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Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next generation of consoles now.

Last weekend, I got an email from a friend who I’ve known since junior high school. We’re both pretty happy with our adult lives, having found lovely wives and good jobs in our respective fields of financial services and writing about Japanese breasts.

Still, every now and again we find ourselves feeling nostalgic for our carefree student days of the late 1990s. Of course, with time travel not yet perfected, there’s no way for us to go back to that point in our lives, but maybe we don’t have to, since the golden age of the first-generation PlayStation is coming to us with a remastered version of PaRappa the Rapper.

Increasingly, video game marketing strategy follows the pattern of releasing a teaser trailer, then a slightly longer trailer several months later, then an extended trailer, and then finally letting people play part of the game a year or more after the initial reveal. Sony has decided to buck that trend with the remastered PaRappa for the PlayStation 4, having stayed mum about the project until the recent PlayStation Experience event, when it made the above video announcement and let people know that a playable demo would be available online immediately from the PlayStaion store.

▼ The PlayStation Japan YouTube channel video has more gameplay footage, but lacks the costumed Parappa dancer of the international version.

PaRappa the Rapper may not be the first title that comes to mind when thinking of games that taxed the PS1’s hardware, but the remaster scrubs clean the graininess and jagged edges of the original, which make the unique character designs feel even more expressive. It’s also great to see PaRappa get a new lease on life in the modern era. Back when the game was first released in 1996, it got plenty of attention, but didn’t quite become the unqualified sales hit that its supporters hoped it would, largely due to it being a full-priced release with an unorthodox concept and relatively short length. Now, though, with digital distribution and casual gaming being part of the video game landscape, PaRappa has a chance at reaching a much larger audience, and possibly getting new content made if the remaster proves successful enough.

Between this and the new PaRappa the Rapper anime series, it’s a great time for fans of the series, or anyone with fond memories from when games came on jet-black CDs.

Source: IT Media
Top image: YouTube/PlayStation

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