ENGLISH VERSION
Introduction:
Parodius is a cool Konami shoot'n'up game, a parody of Gradius/Nemesis, released
only in Japan, and, for this reason, totally in japanese. But now you can play it
in english and understand the whole story of this nice MSX work of Konami.
Credits:
Original game
Konami 1988
English translation
Takamichi Suzukawa
Game opening/Power ups reprogramming
Victor/Trunks
Game ending/Player menu/Dying cries/Drill graphics reprogramming
Adriano Cunha
Mapper/FlashROM version
F. Jesus Martos
Mapper loader/ROM version
Adriano Cunha
Download:
Screenshots:
Tips and hints:
- Simplified game manual (by Takamichi Suzukawa)
Most important sections of
MSX Parodius Manual are available in english.
- The stage 3 boss (by Takamichi Suzukawa)
Traditionally, a day before an important occasion such as a school trip,
Japanese children tie a piece of cloth in the middle leaving a small "head".
They they draw a face, usually a series of kanas "he-no-he-no-mo-he-ji-"
(last one with " accent drawn above the left eye as "head hear"). Japanese
children hang such tied facial cloth down the window pane, beliving that it,
"teruterubozu" (sunny sunny boy) wards off bad weather.
You probably know "ji" is spelled as "shi" with an " accent. The drawn face
is therefore, if spelled in romaji:
He He i "
No No
Mo
He
S h
The "shi" is written extremely vertically and horizontally magnified.
Parodius Stage 3 boss is a direct depictation of teruterubozu, who is
practically a god of good weather.
Visual proofs: Henohenomoheji and
Teruterubozu.
I did not explain the above fact because I thought no people other than
Japanese draws a face using fonts, and hence henohenomoheji was impossible
to "translate".
The stage 5 boss (by Takamichi Suzukawa)
This eyeball with a woman's body is a parody of Medama Oyaji, one of the
characters in Gegege no Kitaro series. Medama Oyaji is small and baths in
a teacup. Real eye of this cyclops is the "iris" part which has an eyelid,
just like when the Parodius 5th stage boss is shot. He is unknown outside
Japan but here everyone know him, and his shrieking voice.
The stage 6 boss (by Takamichi Suzukawa)
Japanese people believe tapir eats human dreams. We call this
animal "baku", which is almost homonym to bug. I think this animal
is unknown in anywhere other than .my and .jp (like nijntje are
unknown outside .nl and .jp) but if you go to a Japanese zoo, you
can see people trying to keep safe distance from tapirs ;)
The player selection menu (by Takamichi Suzukawa)
Several years after I've translated the player selection menu, I was
informed
that the washing machine ("sentakuki") icon is actually a pun for
"sentaku", a homonym that stands for both "wash" and "select".
The spaceship (by Takamichi Suzukawa)
In Japanese documents, Gradius player machine is always referred to as
"biggu baipaa" and seldom "bikku baipaa". However, I noticed "Vic Viper" is
the uniform standard outside Japan.
Parodius manual also calls this machine "biggu baipaa" not "bikku baipaa",
so I assume "Big Viper", as in current translation is proper, not "Vic Viper".
More tips
Check Sean Young's Konami Pages
for tips, hints, tricks and explanations about the game.
last update: 10/02/06