Parappa the Rapper Revisited: Does the Classic Rhythm Game Hold Up Today?

Welcome back to Is It Still Fun Today? Our show where we revisit classic games in order to answer the question, is it still fun today? I'm David Hatfield. Joining me today from Games Scoop are Nick Leone and Sam Clayborn. And good to be here, the host of Nintendo Voice Chat, Logan Plant joins us as well. Hey guys. And we've got a good we got a really good one for you today. Well, I guess that's what we're about to find out. As we continue to celebrate 30th anniversary, we're revisiting games that were released the same year was founded,

1996. Few weeks ago, we did the original Resident Evil. Check that episode out if you haven't yet. And today, I got to believe we are replaying the cartoonish wrap them up Parappa the Rapper released in 1996 in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment and developed by Na on Sha, a studio that is apparently still in business, but hasn't released anything I'm aware of in 10 years. Parappa is the first true rhythm video game setting the template of timing button presses along with symbols that drift across the screen that would be used in everything from Konami's but many series Dance Revolution and

of course Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It also has a distinct visual style with humanoid animal characters that appear to be flat sheets of paper. One wonders if Nintendo got any ideas for Paper Mario. It was tricky for PlayStation to market the game because it wasn't really like anything that had come before. Butt parappa was a big hit particularly in Japan. PlayStation and the character became somewhat of a mascot for PlayStation and would appear in PlayStation Allstars Battle Royale. So, I had Prep the Rapper. I loved it, but it's been probably 30 years since I played it. Nick, how about you?

Uh, I if you could believe it or not, this was I've only played the first level of the game for probably hours and hours because packed with my PlayStation back in whenever I owned Forever. Yeah, it was um it was included as part of a PlayStation interactive sampler CD, a demo disc, volume four. It was a purple disc. And I just remember playing through everything in there. They had Armored Core, they had Croc, Legend of the Gabbo. Was IQ on there? Intelligent was on there. Yes. And uh Tomb Raider had a silly tiny little level on it, right? Yeah. Tomb Raider 2, I believe. And I remember it scared me because it was very claustrophobic. But uh I really

gravitated towards Parappa the rapper as you know a '90s kid who grew up with Saturday morning anime. I was like this is reminding me a lot of like Pokémon and Dragon Ball in a way I don't really understand like I didn't understand the idea of you know Japan as a well especially because of the because vegetables in that one love and that one demo but yes there is this level of like there's a through line in a lot of Japanese media in the early 90s where it was like why are all these things kind of related in a way that I don't understand. And so it was kind of coming to realization of that. And uh I think I think still to this day I could probably rap every single part of Master Onion's

song cuz it's just so ingrained in me. It's all in the mind. Kick punch. It's all in the mind. Yeah. I So yeah, that's all I've done with P Rapper the rapper, but I have since like I've played Jammer Lambie and like Guitar Man and things of that nature, but I've never actually gone and played through the Praa the Rapper games. Do you guys remember they did a game like this for the Wii that was about a marching band? What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, my sister had that when we were growing up. Yeah, that game. I What was it called? I'll be showing the old now, but I can't remember the name. Yeah, they did a game like that for the week. All right, Sam.

Have you played Para the Rapper before? Clearly, I've never heard of this. I spent this whole week playing Crash Bandicoot because I thought we were doing Crash. No. Yeah, I've uh I've played Parappa and uh demo disc was a formative memory of mine as well. I'm a huge um Jammer Lambie fan. That's where I think the series really found me, but uh I need to play uh this to refresh my memory because I really don't remember a lot of the instances of what happens. I do remember it being annoying. I don't think their rhythm sections were that good. And you have to kind of like I know. There's like a what you have to do is you have to like really learn the songs and once you

know the songs you're much better at it than just watching the visuals and I'm a little bit like now that I know that I think I'll enjoy it more but I remember at the time just not it being hard like I just remember it being hard whereas like Guitar Hero came out right after and DDR was kind of everpresent at the time and there was all these like Rock Band and stuff like that. like all those games like kind of uh made me probably better at this type of game. So like I also think like you know because this is the I can't think of another beat game beat rhythm game that I played before this. So yeah, I have memories of it being really funny and really cute and really accessible

