Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius ~forever with me~ Character Tier List

[aak]

Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius ~forever with me~ has 18 different characters with very different shot types, so after playing around with all of them I thought I'd make a tier list. I haven't played this game nearly as much as some people, and I've only cleared it once, so I may be wrong on some of these, these are just my thoughts on how powerful these characters feel. Credit to BareKnuckleRoo, who has a character tier list on GameFAQs, which I have some differences with but probably have a lot of the same takes.

Very Powerful:

- Dracula-kun
One of the secret characters exclusive to the PS1/Saturn version that you can unlock either by inputting a code or by collecting all 70 fairies. In my opinion, Dracula-kun is by far the best character in the game, mostly because of his insane shield. When he gets Force Field, he transforms into a bat that takes 3 hits before transforming back. These can be hits from anything, bullets, enemies, terrain, and he even gets invincibility frames afterwards; you can't quickly shred your shield like some other characters. Unlike other characters, his shield doesn't have a larger hitbox; you keep the same hitbox as your normal form (maybe even smaller but I can't confirm this.) If you keep your power bar on the last slot, he immediately transforms back into a bat after losing his force-field, so that means you can get up to seven (7!) hits before dying. Other than his shield, he also has a homing shot that hits everything and is very safe. His only weakness is that the homing shot is fairly weak damage-wise, so certain bosses like the Stage 5 boss can take forever to kill. But overall, he's the safest, easiest character in the game.

- Kid Dracula
Kid Dracula is actually fairly different from Dracula-kun. Instead of basically having a health bar like his brother, he can gain up to three shields that protect him in three directions, all except his back. His two options on the top and bottom act as shields against bullets, and they can never die, and he also gets a classic frontal shield which can be destroyed. His options are also interesting in that you get them from upgrading your weapons, not from a dedicated "option" power. This means you can get both the reflect laser on one option and the tailgun on another, if you want. Both of these weapons cover Kid D's one weak point, his back, pretty well. Kid D trades defense for offense, but still has great defense and is an excellent choice.

- Ran
Ran has missiles that pierce both enemies and terrain, they're incredibly useful. In fact, with only the missiles you can really stand a chance against the barrage of enemies the game throws at you, so it's really easy to recover with just the missiles you get with only two upgrade capsules. If you're playing with checkpoints on, she's for sure the most resistant to bad starts. On top of that she has a reflect laser which bounces all over the place, usually killing everything very easily. The search laser is also pretty good, usually you want the reflect laser but the search is definitely decent against some bosses.

- Rupa
Rupa is a glass cannon and has amazing offense, with a homing shot that actually does good damage as well as missiles that shoot all around her and have a small AoE. These missiles are her only defense though, as she doesn't have a shield, instead having a screen-clearing bomb that makes her invincible for a few seconds on the last slot. This is a double-edged sword, as it means you have much less defense, but you can also go for colored bells as much as you want without any consequences. You also HAVE to play on Manual mode, as the auto mode erroneously goes for her wide shot instead of the vulcan, and you want to be able to use your bomb manually rather than have it automatically activate whenever you collect enough power-ups. This does mean you won't get the free Speed-Up Auto mode gives you.

Powerful:

- Upa
Upa is almost as good as Rupa, having homing missiles rather than a homing shot. He has a little less defense, with the same bomb mechanic as Rupa but without missiles going in 8 directions to protect him. Still preferable to play on Manual for the bomb, but the game actually picks the correct power-up this time.

- Soitsu
Soitsu is ultra braindead and the main goal of his game is to stay close to the right of the screen and kill everything with his full-screen spreadshot before it becomes a threat. His only weakness is that his back has no defenses, which can make Stage 5 a little hard to deal with.

- Doitsu
Same as Soitsu but uses traditional options instead of grade ups. This makes him less braindead, and thus worse, than Soitsu, though you can use options to defend your back.

Above Average:

- Lord British
Ripple and laser are both great, his missiles walk on both the floor and ceiling, and his shield, while taking a while to fully level up, is also very good, covering you from bullets on all sides. Overall solid ship.

