Parodius



"Oh, we laugh at this game! Gradius is fine, but this is nicer!"

- Parodius: Non-Sense Fantasy (European release of Parodius Da!)

"Do Not Play Seriously!"

- Translated intro ending line from MSX Parodius.

Parodius is a parody Spin-Off series from Konami's seminal Shoot'Em Up franchise Gradius. Where-as Gradius tends toward a fairly standard spaceships-and-aliens aesthetic, Parodius favours looking like a total acid trip, and its bright colours and cutesy characters are considered a staple of the "Cute 'em up" subgenre.

Visuals aside, Parodius plays much like its parent series, but much Lighter And Fluffier. Steering your character through gauntlets of horizontally-scrolling enemies, you have to gather upgrades to your ship and weapons in time to face the boss at the end of each stage. What seperates Gradius/Parodius from other Shoot'Em Up franchise is in the unique power up system. After the play aquires a power-up token, they can choose to cash them in for an upgrade, or save them toward a, hopefully more useful one. Knowledge of each stage, and which power-ups to obtain becomes crucial in obtaining the highest scores.

Many of the characters are drawn from other Konami games, including the Vic Viper of Gradius fame (whose Option is itself playable in Sexy Parodius), Twinbee, Goemon, Pentarou the penguin, Kid Dracula, and Upa (the baby hero of Bio Miracle Bokette Upa). Characters original to the series have included:
 * Takosuke, Takohiko and Belial: A family of octopuses.
 * Hikaru and Akane: Torpedo-riding girls in Playboy Bunny outfits.
 * Mambo and Samba: Laser-shooting fish.
 * Michael and Gabriel: Angelic pigs.
 * Mike and Ran: Neutered cats.
 * Koitsu, Aitsu, Soitsu and Doitsu: Stick men riding paper airplanes.
 * Ivan and Toby: More penguins with Unusual Eyebrows.

The weapons and powerups are largely derived from Gradius, Salamander and Twinbee, but later games have characters equipped with weapons modeled after Konami's lesser-known Shoot Em Ups Thunder Cross, Axelay and XEXEX, and from other shooters such as Darius, R-Type Leo and Truxton II. The enemies are all over the place, but if there are two common themes, it's penguins and moai.

The series spans six games, including a turn-based strategy Spin-Off. Leave your common sense at the door.


