It's an unwritten law in Japan that every shooter series has to have it's own 'parody' title...

Reviewed by Malc

... and the 'Star Soldiers' are no exception. Raiding their intellectual property coffers, Hudson has created its very own Parodius-a-like with Star Parodier.

Coming on PC-Engine CDROM, apart from the CD music, you'd be hard pushed to spot any effects and graphics that benefit the game from the move to CD. But that's not what we're here for: we're talking about an old-school classic blastemup that revels in variety-rich gameplay and lots of amusing 'in-jokes'.

Star Parodier's basic engine seems to be nicked directly from the other PC-Engine games in the series (Super Star Soldier, Final Soldier, and Soldier Blade) and as a result plays very similarly: even the weapon structure hasn't changed much (more about that below). Now there are three 'ships' to choose from, each with their own powerups, and there's even the traditional 2 and 5 minute Battle Modes which offer a diverting quick blast for hi-scores.

The big difference though, if you've been weaned on stolid spacey style shooters, is that everything has gone extremely cute: Two-fingers-down-the-throat-cute. Everything is sickeningly jolly and undeniably japanese: there's absolutely no way a western house could ever replicate this style! Personally, I love it, but I can't take too much of it! The music is deliciously upbeat, and has that elusive annoy-everyone-else-who's-not-playing-it quality.

Because this is a parody game, there's millions of references to the previous games, and even other titles: Bomberman paraphernalia appears regularly, and one of the characters is actually a gigantic white core PC-Engine (can you imagine it as a huge TG16? ...nope!) The gameplay itself benefits from this in the unusual bosses and environments - at one point you're even playing a game of Bomberman (almost!)

To conclude, I had an enormous amount of fun playing this game. It's one of those rare 'feel-good' games you smile at while playing, and with enough difficulty and variety to keep even the most dedicated serious-shootemup-fan engrossed.

There's three main weapons each ship gets, picking up a coloured icon will change the weapon. Pickup several of the same colour in a row and your power gets upgraded.

Each ship has different graphics for powerups, Bomberman gets smily fireys, and the PC-Engine gets mini Hucards!

Small multiple ships can be collect too, a la Gradius.

Also, there's different shields and missile/bomb weapons to catch, allowing for homing and straight missile bombs, plus round coloured blobs, the purpose of which eludes me completely.

For sticky moments (like getting attacked by giant iced buns) each character has a plentiful supply of smart bombs.

All in all it's a simple, but nicely featured powerup system.

Star Parodier is pretty old now, and like a lot of sought-after Japanese PC-Engine titles can be frustratingly hard to get hold of.

However, if you do manage to track it down, you'll be more than pleasantly enamoured with it, and as a bonus, it plays perfectly with David Michel's Magic Engine