Parappa the Rapper Written by: Richard Uyeyama (ruyeyama@best.com) The latest version of this file can be found at: Somebody Say Hooo! http://www.best.com/~ruyeyama/psx/ssh.html Document formatting, organization, and wording Copyright 1997 by Richard Uyeyama. Permission granted by author to duplicate (unaltered) this document in its entirety for non-profit purposes only. All other rights reserved. Parappa the Rapper is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. Copyright 1997 by Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. Copyright Rodney A. Greenblat/Interlink. All rights reserved. "I have no gift to bring, Parappa-pa-pa... that's fit to give a King, Parappa-pa-pa... rappa-pa-pa... rappa-pa-pa... -- "The Little Drummer Boy" (slightly altered quote =) ) Table of Contents: 0. Document history 1. Basic info 2. Info on "Cool" and the "hidden level" (SPOILER ALERT) 3. General tips and comments, and a note on beat count 4. Second line Cool patterns 5. In-Cool patterns 6. Extra in-stage visuals 7. You gotta believe! 0. Document history V1.1 - 12/24/97 - Little Drummer Boy quote added =) - More accurate to-Cool conditions - Cool patterns extended to 2 lines (first two lines) - A couple new Cool patterns, and some editing of old patterns - Point values for Cool patterns listed - Extra visuals info added (incomplete?) V1.0 - 11/25/97 - Some general tips and comments - 2nd line Cool patterns for all 6 Stages - 3 in-Cool patterns - Some info on the "hidden level" 1. Basic info This is a simple informational guide for Parappa the Rapper (music/ rhythm game for Sony Playstation). Along with some general comments and suggestions, I'll be listing some patterns to help get you up to the Cool rating, and some patterns to use in order to keep your Cool... I'll also be including some info on the extra visuals in the game... 2. Info on "Cool" and the "hidden level" (SPOILER ALERT) The first time you play a level, the highest rating you'll be able to achieve is "Good". However, after you've successfully completed a level, you can go back and play it again (via Stage Select in the Options menu), and now you'll be able to achieve "Cool" (which, btw, is more difficult than simply maintaining "Good"; "Cool" is, after all, the highest rating in the game... =) ). Achieving "Cool" will change the stage scenery (or at least the visual context), and the instructor for that level will withdraw (after saying a few words of praise), allowing you to rap freely. And so long as you don't rap badly, you'll be able to continue with your "Cool" rating. If you finish a level on "Cool", you'll get a crown marker for that level on the Stage Select screen. ** SPOILER ALERT ** Getting all six crowns will enable an extra stage (of sorts) called "KT & the Sunny Funny Band" (name parody of "KC & the Sunshine Band", btw), which will appear on the Stage Select screen. Basically, it's just Katy and Sunny dancing to some music, on a little circular stage, in front of an audience. You can change their costumes (3 costumes each; triangle (Sunny) or X (Katy) button), change their dance style (6 styles each; square (Sunny) or O (Katy) button), zoom in and out (R1/R2 and L1/L2), and move the camera angle around (d-pad). Nothing too spectacular, but kinda cute, nevertheless. 3. General tips and comments, and a note on beat count If you play the game as a simple "repeat verbatim" game (the "Simon Says" style), you'll probably notice that the game starts getting a lot stricter with timing starting with Stage 4 (cooking). So once you figure out the precise timing point(s) the game looks for (pay more attention to the timing bar than the actual music), you can probably make your way through all the rest of the game. Of course, I think it's much more fun to embellish upon the themes and patterns presented... and as an added bonus, if you embellish well, the game seems to be a lot more lenient with your exact timing. =) Anyway, one very simple pattern which seems to work fairly well is just to follow the beat-count pattern (or half-beat count, if you count each star on the bar as one beat (4 beats per line)) through the entire line. So instead of trying to follow the non-standard beat given, you can stick with something a lot easier to do! Of course, this doesn't work on every line, but it does make a lot easier the lines it does work on... Here are the four-beat and eight-beat counts, btw, in case you're not quite sure what I'm talking about here: four-beat count: 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . eight-beat count: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . The timing bar in the game uses a four-beat line (each of the stars on the line counts as a beat; ignore the two dots before the first star, since they don't really count as part of any beat (they're actually a redundancy of the latter half of the last beat of the previous line...)), but since I think a lot of people might find an eight-beat line a bit more intuitive, I'm going to use that for the patterns I present in this file... So anyhow, getting back to the pattern I mentioned above, it would go: "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" for the eight-beat count, and "one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and" for the four-beat count. As I've already stated, it doesn't work for everything, but it does help on some of the more difficult lines in Stages 4, 5, and 6... Oh, one last thing I thought I'd mention here, since the instructions (U/C) weren't as specific as they could have been on the subject, was the effect holding Left or Right on the d-pad will have while rappin', and the specific difference between the two... Holding Left will get Parappa to repeat the *first* word/segment of the phrase assigned to the button you press, whereas holding Right will get Parappa to repeat the last word/ segment he just completed with that button. I think strategic use of this "repeat" function can have a bit of an impact on your score, but I haven't fully looked into the matter yet... It's certainly not necessary in order to complete the game (even with Cool ratings), but I do think it makes some of the improv bits a bit more fun... 4. Second line Cool patterns Okay, I'm listing some patterns here that I've gotten to work for the first two lines of each level, in getting me to Cool. As it turns out, the game looks at the point total for both lines, in getting from Good to Cool, so you'll have to do well on both (or a *lot* better on one than the other)... Obviously, these patterns aren't absolutely guaranteed to work, or anything. They're just patterns that seem to work a good amount of the time for me. Most of them seem to have a fairly good success rating... though some higher than others, of course. =) To the right of each of the patterns, I'll be listing the point totals I've actually gotten using the pattern, so you can check its relative effectiveness for you... If any of these patterns give you trouble, just try slight variations on them. Timing groups of clustered notes slightly closer (or slightly farther) sometimes works... Oh, one last note. Do note that some of these patterns actually start *before* the "Given" line count ends... Key: s, t, o, x = [square], [triangle], [O], [X] Uppercase Letters = Given pattern lowercase letters = Parappa's pattern Stage 1 (training) bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . Given1: T [t t] do: t t t t t 60 [75] Given2: O [o o] do: o o o o o 120 [150] Stage 2 (driving) bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . Given1: T T O t t o do: t t o o o o o o 96 Given2: T T S t t s do: t t s s s s s s 192 Stage 3 (selling) bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . Given1: T T T T T T T t do: t t t t t t t t 69 Given2: O O O O O O o do: o o o o o o o o 138 Stage 4 (cooking) bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . Given1: T T T O R L do: t t t o r l l l 105 Given2: X X X S R L do: x x x s r l l l 210 or: t t t o o r r r l l x x x s s r r r l l (102,204) or: t t t t o r l r r r r r x x x x s r l r r r r r (96,192) Stage 5 (bathroom) bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . Given1: T O X S R do: t t t o o x s s r r 102 Given2: L L L L L do: l l l l l l l l l l 208 or: t o o o x s s s t l l l l l l l l l (100,190) Stage 6 (rappin' on stage) bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . Given1: T T do: t t t t t t t t 94 Given2: O O do: o o o o o o o o 174 5. In-Cool patterns Once you get to Cool, you can actually just use a repeating pattern to maintain your Cool rating (or you can free rap more creatively, which can be pretty fun). Here are three patterns I've found to work fairly well in-Cool... bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . . beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . do: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! do: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! do: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! The first pattern (which I'm fairly certain I've heard used before as the drumbeat in some version of "The Little Drummer Boy"...) is probably the easiest to do. The third pattern seems to score the best (of the three listed above), though. Or you can mix and match... Note that in some of the levels, some of the buttons will sometimes have multi-syllabic segments for a single button pressing... so if you're just going for a particular beat (like one of the ones listed above), you can use the "repeat" function (Left or Right on the d-pad; see section 3 of this document for more information) to stay on a particular segment of the line (one with one (or two) syllables), to make things a little less confusing, so you can stay with the beat a bit more easily. This also applies to the normal game (not just in-Cool), btw... Finishing a level with the Cool rating will get you a different wrap-up sequence, and a slightly different epilogue scene (except Stage 1, which seems to have the same epilogue... and maybe Stage 6 as well). 6. Extra in-stage visuals Yes, there's still more to be seen...! At certain points during each stage, if you are holding "up" on the d-pad, you will get certain extra visuals. These seem to be related both to your score and the section of the stage, but I haven't figured out the exact conditions for them... So you can just hold "up" through the entire stage if you want to be sure not to miss any that you're entitled to... Anyway, here's a list of the extras I've noticed for each stage: Stage 1 - Ninjas behind the two back wall panels (also watch for them when you obtain Cool rating, and CCMO knocks down the walls) - Ninja standing on ceiling - Onion student showering in back Stage 2 - Master Fleaswallow hitchhiker: "Can I beg you a ride?" Stage 3 - Fleaswallow swallows fly... Stage 4 - ??? Stage 5 - ??? (Parappa bites his nails?) Stage 6 - Parappa starts breakin' (like CCMO in-Cool) I still haven't noticed anything different in Stage 4 (cooking). And I'm not really sure about Stage 5 (bathroom) either; I've seen Parappa anxiously biting his nails during the last section (chicken) before... but I haven't yet verified whether this is actually an extra or not... Anyway, if anybody has anything else to add, you can send me e-mail at the address listed at the top of this document... 7. You gotta believe! Well, hope all that helps! Comments/additions/whatever are certainly welcome! Good luck! And above all, have fun!