A port of Parodius da!: Shinwa kara Owarai he
Konami's imaginative parody on the Gradius series. It plays just like Gradius, with the same power-up system, but features a far more bizarre and imaginative series of levels and characters. This game was released in Japan for the PC Engine and is a port of the Arcade original with a couple of differences: it doesn't have the arcade Stages 5 and 8, but features a stage titled SPECIAL and a new introduction that features several strange-looking Japanese characters. This is in contrast to the arcade intro, which chronicles the Gradius legacy up until the time of release.
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Well it's now time for port number 3. Yes I have really played this game 4 times on 4 different platforms. This time it's the PC Engine and I do love me some PC Engine Shmups. Surely this is the one that will get it right and yeah it actually does! As per usual, go to my Arcade review to hear more about what I think of the game and other stuff for it as this will just be about what the port does right and wrong.
So let me talk positive that this version of the game doesn't really have much slowdown or any notable examples of it. It's enjoyable to beginning to end and it didn't even feel slow for me this time. What's more is that it's also not as hard as the Arcade version which makes it more enjoyable for me personally. I rather be having fun then getting pissed off.
The flicker is also not all bad but there is still a small amount at times but nothing that will be distracting to hurt the experience. Even the presentation is pretty good for a hucard game and the music is quite nice even if it has that usual PC Engine sound that's hit or miss with me. The voices from the Arcade also returned but they are so compressed it probably wasn't worth the time.
Sadly the roulette is still here which is to be expected and the !? is still there which I just wish was just removed by now. Though speaking of weapons, the specials are once again mapped to your shoot button but guess what they finally fixed it. You now have to double tap it to activate it meaning you now can use them whenever you want and still shoot normally. This is such a great change.
Sadly there are still some stages cut. This time it was the Moai ship stage and the ice stage with the pufferfish. Though this does mean we get some stages like the spooky one for the first time in a port. This is probably one of the only problems with this port.
This game also has a special stage where you try to get as many points as you can on one stage, you don't even go back to a checkpoint when you die. It kind of reminds me of those caravan modes but without the timer. It's a neat little mode but it's nothing more then that.
I think this is finally the time I can say I really enjoyed the experience. It removed most of the frustration I had with the Arcade version and sure it's not perfect and it still has issues the Arcade one had as well but now it's pretty fun and it's worth being played by anyone interested in the PC Engine. Really the only thing it could have needed to be better was probably just putting it on a CD, I wonder why they didn't do that considering the Gradius games have CD versions.
So let me talk positive that this version of the game doesn't really have much slowdown or any notable examples of it. It's enjoyable to beginning to end and it didn't even feel slow for me this time. What's more is that it's also not as hard as the Arcade version which makes it more enjoyable for me personally. I rather be having fun then getting pissed off.
The flicker is also not all bad but there is still a small amount at times but nothing that will be distracting to hurt the experience. Even the presentation is pretty good for a hucard game and the music is quite nice even if it has that usual PC Engine sound that's hit or miss with me. The voices from the Arcade also returned but they are so compressed it probably wasn't worth the time.
Sadly the roulette is still here which is to be expected and the !? is still there which I just wish was just removed by now. Though speaking of weapons, the specials are once again mapped to your shoot button but guess what they finally fixed it. You now have to double tap it to activate it meaning you now can use them whenever you want and still shoot normally. This is such a great change.
Sadly there are still some stages cut. This time it was the Moai ship stage and the ice stage with the pufferfish. Though this does mean we get some stages like the spooky one for the first time in a port. This is probably one of the only problems with this port.
This game also has a special stage where you try to get as many points as you can on one stage, you don't even go back to a checkpoint when you die. It kind of reminds me of those caravan modes but without the timer. It's a neat little mode but it's nothing more then that.
I think this is finally the time I can say I really enjoyed the experience. It removed most of the frustration I had with the Arcade version and sure it's not perfect and it still has issues the Arcade one had as well but now it's pretty fun and it's worth being played by anyone interested in the PC Engine. Really the only thing it could have needed to be better was probably just putting it on a CD, I wonder why they didn't do that considering the Gradius games have CD versions.