PaRappa the Rapper 2

PaRappa the Rapper 2
European game cover.
Developer(s)	NanaOn-Sha
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Designer(s)	Masaya Matsuura
Artist(s)	Rodney Greenblat
Writer(s)	Gabin Ito
Composer(s)	Masaya Matsuura Yoshihisa Suzuki
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Release date(s)	JP August 30, 2001 NA January 21, 2002 EU April 5, 2002 [1]
Genre(s)	Rhythm
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Distribution	DVD-ROM

PaRappa the Rapper 2 (パラッパラッパー2, Parappa Rappā Tsu) is a PlayStation 2 rhythm video game and the sequel to PaRappa the Rapper, it is the third game in the series following UmJammer Lammy. Though the game boasts a number of new gameplay elements, it was not as well-received critically and failed to garner similar sales numbers as its predecessor.

Plot

The story line of PaRappa the Rapper 2 centers on Parappa, who started a game having a nightmare involving a monster and has recently won a hundred years' supply of noodles and has grown tired of eating them. When his girlfriend, Sunny Funny, serves him noodles one day, Parappa throws a tantrum, prompting Sunny to call him a baby and leading him to question his maturity, so as making his heart broken, thinking she doesn't like him anymore. As Parappa tries to find an alternative meal at Beard Burger, he learns that someone is mysteriously turning all the food in Parappatown into noodles. After taking a brief lesson in 'Romantic Karate' from Chop Chop Master Onion, Parappa and his friends get shrunk by his father's invention, so he helps coach them back to normal size with the help of Guru Ant. Parappa gets drafted into the army and must complete a military boot camp training course with Instructor Moosesha. He then becomes an amateur barber after customers are being given afros by a schizophrenic Hairdresser Octopus caught under a hypnotic tune. Parappa and his friends discover a video game called "Food Court", which was being used to control Hairdresser Octopus, and reverse engineer it to discover the noodle's weakness, sweets.

Parappa and his friends launch a sweet-based attack on the Noodle Syndicate, and soon confront their leader, Colonel Noodle, who is actually Beard Burger Master's son who had become sick of eating burgers. Parappa convinces him that noodles aren't the only food around. Sunny arrives, revealing that she has been following the same events Parappa been through, and tells him that she has been trying catch up to him to reason about the noodle situation at the beginning and understands that if didn't want to have any noodles and she still likes him the way he is and still has her feels for him. The entire gang has a picnic together all the food they can eat and Parappa and his girlfriend Sunny give a hat that's like his to Colonel Noodle, who gives a letter to perform on stage at Club Fun. The game ends with a final party with returning hip-hop master MC King Kong Mushi. Things go back to normal, the rest of gang and villages go back to doing other things and Parappa heads to Sunny's house for dinner and can eat anything... except cheese, of which he's won another lifetime's supply.

Gameplay

The game plays similar to its predecessor and features 8 stages. The teacher will give a line of rap and PaRappa will have to repeat it, or otherwise improvise it. If he messes up his line twice in a row, he drops a rank from Good, to Bad, to Awful. Performing well two times in a row will bring the player up a rank. Players lose the level if they drop below Awful, or finish the level in the Bad or Awful state. Parappa 2 handles this a little differently from its predecessors, as upon dropping a rank, the teacher will say 'Getting Worse', and the song will go back two lines, and sometimes altering the lines to make them easier to play. If the player improvises a rap successfully two times in a row, it accesses Cool mode, where the teacher leaves PaRappa to do freestyle by himself. If PaRappa can reach the end of the level in Cool mode, he'll earn a Cool ranking for that stage. This unlocks music tracks available to listen in a music player available at the end of the game.

Between every two levels (except for level 8), there is a minigame in which 'Kotamanegis' (little onions) from Chop Chop Master Onion's dojo hold up plates for PaRappa to break. Hitting the plates earns PaRappa extra points to add to his previous level's score, while hitting the Tamanegis when they are not ready deducts points.

When a level is completed, a versus mode is unlocked, playable with a friend or against the computer. In this mode, the two players are given a line to rap, and each player must try and improvise to get a higher score than the previous one. Beating their opponent earns a point, and three points win the game.

Upon completing the game, Parappa's hat changes color to represent an increase in the stage's difficulty, going from Blue, to Pink to Yellow. When playing through the game again, the lines are remixed. Completing the game in Cool Mode unlocks a music player where you can listen to any level with a Cool Rating on, along with the full version of the Stage 8 Intro song "Come a Long Way", while completing the Vs. CPU mode on all difficulty levels unlocks the final song, "Say "I Gotta Believe!"", performed by De La Soul featuring Double. The player can change his hat color on the title screen by rotating the analogue stick, but the line changes will remain, meaning the player will have to start a new game from scratch in order to play the songs in the original layout.

