What have I been doing my whole life without encountering the work of Rodney Greenblatt? Admittedly, I was two years old and still playing with bugs in the yard when Parappa the Rapper came out, but still, there’s no excuse for me letting it slide until now. It’s a rare experience when you play something so disarmingly brilliant, even though it’s ancient, but Parappa exceeded all of my expectations. It was the opposite experience when I recently played the System Shock remake and bounced off its hard edges within a few hours. You could probably beat both Parappa games in the time it took for me to get fed up with Citadel Station.
“In the rain or in the snow, got the got the funky flow”
– Prince Fleaswallow, 1996
Parappa the Rapper is ground zero for mainstream rhythm games. You can play both of them on the PS5, and they hold up brilliantly, but be warned, they’re not easy. The discombobulated rapping would get stuck in your head anyway, but you’ll almost certainly be replaying Cheap Cheap The Cooking Chicken’s Rap to get the timing right. “We’ll make a cake today that looks rich,” she says, knowing the phrase will orbit your brain for weeks. But hold out; it’s worth it. There’s a god-damn boss rush level where you must rap battle all of the game’s characters to get to the front of the line for the toilet, lest you soil yourself. Precious few developers get to take swings like that.
Hug and kiss and love and chop (hai!)
When the credits rolled, I was most impressed by NanaOn-Sha’s musical comprehension and how, between levels, the studio would effortlessly bounce between different styles and cadences of rap rather than sticking with just one delivery method. They could’ve done that, and it still would’ve been great. It’s not like the game needs to try to keep your attention with its stoner scholastic art direction and dumb-fun story, but I appreciated it all the same. The moral project of the entire thing is also incredibly refreshing. “I gotta believe,” Parappa says. And you do. And you do.
I have no idea why we don’t have five of these things, but I would never want anyone to churn them out. Regardless, Masaya Matsuura and Rodney Greenblatt should be given blank cheques to collaborate on whatever they want. That little beanie dog is a cultural artefact in the collective unconscious, woefully underutilized in a market crying out for cool characters. There’s a reason ‘step on the gas’ went viral on TikTok recently.
Um Jammer Lamington
Before they tapped out of mascot rhythm games to the detriment of us all, NOS gave us Um Jammer Lammy in 1999, which I also ran through in a single sitting last week. It’s Parappa but guitar-based, and it kicks just as much ass as its predecessors. Lammy plays just about anything… vacuums, hoses, baby rabbits and aeroplane steering wheels as she embarks on a rhythmic adventure beyond time and space to get to her band’s concert. The fun part is that your comrades still sing, so you don’t lose the lyrical element (and your guitar has a voice of its own, anyway). As I learned recently while interviewing John Johanas, Um Jammer Lammy inspired Chai’s ‘garbage guitar’ in Hi-Fi Rush.
The melodies that permeate are absurdly catchy, and it’s a formidable – but fun – challenge to get to the end. The inspired art direction can’t help but stick in your craw, either. The wafery set dressing in levels like Fright Flight is remarkable, offering a split view of a bendy 747 as it careens through the sky while Lammy hits licks and riffs in the copilot seat. Unfortunately, Um Jammer Lammy didn’t set the world on fire, but it was a worthy experiment that undoubtedly laid the groundwork for Guitar Hero and its many copycats. And the Milkcan logo is an all-timer. The closest thing we have to Um Jammer Lammy these days is Caroline Polachek, who, in this song, performs a guitar solo with her voice—cathedrals everywhere, etc etc.
The NanaOn-Sha Cine-pappic Universe
Now that I’ve finished the mainline NOS & Greenblatt games, I am dying to play the extremely rare arcade version of Um Jammer Lammy, Um Jammer Lammy NOW!, a true precursor to Guitar Hero, complete with plastic controllers. However, the last surviving version appears to be in the house of eclectic tastemaker (and British TV host) Jonathan Ross, which certainly complicates matters. Strange sentence, but seriously! Watch this video:
There’s also the matter of Major Minor’s Majestic March, a Wii game that suffered a troubled development and was received extremely poorly upon launch in 2009. Regardless, I’d be fascinated to see what it’s about if I can ever find it. Reaching even further back, there’s Rodney’s Wonder Window and Dazzleoids, both CD-ROM edutainment games that came before Parappa and Lammy. Dazzeloids was even written about in The New York Times! In Japan, Dazzleoids launched on the Apple Pippin, a little-known console designed by Apple, of, you know, iPhone fame.
I’ve got Nanamania, I’m afraid. I’m fearful this may be my new soapbox, given that Jet Set Radio is supposedly (shudder) coming back. Can we at least bring Parappa back? I’ll take ports and remasters if necessary. But I also think the people need to play Um Jammer Lammy. It’s good for the soul.
At the height of my Nana-mania, my girlfriend surprised me with a toy car that I can zoom around my desk when I’m bored during video calls. Like the games themselves, it has improved my life immensely. Fate then dealt me a full house in Osaka last December, leading me to stumble upon this legendary jumper in a random vintage store I visited in Amerikamura. I didn’t even look at the price tag (but it only cost me £40), which is absurd for such an obvious jewel. Hopefully, it was a good omen. Here’s to more of this sort of thing in the near future. Please and thank you!
