Um Jammer Lammy is a spin-off of PaRappa the Rapper, taking place in that same world, but with a different cast.
Katy from the last game is back, as part of Lammy's band, MilkCan, but the focus of the plot is more on Lammy herself.

I can see a lot of people relating to Lammy, because she is a nervous wreck who has trouble speaking her mind, and as such, she finds herself in various wacky situations, that she needs to go through if she wants to pass and make it to the MilkCan Concert on time.

Because of this, cutscenes in this game can get quite frantic, chaotic and fast-paced, due to the sheer insanity of what Lammy is being put through. I couldn't help but feel a bit bad for her.
Unlike last time, the cutscenes actually do fill the entire screen, which is nice.

The gameplay hasn't seen many changes from last time. The UI is different, but you're still pressing buttons at the right time alongside that level's specific character. It's just instead of rapping, you're playing your guitar... or something else, depending on the situation.

I feel like the timings aren't much different from last time. They're a bit more forgiving, and it feels like if I follow the groove of the song, I can pass just fine, but by the end, it once again got difficult understanding the exact timings of the songs. However, tt does feel overall better, which is a good thing.

Just like last time, the songs themselves are also pretty good, and I do like the genre shift from PaRappa the Rapper, being more focused on the guitar solos, which I liked. And one of the cooler things about this game is that after you beat it, you can play through the stages again with different stipulations, like playing as a team of Lammy and Rammy, or playing as PaRappa himself! It gives the game a bit more replay value, which is appreciated for a game that can be beaten in less than an hour.

Overall, Um Jammer Lammy is a cool spin-off to PaRappa the Rapper, and while it's still not at the best it can be, it does add more to the overall experience.

I didn't really replay this in full but I've wanted to talk a bit more on it for a while now just because it's such a bizarre case. Today I ask, how far do pure vibes and comfort carry a game?

Pretty fucking far, honestly. I don't really like playing this one, but it is bar none one of my favorites.

This does not play like a perfect 10, or particularly close to one. It honestly plays kinda rough even, only worse in the age of emulators. This game, alongside the first Parappa game to an even greater extent, has pretty major issues lying in the sheer precision required. I'm not sure if it corresponds more with the actual music or the commands on screen, but a lot of the time the two don't really feel like they're on the same wavelength and it becomes really disorienting. This becomes borderline unplayable on emulators due to additional lag and input delay. These are super early examples of the rhythm game (especially Parappa) so I suppose there's not a lot you can do if you're basically the codifier for the genre, but in the current times it's really jarring to play after growing up with Rock Band 1 & 2 for example.

On the other hand, Um Jammer Lammy basically reaches perfection in every aspect relating to presentation. The visuals, characters, music, and goofy ass story are all incredibly charming and have pretty much occupied my brain all the time ever since my first playthrough. I really do just love it all too much to dock any points for playing kinda poorly. What actually made me replay a bit of it today was a good friend telling me Lammy reminds him of me, which as instantly turned me into a sopping wet puddle due to my intense brainrot over this series.

It's a bit difficult to recommend playing this, especially with it performing a bit lousy on emulators and going for high prices on physical copies, but I can't stress enough how fun it is to watch a playthrough online. It borders on essential media, at least in my eyes. Make sure to watch a playthrough of Parappa 1 and 2 also. Maybe the Parappa anime as well for good measure (though Lammy is missing in it smh)

If Parappa the Rapper is a low-level drug trip groove through an increasingly weird week, then Um Jammer Lammy is the ecstasy-laced fever dream weekend. The story follows Lammy trying to get to her band's gig on time but constantly running into characters who insist she helps them with their high-stress jobs. Things move at such a frantic pace that it's difficult to have any idea what's going on. Characters are constantly yelling, cutscenes have 5 edits every second, and, unlike Parappa's story beats, Lammy's hurdles are completely random and unrelated to her personally, so it's just a blur of complete chaos. Unfortunately, that carries into the gameplay itself.

Lammy's music is seemingly written to be intentionally confusing. Nearly every song is plagued by bizarre time signatures, button prompts that don't match the cadence of the lyrics, and segments that require a level of speed and button-mashing that Parappa never came close to. This game also amplifies a problem in the first game: the small delay between pressing a button and the audio of Lammy's guitar actually playing makes it absolutely impossible to keep time consistently. Most levels feel like they're won with dumb luck, especially Level 6 that features an atonal, arhythmic stage aria. Most times failure comes at the very last moment of a song, forcing you to start from the top and struggling against the game's design again and again.

Um Jammer Lammy feels like it learned all the wrong lessons from Parappa, which already had its own issues. Chaotic in every way, from story to gameplay, Lammy frustrates and annoys with each new riff screamed at you by another anthropomorphic psychopath. Much like Lammy's guitar, this game is out of tune.

