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PaRappa the Rapper

If the thought of playing a very cute and cheesy game makes you sick, you will hate Parappa the Rapper. But if you can get into Parappa's children's story kind of environment, then you'll be able to enjoy the game. This game must have come out just as the developers intended it; all the parts are done as well as can be expected. Their sense of humor comes out even during load time: when the game is loading, phrases scroll across the screen, like "Just a moment. . . " and "Soon . . . maybe."

Every level begins with a well-done story scene. Parappa will innocently get himself into trouble and then try to figure out what to do. Just as Parappa loses all hope, a light bulb appears over his head and he jumps up, proclaiming, "I know. I gotta believe!" He comes up with some kind of crazy plan and then goes to someone who will help him out if he can rap well enough. Then the level begins.

All the voices in the game are quite good and in English; you can even change the subtitles to English from the options menu(although all the options will always be written in Japanese). You can also change the game difficulty from hard to easy, but you'll only be able to play the first three levels in easy mode. You can also watch a replay of the last level you beat(this is pretty sharp on the part of the programmers, since they were going to waste one memory card block only to save the level you're on anyway, so they used the rest of the block to save a full replay of a level).

The actual levels play like Simon Says: your teacher says a line, then you have to rap to it, which is accomplished by pressing the correct buttons as the cursor at the top of the screen passes over their symbols. The trick is not only to press the button, but to do it at the right time and with the right rhythm. After trying a couple of times, you will probably have parts of the song memorized. This is one of those games where you'll find yourself saying the words as you press the buttons; it can really help you to get the rhythm right and it's part of the fun of the game.

If your timing is bad, instead of taking damage as you would in an action game, your teacher starts getting mad at you and the background and music reflect this. You start each level at "You're rapping good," and if you mess up twice, you'll drop to "You're rapping bad" and then two more screw-ups will take you to awful. If you rap well on two lines in a row, you'll move up a ranking. If you go below awful at any point, or aren't rapping good by the end of the level, you have to do it all over again. If you're really good, you can get up to rapping cool, at which point your teacher will leave and watch you rap completely freestyle(I've only seen this once though, since it's very hard to do).

Now here's the bad news. Most importantly, there are only six levels in this game. If you go through each of them without having to repeat any, it will take about half an hour. And after you've heard the same songs several times, I can't imagine that you'd want to play this game much more, since the game play lacks any significant depth. The only time you have to touch the directional pad is to choose options. This game could have been called, "Parappa the Rapper: Master the buttons on the Playstation controller," since all you have once you look past the fun environment is an exercise in reflexes(quickly recognizing the symbols on the screen) and timing(pushing the buttons with good rhythm).

In addition, although you'll initially get a bad ranking by making Parappa say messed up phrases like, "Do I know why stop car," or "Shrimp go everywhere," when you get better and start having good timing, you'll still find yourself "rapping awful" even though you didn't think you were doing too badly. And you might find that the game thinks you're doing fine even though you think you're messing up. Basically, this game is programmed to give you credit for perfect timing, or for saying something that sounds like a good rap anyway. The first problem is that no game(even one this well done) is going to have much success figuring out what sounds good, so you can get odd results when you go a little freestyle by deviating from what you're supposed to say. The second problem is that since there are only six levels, the only way to make this game last more than an hour is to be very, very strict about how accurate your timing has to be, in order to force players to play the same level a few times.

If this game had ten more levels, the timing detection could have been loosened up a little to make it less frustrating at times; it would also make this game have some replay value. Maybe if there was some sort of two-player mode, this game would have some long-term appeal. But as it is, although this game might appeal to anyone in the short-run, even those who don't like most games, if you play it for more than a few hours, it's going to get old very fast, although it may be very fun for a short while.

Recommendation: This game is a perfect rent, but there's little reason to buy it. There are a lot of games out there with much more long-term appeal. Even if you really want this game, don't buy the Japanese version since you'll be able to get it at U.S. Playstation prices when it comes out over here.