PaRappa the Rapper

***PaRappa the Rapper*** (パラッパラッパー *Parappa Rappā*?) is a rhythm video game for the PlayStation created

   by Masaya Matsuura(the former leader of the Japanese "Hyper Pop Unit" PSY S) and his NanaOn-Sha company. The game is remembered for its unique graphic design, its quirky soundtrack and its bizarre plot. Despite being made in Japan, all of the game's songs and dialogue are spoken in English in all versions, but the Japanese version just has Japanese subtitles. The game is named after its protagonist, Parappa, a rapping dog with the motto, "I gotta believe!".

The game spawned a merchandising campaign in Japan, a spinoff in 1999, a TV series in 2001, and a direct sequel for PlayStation 2 in the same year. A PlayStation Portable port of the original game was released in Japan and Korea in December 2006 and in North America and Europe in July 2007.

## Plot

The player takes on the role of Parappa, a paper-thin rapping dog, who is trying to win the heart of a flower-like girl named Sunny Funny. However, he is intimidated by the presence of Joe Chin, a rich, narcissistic dog who goes overboard with his attempts to impress Sunny. To impress Sunny Funny, PaRappa learns to fight at a kung-fu dojo, and takes a driver's education course to get his license. However, when he crashes his dad's car, he has to earn money at a flea market to pay for it. When Sunny's birthday comes up, Parappa has to get cake, but ends up ruining it after an encounter with Joe. He makes a new one by watching a cooking show and proceeds to eat a lot of it on the day. When spending some time alone with Sunny, he is suddenly overcome with the need to go to the bathroom and has to rap against his former teachers to get to the front of the queue. Then one night, Parappa is invited to Club Fun, and asks Sunny to go with him, to which she agrees. Parappa then raps on stage with everybody, rapping solo at the end of the song and expressing his feelings for Sunny.

## Game Play

*PaRappa the Rapper* is a rhythm game in which the main character, Parappa, must make his way through each of the game's six stages by rapping. Each stage constantly alternates between the stage's teacher and Parappa. As the teacher raps, a bar at the top of the screen will appear, showing symbols that match up to the teacher's lyrics. The player must then make Parappa rap in response to the teacher by pressing the buttons with the correct timing to match the teacher's line.

During gameplay, a "U Rappin'" meter determines the player's performance, ranking it as Awful, Bad, Good and Cool. By consistently staying on beat, players will stay in the Good ranking. If the player performs a bad line, a lower ranking will flash, and if the players performs badly twice in a row, he will drop to Bad, followed by Awful. To retain a higher ranking, the player must play well twice in a row to move up a rank. To clear a stage, the player must have a Good ranking by the end of the song. If the player ends the song on a Bad or Awful ranking, or if he drops below Awful ranking at any point in the song, they will fail the song and have to start over. After the game has been cleared once, the player can attempt to achieve a Cool ranking. This is achieved by freestyling in a manner different from the predetermined lyric. If the player performs a successfully impressive freestyle when the Cool rank is flashing, they will enter Cool mode. In this mode, the teacher will leave the stage, allowing the player to rap freely and earn some large points. If the freestyling fails to impress twice in a row, the teacher will return and gameplay will resume in the Good ranking. Ending the stage with a Cool rank often results in a special level ending, and clearing all stages on Cool Mode unlocks a bonus mode featuring Katy Kat and Sunny Funny.

Rank-changing aspects of a level are only apparent during the first of every two lines. If the player successfully times the first line of a pair, but fails on the second, the rank meter will not blink Bad or Awful. Likewise, once the game has been cleared, a Good play is only necessary on the first of every two lines to get a shot at Cool mode on the second line.

## Development

The unique visual style is that of Rodney Greenblat, an American graphic artist who is popular in Japan. Similar to the Paper Mario series by Nintendo, all of the characters appear to be two-dimensional beings cut from paper while the surroundings are primarily three-dimensional. On his website, Greenblat remembers that the idea to make the characters flat was Matsurra's idea, after creating a mock-up with characters from Greenblat's Dazzeloids CD-ROM. While the setting is a bright interpretation of an urban city, the characters range from anthropomorphic animals such as frogs, spiders, and dogs, to lively versions of normally inanimate objects including onions, hammers, and flowers.