Totally Rad

"THANKS FOR BUYING TOTALLY RAD FROM JALECO, DUDES. IT'S JUST ONE OF MANY MOST EXCELLENT AND BODACIOUS GAMES WE WILL BE BRINGING OUT FOR YOUR NES."

—Totally Rad instruction manual

If Bill and Ted made a videogame, this would be it.

Totally Rad began as an average Famicom platformer titled Magic John. It featured ordinary anime teens with magic powers, and a dorky and forgettable plot.

Then it was localized, and became Totally Rad. The main character and his girlfriend were replaced with a bodacious Surfer Dude and his happenin' babe. The plot was mostly kept the same, but was turned into a Self-Parody, featuring exaggerated and ridiculous dude slang throughout. It concerns Jake, an apprentice to the magician Zebediah, who is learning magic. However, his girlfriend Allison is kidnapped, and Jake goes off to save her. Afterwards, Jake discovers Allison's kidnapping was a feint to force Allison's father, a renowned scientist, out of hiding. Jake must not only save Allison's father, but ultimately battle an evil king who plans to lead a group of underground-dwelling people in a battle against the people of Jake's world.

Not to be confused with the 1986 film Rad, which is just as Totally Radical despite not having "Totally" in the title.

This totally excellent game has examples of only the most extremely bodacious tropes, as follows:

Alliteration: As quoted from the manual. "Little did Jake and Allison know that they had become pubescent pawns in the pestilent power politics of Edogy, the malfeasant underground menace who, through mental malpractice and mesmerism, has managed to impose the malevolent meanderings of his morally moribund mind onto the majority of the inhabitants of the underground world. Whoa! somebody slap me!" Try saying that radical paragraph 3 times fast, dude.
Chain-Reaction Destruction: Bosses go "powpowpowpowpow" instead of "Kaboom!".
Damsel in Distress: Allison because, like, her locked underwater chest escape artistry needs work and stuff.
Nintendo Hard: The game can get totally difficult at times, even for a rad dude like me.
Save the Princess: Jake has to save Allison after she gets stolen.
Self-Parody: Yeah, baby... far out!
Stealth Parody: Some totally moronic critic-persons did not understand that it was a parody, rather than a legitimate attempt at appealing to teens.
Surfer Dude: Jake all the way.
Totally Radical: Well, duh.
Useless Useful Spell: The elemental magic (fire, water, wind and stone) hits every enemy on the screen. This at first seems, like, totally awesome, but it costs 2 totally precious and unrechargable points, and most enemies will Respawning Enemies after just a few seconds. Bogus! But those same totally crazy expensive spells can, like, half kill any boss, if you don't use up your magic points bro!