and ubiquitous because of that disc. And by the way, you know, getting AOL in every home on a disc and getting uh rapid of the rap in every home on a disc was like before we had social media, before we had, you know, a connected world, but that was the only way to do it and it certainly worked because I think a lot of people know what this game is. Yeah, it's cute and I think it's difficult. That's my memories of it. All right. Well, Logan, I like that we're having the Nintendo guy on a PlayStation episode. And you've never played Prep, right?

Never played it. No, very excited to. I love rhythm games. I love like Guitar Hero 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. That game's just amazing. Rhythm Heaven, Elite Beat Agents, like there's so many great rhythm games and so I'm excited to play the first one ever apparently. I think that's really cool. And you're telling me that for 10 years they've been working on a Parappa sequel. It's going to be massive open world climb everything rap game. All right. Well, we're off to play Parappa the Rappa. I gave it a 9 out of 10. EGM gave it an average 8.25 out of 10. And so it was very wellreceived at

the time. It is time for us to find out is Fappa the rapper still fun today. Kick punch. It's all in the mic. If you want to test me until you find the things I'll teach you. Sure to beat up. Nevertheless, you'll get a lesson from teacher. Now kick punch once more now. And we're back. We have played Parappa the rapper. We've wrapped along. Nick and I played it. What the closest thing to actual PlayStation hardware, right? Do you want to explain how we played it?

Yeah, I was playing on a Mr. FPGA, which is uh emulating hardware stuff, and that was plugged into a retro tink 4K. So, we have 240 uh I being upscaled to 4K uh 60. Uh really, really pretty. And I like to capture with a some CRT scan lines courtesy of the uh RetroTink 4K for the And this is through a PlayStation, correct? That you hooked up a PlayStation to this. That is correct. Not like a three running a PlayStation one disc or anything. Yeah, it is available today on PS4, which I believe is uh the way that Sam and Logan played it, but this version unfortunately has some latency issues.

Is that right? It's brutal, man. Well, it's too bad. Uh I think that's a polished up version of the PSP remaster which was put out in 2006 for the games which we gave a bad score to, right? Yeah, that was the one I think that we looked at in Game Scoop. Uh Chris Roer gave it a 5.4 or something like that. Um cuz the original is beloved. So, it's just it's a little unfortunate there's no good easy way to play it on modern hardware. However, we revisit it um on original hardware. Is it still fun today? Well, well, it's charming. It's definitely charming.

Certainly charming. 10 out of 10 I love everything except play looking at it, listening to it. Yeah. But I mean, listening to it especially. Yeah. So, it's got to loads of personality and style. The songs are good. Uh, it's the kind of weird game that could only come out of Japan, but it's still kind of amazing, I think, that it was green lit, at least for Western audiences. So, like most video games are like another game that came before it, right? New game B is like game A and the publisher hopes that people who like game A will buy game B.

Paraba is not like any other video game that came before it at the time. Uh even so much uh Tyler, do you have this next generation uh magazine available here? They Next Generation was trying to describe Parappa Rapid to its readers at the time by liking it to Simon like the electronic game Simon. Okay. So you're not memorizing stuff. You are hitting buttons. Yeah, you're hitting but you're repeating after it's given. Yeah, it's good. I mean, I guess you do memorize it in short term. It shows it, then you repeat it, then it shows it.

