Sexy Parodius is a scrolling shooter arcade game. It is the fifth game in the Parodius series produced by Konami. Like the rest of the series, it is a parody of Gradius and other Konami games. It is also the final Parodius shoot 'em up game because next Parodius-related game, Paro Wars, is a strategy game like Cosmic Wars.
The gameplay in Sexy Parodius is similar to Gradius and the games before it, but with a new catch. Instead of just playing through each level and destroying enemies while avoiding getting hit, the player must also complete a special mission for each stage as well. Some of these missions range from collecting a certain amount of coins in a stage to destroying a certain object or enemies. Depending whether or not the player completes the mission will determine whether the player what the next stage will be. Unlike past versions, home ports of the game (except for the PSP port) has cooperative multiplayer intact (where both players play simultaneously). It is also improved in that the game continues to play even when one player is choosing a character upon continuing.
In a 2-player game, when certain characters are near enough, a third-shot appears between them which can be purple shots that swirl all-over the screen, hearts that home in on enemies, or rockets that shoot straight ahead. This feature was first seen on Konami's arcade game Trigon (a.k.a Lightning Fighters).
Plot
Old Lecher Tako A (Takosuke) has opened-up an agency of some sort that helps clients with problems and has hired Pentarou as his secretary. He recruited "workers" (the playable characters, who had gone their seperate ways prior to Sexy Parodius) that will solve the problems of each client.
Playable Characters
For more information of the characters, see the Characters section of this article.
Vic Viper/Lord British (Gradius Series) - the only remaining member of the team from the original MSX Parodius. They delivered packages via air mail.
Hikaru/Akane (Original) - returning as playable characters after being bosses in Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius.
Ivan and Toby (Original) replace Pentarou and Hanako. Ivan worked as a newspaper delivery penguin.
Mambo and Samba (Original) also return as playable characters. They delivered the weather forecast for a station.
Koitsu/Aitsu (Original) - Little men flying on paper planes. Like Michael, they power up instead of gaining options. Koitsu worked with the movers, lifting furniture.
Option/Multiple (Original) - Vic Viper and Lord British's options with faces (to denote emotions). They are escorted by small Vic Vipers and Lord Britishes when no power ups are activated.
Shooting Star/Black Viper (Twinbee Yahho!/Original)- replaces Twinbee and Winbee.Shooting Star(with it's pilot, Ace) was a boss from Twinbee Yahoo.Black Viperis an original character. Once its respective weapon is activated, hold down the shoot button to charge up and release the button to use the Wide Blast or Spark Laser. Ace was a farmer, planting rice plants in a field.
Each character gets their own announcer that announces the name of the weapon they activate.
Ports
Sexy Parodius was ported to the Sega Saturn and PlayStation in 1996 for Japan. These versions allow the Special Stage to be selected on the Title Screen after finishing the game with all conditions passed. They also come with unlimited continues (the game doesn't keep track of credits). It was also included in Parodius Portable (albeit with music from some stages replaced with other remixed classical songs) for the PSP.
Stages
Stage 1: Farm
Objective: Defeat Corn Chiwa
Stage 2: Bathhouse
Objective: Collect 300 coins.
At this point the game splits up. If you fail a mission, you go to route B, success means you go to route A.
Stage 3A: Underwater Palace
Objective: Strip 200 maidens.
Stage 3B: Castle Dracula
Objective: Kill 100 rats.
Stage 4A: Girl Factory
Objective: Rescue 50 showgirls from crates.
Stage 4B: Mines
Objective: Destroy 10 targets.
The game split ends here.
Stage 5: Sky
Objective: Collect 300 coins.
Stage X : Boss Rush (May appear as early as after Stage 2 to as late as before Stage 6.)
Objective: Accompanied with a new ally, your past enemies seek revenge on you.Note that if you failed a stage and this comes up, successfully defeat all the enemies and the game will consider it as a victory, and send you back on the A route.
Stage 6: Taj Mahal
Objective: Go after Takosuke before the time runs out.
Note: Avoid dying as much as possible when playing on Manual or Semi-Auto, as the timer does not reset or pause for a while upon respawning from a checkpoint.
Special Stage: Unlocks when all missions are completed.
Objective: Go to space and defeat a star that has been possessed by a Hot Lips member.
A bad ending can be achieved by letting the timer run out on Stage 6. This ending depicts Takosuke surrounded with women and the player characters being frustrated.
Considering the Boss Rush as a separate stage, this game has ten stages total although only a maximum of eight stages can be played at one time.
The Black Viper, Shooting Star's counterpart, is the only second-player character to have its own theme song, in this case a remix of "Departure from Space" (titled "Departure for Sexy") from Gradius III.
The intro of the music for stage 3B is "Vampire Killer" from the Akumajou Dracula/Castlevania series. The intro for Medusa's theme is "Poison of Mind," also from the same series.
The Gunwalls are only the bosses in the game that has do not have an accompanying boss theme.
