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| Source // PlayStation.com |
I don't have the lyrical genius to succinctly introduce you to a dog, in a beanie, who solves his problems by learning valuable life lessons taught via the medium of rap. I just can't do it. But what I can do is say that I never owned PaRappa the Rapper as a child - or an adult, for that matter - because I wasn't really interested in it.
It holds a spot in our collective memories as being 'that game with the rapping dog and the onion karate teacher' because that's probably what most people saw PaRappa as - that one demo whose rap gets stuck in your head for a while.
Is there any substance to this little game then? I have absolutely no idea, but it just so happens that a remake has been recently released for the PlayStation 4, so let's get our rap on.
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| Source // PlayStation.com |
Fun Times
I keep bringing up the fact that some games are bright and colourful, and that they're friendly and welcoming because of it. PaRappa the Rapper may just be the brightest and most colourful of recent memory, and it's hard not to pay attention to it.
It starts off a tad weird, certainly, with paper-thin characters watching a movie about a rocket baby and only sort of tones things down from there. PaRappa is madly in love with the flower known as Sunny Funny but doesn't know how to tell her. When he see's a couple of bullies being bullies, he get's the bright idea that he needs to be a hero and stand up for those who can't stand up themselves.
How to do that, you ask? By going to a Dojo run by a walking, talking Onion and learning self-defence through song and dance - or rap, if you prefer - and you better feel the rhythm quickly...
Frustrations
PaRappa doesn't pull its punches and will not only tell you how bad you're rapping but show your teachers in the process of actually giving up trying to teach you.
You could practice until you get better, learning the timing the need to press the face and shoulder buttons, or you can game the game, which quickly becomes absurd and makes a mockery of the whole thing.
It's weird saying that because the game has some out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to setting up and continuing the story, which is very short and not worth your time. I'd even skip the next paragraph that explains it if I were you.
PaRappa thinks he needs a car to impress Sunny, so gets his licence by rapping, only to crash the car. To repair it, he learns how to sell at the flea market, by rapping. When Sunny's birthday comes up, he buys a cheap cake, despite knowing how to make money, and when compared to the cake of his rival, Joe Chin, it's pathetic, so he follows a TV chef chicken's instructions to bake his own, via rapping. The cake goes down rather well, but in his haste to impress, PaRappa eats too much of it and needs to go the toilet, via rapping, but unbeknownst to him, Sunny thought he looked manly while trying to hold in his guts, and just looks like plain old PaRappa when he comes back bowels empty. Finally, if you're good enough, you win Sunny's affections by rapping in front of the crowd, which is probably all you needed to do in the first place. Well done, PaRappa.
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| Source // PlayStation.com |
You can't even rap cool until you've completed the game once, but will rapping cool make PaRappa a better experience? I'd argue not.
For starters, you're better off watching rhythm games, especially ones with visuals like these. When you're just staring at a track along the top of the screen, you're missing out on the animation and artwork, which, while barebones and seemingly student-like in its appearance, it stands the test of time, to some degree.
Even better than the visuals is the whole reason you play a rapping rhythm game - the raps. They stick in your head. These characters are more likeable than PaRappas own friends, and his friends do literally nothing offensive to you or him at any point. It's these characters who rap all the raps next to PaRappa, and it is these characters who make the game what it is, yet you don't see them in all their glory while you're in the moment and trying to nail down some sick beats or whatever the lingo is.
Final Word
PaRappa the Rapper is a fun game, but more for everything other than the gameplay. The gameplay is just prodding buttons at the right time, and while that is damn challenging, it's still all there is to it. On that basis, I can't recommend it.
On the basis that no other game has dared to try and bring a rapping dog to market outside of Japan and had enough success for him to still reside in the minds of 1990s gamers twenty years later? PaRappa must have done something right, and you should at the very least relieve how weird the 1990s could have been.
Fun Facts
So long ago was the original PaRappa made that the assets for the video files were gone by the time it came to remake the game, hence the complete mish-mash of video resolutions and quality present in the remake.
PaRappa the Rapper, developed by NanaOn-Sha, first released in 1996.
Version played: PaRappa the Rapper Remastered, PlayStation 4, 2017.
Version watched: PaRappa the Rapper Remastered, PlayStation 4, 2017 (Easy Allies)