Yeah, it is like that. Yeah. It says on the cover, "Perap of the rapper." Yes, it's another one of those quirky Japanese games. Yep. It is that. It is that for sure. Well, I wish we could say that today because now we don't get to say that very often. I know we say, "Wow, another rare, quirky Japanese game we get to play here." Well, what I think Sony saw in it at the time, uh, is it's, um, you know, there's all this weird animation coming out in the 90s, Ren and Simpy, Beas and Buttad,

and Aon Flux. So, it's it's like, you know, it's it's weird weirdo animation that doesn't really make any sense, but is very uh amusing uh even to adults, right? Well, that it has potty humor, too. It does have potty humor. a lot of it. I also think that the CD format at the time, you know, compared to something like the N64 that was cartridge based, the CD format was much cheaper to manufacture. So, I think I don't believe this was a full cost game. I you got to fact check that, but I believe it was a much a cheaper game. Granted, I think it was like $49.99 or $39.99, so still kind of pricey, but regardless, it wasn't like a fullpriced

uh piece of software, which I really appreciate the experimental nature of it. But then again, if I was a kid and I got this maybe an hour of play time, I probably would have been a little bit sad. If you just play there's there's six levels, six songs, you know, each song is three to four minutes. So, there's just even if you play through the whole thing perfectly, it's only like a 30-minute game. And you will spend hours upon hours just repeating at least one stage where you're like, "What did I do wrong? What did I Which one? Which one was it, Nick?" The chicken stage. For me, it was the chicken stage. Level four. Yeah, I see. I Every single day, stress comes in every way. I ain't got no time for no body. My

style is rich, dope, fat, and wedge. We'll make a cake today that looks rich. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK the egg into the bowl. Crack egg into the bowl. M I X the flower into the bowl. That one didn't give me much trouble. It's the one after that where you have to go to the bathroom and you have to you revisit all of your the masters that you've gone up to at this point. I don't know. It just like punch and the door kick turn the door. The game just hit a brick wall for me at that point. It just seemed like to not work anymore.

Well, that's the thing that I had a hard time trying to figure out. I was like, I know I have rhythm. I know how to dance. I can sing. I can do all these things. I've played guitar here or done all these things. But I think one thing that's interesting to go back and reflect on is this being the first rhythm game, right? Where the thing that you take for granted in modern rhythm games is that you get to see the thing play out and the timing window to begin playing is usually a little bit more forgiving. more than the smallest part of the screen is the it's the smallest thing and immediately you the like your little pappa the rapper rhythm indicator will leave the screen after the teacher says and it

enters the screen right at the start you have to hit the key right it doesn't give you any indication that you're going to hit this button first you know it just kind of here you go have fun and the rhythm on it is completely wrong you don't actually I don't think I ever had success like in the later stages hitting the button when the game told me to. I always had to hit it like at a different pace. And sometimes, like the chicken level for example, I just needed to mash the L and R buttons after every single verse in order to get my bad up to good. I was like, I don't this doesn't sound good at all. But so you had that on the like close to original hardware, too, because I didn't

know if that was just kind of the janky PS4 version that Sam and I played because I actually found more success. And this is like a bad indictment for a rhythm game. Muting the sound and just looking at the symbols that playing to that and then I passed every level on my first try doing it that way, which is a shame because the music's awesome, but it's just totally out of whack. If you look up the suggestion, it's ignore just do the opposite of what you did, which is to ignore the visuals and just really feel the music. I'm like, that's actually really cool if that were true. And then that would add to the idea of like, you know, it the game wants you to learn the songs and it wants you to feel the kind of the hip-hop vibes of each song and

how they're different and then to like and if that as a goal is so much cooler, I think, than the idea of like Guitar Hero, which is like click the buttons. Exactly. Right. That's cool. They just didn't pull that off. But that's still fine because like I don't hate this game. It's just it's not much of a game because it didn't solve it didn't do either of those. It's like in between them for some reason. And so there's a through line that I want there's a quick story here where the PSP game was famous for for breaking things and being out of sync. And if you look up the conversation from that time and what it stretched out to through the port is that one is the PSP version ported to the PlayStation uh console and then it's still broken. That

was the still that's the still broken storyline. Now what Nick is just telling you though is that it was it already had a problem with that chicken stage and I think that was known at the time too. I remember that being a thing. So that then there was a previous story which is well whoa they didn't fix that stuff when they ported it to PSP. Whoa, they made it worse. Then they didn't touch it when they put it PlayStation. So like man and then Propo 2 actually got a like a emulation port so it doesn't have that issue. But that's all to say like prep has been done dirty and like there needs to be like somebody should do a mod fan fix just like do one or the other. Like make it like lenient and let you rap a

little bit and listen to it or make it like you know right to the beat perfectly for the button pressing. That's my TED talk. Yeah. I don't know why that latency issue hasn't been solved uh on the PS4 version. Uh maybe it needs to be handled by Nona on Sha, the original developer. And like I mentioned before, they appear to be in business, but haven't put anything out in a long time. To Sam's point, one thing I believe I was going down a rabbit hole of researching why the games are the way they are in terms of how they play. And as Sam said, the PS4 release of Power Rapid the Rapper is a port of the PSP version, of course, but it's also

emulating the PSP on the PS4. So there's like added layer of latency there, too, I assume. So it's very interesting. And I believe a bunch of people like decompiled it and discovered, oh yeah, this is just the PSP port being emulated. So that's super fascinating. And again, to Sam's point, it seems like every single level is just the rules are a little bit different this time. Maybe that you press the button a little bit later. Maybe you press it a little bit sooner. Maybe you That's why I don't call it latency. It's desynced. Yeah, it has some kind of syncing problem that maybe is, you know, original or something. Or maybe they even pushed it around. Whoa. Did we lose Damon? Well, we lost the camera there.

I'm back. Hey. Uh, they might have, you know, never had this synced properly, but they might have also desyncted it to give it a little bit more. This is the argument that people say about Res Evil. Well, they they lock the camera and do it that way so you can't turn around easy because it makes it scarier. Like it is possible in theory that they would push things around a little bit. So you had to feel it a little bit, but boy add latency and a level of emulation and like all this other stuff and like that's where it doesn't work. But I think again like getting back to the idea of like did they try to make something unique and then were they trying this the first time that wasn't

supposed to be just a button tapper? That's cool. Like rhythm he heaven is a button tapper, right? Like it's it's totally accurate. Well, they were so close though because like obviously this is the first step of like let's try a rhythm game, but then you know to a varying degree I think the game is super charming and I like everything else around it. But um Jammer Lambie is so much better and that would be their followup to this. So it's like oh they were so close. They just need a little more time. I mean they're they're the first ones to do this you this sort of like rhythm game which is why it's interesting there's no tutorial in the inside the game. Nope. It just throws you into the first song and you kind of have to figure it out.

Yeah, the onion man kind of explains the tutorial in his lyrics, which is interesting that you just need to listen along. I feel that way with the driver's ed one, too. There's like a line in that song where the teacher's like, "Hey, you're going to repeat right after me and then it's kind of two beats instead of four beats that you know you need to be listening to repeat back." So, it is kind of a learn as you go thing, like learn by failure, which I think is interesting. Uh, but I what I think is cool is I have a little concept here that's worth exploring in that after you beat them all the one time, it wants you to go back and get cool mode by freestyling. And I think there's

something really neat to a rhythm game about, hey, these are the buttons you need to hit, but as long as you're hitting them on the beat, you can play whatever rhythm you want and then introduce your own button presses as long as it's buttons that are in the phrase. That's super cool. And I could paraph. But I was only able to get cool mode on one level cuz it's so like arbitrary how you trigger that. It's like some people on Reddit are like, "Oh, just button mash like crazy and you'll get it." And some people like you need to hit square eight times in this bar. It's It's just super awesome. Logan, that reminds me of in uh in Ocarine of Time where you can just take out the ocarina and play whatever you want.

