I believe this will be the last shoot 'em up I cover for this edition of Octurbo. There's only so much you can do with a screenshot LP of a shoot 'em up, given how functionally similar many of them are and the speed at which they move. The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 is absurdly well represented in this genre, more so than any other of the core 16-bit consoles and I'm not sure why that is exactly, as the least technologically sophisticated console the TG-16 suffered the most from trying to keep multiple sprites on the screen at once and employing the various parallax scrolling techniques that are usually more prominent in these fast-paced games. I guess they just found a home here (and eventually in other marginalized consoles like the Saturn and Dreamcast).
Star Parodier is actually part of Hudson's Star Soldier franchise of sci-fi shoot 'em ups, and is to that series (and Hudson games in general) what Parodius is to Gradius (and Konami games in general). The big and really only main difference between the two franchises is that Star Soldier is a vertically-aligned affair, but beyond that Star Parodier kind of follows its better-known nutty inspiration to the letter, throwing all sorts of weird shit at the player and giving them a number of unusual spaceships to play as, each with their own idiosyncrasies. While the graphics are a little out there, the gameplay sticks close to the format of its more serious brethren, adopting similar power-ups and other systems. The game was actually developed by Kaneko, known for many prestigious contributions to gaming such as Gals Panic, rather than Hudson Soft themselves.
An interesting coincidence is that because this game belonged to Hudson it ended up being included with the rest of Hudson's library when it was sold off to another company after Hudson went out of business. That purchasing company just so happened to be Konami.
But hey, there's plenty more weirdness to get into today, and what better way than through screenshots (don't say video)? Seeing is believing, after all. Time is money, and what goes up must come down. A stitch in time sa- I'm just going to start this thing already.
"Satire Soldier" Would've Been a Better Name, But Then I Can Be Too Much of a Back Seat Punner At Times
I'm not sure where this game fits into the Star Soldier chronology, even if one were to entertain the notion that the game is canonical in any way. Parodier came about after Final Soldier and Super Star Soldier, perhaps the two best known games, but I think this might cutscene might be talking about the first game.Anyway, the big antagonist Mother Brain (she gets around, it seems) has taken up shop on this planet filled with theme parks and other weirdness. Anime Lady implores the nearby friendly planet to lend assistance.Of course, it's not Earth, but Planet Bomber. I love that the Bomber screen "translates" the anime lady into a cutesy Hudson character.The Bomberman war council, which is to say the five Bombers from the multiplayer game huddled around a table with tiny coffees (this game is already too adorable), decide on a plan of action.The Bombermen get busy to work designing and producing a few ships to send over. The Paro-Ceaser is your standard "normal" spaceship option for boring people.Alternatively, you use this giant Bomberman. Hey, if you're rescuing a nearby planet, you might as well get some free advertising out of it.The third and final ship option is a gigantic anthropomorphic PC Engine. I'm sure there's a Pimp My Ride joke to be made here about playing your console on your console. As a final cute detail, the big PC Engine is given a HuCard of Super Star Soldier. Maybe it's a tactical suite for the battles to come?Off the trio go! I'm not quite sure if the scale is accurate here, but no time for quibbles! We got animes to save!Welcome to Star Parodier! I'm starting to suspect that this might not be a serious game.There is only one choice as far as I'm concerned. You'll notice that there is a shared default weapon and three different upgrade paths for each of the three ships.The power-ups look different for each ship as well. The PC Engine gets these little HuCards. Did I mention this game was adorable? The red-colored ones simply boost the strength of the default machine gun weapon.As you can see, I'm now firing from multiple directions. You'll also find various upgrades for accessories besides the main weapon, such as shields and extra bombs. Also, when you shoot those little red enemies at the bottom right, they just put up little white flags.I've got these little homing (sorry, "homming") missile dealies and am now being circled by two TurboGrafx controllers, which work as defensive options.Grabbing a blue HuCard lets me fire powerful CD-ROMs at enemies. Look at me! I'm a defective PSP!This is the first stage's mid-boss, a Ferris wheel connected to a clock with little bunny girls in each gondola. The only difficult part of this battle is avoiding being hit by the gondolas themselves (the remaining ones speed up each time you destroy one).With the insane output I have now, this barrage of Bullet Bill wannabes aren't much of a concern. Man, those little Daruma guys are everywhere.I grabbed all three HuCard types with this screenshot. It's Default (Red), CD-ROM (Blue) and Homing (Yellow). Ideally, you want to grab one of a certain color and stick with it: picking up multiple instances of the same color increases your firepower, whereas grabbing a different colored power-up drops you back to level 1 of that weapon's upgrade path. This four-way CD spread shot is as powerful as this upgrade path will get, so I'm ignoring any HuCards that pop up.You actually see the first stage's boss several times in the level, but because it's just a disembodied roller coaster train it's easy to mistake it as, well, a regular roller coaster train. It's a little unpredictable in its patterns, leaving and entering the screen at different points while firing missiles, but I've got shields for days at this point.This game seems surprisingly easy so far, as someone who sucks at this genre who survived that first stage without a scratch. Maybe it just has a particularly gentle difficulty curve. The goofy cartooniness would suggest that this skews a little younger with its audience.After each stage you get these fun little title cards relating to the stage/boss you just beat. I guess there's no hard feelings?Stage 2 is Tetris Land. I kind of want that background for my wallpaper. As in, room wallpaper, not desktop. I've also accidentally fired off one of my smart bombs, so I might as well show you all what it looks like.Man, I hope they got permission from Alexey Pajitnov for this stage.I've covered most of what I want to say about this game, but I just took this screenshot because I love the look of that bulbous tank.Stage 2's mid-boss is this weird little Balloon Fighter clown. He attacks by dropping signs on you. I don't know what the signs say, except perhaps "Happy Birthday" (he'd prefer "Death From Above", but I guess he's stuck).D'aww, don't cry little guy. Your attacks were just incredibly easy to avoid, is all.The boss of Stage 2 are these triangles. Seems even more out there than the roller coaster train, I know. But......this boss is a shape-shifter. A tangram, to be precise (though it doesn't use the traditional tangram pieces). First form is this UFO, which fires large homing shots.We then have this, uh... I'm going to give Kaneko the benefit of the doubt and say "rocket ship". All it does is try to follow you around and... poke you.Third form is this fish which spits out lots of smaller fish. I didn't grab the fourth form, which was a scorpion, since it decided to stick itself at the corner of the screen. Anyway, it finally gives up after this.And that's Stage 2. Man, the PC Engine is a jerk.As we start on this lovely river stage with kappas closing in fast, I think we'd better call it while we're still ahead.
Star Parodier isn't too bad, but it seems a little too easy and much of the insanity doesn't match up to Parodius. If anything, they're playing it way too safe (as in, lazy), with what seems to be a lot of stage ideas borrowed from Parodius and TwinBee. Seems kinda fitting that this game would default to Konami eventually.
This was, to the chagrin of any serious Star Soldier fan, the only CD Star Soldier game in the 16-bit era. The series would see a single N64 sequel (Star Solder: Vanishing Earth) and a few remakes for modern consoles. Konami being Konami doesn't seem to want to do much with any of its older properties these days, and I'm not sure the noble shoot 'em up has much market penetration these days anyway.
Still, this goofy little game did become available to the US and Europe eventually, via the Wii's Virtual Console. It's not terrible, and a lot easier than most games in this genre if you're someone like me who gets shot down so often that it becomes discouraging. Then again, you could also just play Eric Pope's new dream music shoot 'em up instead if you're in the market for one of these.
