hello, happy new years eve, anonymous; i haven:t actually ever played parodius -- but i might have watched a longplay of it? my very-very basic beginnings with shmups (sans like, randomly playing a few) came from watching a lets play of tyrian2000 (somethingawful style ones, on lparchive i think) and then that led me to sort-of paying more attention to them -- and parodius was one! because i liked all the characters it had ("twin bee" seemed like it had a reputation); but; that:s mostly all i have to say about parodius: gradius and parodius and twinbee are cool to me, but i haven:t really poured myself into them. take care, anonymous!