Yeah. And they gave you the pitch bending in that mode and stuff like that. Like they actually can mess with it. And I think you can use the D-pad in Parappa to kind of change stuff. And I don't really Yeah, the cool mode thing is if this game worked it would be a cool mode, but it is I do like the state of the level being affected by your meter in the game. I think that's really fun and exciting. Did you check the toilet on the left? Okay. You win. And again, the best thing this game has going for it is its beautiful and weird kind of upsetting art by uh Rodney. Rodney Greenblat is the name. Uh I really like that art style combined

with Messiah Matsia's uh music. I think it's really fun and it's like the perfect It's a peanut butter and jelly style situation. That all works for me. But all that said, the one thing that is nightmare fuel for me in this game is Parappa's dad. His dad is so scary to me. He's gonna bite him. Yeah. I just He's so My dad's gonna bite me. He's He's so visually different from everyone else in the game. He It's like he came from the evil dude in Roger Rabbit's like uh you know, like some of the designs like were pre-existing and then some were made for the game. So, it's like that's why they really don't match up. And then there's the there's the 3D elements and the cutscenes which were like really futuristic and cool at

the time, right? And then there's the 2D elements, but they this game really did like the Paper Mario thing where they really mashed them together. And it looks like an adult, it's like an adult swim cartoon before Adult Swim, you know? It's like this like adult psychedelic like weird experience where like you're going to get more, you know, being like a college stoner than like a kid playing it. Yeah, it's very strange. I'm surprised PlayStation or Sony um overall was okay with this game releasing on PlayStation though, just given the fact that there was this mandate to avoid 2D games. Yeah. So, I guess they got around by because the cake is in 3D and some stuff is in 3D.

His car goes off the thing in the distance and then comes back. It was also Yeah, it was also still early days for PlayStation. I think they just wanted as many exclusives as they could get, right? Because they're both Nintendo and Sega entrrenched. It was by Na Ona, which I don't they don't think PlayStation ever owned them. They were not PlayStation did publish it. Yeah, they did publish it and they also got support from Japan Studio. Yeah, I think there was that's what I remember reading is that there was some actual Japan studio involvement, you know, like what Parappa was like we're talking about this like it's some janky indie game that nobody cares about, but it was like a lead PlayStation character.

Yeah. And like it was on every demo disc. So everybody played this game. There was probably like what would you say like 20 million people at least played it in America just because the demo disc? Yeah. Yeah, probably. And arguably one of the finest levels first introductions to a brand new IP/Mascot is the Chop Onion uh stage. I think it's Yeah. And that's a good design. I like Chop. The Onion Man is a good design. I think Parappa is a great I think it's the cutest dog. And I think his voice is really good. And boy, the voice acting in the game leaves a lot to be desired. Is there a Japanese version of it? All in Japanese?

I mean I've never heard it. I have to look it up. But yeah, because like the English is like weird and I don't know, Logan, did you notice that they censor it in Yeah, in the fast food restaurant. Yeah, but I don't know why. I think they say I think they're saying Coke. Coca-Cola. They censor Coke. Yeah, cuz they're just they're censoring their drink orders. Yeah. Okay. Like they're censoring the brand names you're saying? Yeah. Cuz they're like, I want a Coke and a burger. And then the next guy's like, I want all the cookies and a Coke. And then the next person's like, I want a ginger soda. And then when they say

ginger is like, I want water. Yeah. And then practice water. Why does his stomach hurt if he just had water? I don't understand. None of the lore makes sense. Starving, man. That part is brutal. I feel so bad for him on his date, man. It's just the worst. But she only likes him because he's grimacing. Looking man, cuz he's looking tough. Yeah. So, this is the story. This I thought this would be a good exercise. This is the story of Parappa. The rapper Parappa is a dog who hangs out with his animal friends and he likes he has a crush on a flower.

He wants to win her affection. So, he learns how to be a hero and then he learns how to drive, but then he crashes his car and has to get a new car and then he has to get a cake for Sunny and then he takes Sunny on a picnic and then he has to go to the bathroom and then he performs a show on stage and that's it at the school. That's the story of whatever. There's a through line of an antagonist that's a superhero and then also a lecturer and can make and who's rich. So, he has a really long car and he has a really long cake and I'm I'm realizing now that's all a metaphor. That's the He speaks for a long time.

