YMMV / Parodius

• Anti-Climax Boss: Being a parody of the Gradius games, the final boss in most games is incredibly easy compared to the levels right before it. The sole exception is Bug from The Octopus Saves the Earth.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: While the cute, cartoony aspect is endearing, the raunchy content and, in later games, excessive Fanservice (to the point that the last game of the series is called Sexy Parodius) feels out of place for many players, especially younger players and non-Japanese players. It was because of this that much of the series never left Japan.
• Awesome Music: Despite the oddness of the Parodius games, they have some of the greatest soundtracks ever made in videogame history. They include remixes of classical music, folk songs, a few popular songs, and music from other Konami games (especially Gradius). Some notable songs in the games:
  • Parodius Da! Stage 1 (Island of Pirates): a remix of Johann Strauss' Thunder and Lightning Polka
  • Gokujō Parodius Stage 4 (Run! Run! Run!): Based on the finale of "William Tell Overture" by Gioacchino Rossini
  • Sexy Parodius Stage 1 (Pastoral March): a medley of different folk songs, of which includes American folk songs "American Patrol" by Frank W. Meacham and "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Forster
  • Sexy Parodius Stage 3-B boss theme (Lovely Otohime): Based on "Mayim, Mayim", an Israeli folk tune
  • Parodius Da! Stage 3 boss theme (Theme of Hot Lips): Based on the Can-can from Orpheus of the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach
  • Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius Stage 1 (I Remember That!): Based on "That's the Way (I Like It)" by 1970s disco group KC & The Sunshine Band
  • Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius Stage 1 (Brilliant 2U): From DanceDanceRevolution, replaces "I Remember That!" in the 2006 Playstation Portable Compilation Re-release Parodius Portable.
  • Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius Stage 6 (Hyper Patrolman): Based on "Desperate to Survive" from Konami's light-gun arcade game Lethal Enforcers 1
  • Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius Stage 7 (It's the Final Festival): Based on "Mechanical Base" from Gradius III
• Breather Boss: One boss in Gokujō Parodius, Capsule Monster Cappuccino, uses Power-Ups as ammo. It's very easy to dodge the boss itself, and although some of the power-ups are roulette that can take away the power-ups, it's not exactly hard to get them back. On higher difficulties or loops, however, it mixes in some decoys that can kill you among the power-ups.
• Broken Base: Some people were less than satisfied when Parodius Portable replaced some music.
• Goddamned Boss: Jan Ken Pon, the boss of the second stage in The Octopus Saves the Earth, is a straight-up Luck-Based Mission. Before you encounter the giant hand, you have to choose between three different hands (rock, paper, or scissors), and there's a one in three chance of either winning, losing, or having to battle it (which is a fairly easy boss battle). If you end up losing, however, you're sent back to the beginning of the level. Worse is that the choice of hand the boss makes is entirely RNG, meaning you'll likely lose quite often.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The killer Konami logo in the first stage of Gokujō Parodius becomes a bit harder to laugh at given their treatment of their various non-arcade non-mobile properties starting in the 2010's.
  • One of the songs in Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius happens to be titled "The Pachinko Payout Comes Fast and Furious". To various Konami-fans this has become embittering due being awfully premonitory of Konami's fall from gaming culture in the 2010s, as they would move onto gambling-centric platforms for their domestic efforts along with the criticized tendency of utilizing their franchises as mere fodder for their pachinko/pachislot machines, if not mobile games.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Parodius series started out on MSX computers before reaching other platforms. Almost three decades later, another Cute 'em Up game started out on the newer Microsoft platforms. Guess what? Cuphead.
  • Even funnier when fans cited Cuphead as a remake of Parodius for eighth-generation consoles, especially those who saw some bosses in the former being inspired by the latter. For example, Cala Maria is based on Eliza.
• Ho Yay: Playing 2 players in Sexy Parodius will result in a "power up option" whenever the two players are together. This option varies from each character pairing (for instance, Vic Viper and Lord British will create a "wave" option which fires a wave attack that can be rotated via player position). Surprisingly enough, if one player is Toby and the other is Ivan, they produce the "love" option which fires homing hearts.
• Memetic Loser: Just like most Gradius final bosses, most Parodius final bosses are complete pushovers. The most part comes from the fact that only Bug is actually difficult.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • One boss song is used in the "Mayim Mayim" meme.
  • Eliza, the original Cala Maria.
  • The "wow!" sound effect was frequently used in many 2010s anime (most notably Fairy Tail) especially in comedic Fanservice situations (in this variant, usually), and most recently as an ironic reaction in some YouTube videos.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The "Mission Completed" music in Sexy Parodius.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The powerup roulette mode, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the existence of the !?/OH! "powerup" on the power meter, which nullifies every powerup you have. You may also run into the risk of activating a Speed Up (thus potentially giving you faster movement than you want, and you can't take back Speed Ups) or your other special weapon (being switched to a Double before a boss or a Laser in a section that mandates attack coverage is bad news).
• Sequel Displacement: Most people forget about the very first game in the series, titled simply Parodius, which came out for MSX in 1988, thinking instead that Parodius DA! (1990) from the arcades was the first game. It is widely considered to be the worst game in the series to those who have played it, due to some questionable gameplay design choices.
• Shocking Moments: Gradius veterans who expect the aforementioned Bug to be a series-traditional Zero-Effort Boss will face his lasers and spreading blobs when he turns out to actually be a difficult Final Boss.
• Spiritual Successor: Otomedius seems to be this, with two of the Parodius bosses appearing in Otomedius Gorgeous (Eliza the Mermaid and Yoshiko, Empress of Easter Island respectively). The latest uses of the Parodius name are with pachinko and pachislot games.
• Surprise Difficulty: These Cute 'em Up games are just as difficult as the serious Gradius games.
• Watch It for the Meme: This series being obscure as is, most people would probably come here because they're curious where's this "Wow" meme (Which is mostly used for Fanservice or lewd humors) that appeared in a lot of places coming from.

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