Ultimate Guide: Parodius

Take a classic shoot-’em-up series and drop the serious, and you might get something that’s just a little bit like Parodius. Nick Thorpe looks back at Konami’s classic blaster…

It’s like Gradius, but not. Nick Thorpe is your pilot in our guide to this tongue-in-cheek shoot-‘em-up

it’s a shame that more developers don’t engage in self-parody, as the results can often be quite interesting. Games like Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti, Alex Kidd In Shinobi World and Star Parodier all do some amusing things with well loved properties, but before any of those games, Konami unleashed Parodius upon the world in 1988. The first game in the series is often forgotten, as it was a Japanese exclusive for the MSX, but it set the template for what was to come.

The game took the design of Gradius, but featured a selection of playable Konami characters as well as bizarre enemies and stage designs, often with heavy nods to Japanese culture. Following the success of the MSX original, Konami decided to create a sequel named Parodius Da! (roughly “It’s Parodius!”), released internationally as simply Parodius – and that’s the game we’re looking at here.

At its heart, Parodius is just like any other Gradius game – you control a flying character, you shoot enemies and defeat bosses, while tokens can be collected and spent on power-up items. The difference is that visually, the game has adopted the colourful aesthetic common to cute-’em-ups, like Twinbee and Fantasy Zone. The result is ridiculous. You shoot at a cat-headed pirate ship, marauding penguins or killer bees that pop out of treasure chests. Meanwhile, locations include a cartoon graveyard, a sunny shore and a neon-lit casino world. Most Gradius games feature the iconic Moai head

“AT ITS HEART, PARODIUS IS JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GRADIUS GAME”