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PaRappa the Rapper 2 (パラッパラッパー2 Parappa Rappā Tsu) is a PlayStation 2 rhythm video game. It was released in Japan on August 30, 2001, in North America on January 21st 2002, and in Europe on April 5, 2002. It was re-released worldwide on the Playstation 4 on December 14, 2015, introducing its 1080p support and 4K support in the Playstation 4 Pro. It's the sequel to PaRappa the Rapper, although it is actually the third game in the series, following Um Jammer Lammy. Though the game boasts a number of new gameplay elements, it was not as well-received critically and failed to garner similar sales as its predecessor.

Plot[]

Parappa2jpn

NTSC-J Cover Art

The story line of PaRappa The Rapper 2 centers on PaRappa, who has recently won a hundred years supply of noodles from a burger shop coupon and has grown tired of eating them. When Sunny Funny serves him noodles when he and PJ are at her place to eat, PaRappa couldn't believe hard enough to eat all those noodles, prompting Sunny to call him a baby and leading him to question his maturity. As PaRappa tries to find an alternative meal at Beard Burgers, he learns that someone is mysteriously turning all the food in Parappa Town into noodles. After taking a brief lesson in 'Romantic Karate' from Chop Chop Master Onion, PaRappa and his friends get shrunken by his father's invention (because he cut corners, creating a shrink ray instead), so he helps coach them back to normal size with the help of Guru Ant. Afterwards, PaRappa and PJ get drafted into the army and must complete a military boot camp training course with Instructor Moosesha. He then becomes an amateur barber after customers are being given afros by Hairdresser Octopus, who is caught under a hypnotic tune. After freeing Hairdresser Octopus, PaRappa and his friends discover an 8-bit video game called Food Court, which was being used to control Hairdresser Octopus. PaRappa wins the game and the gang finds out that sweets overrule noodles, creating a reversal using reverse engineering.

Burgersandnoodles

Promotional art of Burgers and Noodles.

PaRappa and his friends launch a sweet-based attack on the Noodle Army, and soon confront their leader, Colonel Noodle, who is revealed to be Beard Burger Master's son who had become tired of eating burgers, after being forced to during his father's burger research and after his mother "turned into a burger" (became extremely fat) after eating too many. PaRappa then convinces him that noodles aren't the only food around via a rap battle. The game ends with a final party with returning hip-hop master MC King Kong Mushi, and PaRappa learns that Sunny Funny already likes him the way he is, no matter what. Things go back to normal and PaRappa can eat anything... except cheese, of which he's won another 100 years supply.

Promotional art shows that after the events of the game, Beard Burgers started selling noodles as well as burgers.

Stages[]

Manual[]

PTR2 manual coverPTR2 manual back

Gameplay[]

The game plays similar to its predecessor and features 8 stages, although (in all stages apart from stage 8) before the chosen stage starts there is a practice segment where the player has a chance to practice a small snippet of the song with PaRappa's talking stereo player; Boxy Boy. After this, the stage will start. In the stage, the teacher will give a line of rap and PaRappa, or the player, will have to repeat it, or freestyle to the beat. If the player messes up a line twice in a row, he drops a rank from Good, to Bad, to Awful. Performing well two times in a row will bring the player up a rank, while players lose the level if they drop below Awful, or finish the level in the Bad or Awful state. PaRappa 2 handles this a little differently to its predecessors, as upon dropping a rank, the teacher will say "Getting Worse...", and the song will go back two lines, and sometimes altering the lines to make them easier to play so the player can get back up to Good mode. Going up a rank from Awful or Bad mode will cause the teacher to say "Getting Better!" in contrast. If the player improvises a rap successfully two times in a row in Good mode, it accesses Cool mode, where the teacher leaves PaRappa to do freestyle by himself. If PaRappa can reach the end of the level in Cool mode, he'll earn a Cool ranking for that stage. This unlocks music tracks available to listen in a music player available at the end of the game.

Between every two levels, except for after level 8, there is a minigame in which 'Kotamanegis' (little onions) from Chop Chop Master Onion's dojo hold up plates for PaRappa to break. Hitting the plates earns PaRappa extra points to add to his previous level's score, while hitting the Kotamanegis when they aren't holding a plate yet deducts points.

When a level is completed, a versus mode for said level is unlocked, which can be played with a friend or a computer. In this mode, the two players are given a line to rap, and each player must try and improvise to get a higher score than the previous one. Beating their opponent earns a point, and three points win the game. In rare circumstances, if both players get an equal score to one another, both players are given one half of a point.