He's the real He's the original Chad. Yeah, he's a Chad. voiced terribly. Like one of the worst like most neutral voices in it's almost Twin Peaks level of like delivery where it's like it's off the other side where they're like keep it. That's weird, you know? Yeah. But like you're saying I actually like that. Like it's so weird and bizarre and it just like I miss games coming from Sony like this. They just really don't do stuff like this anymore and it's sad. Yeah. What were you going to say? Uh you were mentioning that Prepa is really likable. Uh and his voice actor is great. Even Next Generation magazine was saying at the time that it was refreshingly optimistic, you know, and it had the message at that

is believing in yourself, right? You just got to believe. Yeah, you got to believe in yourself. Yeah. And that bathroom door will open eventually. I was a little bit eyebrow raised though when he crashes the car with all of his friends inside. I was like just daydreaming how rapid you just killed four children and he's like it's cartoon rules. It's fine. All the doors are just hanging out. Everything's just on the floor. That's how they're in front of the jury. He's just like I got to believe your honor. I got to believe.

Yeah. I got to believe the songs are totally good. Totally catchy. They're like they're fun goofy rap songs. Um, sonically I think it's in the same wheelhouse as Beasty Boys and Tribe Called Quest and that sort of stuff. And I think it's really clever the way they chopped up Parappa's vocals individually into individual words and syllables and that's what you're triggering. It's just like sample chopping in hip-hop production which I have done but I wasn't doing in 1996. So it's very cool, very clever. Well, the positivity and the flower and everything reminds me of De La Soul, right? Like I think it has a lot of that DNA in it.

Yeah, that too. Awesome. Reading a little bit about um Matsia's um like kind of perspective in what he wanted to cover instead of like mixing music and stuff, he to him um the most interesting thing about rap was its sampling culture. And so that was a thing he really wanted to focus the game around. And one thing I really do like about this game and Sam called it out earlier is how the game wants to teach you to feel the rhythm as opposed to learn the button prompts. When you hit the sample at the correct moment, Parappa sounds like the line that came correctly that came before. But if he does it incorrectly, he sounds unsure of himself or it sounds like cut off a little bit. And I really like that. Except smart stuff.

Some levels though, even if he sounds correct, it still doesn't give you any points. I'm like, what did I do wrong? I don't know what happened. Yeah. already sold in the rain or in the snow. I got the funky flow, but no, I really got to go. In the rain or in the snow, you got the funky, but now you really got it all. There's a uh the one thing that we all have the advantage of is we've been holding the PlayStation controller for 30 years now and we know really I think this group would knows really well. Triangle, square, circle, X. Um, I remember at the

time being like, "This is so stupid. Why didn't they just do ABXY like Nintendo? We've been playing Nintendo games for, you know, 10 years or something by that point." And it would just piss me off. And then like now and now I used to think of it as like a total like cheap knockoff controller even. But now that helped that I know the controller. Yeah. I also to talk a little bit about just the UI elements of the game. I really like its overall presentation. Apart from the art style and art direction, I like how everything is kind of a miniature 4x3 aspect ratio inside like you're watching a movie alongside Parappa. Was that original? I thought that might have been framing it because of my No, that was in the that's in the

original uh PlayStation one hardware as well. I like that. And I like how the just like the save and load elements of the game are like on a tape deck and stuff like that and that you are given the option of just using cute symbols when you're typing in your name. Like more games need to just bring that back of like you can put a funny little symbol in your name when you're typing. They took that out of the PSP game. Oh yeah. You got like a cute little half moon and stuff like that. Yeah. just really charming overall and it really again if you were a kid back then you probably got this game and this was the only game you're going to get

for a while. So you really learn to savor everything the game had to offer. And you know play through one as Logan described, you learn the songs and then when you go back through and play through and earn cool status on each one, it's fun seeing the levels evolve and change based on hitting that cool status. you know, the uh master chop onion with whatever his name is. The dojo roof flies off and you know, Power Appa takes the center stage and you get to freestyle. So, all that stuff's just so exciting. So cool. Yeah, it's very weird, but it's it's very cool to It's also a score based game. So, like at its heart, it has more DNA from an arcade game than it does from a home game. And you have to like think that

that was a lot more common then. like you people had the context of games that you would play just to get better at them or just to get the score like um top down or sides scrolling uh shooters that we all played like those usually were 20 minutes long and sometimes they were hard to get through unlike Pereppa but like you play them for the score and like I think that they this game was meant to be that which is fine. That's interesting that you mentioned that Sam because rhythm games would go on to flourish in arcades first before Guitar Hero there'd be like mainly in Japan.

