Gokujou Parodius

Gokujou Parodius

Title screen

Developer:	Konami
Music:	Seiichi Fukami Satoko Miyawaki Kazuhiro Senoo
Program:	Tokuda Tsukasa Yasuyuki Moritome
Art:	Shūjirō Hamakawa Chiyoko Hanano Taro Matsuishi Rika Ishimaru Natsumi Bouike
Release date:	Arcade: April 1994 Super Famicom: November 25, 1994 PlayStation: December 3, 1994 Sega Saturn: May 19, 1995 PlayStation Portable: January 25, 2007
Previous game:	Pop’n TwinBee
Next game:	TwinBee Yahho!

Gokujō Parodius ～Kako no Eikō o Motomete～ (Japanese: 極上パロディウス ～過去の栄光を求めて～ "Gokujou Parodius – Pursuing the Past Glory") is a shmup developed and published by Konami in 1994. It is the third installment in the Parodius series succeeding Parodius Da! (Konami 1990). It is the second of the three arcade games from the series followed by Sexy Parodius (Konami 1996).

Gokujou Parodius received ports on the Super Nintendo, PlayStation, Sega Saturn and PlayStation Portable. It was localized overseas under the title Fantastic Journey.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Controls

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The game offers three different control styles which can be selected at the start of the game: Auto Power-Up (uses one button), Semi-Auto Power-Up (uses two buttons), and Manual Power-Up (uses three buttons).

	Auto Power-Up	Semi-Auto Power-Up	Manual Power-Up
A button		Select Power-Up	Select Power-Up
B button	Primary weapon (shot/double/laser) Secondary weapon (missile) Bell power	Primary weapon (shot/double/laser) Secondary weapon (missile) Bell power	Primary weapon (shot/double/laser)
C button			Secondary weapon (missile) Bell power

When Auto Power-Up is selected, the ship will automatically power up when enough capsules are collected. Roulette Capsules will count as regular capsules.

Characters

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Gokujou Parodius has 8 characters, 4 of them return from Parodius Da! while the others are completely new. Each character has a counterpart when using 2P side, but this is a purely cosmetic difference.

1P side	2P side
Vic Viper	Lord British

1P side	2P side
Takosuke	Belial

1P side	2P side
TwinBee	WinBee

1P side	2P side
Pentarou	Hanako

1P side	2P side
Hikaru	Akane

1P side	2P side
Mambo	Samba

1P side	2P side
Michael	Gabriel

1P side	2P side
Koitsu	Aitsu

Power Meter

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Instead of words, the Power Meter system in Gokujou Parodius uses icons for each upgrade. When the player picks up a red capsule, the next box in the Power Meter sequence will be highlighted; when a red capsule is picked up at position 7, it will jump back to position 1.

Although the Power Meter has certain general properties (Speed Up, Missile, and Shield), all eight characters have an individual set of upgrades.

Items

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An item will pop up either if the player destroys certain waves of enemies fully or when a red enemy is destroyed.

	Red Capsule Advances the Power Meter by 1.
	Roulette Capsule Starts roulette mode in the Power Meter. Visually indistinguishable from regular Red Capsules. Found in fixed locations.
	Blue Capsule Clears the screen from all enemies (no points are awarded for these).
	Yellow Bell Score item. Value increases with subsequent collection: 500 > 1000 > 2,500 > 5,000 > 10,000. Value resets when a Yellow Bell goes off screen or upon death.
	Blue Bell Adds a screen clearing bomb to the player's bell stock. Additional bombs can be picked up for a maximum of three.
	White Bell When picked up, all regular weapons are disabled for a certain amount of time and a megaphone shouts out text that has great coverage and also cancels all bullets.
	Green Bell When picked up, all regular weapons are disabled for a certain amount of time and the player sprite increases in size granting invincibility and extra speed.
	Red Bell Adds 3 laser barriers to the player's bell stock. These barriers cover almost the whole screen vertically and destroy all enemies and bullets touching them.
	Purple Bell When picked up, all enemies are turned into regular items.

All regular items except Roulette Capsules appear in the following item cycle. Roulette Capsules are always found in the same enemies and have no effect on the cycle.

Item Cycle

The bell cycle starts at yellow. Hitting a Yellow Bell five times will make it advance to the next color. Every other color takes a single hit to make the bell cycle go to the next yellow again. This is not affected by missing bells or picking them up.

Bell Cycle

Extra Lives

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On default settings, the player is awarded with two extra lives, one at 200,000 and the second at 500,000.

Rank

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Gokujou Parodius has a very similar rank system to Parodius Da!, but it's slightly more forgiving. Unlike Parodius Da! revenge bullets cannot spawn on the first loop from rank, so keeping rank down is not as overly essential. Not that this is based on the Japanese version, but the European version is similar, just with faster frame rank.

The Rank is affected by the following four factors. Minimum and maximum values are given in parentheses.

Total Rank
Stage Rank (stage: 0 to 24) + Power Ups (0 to 5) + Yellow Bell Chain (0 to 3) + Frame Rank (0 to 31)

Total Rank is capped at 47. How the values of these factors are calculated is explained in the following four sections.

1. Stage Rank

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Stage Rank is the same no matter the difficulty setting. There is no way to drop Stage Rank.

	Loop 1	Loop 2	Loop 3
Stage 1	0	8	16
Stage 2	1	9	17
Stage 3	2	10	18
Stage 4	3	11	19
Stage 5	5	13	21
Stage 6	6	14	22
Stage 7	7	15	23
Moai Stage	0	8	16
Special Stage	16	24	N/A

Stage rank Loop 4 onwards will be 24 as Stage Rank cannot increase higher than that.

2. Power Ups

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Depending on the power ups equipped. If your power ups change (from either activating power ups, or dying/activating OH!), so does the rank increase. Note that an equipped shield affects the rank in two ways. First, the Power Up Rank directly increases when an active shield is equipped according to the table below (this number will decrease again when the shield is lost). Moreover, an active shield affects the Frame Rank (see below). Depending on the character chosen, they use a different Power Up Rank calculation.

If using Vic Viper, Takosuke, Twinbee, Pentarou, Micheal, or Koitsu, Power Up rank is calculated according to the table below.

	No Shield						Shield
	Shot	Double	Laser	Missile			Shot	Double	Laser	Missile
				Shot	Double	Laser				Shot	Double	Laser
No Options	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
1 Option	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	2
2 Options	0	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	2	2	2	3
3 Options	1	1	2	2	2	3	2	2	3	3	3	4
4 Options	1	1	2	2	3	3	2	3	3	3	4	5

If using Hikaru, Power up Rank is calculated according to the table below.

	No Star						Star
	Shot	Carrot	Hawkwind Missile		Spread Bomb		Shot	Carrot	Hawkwind Missile		Spread Bomb
			Shot	Carrot	Shot	Carrot			Shot	Carrot	Shot	Carrot
No Options	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
1 Option	0	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	2	3	2	3
2 Options	1	1	2	3	3	3	2	3	3	4	4	5
3 Options	1	1	2	3	3	3	2	3	3	4	4	5
4 Options	1	1	2	3	3	3	2	3	3	4	4	5

If using Mambo, Power up Rank is calculated using the formula below.

Power Up Rank
(Barrier + all option types equipped) / 8 (the output value is then truncated)

Option types are these values

Bubble Missile	3
Control Laser	5
Screw Laser	6
Search Laser	7

3. Bell Chain

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Collecting yellow bells in a row increases a separate counter from rank, each yellow bell in a chain increasing this counter by 1. When the counter reaches a multiple of 8, Total Rank increases by 1, Total Rank increase from a yellow bell chain is capped at 3. Dropping a bell decreases this count by 4. Dying resets the count. If playing with 2 players, a player who has lost all their lives does not lose their bell count unless they continue.

4. Frame Rank

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The Frame Rank consists of a main counter and an incremental counter. The incremental counter goes +1 for every X (see table below) frames passed. When the incremental counter surpasses 255, the main counter and thereby the Frame Rank increases by +1. Only this number of the main counter has then an effect on the calculation of the Total Rank.

The incremental counter can increase at a higher rate and is affected by the number of speed ups equipped and likewise by an active shield. The incremental counter is not affected by the bell stock as such but only during the duration of the bell power itself (e.g. for the duration the character sprite is increased in size from a Green Bell). If the player loses a speed up/shield or the duration of a bell power wears off, the incremental counter is increasing at a slower rate again.

The initial value of Frame Rank on the first start is 20 no matter what settings are applied.

Difficulty setting sets the inital Frame Rank speed (Keep in mind that Difficult 4 is the default Difficulty).

Difficulty	Approximate time in frames for the incremental counter	Approximate time in seconds
1	128f	565 seconds
2	64f	278 seconds
3	42.667f	186 seconds
4	32f	139 seconds
5	25.6f	112 seconds
6	21.333f	93 seconds
7	18.286f	80 seconds
8	16f	69 seconds

Speed ups and Shields/Active Bells act as multipliers for Frame Rank

	No active Shield or Bell Power	Active Shield or Bell Power
0 to 1 Speed Ups	x1 (32f)	x2 (16f)
2 Speed Ups	x1.25 (25.6f)	x2.25 (14.222f)
3 Speed Ups	x2 (16f)	x3 (10.667f)
4 Speed Ups	x2.25 (14.222f)	x4.5 (7.111f)
5 Speed Ups	x2.5 (12.8f)	x3.5 (9.143f)

Frame rank is capped at 31. Frame rank will only increase during gameplay and not during cutscenes, or death transitions. Every death decreases the main counter by 2 and resets the incremental counter. Continuing resets frame rank to 20 if frame rank is greater than 20, if not, it will do nothing. If Frame Rank is below 16, it will have an added multiplier of 4 until it reaches 16.

5. 2 Player

In 2 player mode, each player has their own individual Total Ranks, the game references the player with the lower total rank to determine the Total Rank used.

Loops

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By default, Gokujou Parodius does not loop, but an option to enable a second loop and even infinite loops can be set in the dipswitches (or going to the options menu in the ports). The loop has no requirements when enabled, so the player will always enter 2-1 upon beating stage 1-7.

The player loses all Power Ups and starts in the default state again. If the Power Meter was highlighted at any position at the end of loop 1, it will be highlighted on the first position beginning with loop 2.

Strategy

WIP