PaRappa The Rapper
By Jer Horwitz for videogames.com
November 1997
Once in a while, a company takes a risk and designs something
unlike anything seen before. In video gaming's early days, it
happened with almost every other game released. By the 8-bit era,
originality was something to look for but not expect with any
great regularity. Today, unless you deem 3D versions of old games
to be "new," it's been some time since an original idea appeared.
But even with a monthly average of 30 games being released, it's
a testament to unique design that PaRappa the Rapper, an underpromoted
release by Sony of Japan, became a top seller in the Japanese
market.
PaRappa the Rapper is an interactive cartoon about a shy puppy
named (oddly enough) PaRappa, who has a crush on the beautiful
Sunny but doesn't know if he has the courage or power to impress
her. Armed with the motto "I gotta believe!" and prodigious rapping
skills, PaRappa sets about to get the girl in a world of animated
characters, 3D backgrounds, and English-language voices. And despite
the fact that no one gets decapitated, the game's still fun.
The premise unfolds bizarrely: Level one begins with an onion-headed
karate master rapping in a dojo; you respond to the teacher's
simple rap by quickly pressing controller buttons to match the
onscreen cues and rhythm of the song. To complete the stage, you'll
watch for the cued phrases and repeat them with the indicated
buttons. In between raps, the teacher "drops knowledge," giving
you a quick breather before moving on to more complicated patterns
and harder stages.
Each of the game's four teachers specializes in a distinctive
rap style, so you'll learn to kick it in reggae, house, pop, and
"old school" during the game. (No, there's no "gangsta rap" level,
so parents needn't fear little Johnny running up on the one-time
with a sawed-off shotgun, killing 40s, or sparking blunts.) The
levels that follow have you rap with a female moose driving instructor
in a car, learn about the flea market from a Rastafarian frog,
and bake a cake with a nasty-voiced chicken. After eating the
cake and driving Sunny home, PaRappa goes up against his teachers
in a race to see which rap master can use a one-seater gas station
bathroom. Post-relief, it's time to drop "phat" rhymes for an
audience and flex a little lyrical muscle.
Once you've completed each stage with stringent button-tapping,
you can go back and show off. If you really strut your stuff,
your teacher goes completely ape and destroys or abandons the
screen while you freestyle. If you do that, you earn a crown for
completing the stage. While the gameplay is original, it's not
going to win awards from fans of intense fighting and first-person
racing games. The graphics and audio, however, just might: All
of PaRappa's characters are comically animated paper dolls moving
against colorful 3D backdrops, a simplistic and charming visual
design that never would have worked but for the game's theme and
some brilliant camera motion. While you're playing, you can barely
focus on the graphics while watching the top of the screen for
appropriate joypad commands, and when watching other people play,
you're entirely drawn to the continuous background movement.
The music is clear, catchy, and funny, and the voice samples memorable.
Prerendered cutscenes provide continuity for the storyline between
levels, and the opening is one of the weirdest in recent memory.
Also of note, the rapping is surprisingly credible - there isn't
a wack MC in the bunch (although even skilled PaRappers will find
their delivery occasionally stuttered). PaRappa is undeniably
cute and hip - the ideal PlayStation mascot in that he's so universally
acceptable and nonthreatening. Many have purchased PlayStations
solely on the basis of seeing PaRappa, justifying their purchases
as toys their families could enjoy. For the record, chicks dig
PaRappa too, so if having a cute game means you can convince your
otherwise game-loathing girlfriend to pick up a controller, "it's
all good."
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