in the SFC version of Gokujou Parodius were bonuses to make up for the lower quality of the conversion, and are not present in the arcade, Saturn or PSX games. The characters in FJ also have near-identical counterparts for 2 player mode, basically just small sprite/palette changes.

''TEETH IN ME SOUP?''

Graphics - 8/10
Nice detailed sprites, great backgrounds, and some of the bosses are pretty damn impressive. (Fantastic Journey is better in this area, but then it was released 5 years after Parodius). Levels include in a kitchen on the moon inhabited by rabbits, a space level packed with Gradius references, a pinball machine, and many others. Bosses include a giant stripper...uh, showgirl (who appears in both), a pillow that shoots powerups, a robotic penguin, a sumo wrestler, some weird traffic light thing, and some giant lips. The whole game's incredibly detailed, colourful and well animated - but it doesn't just try to fit as much crap on the screen as possible, like some other shooters...

''NOTED, THANKS!''

Sound - 9/10
Most of the music in both games is remixed of classical or Konami music, but it fits with the rest of the game and is all very well done - Konami games consistently have great music, and neither of the games on this disc are any different. The voices in both games are.. well, crap. Not badly voice-acted (it's just a word or two when you get a powerup, or from some bosses), the sound quality is just really poor, although this was common to many Saturn games and is probably a hardware limitation. The rest of the sound effects are just generic shooter stuff, nothing special.

''TOASTER OVERHEATED''

Replayability - 7/10
There aren't many secrets you would want to replay the game for, but I still find myself playing through Fantastic Journey even after completing it so many times... it's too damn good.

''NO SUSHI TONIGHT?''

Multiplayer - ?/10
Fantastic Journey has a two-player co-op mode, but I only have one working Saturn controller, so I have no idea if it's any good.

''LOCK ME BABY!''

Overall - 9/10
If you can find the PAL or Japanese version (all the important stuff is in English in the JP version anyway), I recommend you buy it. The PAL version is pretty hard to find, but usually cheap, and has an English manual; the Japanese turns up on Ebay more often but prices vary from £5 to £40.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/10/02, Updated 05/10/02