Yeah. Bani Bainy and Dance Revolution and that sort of thing. Maybe those developers looked at Parappa and I was like, "Well, we should make our own arcade games." I meant to look up if Parappa ever had an arcade iteration. Um, not that I'm aware. Not from what I saw looking at the Wikipedia entry of Parappa. Um, but one thing I did also think was wild that I never knew before is when you finish the game, it teases Parappa 2 that the, "Hey, there's another game coming out by the way. Enjoy." I was like, "Oh, but it cries." It says that right at the end when he's like flying away and he's like pointing towards the

the screen. It says like parappa the rapper 2. I was like, "Oh, okay." Yeah. But they would do um Jammer Lammy first and then they would do Praa 2 but several years later, right? It was a PlayStation 2 game, I think. Sounds right. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Um Jammer Lamb is PlayStation one and it has a great heavy metal song in it. Yeah, it really does. I mean it works the way a modern rhythm game like the way you assume a rhythm game would work. They learned and like Guitar Hero one was shortly after this all went down, right?

Well, 2004 I probably want to say. So, you know, and then you got Man after, but that's a different developer. But I do like me some That's Kami, right? Guitar Man. Yeah, Guitar Man Rules. Okay, so there's a lot we like about Parappa the Rapper. But is it still fun today? Logan, what say you? Uh, I'm going to say it's it's still fun to look at and listen to today, but not fun to play. Yeah. Sam, what do you think? Yeah, it's funny and a great museum piece, and everybody should just, you know, maybe even watch videos, but unfortunately, playing it makes it worse than watching it and listening to it.

Yeah. Nick said you like everything about it but playing it. Correct. I got back from my vacation. I was like, "Ah, I'm going to unwind after unpacking by playing some P rap." And then I was just standing in front of my TV connecting my cable to my controller screaming, "You just worked one level ago. What happened?" Yeah, it just it only has two speeds. It's either easy breezy and fun or it just absolutely maddening cuz the what the game you've been playing so far all it just stopped working the way and it expects you to do something completely different that you can't figure it out. And on that fifth song, you just have to do it a hundred times and eventually you'll pass it, but you don't really even know why. It just happened to work that time.

I got to believe. Yeah. I mean, that's it. Just got to believe. Wow. I need to become a hero, too. H. But how could I possibly do that? Yeah, I know. I got to believe. I don't know. Games are a mix of many different uh art forms. So, if you're the type of gamer that can get a lot out of a game from its sound and its art style and just its vibes, yes, then it's probably worth uh, you know, spending 20 minutes with. I will say that like the concept of fun is Parappa like it is like everything about it was meant to be like fun and light-hearted and just like what just happened like put a smile on your face. So, in that sense, it's still fun.

Yeah. But it's not fun to play. Perfect let's play to throw up on TV while you're having dinner. Sure. Yeah. I saw a let's play where the person doing the let's play couldn't even do it. Like they uploaded this to YouTube and they were just failing left and right. Yeah. It does make me want to go to Japan and go to old record shops and try to find like a soundtrack CD or something. The soundtrack is it's Yeah, it's actually legitimately good and surprising. All right. All right, so a little bit harder to recommend than our previous episodes which we've done on Ocarine of Time and the original Resident Evil. You should

definitely check those out if you haven't seen them yet. Uh, what game should we revisit next for Is It Still Fun today? Let us know in the comments. Uh, thank you, Nick. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Logan. My name is Damon. We will see you on the next one. Oh no, I can't believe it. My dad's going to bite me.