 * Affectionate Parody: Of Gradius, hence the name.
 * Sometimes of other properties: the Moai Battleship is most likely a parody of R-Type's infamous huge spaceship from the 3rd level.
 * One stage in Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius is a blatant pastiche of the Konami shoot-em-up Xexex.
 * Art Shift: In Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius, the stages themed after Xexex and Lethal Enforcers use this.
 * Ass Kicks You: If the player manages to catch up to Takosuke in the final stage, he's done in when Kaori wakes up and accidentally sits on him.
 * Attack Drone: Well, many of the characters here have options. Although in the last game, you can play as Option itself.
 * Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, giant versions of Hikaru and Akane become the level 2 boss. Also, Rika Chichibinita, the giant Vegas dancer, in almost every game save the MSX Parodius and Sexy Parodius.
 * Battleship Raid: With moais and all.
 * Belly Dancer: You fly Between Her Legs.
 * Blush Sticker: Archangel pig Michael in pachislot-game Gokuraku Parodius.
 * The Can Kicked Him: The second boss of Sexy Parodius is Finality Penguin, who uses a toilet-shaped helmet as a weapon. Also, if you defeat him but fail the Objective of the level (collecting 300 coins) a brief cutscene shows him "flushing" the heroes down a drain, presumably into level 3B.
 * Camera Abuse: The ending of Parodius DA!.
 * Continuity Nod: The second level of Gokujou Parodius (a.k.a. Fantastic Journey) has you going underwater at one point. There you will find the corpses of the Pirate Penguin, his crew, and the remains of the Cat Battleship MK I, who were the first boss and miniboss in Parodius DA! respectively.
 * Cool Old Guy: According to Parodius Da!, Vic Viper is 58 years old, and his upgrades are pretty average compared with the other characters, but he is also the only character that appears from the first Parodius to Sexy Parodius.
 * Cool Shades: The front face of the Moai Battleship likes wearing them.
 * Cute'Em Up: It's Gradius re-skinned to be as cute and silly as possible.
 * Downer Ending:
 * Gokujou Parodius..
 * Fail to catch up to Takosuke before the timer runs out in Sexy Parodius, and he gets away, the final shot showing him surrounded by scantily clad women, to the frustration of his former employees.
 * Eagle Land (Flavor 1): Eagle Sabu, a bald eagle dressed as Uncle Sam, serves as a boss in Parodius Da!.
 * Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: A huge battleship of them, approaching fast. They also often appear in pre-stages.
 * Everythings Better With Bunnies: The Moon Rabbit level in Gokujou Parodius.
 * Everything's Better with Chickens: Especially chicks. They are mostly Mooks.
 * Everything's Better with Penguins: There's plenty of them. Two almost always serves as playable characters, another (Penclaw, of the Taisen Puzzle Dama series) is one of the bosses of Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius' Boss Rush stage, and the rest are either Mooks or background elements.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Intentional due to its ridiculous premise.
 * Exported Weaponry: The angelic pig Michael (and even moreso Mike in Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius) has the attacks of Darius's Silver Hawk, and Hikaru uses weapons from the Thunder Cross ship. And Ran is the R9 Leo. Mambo has Screw Laser from MSX's Nemesis-series and Search Laser from Xexex.
 * Kid Dracula uses the attacks of the ship from Axelay, another Konami shooter. Michael had the Morning Star (as "Round Shot") from Axelay as well.
 * Also, Tako/Octopus has the Salamander configuration, while Pentarou has the Gradius III configuration... heck, almost everybody is probably this in some way or another.
 * Face Heel Turn: in Sexy Parodius does one of these just before the last level in an attempt to escape with all the money you earned in-game..
 * Fly At the Camera Ending: Parodied (of course) in Parodius DA!. After having destroyed the Bacterian base, our hero flies at the camera and... smashes the screen! See for yourself!
 * Gorgeous Gorgon: One serves as the end boss of one of two possible third levels in Sexy Parodius. Of course, given that level pays homage to Castlevania, and who made both, this is a given.
 * Home Version Soundtrack Replacement: The song that was used originally in the first stage of Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, "That's the Way I Like It", was changed in the PSP version (by the song Brilliant2U from Naoki Maeda), presumably by avoiding copyright issues, since it's an American song.
 * This happened to other tracks in the collection as well. Prior to it, the PlayStation and Sega Saturn release of Sexy Parodius replaced a arrangement of "El Bimbo" with "Symphony No. 40".
 * Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: Just like in Gradius, too many Speed Ups can make it even harder to maneuver in tight spaces
 * Leitmotif: Most of the ships have their own themes. Additionally, some bosses have theirs too (Hot Lips is always fought to the Can Can).
 * Level Ate: Most games have a cake- or candy-themed level.
 * Made a Slave: In Sexy Parodius, failing the objective of level 4B (destroy 10 targets) and then defeating the boss may be even harder to do then accomplishing it, but if it happens, the ending cutscene of the level shows the heroes doing hard labor in the coal mine.
 * Marshmallow Hell: An actual attack of a boss in Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius. Mind you, the fact that the "chest" consists of two missiles makes it considerably deadlier.
 * Misplaced Wildlife: Most certainly intentional. One of the later levels in Parodius DA! is an icy underwater stage... swarming with tropical-looking fish.
 * Mood Whiplash: The ending of Gokujou Parodius. See Downer Ending above to see why.
 * Moon Rabbit: Moon bunny stage!
 * Nintendo Hard: Just because the games look cute does not mean they are easy. The MSX Parodius also had shades of this.
 * Oddball in the Series: Paro Wars, the last game in the series, is a turn-based military strategy game.
 * Opera Gloves: Hikaru and Akane.
 * Our Giants Are Bigger: A recurring boss in the series is Chichibinta Rika, a giant woman in a Vegas showgirl uniform which parodies the Shadow Dancer.
 * Panty Shot: You get one from Anna Baburowa,the first boss in Gokujyou Parodius (pictured above). You also get another one from her sister Zyiude in the sequel Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius.
 * Playboy Bunnies: Hikaru and Akane.
 * Poison Mushroom: The "!?"/"OH!" powerup, which takes away all your powerups. It mainly exists to turn powerup roulette into Nightmare Fuel.
 * Portmanteau: Parodius = Parody + Gradius
 * Takosuke and Takohiko's name are a portmanteau of the word "tako" (Octopus in Japanese) and common endings for Japanese names.
 * Public Domain Soundtrack:
 * Most of the background music is based on classical and folk music.
 * Everything else are remixes of Gradius music, such as the Big Core Mk III boss theme and the Aircraft Carrier (boss rush) music.
 * And some are from other Konami properties, like the Castlevania theme remix and such. Holy fuck, they just used Brilliant2u in the first stage of Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius (originally "That's the Way I Like It") in the PSP collection!
 * Recurring Boss: If a boss has appeared in the series, chances are that it will show up again in another game. Mind you, not all bosses return ever game. Some are forgotten and not seen again until Konami wakes the hell up and goes back to see what else they made. The Cat Battleship has seen the most appearances, having appeared from Parodius DA! all the way to Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius!, and that's not even getting into some of the other bosses.
 * Refuge in Audacity: Neutered cats? Bunny girls flying on torpedoes? Using a condom as a shield (for the stick figures on airplanes)? And that's even before getting into the contents of Sexy Parodius.
 * The most blatant example of the trope may be the flashing Moai's from Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius, complete with pixelated genitalia...
 * Sapient Ship: Vic Viper and Lord British seem to be sapient beings, rather than mere ships with pilots in them. Of course, this being Parodius, this is played up for comedy.
 * Shout-Out: Even past the Expy characters and Shoot'Em Up homages. Starting with the third game, many levels have been based on other Konami properties, including but not limited to Tokimeki Memorial, Ganbare Goemon, Lethal Enforcers, Taisen Puzzle Dama, Castlevania, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, and Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game makes a Shout-Out to the series, being made by Konami. See it for yourself.
 * Spiritual Successor: Otomedius seems to be this, what with two of the Parodius bosses appearing in Otomedius Gorgeous (Eliza the Mermaid and Yoshiko, Empress of Easter Island respectively). Parodius seems to live on through pachinko and pachislot games, however.
 * Taking You with Me: Decoration Core MK II, or also known as Lips (Stage 5 boss) in Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius tries to do this after defeating it. If you know this is coming, you won't have trouble avoiding it. Of course, one must be careful of suicide bullets too...
 * Taken for Granite: In Sexy Parodius, defeating Medusa in level 3b but failing the Objective (killing 100 rats) results in a short cutscene where Medusa has done this to the whole team.
 * Updated Rerelease: A compilation of most of the games (except the Spin-Off Paro Wars) was released for the PSP in 2006. It contained a remake of the MSX original, the PSX version of Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius, and the arcade versions of rest. Due to copyrights involving some of the songs, Konami replaced a few of the tracks with replacement music.
 * Weapons Grade Vocabulary: There's a weapon that the attack is nonsense phrases such as "SHAVING IS BORING" coming out of your spaceship.
 * We Help the Helpless: The plot in Sexy Parodius revolves around Takosuke opening an agency to help people in whatever problem they have..
 * Widget Series: It's not a surprise that Western audiences are weirded out by this series.