Konami has spent the last decade or so periodically releasing retro compilations, even grabbing the rights to TMNT to bring back some much-loved bodacious classics. While the time will likely come one day, their cherished Parodius franchise – an eccentric parody of Gradius – goes untouched despite having enough entries to populate a collection. With its bright visuals, nonsensical enemy roster, and slightly risqué elements it seems that Twilight Parade: Moonlit Mononoke may be able to pick up some of Konami’s slack.
That’s until playing it for just a few minutes and realising that this is an incredibly bare boned affair. Visit the options menu, and you’re simply presented with a choice of languages and the credits. If that wasn’t bad enough, there are no leaderboards or means of tracking scores even though a very basic combo system features. It doesn’t fare much better on the presentation side of things either. Upon defeating the final boss, which will only takes ten minutes to reach, you’re abruptly thrown back to the main menu as there are no ending screens. Making this all the more peculiar is that there is a text-based intro to explain the plot, which simply involves a group of rebellious female oni looking to spoil a yokai celebration due to not being invited.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise by now to learn that Twilight Parade is mechanically lean. You can shoot a constant barrage of twirling projectiles by holding down the fire button, which also slows movement. This means ‘letting off the gas’ to avoid incoming bullets is standard practise, pretty much being the only thing here that can be described as tactful. You’re given three lives and just as many bombs – which only clear part of the screen – and said bombs will auto deploy when taking a hit to clear a safe path. Using a bomb will also turn all on-screen projectiles into bonus points, but this feature is greatly underbaked due to the lack of score chasing elements.
It isn’t necessarily bad looking. We’re presented with large sprites (fear not, as the character’s hitbox is a small visible green square) that are well animated but endlessly recycled, sometimes with palate swaps. Large busty women take the role of bosses, taking just as long to beat as the stages leading up to them. They emit bullet hell waves of projectiles, and it seems the bulk of development time went into these, as they’re not only hypnotic but completely avoidable if you’re skilful. As for the stages, you can get by largely unscathed by holding down the fire button as there’s little in the way of unique hazards or set pieces. On my first playthrough I used just three continues. Which are infinite, I might add, making this even more of a breeze.
It also falls short when it comes to sound, featuring generic rock music that doesn’t suit the theme of Japanese culture, and a peculiar lack of sound effects for simple things such as taking a hit or when using a bomb. The few sound effects present sound like stock explosion samples that could have come from any Mega Drive game circa 1990.
While Twilight Parade: Moonlit Mononoke may look like something you’d want to play, enticing with its pixel art, it’s all a charade. This is an exceedingly simplistic shooter that’s lacking many fundamental features we’ve come to expect over the last 25 years, such as a choice of difficulty settings, power-ups, ending screens, and online leaderboards. Looking at the screenshots will give just as much satisfaction as playing it.
Super16bits’ Twilight Parade: Moonlit Mononoke is out 5th November on all formats. Published by eastasiasoft.