Fantastic Parodius

A top-notch gag attack.

JP release: 25th November 1994
NA release: N/A
EU release: N/A
AKA: Gokujō Parodius (Japan)
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
The Inverted Dungeon Review: 8.1/10
Platforms: Arcade, SNES
Version Played: SNES

The Parodius series are horizontal shooters that are a parody of Konami’s own Gradius, and often called a “cute-’em-up”. A few of them also have references to other Konami games including the second game, Fantastic Parodius on the SNES. The original arcade version had nothing related to Castlevania, but the SNES version added a few extra characters, including Kid Dracula, so naturally I played the entire game as him.

This is a scrolling shooter that pretty much anyone can play – you can hold A to fire and just keep blasting, collecting power ups to get upgrades. One of Kid Dracula’s upgrades is “needle”, which shoots out a ton of homing shots at once, and he can even have a multi level shield for surviving multiple hits. He’s definitely an Easy Mode, which suits me very well, as I was able to make it to the end without actually dying.

Even so, there’s an immense amount of stuff happening on screen at once, and it’s all absolutely crazy. Enemies consist of space ships, farm animals, cat submarines and giant women. There’s a lot of variety in the levels and some genuinely funny moments that crop up throughout the game. It’s something you have to play to really get.

This does seem that it’s something that serious shmup fans would get a kick out of, as well as being a game people that don’t like them (or aren’t good at them) will also enjoy because of the insanity in it and being quite easy with the right characters.

Fun

Overall, though, this was a fun and enjoyable package for what it was. If you’re good at this kinds of titles you’ll have about a solid hour of game-play here to enjoy, with all the strange and fun flourishes a Parodius title promises. Even someone at my skill level was easily able to get through the first three stages, and the rest of it, while a struggle, never felt unfair (just hard to manage). This is probably one of the easier shoot-em-ups I’ve ever played, which might make it less impressive for your average hardcore fan of the genre.
Mike Finkelstein, The Inverted Dungeon

Remake or remaster?

A Parodius collection would be neat to see.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get Fantastic Parodius