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Parappa the Rapper (SCEA/SCEI, Music/Rhythm Game, PSX)
Informational Guide, Including Patterns and Pattern Tips
V1.0 11/25/97
Written by: Richard Uyeyama (ruyeyama@best.com)
The latest version of this file can be found at:
Somebody Say Hooo!
http://www.best.com/~ruyeyama/psx/ssh.shtmll
Document formatting, organization, and wording Copyright 1997 by Richard
Uyeyama.
Permission granted by author to duplicate (unaltered) this document in its
entirety for non-profit purposes only. All other rights reserved.
Parappa the Rapper is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America,
Inc. Copyright 1997 by Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. Copyright
Rodney A. Greenblat/Interlink. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents:
0. Document history
1. Basic info
2. Info on "Cool" and the "hidden level" (SPOILER ALERT)
3. General tips and comments, and a note on beat count
4. Second line Cool patterns
5. In-Cool patterns
6. You gotta believe!
0. Document history
V1.0 - 11/25/97
- Some general tips and comments
- 2nd line Cool patterns for all 6 Stages
- 3 in-Cool patterns
- Some info on the "hidden level"
1. Basic info
This is a simple informational guide for Parappa the Rapper (music/
rhythm game for Sony Playstation). Along with some general comments and
suggestions, I'll be listing some patterns to help get you up to the Cool
rating, and some patterns to use in order to keep your Cool...
2. Info on "Cool" and the "hidden level" (SPOILER ALERT)
The first time you play a level, the highest rating you'll be able to
achieve is "Good". However, after you've successfully completed a level,
you can go back and play it again (via Stage Select in the Options menu),
and now you'll be able to achieve "Cool" (which, btw, is more difficult
than simply maintaining "Good"; "Cool" is, after all, the highest rating
in the game... =) ). Achieving "Cool" will change the stage scenery (or
at least the visual context), and the instructor for that level will
withdraw (after saying a few words of praise), allowing you to rap
freely. And so long as you don't rap badly, you'll be able to continue
with your "Cool" rating. If you finish a level on "Cool", you'll get a
crown marker for that level on the Stage Select screen.
** SPOILER ALERT **
Getting all six crowns will enable an extra stage (of sorts) called
"KT & the Sunny Funny Band" (name parody of "KC & the Sunshine Band", btw), which will
appear on the Stage Select screen. Basically, it's just Katy and Sunny
dancing to some music, on a little circular stage, in front of an
audience. You can change their costumes (3 costumes each; triangle
(Sunny) or X (Katy) button), change their dance style (6 styles each;
square (Sunny) or O (Katy) button), zoom in and out (R1/R2 and L1/L2), and
move the camera angle around (d-pad). Nothing too spectacular, but kinda
cute, nevertheless.
3. General tips and comments, and a note on beat count
If you play the game as a simple "repeat verbatim" game (the "Simon
Says" style), you'll probably notice that the game starts getting a lot
stricter with timing starting with Stage 4 (cooking). So once you figure
out the precise timing point(s) the game looks for (pay more attention to
the timing bar than the actual music), you can probably make your way
through all the rest of the game. Of course, I think it's much more fun
to embellish upon the themes and patterns presented... and as an added
bonus, if you embellish well, the game seems to be a lot more lenient with
your exact timing. =)
Anyway, one very simple pattern which seems to work fairly well is
just to follow the beat-count pattern (or half-beat count, if you count
each star on the bar as one beat (4 beats per line)) through the entire
line. So instead of trying to follow the non-standard beat given, you can
stick with something a lot easier to do! Of course, this doesn't work on
every line, but it does make a lot easier the lines it does work on...
Here are the four-beat and eight-beat counts, btw, in case you're not
quite sure what I'm talking about here:
The timing bar in the game uses a four-beat line (each of the stars
on the line counts as a beat; ignore the two dots before the first star,
since they don't really count as part of any beat (they're actually a
redundancy of the latter half of the last beat of the previous line...)),
but since I think a lot of people might find an eight-beat line a bit more
intuitive, I'm going to use that for the patterns I present in this
file...
So anyhow, getting back to the pattern I mentioned above, it would
go: "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight" for the eight-beat
count, and "one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and" for the four-beat
count. As I've already stated, it doesn't work for everything, but it
does help on some of the more difficult lines in Stages 4, 5, and 6...
Oh, one last thing I thought I'd mention here, since the instructions
(U/C) weren't as specific as they could have been on the subject, was the
effect holding Left or Right on the d-pad will have while rappin', and the
specific difference between the two... Holding Left will get Parappa to
repeat the *first* word/segment of the phrase assigned to the button you
press, whereas holding Right will get Parappa to repeat the last word/
segment he just completed with that button. I think strategic use of this
"repeat" function can have a bit of an impact on your score, but I haven't
fully looked into the matter yet... It's certainly not necessary in order
to complete the game (even with Cool ratings), but I do think it makes
some of the improv bits a bit more fun...
4. Second line Cool patterns
Okay, I'm listing some patterns here that I've gotten to work on the
second line of each level, in getting me to Cool. To get halfway to Cool,
just do the first line normally (or embellish, if you want). Obviously,
these patterns aren't absolutely guaranteed to work, or anything. They're
just patterns that seem to work a good amount of the time for me. Most of
them seem to have a fairly good success rating... though I'm still looking
for slightly better patterns for Stages 4 (cooking) and 5 (bathroom)...
If any of these patterns give you trouble, just try slight variations
on them. Timing groups of clustered notes slightly closer (or slightly
farther) sometimes works...
Oh, one last note. Do note that some of these patterns actually
start *before* the "Given" line count ends...
Key: s, t, o, x = [square], [triangle], [O], [X]
Uppercase Letters = Given pattern
lowercase letters = Parappa's pattern
Stage 1 (training)
bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . .
beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .
Given: O [o o]
do: o o o o o
Stage 2 (driving)
bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . .
beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 .
Given: T T S t t s
do: t t s s s s s s
Stage 3 (selling)
bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . .
beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .
Given: O O O O O O o
do: o o o o o o
Stage 4 (cooking)
bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . .
beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 .
Given: X X X S R L
do: x x x s s r r r l l
or: x x x x s r r r r l l
Stage 5 (bathroom)
bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . .
beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 .
Given: L L L L L
do: l l l l l l l l l l
or: l l l l l l l l l l
Stage 6 (rappin' on stage)
bar: * . . . * . . . * . . . * . . .
beat: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 .
Given: O O
do: o o o o o o o
5. In-Cool patterns
Once you get to Cool, you can actually just use a repeating pattern
to maintain your Cool rating (or you can free rap more creatively, which
can be pretty fun). Here are three patterns I've found to work fairly
well in-Cool...
The first pattern is probably the easiest to do. The third pattern
seems to score the best (of the three listed above), though. Or you can
mix and match...
Note that in some of the levels, some of the buttons will sometimes
have multi-syllabic segments for a single button pressing... so if you're
just going for a particular beat (like one of the ones listed above), you
can use the "repeat" function (Left or Right on the d-pad; see section 3
of this document for more information) to stay on a particular segment of
the line (one with one (or two) syllables), to make things a little less
confusing, so you can stay with the beat a bit more easily. This also
applies to the normal game (not just in-Cool), btw...
6. You gotta believe!
Well, hope all that helps! Comments/additions/whatever are certainly
welcome! Good luck! And above all, have fun!
