Parodius! (MSX Review)
February 12, 2024 1 Comment
Parodius
aka Parodius: The Octopus Saves the Earth
Platform: MSX
Developed by Konami
First Released April 28, 1988
NO MODERN RE-RELEASE
I wish I had picked a different game to be the first MSX title I’ve done.
It’s not often I quit a game because it’s so physically painful to play that it’s not enjoyable, but that’s where I’ve been with Parodius for the MSX. It’s the first game in the Parodius series, and it ain’t very good. Parodius, for those new to the series, is a Konami shmup franchise that satirizes the genre and specifically Konami’s own titles like Gradius or Life Force. I’m a huge fan of the series, to the point that I might consider it the most underrated series in the industry, but I’d never played the MSX original. Now that I have, well, thank God they didn’t quit after one. Parodius in arcades or non-MSX consoles? Awesome. This? Not so awesome, but it actually isn’t due to the technical limitations. It’s just badly designed, with horrendous levels and the spongiest bosses I’ve ever seen in a shmup. And I had no autofire, which would have been so useful. I did end up finishing it, but I had to break-up the session throughout the day. A game that should have taken me a couple hours at most took almost ten hours to finish, all thanks to PAIN.
Sponge is a huge problem with this edition of Parodius. It’s absurd how much non-basic enemies take to kill even fully powered with two options.
The basic gameplay of Parodius as a franchise is functionally identical to Konami’s Gradius/Salamander titles. But, instead of fights with alien spaceships, gigantic eyeballs, the sarcophagus of King Tut, or fire breathing dragons, it’s a “cute ’em up” with silly bosses like giant penguins or, later in the series, boobies and the women attached to those boobies. I’m not even joking. The last game in the franchise that’s a space shooter is called “Sexy Parodius” which I’ve not yet played but I’m really looking forward to it. Despite the novelty of fighting enemies that mock the entire shmup premise, these Parodius games are among the best of their breed in the genre. In fact, all three Parodius releases on the Super Famicom are in my top 25 for the SNES. They’re better versions of Gradius or Life Force, right down to the item upgrade system, only with a high premium anarchist fun. That all started here, on the MSX in 1988, but really, the series didn’t get good until the second game in the franchise, which I have five ports of that to play this week.
Honestly, despite the lack of finer details for characters, Parodius looks good for a game subject to so many technical hurdles. But, the first problem with the game is that the five characters you can pick from are all functionally the same. In later games in the series, each hero has a different type of laser gun. The top guns this go around are always lasers, and while those lasers can be upgraded, it makes the whole “choose your character” aspect that I love about the series functionally useless. On the other hand, the game is pretty generous with collision detection. it sort of has to be, since tight squeezes are a large part of the level design. This is especially true in “bonus stages” of which I seemed to have found by accident.
Literally half my body is in the lethal breakaway wall. This section sucked, by the way, and if you lose in the bonus room, you lose your entire load out.
Given the lower detailed graphics, I figured the enemy design would be too bland, but actually, the variety of enemies is fine. It’s annoying that they often attack from behind, which is a pet peeve of mine, but that wouldn’t be a deal breaker. Actually, the set pieces have that proof of concept feel to them that I sort of expected from this first installment, but what I wasn’t expecting was how dazzling they can be. There’s gigantic encounters with Moai, moles that pop up and down, moving gravestones, and GOTCHA dead ends that kill you if you don’t have clairvoyance. Wait, what? Yea, that’s a thing in the last stage of Parodius, which has level design so audacious that I feel like the designers should be ashamed of themselves. Look at this.
Haha GIT GUD. Unreal. No, that’s not a “git gud” thing. That’s just the designer being a complete asshole thing.
So, in order to get past this, you have to collect a white bell. An enemy will drop a bell before this. You have to shoot that bell enough to turn it white. Doing this allows you to go through one side of the screen and out the other. But, the only way you can actually know this is coming is to encounter it and die. That’s not a challenge. I’m sorry, but it’s not. That’s turning a shmup into busy work. Gaming has come a long way and I don’t think anyone would be vile enough to make level design like this anymore, which takes away the potential for excitement and glory by just ending a player’s run so unceremoniously. Especially when the challenge leading up to this is a series of extremely tight squeezes. Like, seriously, this is what players had to deal with BEFORE this instakill wall, and what they then have to replay after the wall kills them (which it almost certainly will).
Now my buddy, pinball designer Dave Sanders, insists to me that it’s supposed to be a satire of Gradius/Life Force’s “final door” because you literally fight the last boss after that dead end and instead of being walled into fighting, a wall just straight-up blocks you. Well, that’s not funny. It’s just not. It’s just being a dickhead for the sake of it, and not remotely funny. None of this original Parodius is, frankly. It’s kind of amazing it ever got as many installments as it did, given how terrible a game this is. It’s practically a bullet hell at times, and unlike future editions of Parodius, it doesn’t have a whole lot of charm to negate the evil design. Putting a literal brick wall you have to gain a temporary power-up to pass would be enough to push this into a NO! verdict, but actually, Parodius had already earned a NO! from the boss fights.
The bosses in Parodius would be fun to do battle with if they didn’t suck up bullets like you’ve never seen any boss suck up bullets before. I’m not even exaggerating when I say I fought the first big boss (the penguin) without the lasers and, after five minutes of pumping it with bullets, it still hadn’t died. Oh, my hand did. It still hurts, actually, and that ain’t a bit I’m doing for laughs. It hurts. A lot. They’re pretty much all this way. Oddly enough, the last two bosses had the least sponginess about them, and that’s especially strange considering that I didn’t even have a full load out fighting them. I get that it’s supposed to be a satire, but the sheer amount of shots these things take only had me laughing in awkward disgust. And mind you, I missed the real boss for the graveyard scene because I entered the bonus room for that stage (which became the second one I found completely accidentally), and that’s frustrating. I wouldn’t want to ever play this again to experience it. I can’t stress enough: if they do a Parodius collection, this NEEDS to be included, if only to allow players to see a proof of concept for what might be the most underrated franchise in video game history. But, is it still fun to play today? Are you joking? It’s hard to tell with this game.
Verdict: NO!
Post Retro Review Fun Fact: The last game in the Parodius series came out in 1997, and it wasn’t even a shmup. Paro Wars is a turn-based strategy game that was released only in Japan. It’s the only Parodius game I won’t be reviewing this week.
Indie Gamer Chick 
“and GOTCHA dead ends” Ugh, that is just not acceptable for a scrolling shooter. I remember these appearing in a few old 80s/90s titles (Super Stuntman on the Speccy and the overrated Xenon 2 on the Amiga spring to mind; although to be fair the latter also lets you fly *backwards* which is itself kind of wrong).
I seem to remember the MSX port of very serious and non-parody Nemesis/Gradius is well-regarded which just reminds me how shite the contemporary Spectrum port was because they tried to fit the whole game into 48K (there’s also a whole scandal involving a Speccy mag reviewing an “exclusive” of Nemesis using WIP screenshots of that game, and what they did when the released game looked completely different but that’s another story)