A straight up improvement in every regard from its predecessors, PaRappa 2 easily lands its place as the best game of the trilogy. I love a lot of the PlayStation 2’s early offerings as they almost represent the end of an era, back when short, sub-20 hour games were commonplace in your console library alongside your 40+ hour behemoths. In less than two hours I finished the main game while having pure groove injected into my veins. The game overall just strikes that specific hip-hop chord for me especially compared to the first game. I’m also happy to say that PaRappa 2 unironically has great gameplay! It’s extremely easy on the default difficulty but I love the looseness of the freestyle system and the input interpreter feels just right. This is a fantastic game, emblematic of my favorite era of games and the attitude surrounding their development. It’s short, fun, and worth your time. Play this!

This review will be centered around both this remake, and the original release of Mad Father, as both are perfectly accessible on the system I played it on. This playthrough was done through the remake.

I genuinely adore this game. Evident by the rather exorbitant amount of time I have totaled for this quick, 2 hour long RPG Maker horror (or Wolf RPG, really) Mad Father is a game I have been able to thoroughly enjoy for an actual decade at this point. It's the perfect mix of horror and atmosphere that has somehow always managed to enamor me every time, even despite all my yearly replays.

There is such a haunting history built within the Drevis mansion. A reluctantly loving family, doomed by a madman in power. A child who only loves this mad father due to a lack of information, only learning her mistakes after devoting herself to saving him for so long. It's devastating watching this story unfold, the hardest moments only ever amplified by a just as haunting soundtrack. (yeah what's a good wheatie review without everybody's favorite part)

This is a soundtrack I can best describe as pretty. The ambience in each area is perfect, there are some beautiful uses of pianos and violins to be found, and to go just a little further into it, even just the sound design is pretty nicely done. The game will very often cause a subtle shift in the environment, accompanied by an alerting noise in the midst of the usual quietness. Mad Father knows damn near perfectly how to be unsettling. Maybe I'm a bitch.

I've mentioned in earlier reviews of this game that the 2020 remake made a few changes that I wasn't the biggest fan of. Yes, silly mistakes have been remarkably softened by the easy QTE that the game gives you, I still stand by that a fair amount. But I'm also willing to look past that. I think despite everything, the good more than outweighs the bad, and it's still amazing seeing the absolute glow-up this game got after 8 whole years, not to mention the revamped puzzles and new content with Blood Mode.

It could very well be the nostalgia talking. The average person would look at Mad Father and notice that it generally follows the pretty basic formula that most RPG Maker horrors follow, solving puzzles by mixing items and using them at the right areas, with perhaps a bit more added onto it thanks to the use of the chainsaw. I'm willing to admit that. I've always been willing to admit when nostalgia can sort of take a hold on me. Unfortunately, I've also always been willing to admit that I don't care. I love this genre, and I love this game. This is easily one of my favorite horror games ever. Always has been, always will be.