YPB: Episode 090 – PaRappa the Rapper (1997)

This week in Your Parents Basement, we are rapping! From 1997, we’re playing PaRappa the Rapper by NanaOn-Sha for the Playstation.

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TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 – Intro! This week’s episode has strong language, and also, songs about using the bathroom.
• 29:30 – It’s the return of a sometimes popular segment! Comments Concerns and Questions! (And they’re all from Pippenz this week!)
• 37:50 – Emails! Could we possibly have a love reconnection?
• 52:45 – Ask the Sweet Boys. Helping people in 2017.
• 57:45 – Snifferoo. Hey, the music for next week’s game isn’t that memorable! Yikes!

SHOW NOTES

- According to Price Charting, PaRappa is surprisingly valuable! It’s around $45 for the disc only, since it doesn’t really come with a manual. Having the insert does up the value by a buck or two, though.

Inexplicable Video Game Review: Parappa The Rappa

You damn kids, with your Dance Dance Revolution and Let's Dance and Rock Bandin'. Back in my day, we had this awesome music game that just used the Playstation controller - Parappa The Rappa.

Well, okay - maybe the game length was a bit low, and the options were a bit lacking. If I'm recalling correctly, there was no stage select, and only five "real" stages: kung-fu, driving, flea market, cooking and the bathroom, followed by the ending.

All of those stages were really, really well-done when it came to the rhyming and rapping, but heck, there weren't that many of them. The game's graphics seemed somewhat simplistic, so even if they added on some not-as-good songs, I think it would have helped the game out.

It also would have helped if the game was a bit deeper. For example, letting you play as more than Parappa, taking different plot arcs, having multiple endings, etc. However, these are minor quibbles about a game that was always marketed as a bargainesque title. I think I paid $30 for it close to its release.

Initially, the game's popularity in October 1997 (13+ years ago, ace!) was helped out by some awesome commercials:



Say what you will about Sony and its elitist attitude at times, but them dudes sure do know how to make a commercial, between these early efforts and Kevin Butler now. And personally, I always had problems with that god damn flea market stage: