This is a long post, but it's got purty colors, a nice visual, and explains some of the lore behind my existence here. Pl0x red.
Ah, nostalgia. It gives you a high, and leaves the taste of mashed peas and carrots in your mouth. Recently, I felt a tugging feeling at my heart telling me that something was not quite right with the world. That I had some unfinished business to attend to, that I had something I forgot to do.
**NOSTALGIA RANT**When I was a kid, our first console was the failed Turbografx-16. It wasn't a bad console, really. It just failed due to its direct competition with the Sega Genesis and the SNES. We spent our early childhood playing games like Dungeon Explorer, Cratermaze, Alien Crush, Psychosis, and Parasol Stars, many of which you can get on the VC now. Thanks for being a good sport, Nintendo!
On to Parasol Stars! It was a relatively obscure sequel in the Bubble Bobble series published originally for the TGX, but it also featured on the NES and Amiga. Above and beyond the superior version was the TGX version, if you don't mind my touting.
Crap NES version:
And the music! Oh man. Many kids grow up to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Not me, sir (Compare to the NES crap version):
If you listen hard enough, you can hear a small child singing along with the music in glee. This, friends, was my childhood (I was even born the same year! =^w^= kawaii desu).
**/NOSTALGIA RANT**In Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III, you play as Bubby (or Bobby if you're Player 2), and the story takes place right after the events of the first game. While you were out saving the world and trying not to be a bubble-spitting dragon, a malicious being named Chaostikhan conquered the other worlds while you were occupied. With a huge mess to clean up, you gather your trusty Parasol and leave your own colorful planet to save this physically impossible solar system.
The Parasol is a very versatile tool. It's primary function is to lift enemies with its top made almost entirely of physics-defying duct tape, and to decorate the wall with the blood of your enemies by tossing them. It also allows you to float, collect magic water droplets, defend yourself against projectiles, and travel through space. Don't leave home without it!
There are 10 stages to each world, and the world transition screen shows 8 worlds. Each has a different theme; the first is musically inclined, the next is a forest stage, and the one after that is a casino stage. Stage 8, your last little star trek destination, also happens to be your origin. Home Plate, if you will. Its music is different from that displayed above:
...and it's probably my favorite track from the entire game.
It's a very difficult stage, filled with projectile shooting vampires, three-dimensionally inclined shuriken-spitting heads, and colorful rainbows galore! The final battle to this world pitted you against a very familiar-looking foe...
**SILLY, CHEESY NARRATIVE ALERT**For years I thought this was the ending. A mysterious locked door surrounded by the unknown silhouettes of enemies, 3 star miracles and a key displayed above it, and creepy music. Whenever I watched Mom beat this game, I asked her, "This isn't the ending, is it? Is this the end?" to which she would reply, "Yes, this is the end, little one. There is no more." And I felt a sickened, betrayed feeling, as though not all was right with the world though I had already moved on.
Meanwhile, closer to present, nostalgia kicked in full throttle. I
had to beat this game. Pft, Fire Emblem, KOTOR, Nethack, Bit.Trip Beat, and Doom 2 could wait. I had a train to catch. Armed with an XBox controller and the magical power to eliminate frustration completely, I set out to find my destiny.
The game is as hard as I remembered it to be. ._. YASDs all over the place. Thank God for save states.
Fortunately, I got through it, but was met by the same ending. Just as unwilling to accept what was given me as I was in my younger days, and with a more ambitious mind, I started a new game with the intention of solving the puzzle. Intuition told me that since three star miracles were displayed, something was bound to happen were I to match that. Typically, when you collect three miracles, you get a 1up and the enemies on the stage are stunned. You aren't necessarily punished for not having three of a kind, but if you do, you are rewarded with a door at the end of the world that gives you a HUGE score bonus. Stage 8 was similar, but they had to be of the star kind for it to matter.
Et voila! I was met with a Stage 9! There was no transition screen, meaning that this is the Big Whoop, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, El Dorado!
The stage design is similar to the first game, with precarious transitways and non-words built in like F640 and exclamatory words like
OUCH!
and there were BS stages like this one:
(not my screenshots)
I beat the world without so much as a scratch. The boss was fairly easy and unimpressive. I began to feel a familiar sense of betrayal.
Until the world turns dark, and a surprised Bubby falls into the pit below, somehow forgetting his physics-defying parasol. He looks up to find that he has fallen into a living hell.
Wh-What the hell is THIS?!This was the dark secret I knew this game hid. The background in this world is a stark contrast to that of Bubby's home world. There were rainbows, gulls, tropical islands, and light. Here, a pompeiian world is burning, filled with ghosts, demons, and grenade-throwing oyster things whose snorkeling trip apparently turned very sour.
If I were still a child, this world would have been nightmare fuel to me. It was also very difficult; nearly every stage was designed in such a way as to benefit the enemy more than it would you. At one point, it even gives those little snorkeling grenade-throwers murder holes that allow them to rain smoky death on your head. There was a medieval air about the place; the music and the cathedral windows hint that this is an ancient evil that you challenge, and that his lair is a long-tortured world he intends to share with the rest of the otherwise flamboyant universe.
The boss was unexpected, to say the least. THIS little diminutive thing is the ancient devourer of worlds I seek to destroy? It DID have a creepy ambience to it, though. Not only was the enemy black as pitch, but there was no music. Zero. It was easy to defeat; I stayed in the corner and spammed star bubbles. And then...
ASDFGHJKL:" *nearly falls out of chair*Just as the former creature was relieved of life, the huge, hairy, huggable demon you see there descends upon our hero with the fury of a thousand meteors. However, they were no match for the parasol, and I beat his ugly face in with star bubbles and saved the universe. Yaaaaaay.
The new credit sequence was of a more peaceful nature, with former enemies frolicking across the ground with a view of a beautiful, starry sky. It's as if the game said to me from a distance, "You've done well, son..." as I felt a burden lifted from my shoulders. One more mystery solved in the world.
**/SILLY, CHEESY NARRATIVE ALERT**So if you ever get a chance, give this game a try. It's well worth it. And the childhood you never had with it will thank you.
Play me off, piano man!
Wed Dec 01, 2010 4:25 pm
Let it be known that the time I wrote this was about 5:00PM CST.
"My country, right or wrong...when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right." ~Carl Schurz (R-MO) 