Upon completing the game, PaRappa's hat changes color to represent an increase in the stage's difficulty, going from Blue, to Pink to Yellow. When playing through the game again, the lines are remixed. Completing the game with the Yellow Hat unlocks a music player where the player can listen to any level with a Cool Rating on, along with the full version of the Stage 8 Intro song "Come a Long Way", while completing the Vs. CPU mode on all difficulty levels unlocks the final song, Say "I Gotta Believe!" (performed by De La Soul featuring Double). The player can change his hat color on the title screen by rotating the analogue stick, but the line changes will remain, meaning the player will have to start a new game from scratch in order to play the songs in the original layout.

Evaluation Meters[]

Between the rank and score gages, there are three meters of different with two characters on them each. As the player progresses through the game, more meters will be added, along with more characters being included on the meters.

Each meter has a hand along with a - and + display. Depending on how well the player preforms the required action of which a meter stands for, the hand of said meter will point left or right on the meter's respective - or + display, meaning the player preformed the action poorly or well respectively. The meters themselves will also glow or darken depending on how well the meters' required actions are preformed.

Playstation 4/5 Version[]

On the 15th of December 2015, PaRappa The Rapper 2 was added to the PSN store for PS4 as part of Sony rolling out PS2 games for PS4. It's emulated, not remastered, which means the game is almost exactly the same as the PS2 version. The only differences are that it has been upscaled to 1080p and PS trophies can still be earned, although no platinums. Though it doesn't hinder gameplay experience too much, some users have experienced lag with modern TVs, but others say there isn't. This game is also playable on PS5.

Censorship[]

Similar to Um Jammer Lammy, this game has a little bit of censorship here and there when transitioning from Japan to the U.S. (but not as extreme as the aforementioned game). These include:

  • In the Stage 1 song "Toasty Buns", Beard Burger Master's line "We cook the best, tastes better than wine!" was replaced with "We cook the best, you better get in line!", this was because the ESRB didn't want a wine reference in an E-rated game.
  • In the Stage 3 song "BIG", Guru Ant's line "I am the lord, everybody knows my name," was replaced by "I am the man, everybody knows my name,". The reason for this was that the ESRB didn't want any religious people getting offended. This also happens in the Stage 6 song "Food Court", but, strangely, while the audio is censored, the subtitles say "I am the you all know my name, (NOW!)".
  • Here's a non-lyrical change: In the Stage 4 song " Sista Moosesha", one of the Double-Dutch machines depicts a woman in a bikini. This graphic was changed to depict her in a full dress. Not a lot of people notice this one, probably because this particular change is so minor.

Trivia[]

  • One of the reasons practice segments (with Boxy Boy) were added to PaRappa The Rapper 2 is because Rodney Greenblat had difficulties completing stages in Um Jammer Lammy.
  • Boxy Boy has some unused additional practice dialogue.
  • The VS mode tunes of stage 8 are different from what the stage provides in story mode.[1]
  • The beginning and the ending of the game has a remixed version of Sunny Funny's "Come a Long Way".
  • This is the only game where Chop Chop Master Onion is not the first teacher in-game.
  • Pronouns in their lines such as "I" with "you" change during the actual play. Parappa will keep these lines unchanged (i.e. he will say "Get me out of this and now push the button" instead of "Get you out of this and now push the button".)
  • The themes that play during the stage selection are music box renditions of songs in-game.
    • Town Hall - Come a Long Way (more specifically the parts where no lyrics are being sung)
    • Stage 1 (Beard Burgers) - Awful theme of Toasty Buns
    • Stage 2 (TV Fun) - Awful theme of Romantic Love
    • Stage 3 (Parappa's House) - Awful theme of BIG (more specifically the parts when Lesson 2 and 4 begin)
    • Stage 4 (Special Armed Forces Training building) - Awful theme of Sista Moosesha
    • Stage 5 (Hair Salon) - Awful theme of Hair Scare!
    • Stage 6 (Parappa's Basement) - Beginning segment of Food Court.
    • Stage 7 (Noodle Syndicate HQ) - Awful theme of Noodles Can't Be Beat (more specifically the part when Parappa and Colonel Noodle are rapping)
    • Stage 8 (Final Stage) - Unused Awful theme of Always Love! played at the beginning of the stage's VS. Mode.
  • The song "Toasty Buns" has been reused and remixed into Food Court as the main pitch and in a couple of parts in "Always Love!". Even the music box themes are in the "Toasty Buns" pitch, making it the most used song in the game.
    • The backtrack for "Toasty Buns" is also used in the Stage 5 cutscene for the "Hair Scare!" song.
  • Data in the McDonald’s Happy Disc reveals that this game was intended to have a 2 Player mode like Um Jammer Lammy, but was either scrapped due to technical difficulties or time constraints. The files for it contains a very buggy meter with unused textures for PaRappa and all of the teachers.[2]
  • For unknown reasons, Hairdresser Octopus's mouth is constantly wide open in the title screen of the game. This could most likely be a mistake with his model.

References[]

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