Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for the Parodius series for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

Shmups are a genre which I enjoy but am completely rubbish at. And I have no familiarity at all with the source material of this series, Gradius. But this seemed too silly and daft not to try it out but my first time with the series was rough. I decided I would try out the trilogy on the Super Famicom and I mistakenly tried out the second game first known as Fantastic Journey in English. I tried out the Vic Viper first and when I first shot down an enemy I thought “this is a bit sadistic, I beat an enemy and it leaves a bomb behind! Bloody hell!” So I avoided these bombs and the game absolutely crushed me, I was so quickly overwhelmed by enemy fire that I had to repeat certain sections over and over. I was contemplating throwing the towel until I remember in the next playthrough I touched one of these “bombs” and found out it was a powerup! They looked dangerous to me but I felt pretty stupid that I made the game harder than it had to be. But it was with this revelation that I really began to gel with this. As you can get powered up really quickly it does not take long to be an agent of chaos raining down destruction. My particular favourites to use were Mambo the sunfish, Mike the cat and Upa the baby. Those guys got ridiculous when they had the right weapons at their disposal.

The music being covers of public access tunes and classical music suit the vibe well and I did not expect the cover of “That the way I like it” in the entry Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius which I both loved for its phenomenal presentation and some of the most challenging and memorable bosses I encountered so far in the series and found disappointing due to its intense slowdown when there was too much action on the screen. Made me wish I tried it on more powerful hardware like the PS1 but I respect Konami for pushing the Super Famicom so hard. But out of all three entries for the Super Famicom it was the second one Fantastic Journey that I liked the most. It had no slowdown compared to the third title and it had far more characters and just that bit more refined than the first one.

Overall, while I definitely am no master at this game (save scumming was employed liberally!), I still really enjoyed Parodius for being a intense shmup that will destroy you despite its cutesy covering. The high difficulty paired with a plethora of references to Konami’s other franchises and wacky scenarios that you fly through show the absolute love and affection that the developers have for both shmups as a genre and video games as a medium. Parodius reminded me of the era where Konami was not afraid to embrace the more wacky side of things which I think is well overdue for a return.

Three Word Review: Bullet hell penguins

I had a copy of Parodius for the Sega Saturn when I was around 9 years old and I had no idea it was a parody, despite the name.

I've no idea how it ended up in my collection and I can't recall how it played but the imagery stuck with me forever - the Easter Island heads with sunglasses, the crab-walking belly dancer holding up the stage, creepy smiling mountains, pirate penguins, screen filling pufferfish and ballerina pandas all combined to give me my first ever trip without the need for actual drugs.

Rhaegyr wrote: ↑January 30th, 2023, 10:26 am I had a copy of Parodius for the Sega Saturn when I was around 9 years old and I had no idea it was a parody, despite the name.

I've no idea how it ended up in my collection and I can't recall how it played but the imagery stuck with me forever - the Easter Island heads with sunglasses, the crab-walking belly dancer holding up the stage, creepy smiling mountains, pirate penguins, screen filling pufferfish and ballerina pandas all combined to give me my first ever trip without the need for actual drugs.

I guess being so young you don't remember, but you actually had two games on there (despite the Western release title), Parodius and sequel, Fantastic Journey.

Ah, so that's why the Let's Play videos I've been watching show two very different playthroughs.

Thanks for the heads up - just looked at Fantastic Journey and seeing the little man on the paper aeroplane brought back even more memories!