Star Parodier (1992)

Platform: Turbografx-16 CD

This is the Parodius of the Star Soldier series with cutesy graphics.

The enemies here are altogether cute. especially some animations are amusing, like teddy bears digging themselves out of the snow, or little guys waving white flags after you shot them. This time around you have the choice between 3 different ships, which come each with their own powerup tree. Go with the star soldier ship if you want the most normal space shooter experience, choose the PC engine for the wackiest experience, or bomberman if you want the most ridiculous destruction. There is also references to the star soldier and other game series throughout the levels. For example one mecha boss is a cute version known from other star soldier games, even in behaviour. In one level you even fly over bomberman mazes and fight the black bomberman as a boss.

While the power-up system is more or less a simplified copy of super star soldier and many levels play exactly as you know it from the series. However, some of the gameplay elements found in a few levels are more akin to other shooters, like having to maneuver between wall mazes, or shooting through ice blocks to create a path (both of these elements are also found in Parodius, so maybe that's where the designers took that from). The game rarely takes advantage of the CD format, there is some minor scaling effects, but they're negligible, and the soundtrack is underwhelming except for some of the very last tracks.

Overall the game could have done more with the source material, and while I liked some of the references, especially the bomberman stage, this game's level design is about as interesting as final soldier, so it's a rather average entry in the series, but it gets some bonus points for the cutesy style and humor.