Characters

Parappa the Rapper (voiced by Dred Foxx, a.k.a. John Simpson III)

The hip-hop hero, hoping to become a man in the eyes of Sunny Funny while holding off a noodle crisis.

Beard Burger Master (voiced by Ethan Eubanks)

The deceased owner of Beard Burger, he teaches Parappa how to make beardylike beard burgers in the kitchen during Toasty Buns beard breakout mix.

Chop Chop Master Onion (voiced by Ryu Watabe)

He appears in the television teaching Parappa and PJ Romantic Karate in Romantic Love. He also hosts a minigame in between levels.

Guru Ant (voiced by Dean Bowman)

He's an ant where the people get so small and the legs are long during BIG. He is mellow when small, but is incredibly timid when he's bigger than his normal size.

Sister Moosesha (voiced by Kimberly Queen Aaminah Hassell)

She's a moose who is sister to Mooselini from the first PaRappa game. She wears a tutu and military pants.

Hairdresser Octopus (voiced by Freedom Bremner)

He appears as an upside down octopus head and cuts hair in the barber shop during Hair Scare. He is red when under the influence of Noodle music, but is blue under normal conditions.

Food Court Videogame

The Food Court Video Game was featured with Beard Burger Master, Chop Chop Master Onion, Guru Ant, Instructor Moosesha, and Hairdresser Octopus during Food Court. Anyone who can't complete it can eat nothing but noodles.

Colonel Noodle (voiced by Andrew Alonzo)

He's the son of Beard Burger Master, as well as the game's antagonist. He sings "Noodles Can't Be Beat". Colonel Noodle was destined to become a burger shop owner from the day he was born. Unfortunately, his father Beard Burger Master was so into burger research that, similar to Parappa's situation, all Noodle got to eat was burgers (to the point that he lost his friends at his birthday party and his mother turned into a burger from eating so many). Discovering the noodles and enjoying them better than burgers, he decides to have the noodles take over the world.

MC King Kong Mushi (voiced by Dean Bowman)

He is a flea who sings with the microphone at the end during the song Always Love!.

Soundtrack

PaRappa the Rapper 2 is the original soundtrack to the game.

All songs written and composed by Yoshihisa Suzuki and Masaya Matsuura. 

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 67.45%[2] Metacritic 67/100[3] Review scores Publication Score 1UP.com B-[4] AllGame [5] Computer and Video Games 6/10[6] Eurogamer 7/10[7] Famitsu 31/40[8] GamePro [9] Game Revolution C-[10] GameSpot 6.6/10[11] GameSpy 81%[12] GameZone 6/10[13] IGN 7/10[14] X-Play [15] Entertainment Weekly C-[16]

Unlike the first two games in the PaRappa series, which got generally favorable reviews, PaRappa 2 received generally mixed reviews. GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann gave the game a 6.6, stating that "an almost total lack of innovation makes the game seem pretty dated when compared with other games on the market. ... Even when played to perfection, though, the rapping still sounds just as stuttery as it did in the previous game. While it was excusable then and perhaps even a little charming, it would have been nice to see the developers make better use of the PlayStation 2's higher specs." Though the game "features the same 2D graphical style as its predecessor, but it's not without its share of enhancements," he added, "The music in the game covers a lot more ground, genre-wise, than the original did, but none of it is especially funny or toe-tapping--with the exception of the level that takes place inside an old video game machine. PaRappa 2 isn't a bad game, but it doesn't have as much of the same off-beat charm that the original--and to a lesser extent, Um Jammer Lammy--had."^[11] However, IGN's Doug Perry gave the game a slightly better score of 7, saying, "The game concept hasn't changed, leaning neither toward an evolutionary or even a moderate change in the way gamers play music games. ... [PaRappa 2 is] not as hard as Um Jammer Lammy (which may be good for some folks), and it certainly covers familiar territory when it comes to the essentials -- gameplay, graphics, and sound -- but it's still fun and happy-making."^[14]

Region Differences

Like the previous game in the series, UmJammer Lammy, Parappa 2 received some slight censorship in its North American release to avoid a Teen rating from the ESRB. Guru Ant's references to 'being the Lord' was changed to 'being the man' to avoid religious implications. Beard Burger Master's line, "tastes better than wine", was removed due to references to alcohol and was replaced with "so you better get in line." He is also edited slightly in Stage 6, where "warm the buns" is replaced by "toast the buns", possibly to avoid double entendre. These alterations are not present in the Japanese and PAL releases of the game.

In Japan, a "McDonald's version" demo version of the game was included on a demo disc, alongside a demo of Pipo Saru 2001, as part of a McDonald's Happy Meal disc, which features the game's first stage remodelled to resemble a McDonald's restaurant.

References

External links

• PaRappa the Rapper 2 at GameSpot
• PaRappa the Rapper 2 at IGN
• PaRappa the Rapper 2 at MobyGames
• PaRappa the Rapper 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• Game highlights by The Rubber Chicken