Sexy Parodius
Title screen
| Developer: | Konami |
|---|---|
| Music: | Mayuko Kageshita Naomitsu Ariyama Mutsuhiko Izumi Kazuhiro Senoo |
| Program: | Tokuda Tsukasa Ohji Paiman |
| Art: | Shūjirō Hamakawa Chiyoko Hanano Natsumi Bouike Misugi Inagaki Kaori Nishimura Koji Namikoshi |
| Release date: | Arcade: March 1996 PlayStation/Sega Saturn : November 1, 1996 PlayStation Portable: January 25, 2007 |
| Previous game: | Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius |
| Next game: | Gradius Gaiden |
Sexy Parodius (Japanese: セクシーパロディウス "Sekushī Parodiusu") is a shmup developed and published by Konami in 1996. It is the fifth installment in the Parodius series succeeding Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius (Konami 1995). It is the last of the three arcade games from the series.
Sexy Parodius received ports on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and PlayStation Portable.
For replay videos, visit the Video Index.
Contents
Gameplay Overview
Controls
There are 3 Power up schemes to choose from in this game: Manual, Semi-Auto, and Auto. These also influence your button layout/button functions.
| 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 |
Characters
Sexy Parodius has 8 characters, 5 of them return from Gokujou Parodius while the other 3 are completely new. Each character has a counterpart when using 2P side, but it's only a cosmetic difference.
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Vic Viper |
 Lord British |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Ivan |
 Toby |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Hikaru |
 Akane |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Mambo |
 Samba |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Michael |
 Gabriel |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Koitsu |
 Aitsu |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Option |
 Multiple |
| 1P side | 2P side |
|---|---|
 Shooting Star |
 Black Viper |
Power Meter
The Power Meter system in Sexy Parodius uses icons for each upgrade. When the player picks up a red capsule, the next box in the Power Meter sequence gets highlighted; when a red capsule is picked up at position 7, it will jump back to position 1.
Although the Power Meter has general properties (Speed Up, Missile, and Shield), all eight characters have an individual set of upgrades.
Items
An item pops up either if the player destroys certain enemy waves fully or destroys a red enemy.
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Red Capsule Advances the Power Meter by 1. |
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Roulette Capsule Starts roulette mode in the Power Meter. Visually indistinguishable from regular Red Capsules. Found in fixed enemies/locations. |
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Blue Capsule Clears the screen from all enemies (no points are awarded for these). |
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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. |
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Blue Bell Adds a screen clearing bomb to the player's bell stock. Additional bombs can be picked up for a maximum of three. |
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White Bell When picked up, a pink ball named Alex will help you out by attacking enemies. It has its own HP pool, starting at 10 out of a maximum of 20 regaining HP by eating bells. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Purple Bell When picked up, all enemies are turned into regular items. |
All regular items appear in the following item cycle. Roulette Capsules have no effect, but the cycle can be affected by Purple Bells.
| Item Cycle |
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The bell cycle starts at yellow. Hitting a Yellow Bell five times makes it advance to the next color. Every other color takes a single hit to make the cycle go to the next yellow again. This is not affected by missing bells or picking them up.
| Bell Cycle |
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Extra Lives
On default settings, the player is awarded with two score based extends, one at 300,000 and the second at 800,000. Via dipswitch settings these can be changed to set the first life at 200,000 and the second at 700,000. It can also be set to 500,000 only.
Rank
Sexy Parodius has by far the most aggressive and unforgiving rank system in the Parodius series. Rank is almost completely uncontrollable, and is essentially guaranteed to get extremely high.
Total Rank is given by this equation
| Total Rank |
|---|
| Power Up Mode (0 to 2) + Mission Completion (0 to 11) + Speed Ups (0 to 2) + Power Ups (0 to 6) + Frame Rank (0 to 31) |
Base Rank is capped at 39. How the values of these factors are calculated is explained in the following four sections.
- Power up Mode
The Power Up mode selected will change the starting base rank.
| Auto | 0 |
|---|---|
| Semi-Auto | 1 |
| Manual | 2 |
- Mission Completion
Completing or failing to complete missions changes the rank increase from clearing the stage.
| Mission Completed | +1 |
|---|---|
| Mission Incomplete | +2 |
During the Boss Rush emergency stage, the game will subtract all Mission Rank, and will add it back once the stage is completed or failed. Completing the emergency mission will add +1 to mission rank while failing it will add nothing.
- Speed Up level
The rank increases depending on the number of speed ups equipped
| 0-1 Speed Ups | 0 |
|---|---|
| 2-3 Speed Ups | 1 |
| 4-5 Speed ups | 2 |
- Power Ups
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 having an active Shield, or bell (both held, and active) is a flat +1 to rank, and as soon as the power ends, it decreases back to 0 with no other penalties.
If using Vic Viper, Ivan, Hikaru (Hawkwind and Spread bomb are both equal as missiles), or Shooting Star (Auto Option is his missile), Power Up rank is calculated according to the table below.
| Shot | Double | Laser | Missile | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shot | Double | Laser | ||||
| No Options | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 Option | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Options | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 Options | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 Options | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
If using Mambo, Power up Rank is calculated using the formula below.
| Power Up Rank |
|---|
| (Missile (+2 if bubble missile option has been equipped) + all option types currently equipped + 1) / 8 (the output value is then truncated) |
Option types are these values
| Bubble Missile | 3 |
|---|---|
| Control Laser | 4 |
| Screw Laser | 4 |
| Search Laser | 5 |
If using Michael or Koitsu, Power up Rank is calculated according to the table below.
| Shot | Double | Laser | Missile | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shot | Double | Laser | ||||
| No Grade Ups | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 1 Grade Up | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| 2 Grade Ups | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 Grade Ups | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 Grade Ups | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
If using Option, Power up Rank is calculated according to the table below.
| Sonoba Power | Shot | Thunder Cross Modoki | Koitsu/Michael Modoki |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 3-4 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
- Frame Rank
The Frame Rank consists of a main counter and an incremental counter. The incremental counter goes +1 for every 32 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 Base 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 and active bell power. 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.
| No active Shield or Bell Power | Active Shield or Bell Power | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 1 Speed Ups | x1 (32f) | x2 (16f) |
| 2 Speed Ups | x2 (16f) | x4 (8f) |
| 3 to 5 Speed Ups | x4 (8f) | x8 (4f) |
To put this into perspective, the main counter of the Frame Rank increases by +1 every 136 seconds with a 32f increase rate. In contrast, it increases every 17 seconds with a 4f increase rate.
For every death, the main counter of the Frame Rank decreases by -2 and the incremental counter resets to 0. This means that dying with a high incremental counter can make the main counter decrease by almost -3 at times. If Frame Rank reaches 12 or higher, revenge bullets will appear on the first loop, and a second delayed revenge bullet will appear in loop 2. Frame rank will be set to 0 upon continuing.
Loops
Unlike games of the Gradius series, the arcade version of Parodius Da! does not feature infinite loops and ends after Loop 2. There are no requirements for the second loop so that upon beating 1-10 the player will always enter 2-1.
Upon entering 2-1, the player loses all of their 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 "Speed Up" beginning with Loop 2. This is very helpful in order to quickly gain more upgrades again.
Minimum rank is much higher during the loop (see above). Moreover, there's a flag for Loop 2 that will always activate single revenge bullets. On higher rank, additional revenge bullets can spawn after the first revenge bullet. These additional revenge bullets often spawn with a significant delay which makes them particularly troublesome to dodge.
Loops
Sexy Parodius does not loop, but clearing every mission unlocks a special stage.
Strategy
WIP