- WinBee
WinBee is a little harder to use than the prior characters but she has one huge advantage: Her shield is unbreakable. Shippo makes your options block all shots, infinitely. There are some downsides to this: One, you have to position the options correctly to block shots, which takes skill. Two: you only get three options and it takes three shield upgrades to upgrade all of them, and three, you have to avoid colored bells like the plague unless you want to lose all the upgrades you put into them. A big advantage she has over her counterpart, Twinbee, is that her options don't suck into the middle of her hitbox like they do with him, which makes them a lot better as you can actually position them and not have to move around constantly to get better firepower. Overall, WinBee is hard to use but has great tools in the hands of a skilled player.

- Sue
Sue is basically a better Vic Viper. Her power bar is reversed, which means she gets options way sooner, and recovery is much faster than basically any other character in the game (though Ran's recovery is still easier.) Her downsides are that she has a very large sprite, which makes her hitbox misleading, and that powering up faster means the rank also increases faster, which can make things get very crazy very fast if you aren't careful. The rank thing is a solid argument you could make for her being worse than Vic Viper, though I still think her fast recovery makes her better. Definitely the worst of the "Above Average" tier, but still has some clear benefits.

Average:

- Takohiko
A worse Lord British with a worse shield and worse missiles. Ripple is still good, so definitely usable.

- Belial
Slight variation of Takohiko.

- Vic Viper
The classic Gradius ship. Every part of his kit is solid, but outclassed in some way by other characters.

- Memim
Has the same misleading hitbox issue as Sue, but without the reversed power bar gimmick to make up for it. Her shot is usable, but outclassed by most other characters. Both her missile and twin laser are worse versions of Lord British's kit.

Below Average:

- TwinBee
TwinBee is fairly lackluster mainly due to the fact that his options suck into the center of his hitbox, which means you have to move around constantly to get good coverage. His 3-way shot is far outclassed by other characters with similar shots like Soitsu, Upa, Rupa, Ran, Kid D., and of course WinBee. Probably the best of the Below Average tier, since Rocket Punch's piercing against regular enemies is nice, but overall not a great ship.

- Pentarou
Has pretty basic shot types and his options suck into the center of his hitbox like TwinBee. Spread gun has good damage and a small AoE, but contrary to its name doesn't really spread much unless you're moving. The main issue is that all of his weapons have less coverage and thus less safety than pretty much any other character in the game.

- Hanako
Same issues as Pentarou.

- Mike
Both of his shots are bad. You can only have one wave on the screen at once, and his laser isn't that good either. His shield is also bad, as it only takes one hit per level.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Chiming in to say I largely agree with the placement on this list! I enjoy discussions like these, comparing different characters and their strengths and weaknesses. I think the biggest thing we disagree on in terms of placement would be the penguins; I rather like them (they're cute), and I find their bubble shield is effective enough that it's a worthy trade for losing a lot of spread. They're not fantastic compared to the more wideshot oriented characters, but I wouldn't put them in bottom tier.

I don't terribly like the Vic Viper type ships though, the super thin laser doesn't speedkill stuff like in Gradius games and you have way more exotic options. My least fave characters would be a toss up between the fairies (their hitbox is really difficult for me to work out) and Mike, a.k.a. Darius cat, whose hitbox is even weirder to discern when his kotatsu shield is active. Hilariously cute though.

Interesting info to know about the Dracula characters, I'm mostly familiar with the SNES version but I know he was crazy good in Gokujou Parodius, so doesn't surprise me!

- Ran

I love R-Type Leo as a cat. Best shot type I think, at least in the SNES version (Rupa's also amazing but I'm not sure Mega Crush instead of a frontal shield is better? they're both great though). Arguably even better than the game she's based on, as instead of the homing pods being a specific special attack that disables your main shot, you can now fire your main shots while the homing attack is launched, and the bells pierce for a ridiculously long time through terrain and through enemies! You can even skip both lasers and focus purely on Grade Up early on to boost the homing attack while also getting a very decent 3-way spreadshot. The Reflect Laser's screen flooding pawprints are also hilariously cute.

Soitsu / Doitsu

Aside from the super spreadshots they have, their biggest gimmick is the context-sensitive missiles. The little guys that land do different things depending on the stage such as standing still and dancing, running around, etc. It's a bit weird, but they're backed by fairly decent shots, and Doitsu having traditional options rather than Grade Up means you can spread your missiles out way better. Doitsu's good, not sure about Upa good, but I definitely would not put Soitsu in the same tier. The lack of reliable missile coverage I'm not sure makes up for having a really good spreadshot, as there's a lot of enemies that come from behind in this game. At least from the SNES version, admittedly spent a lot less time with the Saturn one.

