Parappa the rapper is a rhythm game and in particular im covering the psp port of the original ps1 version.
It focuses on Parappa who’s mastering the art of rap music through various teachers in wild stories he’s put in especially the bathroom scenario.
The story itself, its surprisngly really well done and you can really see the amount of 90s style this game has.
But the only problem it really has its how short it is only 6 stages and that’s it.
The artstyle is pretty trippy and its one of the most iconic at this point in 90s Japanese gaming because of how unique it is even to this day.
Theres a variety of flows and styles each teacher has, for example Prince Fleaswallow is based off 90s reggae style at the time from his voice actor actually being a reggae singer the late Lenky Don who sadly passed away last year.
The games music since its rap based, of course its going to focus around the sample oriented focus on beats especially from New York at the time it came out.
The game at the time you can say was what really popularized Japanese hip hop along Jet Set Radio as many games and anime after had it.
Mooselini for example she was based around female rappers too, she kind of reminds me of Missy Elliot especially during her heyday during the 90s.
The main goal is to press the buttons at the right time as soon as your teacher gives their verse.
Do keep in mind if you wanna hear the full songs you have to play the game on normal mode this is something by now is very much outdated and rarely if ever seen in video games these days.
You can freestyle too from time to time as well for more points.
The game fixed a problem the originally game had where pausing means restarting an entire song a very odd design choice even by 90s standards.
Overall it was a good game.
It gets 4 out of 5 stars.
If there was a new parappa the rapper game in each decade, you can imagine it would have borrowed which style was popular at that time if it was during the 2000s period it would have been the g-unit and Lil Wayne especially 2007 level kind of style he had, or maybe even Kanye West during his now iconic graduation period. 2020 and 2010 period would have had trap music kind of style of stuff too and Ummy Lammy and Parappa The Rapper would have probably done some city morgue styled trap metal type stuff had they come out today.
Honestly, Lammy would have gone with the goth theme today it could have worked had it came out in the 2000s not so much now these days due to fucking ekids thats why. :/
So the posibilties are endless with each direction, but I personally think nostalgia with a hint of modern production is the best way to go and my idea for the story is parappa rejecting the commercialistic trends and focus on doing his own thing and basically become tech n9ne in general lol so that aside we need a new parappa the rapper game as much as we need 3 stacks solo album asap.