Parappa the Rapper

It's easy to see what makes Parappa stand out even today, but I'd like to emphasize just how unique and timeless of a rhythm game it is. Or rather I'd just like to gush over how well the theme cooperates with gameplay.

More than any rhythm game I've played, this one is the interactive equalivement of a musical. Parappa is a dog/boy trying to win the heart of a flower/girl. To do that he has to learn certain skills and overcome some obstacles. All of that is portrayed as music performances, in which teachers share their knowledge by rapping and Parappa learns by repeating what they say. The game only has 6 songs - in first 4 our protagonist learns from four different masters. In 5th, they become peers he has to beat in order to get something he wants. And in the final they act in a supporting role as he takes the center of the stage, both literally and figuratively. Everything can be finished in under 30 minutes.

So, what's so brilliant about the gameplay? Well, there's a couple of things, but they mostly boil down to rating system. The game doesn't provide instant feedback, it doesn't inform the player whether they hit individual notes well or not. After each line, the player either gets a good or a bad rating. That's it. Everything else they have to figure out by themselves. What is the correct timing, how strict is it, how does the visual cue correspond to it - everything. That alone makes the game unique and interesting. But then the title takes a turn in the finale. During the very last few lines of the game, player doesn't repeat after the teacher, but rather has to keep the flow going themselves. This could serve as a hint for what comes afterwards. Another hint goes back to the rating system - it has 4 grades, awful, bad, good and cool. If player falls down to awful and then fails two more lines, they fail the song. If they finish the song below good, they don't pass and have to repeat it all over. However, even if they seemingly play perfectly, the game never signals they are getting closer to "cool", and in fact there don't seem to be any indicators of how to get there. That requires a little bit of experimentation.

The answer is freestyling. Unlike in games such as Guitar Hero, pressing a button outside of allocated window doesn't produce a jaming sound. Instead a voiceclip will play, with Parappa shouting some word or spitting a part of a verse. In order to hit the cool rating, player is expected to not repeat, but rather remix the lines fed to them. Instead of saying the word once, say it twice in quick succession. Instead of keeping silent in the long section between the words, improvise your own sounds. The game judges whether you actually stay in rhythm and will grant additional points based on how many well-timed sounds you added. Do well enough and the "Cool" rating starts blinking, and eventually you just might achieve it - if so, then scene changes to signify you are now the star, not a student. The bar providing you notes disappears completely and you have to wholly improvise for the remainder of the song.

The theme here is pretty clear. At first you are a student who tries to keep up with his masters in order to learn from them. As you grow and accumulate more skill, they turn into your peers, and eventually you become the star. However, once you finish the game, the "cool" rating unlocks, allowing you to literally surpass your masters by not just repeating what they say, but actually doing them one better. The simplicity of that concept is probably what makes it so brilliant. And quite frankly, there are no games like Parappa. Granted, it's a short-lived gimmick and once you figure out the trick, the only thing left is to increase the difficulty by requiring more inputs or more strict timing, which is the direction the genre went into anyway. But for that one title, it works miracles.

Perhaps the Parappa spirit lives through the Osu!/EBA series, which tells stories of people going through hardships portrayed as music montages set to pop songs, and player's performance is reflected in animation of how well are the aforementioned people doing. There's also an incentive to play the harder difficulties in form of different player characters. But that's just the dressing, and at it's core, Osu! is just a regular rhythm game about following the notes on the screen. Now, there are interesting directions for this genre to take - doing various controller gimmicks, turning it into an educational tool, stripping it of all the fluff and focusing completely on trying to master fast and complex patterns. Combine it with a different genre like Rap Rabbit, or to lesser extent, Thumper. Rhythm games are alive and well and there is something in them for everyone. But I still encourage anyone who haven't yet to try Parappa, because there's truly nothing like it.