Winbee - you have to avoid colored bells like the plague unless you want to lose all the upgrades you put into them.

It's also a problem with Lord British's shield (a really good all-rounder shot) and Mike's shield (one of the worst shields in the game, likely worst shot type in the game if not the gimmickiest). If Mike's shield were better I'd say Twinbee is stuck with the worst shot type though.

TwinBee is fairly lackluster mainly due to the fact that his options suck into the center of his hitbox

Pentarou and Hanako have the same problem but work much better because they fire a lot more shots and you can wiggle around to aim them. I'd argue that the main reason Twinbee sucks is that his spreadshots fire way too slowly, you can only have like one onscreen (at least in SNES ver, maybe Saturn buffed him?) so there's really large gaps on screen where you don't have any shots. The penguins at least can flood their narrow zones with shots, and with much better shields to use, TwinBee can't even reliably manage that.

I don't much like any of the actual TwinBee games either.

- Mike

It's kind of hilarious how iffy Mike, as in the Silver Hawk from Darius in cat form, feels compared to Ran, the R-Type Leo cat. One is the top tier character whose abilities translated really well to a Gradius-style game, but Mike is hampered by a number of issues that make him really difficult to use. Vastly worse performance than the game he's based on, the missiles fire really slowly (though have decent angled coverage), M. Laser is worse than just keeping the basic Grade Up shot which gives you a bit of spread and 3 way angles too. The wave shot in theory would be amazing since terrain piercing shots are a relative rarity in any Gradius style game, but unlike Ran's bells which work alongside your rapid fire primary attack, the wave shot is your primary attack with the really slow firing seconday missiles. And unlike in the Darius games, it fires really, really slowly, meaning enemies can easily pop in from the screen edges past a current active wave to attack you. It's difficult to use, and rarely worth the headache.

The shield also sucks. It's adorable to see a flying heated japanese table when it's maxed out, and you get a lot of hits at max power, but it's strictly inferior to shields like the penguins' Bubble as each upgrade only adds 1 hit, and the size and colour makes it incredibly hard to tell where the hitbox's edges are.

They clearly thought making it work closer to the Darius games in terms of rapid firing waves or how the shield works would be too overpowered, but they nerfed these abilities so much that Mike is really rather bad. There's some sections where wave's terrain piercing is quite useful, but overall it's one of the worst shot types.

[aak]

For Soitsu, I definitely think he doesn't *feel* as good as some of the other top-tiers, with less defenses than most of them, but then I look at the leaderboard and see that he's everywhere on it and he's even the ONLY character on the SNES leaderboard. So I took that into consideration as well, I definitely didn't want to discount him. I imagine some would even say he should be higher. I can see the appeal of a great spreadshot, though I personally prefer the reflect shots that bounce all over the place, they're fun

[BareKnuckleRoo]

but then I look at the leaderboard and see that he's everywhere on it and he's even the ONLY character on the SNES leaderboard.

The leaderboard doesn't necessarily show a complete picture; it's possible that a lot of people (like myself) play the game but simply haven't submitted a score (I've gotten deep into loop 2 with Ran but forgot to record my score, oops) and it's possible all those scores were from a small tourney or something where the meta at the time was "hey Soitsu has a crazy spreadshot!" and Doitsu got ignored or neglected.

When new tech is discovered in a shmup sometimes the rankings and who's popular can suddenly shift. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head for this, but another example would be something like Giga Wing Generations where the Robin is super popular compared to the other shot types. Do they suck? Not necessarily, the game's not really popular. The Grouse goes unplayed because it does legitimately suck and is far harder to use than the others. The Eagle however emphatically does not suck and is the easiest ship to 1CC with due to having an absurdly powerful homing attack that fires very rapidly. Its only downside is it's also the slowest which makes it bad for score (you need to move around a LOT to collect medals, the Robin is the fastest ship in the game and thus the best for scoring, likely why it's used a lot), but you'd still imagine people would throw up a score on the other ships since the scoreboard is broken up by shot type.

The scoreboards here also aren't necessarily super active or representative of the game, for instance there's a much higher variety of characters used on shmup.com's board (there's a Doitsu but no Soitsu score). There must be other Japanese scoreboards out there that probably paint a better picture. Ran I suspect isn't very optimal for bell scoring actually because you don't have control of what the homing pods hit, but she's so good for survival that it likely still works out.