Yeah, this game fucking slapped. Not sure what compelled Greenblat and NanaOn-Sha to make their first PaRappa spin-off about a lesbian failgirl rock band, but I'm def all for it. So many neat little upgrades to how the game is played and how the game conveys success and failure. It's still not quite where I'd want it to be, the strict pass or fail depending on if you're in the "Good" range or not when the song ends worked better for the much shorter tracks of PaRappa 1, but I was still able to complete the game in a couple hours so I guess that's basically a non-complaint!

The borderline nonsensical and frantic storytelling has been turned up even further, and it feels like the plot was more consciously constructed around the arcade-y rhythm game format thanks to how delectably chaotic both the stages themselves and the cutscenes between can be. I think I enjoyed the tracks on offer a bit more than PaRappa's as well. The sound editing was already impressive in the first game, but they really took it a step further with how dynamic Lammy feels by comparison. Definitely can see myself coming back to play this again, though next time I'll probably play the Japanese version since I heard that stage 6 was censored in the NA version for some lame ass reason.

tbh girls i think a few of u should change your profile pics to anything but her. feel like that stupid tiktok audio that’s like we can’t allllll be donatello. it’s like true lol like which character has more profile pics on here lammy or asuka

don’t understand rhythm games and honestly never fucking will, my coordination is like actually so bad lol. so played this w cheats on and still couldn’t beat a single level but I did see them all and watched all the very cute cuntscenes. skill issue or w/e
big mtv animation/early adult swim vibes going on here. cool mixture of a bunch of diff aesthetics and styles and everything feels so bouncy and alive. lammy’s reflection on that guys teeth is rly fucking cool. reminds me of like mission hill or downtown or like home movies/metalocalypse, great stuff. prob the best loading screens in any game.

sara ramirez is genuinely such a funny person, rlly like her in and just like that even though that’s like not a great show where it would be so easy to phone it in I think their work there kind of elevates the rest of the show. doing like lazy pothead bimbo-cent here and it fucking rules honestly
parappa looks like dominic fike, should reboot it w him lmao

DOJO, CASINO, IT'S ALL IN THE MIND

i kinda expected this to impress on me harder than it did. instead it was more like "woah! this thing aligns closely with my tastes!". i get the vibe that it woulda impacted me more (and nudged me a little closer to being queer) if i had played it as a kid. ah well. i'm not going to complain. i love lammy (top 10 lesbian 4 sure), love milkcan, love how offbeat and funny the cutscenes are, love how ridiculous cool mode is, love that they squeezed 2 campaigns with a multiplayer mode for each out of this. guitar hero: bashful lamb is primo nanaon-sha and i don't think they hit a high quite like this ever agai- oh shit, vib-ribbon came out after this?? never mind. that game's even better.

The moment it turned midnight, as we entered 2024, I for some reason felt an inexplicable urge to play Um Jammer Lammy for the first time. I think I saw a clip on twitter of Lammy going to hell and thought that was really cool. I really can't remember, I wasn't the most sober at the time. Either way, I browsed eBay, cried and then begrudgingly loaded up an emulator in that order and well...man.

It's rare for me to just love everything about a game on sight but Um Jammer Lammy just feels so confident in how strange and joyful it is. For a start, the music in the game jams hard (Stage 2 & 6 being my favs), the art and character design is bursting with personality and originality in its totality, the story has a lot of fun with itself in an incredibly nightmareish way AND the best part is that it gets it all done within a couple of hours. In & Out. One & Done. Also Lammy is cool. I can see why everybody wants to be Lammy.

The only thing that's really stopping me from calling it perfect is that it is SO damn hard! Like, granted, playing it on an emulator probably doesn't help with some of the timings but I was never fully able to grasp what timing the game was asking of me. Sometimes hitting the buttons a bit early would work, sometimes it wouldn't. After trying stuff out and looking on the internet I'm convinced this game just has really strict inputs that a mixture of emulation and lack of skill gave me a difficult time with a bunch of tracks, some of them being brick walls. Or maybe the input timings are just weird. IDK, all it does is make me wish I had a copy I could run on original hardware so I could do the game justice. Maybe someday.

Until then though, I'm happy to leave my thoughts as is. Um Jammer Lammy is a short, special game that I'm sure is gonna stick on my mind for the next 363 days of the year. Bonne année, jammys!

This game desperately needs a remaster like what Parappa The Rapper 1 has because this game is great however the input lag is actually the worst (especially through emulation) that I can understand why people drop this game. It is by far my favourite game in the "Parappa The Rapper series" from the music to characters to even the batshit insane plot. Don't even get me started on Lammy I just love her character so much from how awkward she can come off at times to then hallucinating and begin to absolutely shredding it on (what she thinks is) a guitar and she goes to hell Like wtf did my girl Lammy do she is too pure to go to hell. I am praying that 1 day we will get that remaster.