Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius (SNES) - 1-ALL Clear (3,334,400 to 2-3)
Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius
実況おしゃべりパロディウス
Chatting Parodius Live! (PSP version)
©1996 Konami
Released as the fourth unique title in the whacky Parodius series, Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius does a lot of... interesting things. The main gimmick with this game is a Japanese talkshow host that commentates over your gameplay. Of course, I have no idea what the hell he's saying, but it's not much of a distraction to leave it on. This is the original version, released on the SNES. It would later receive an upgraded port (given the subtitle "Forever With Me") to the Playstation and Sega Saturn, and the PS1 version would be included on Parodius Portable for the PSP. As far as gameplay itself goes, it's basically like an expansion pack for Gokujou Parodius. There's a lot more inspiration from other Konami franchises this time around, including TwinBee, Ganbare Goemon, and Lethal Enforcers, among others.
Both the 1P and 2P versions of every character are selectable, but most of the 2P characters just have slightly altered configurations to their 1P counterparts. I happen to use Sue, who uses a SOLDM? power-up order instead of the traditional order. I don't typically like using nerfed power-up bars (see Life Force JP and Gradius Gaiden), but I've stuck with Sue for so long I don't really see myself trying out any of the other characters (besides Soitsu, but he's actually not too great for this game).
Another big element of this game are the fairies, which appear in fixed locations throughout the game. If you manage to free them and touch them, you get 10,000 points each. There are 70 in total, and I think you unlock something when you get all 70, but I can't be bothered to try for that. This video shows where most of them are, and finding them can boost your score by several 100k per loop.
And that's kinda one of the flaws of this game: it's way, WAY too easy to rack up high scores. Power-up dropping enemies are more frequent than ever, which means bells are more frequent. If that wasn't enough, every stage has at least one special enemy that drops 6 bells when defeated, so with a perfect bell chain, that's 60k right there. And then there are a ton of objects you can blow up using blue bells to get additional bonuses (but most of the time, it's not worth more than just getting a 10k yellow bell). All that combined with the fairies make getting scores in the millions a trivial task if you're good at keeping a yellow bell chain. Even as a score jockie myself, it seems a bit excessive, and it's easy to get distracted with everything flying around. It makes purple bells almost completely useless, which is kinda shocking.
Being a home console game and not an arcade game, the rank is nowhere near as ludicrous as it could've been (but it's not forgiving, either). Some parts are still pretty bad, though. Mostly the bosses: half of them have way too much health, invincibility frames that seem to last for ages, and many attacks where they're straight-up invulnerable (Goemon Compact is the worst offender for all three cases, though the fight itself is easy). The Puzzle Master boss in stage 6 is an absolute douche (as evident in this run, where he completely handed me my own ass), and it's even worse on higher difficulty settings. It's not uncommon for the screen to get crowded with enemies and bullets, and hitboxes aren't very generous. Like SNES Gokujou, you can only get up to 10 score extends. For me, that's actually better than the PS1/SS/PSP version, which gives infinite extends and makes playing until you game over a serious endurance test. You don't have to worry about going into high loops with 20+ lives in reserve. I probably could've made it further in this run, but whatever. There is slowdown, which is the usual double-edged sword. This game does has a slightly longer average runtime per loop, taking anywhere from 45-50 minutes even with optimal gameplay, again mostly due to bosses, slowdown, and slow pacing. (Seriously, some stages drag on for way too long.)
So, do I still hate this game? No, but the Forever With Me version is still lightyears ahead of this game as far as quality, especially in regard to music, framerate, and bosses. I'd recommend that game over this one any day of the week and twice on Sundays, but again, it's not like it's unplayable. I was definitely too hard on it when I ranked the Gradius series last year (especially since when I did that, I hadn't played it in years), so being able to revisit it and give it another chance was worth it. Still, if you want to play Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, just play the PS1, SS, or PSP versions for a better experience.
Played using the SNES core of Mesen.
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