Wai Wai World 2: SOS Parsley-jou!

OVERVIEW

 

Wai Wai World 2: SOS Parsley-jou (SOS Parsley Castle) is a genre-spanning game developed by Konami and featuring a number of their popular characters of the day.  The player plays as a heroic android named Rickle who has been built by Dr. Cinnamon. The villainous "Warumon", an evil alien, has kidnapped Princess Herb (and has taken her titular "Parsley Castle" as well!) and intends to turn Wai Wai World in to "Waru Waru World". Of course it's up to Rickle and a team of Konami heroes to stop his vile scheme. The game features several branching path points.

 The player chooses one of several set teams of heroes at the beginning; unfortunately, you cannot pick and choose only your favorites.  The possible choices are:  

• Goemon, Upa, and Simon
• Goemon, Bill, and Fuuma
• Upa, Fuuma, and Simon
• Upa, Simon, and Bill

The player plays as a heroic android named Rickle who has been built by Dr. Cinnamon. The villainous "Warumon", an evil alien, has kidnapped Princess Herb (and has taken her titular "Parsley Castle" as well!) and intends to turn Wai Wai World in to "Waru Waru World". Of course it's up to Rickle and a team of Konami heroes to stop his vile scheme. The game supports simultaneous two-player game play; the second player is creatively named "Blue Rickle".     
  
CHARACTERS: Each character has different abilities.
Rickle: Rickle's punch fires a projectile. He is also capable of double-jumping via jets in his feet. He can transform in to the other characters selected at the beginning for a limited time by picking up and using a "change panel" item. 
Goemon: Throws out a boomerang pipe.
Upa: Upa is not only tiny (tiny hitbox!) he also can turn enemies in to cloud platforms with his rattle.
Simon: Simon, as one would expect, uses his vampire killer. It has excellent range and is quite strong.
Bill: Bill can shoot rapidly in 8 directions with his machine gun. 
Fuuma: He attacks with his sword. It has very short range, but is incredibly powerful!
 

GENERAL ITEMS: These items will help you complete your quest to save Princess Herb! Items are often dropped from floating capsules, but they can also be found laying around, hidden in objects, or they can be dropped by enemies!

• Medical Box: Restores 4 points of life. 
• Change Panel: Picking this up starts the roulette to change Rickle in to another character. Stop it when it lands on the character you want to use by pressing up and A!
• Hyper Bomber: Pick this up to get a hyper bomber stock. Charge up by holding down the B button, then let it go to destroy all enemies on the screen.
• Muteki Star: Makes the player invincible to enemies for a brief period; colliding with enemies during this time will destroy them!
• Angel Mark: Getting 10 of these results in a 1-up!
• Pikapika Angel Mark!: A flashing angel mark! It is worth 5 angel marks.
• Yobi Battery: Should the player's life reach "0", it will automatically be completely refilled once if the player has picked up one of these. It can only be obtained in puzzle world!
  

 

TWINBEE STAGE ITEMS: These items should be familiar to anyone who has played Twinbee! 

• Yellow Bell: Worth bonus points!
• Blue Bell: Speed up!
• White Bell: Twin shot!
• Red Bell: Barrier!
• Blinking Bell: Makes a double of the Twinbee.
• Apple or Cherry: Bonus points!
• Super Candy: 3 way attack!
• Star: Destroys all enemies on the screen.
• Milk: A 1up! 

• Missile: Allows you to fire missiles.
• Rolling Cutter: A pair of buzz saws for the front of the vehicle to cut through hedges easily.

STAGES

 

Stage 1: Super Robot Rickle, Deploy! The game begins in a futuristic city where the player fights through mainly robotic foes (presumably minions of Warumon). The stage auto-scrolls. After a certain point in the stage a spaceship appears, and Rickle hops in his vehicle the "Rickle Shooter" for a shooting segment. After the player completes this short segment the game returns to a more conventional side-scrolling portion inside of the ship, which continues to auto-scroll. At the end of the stage the player must defeat the Battleship Toyaman! 
 
Stage 2: Ooedo Town! Goemon's hometown. Unsurprisingly it has a Tokugawa-era flair and features silly enemies, including the amusing "rolling sekitori". The boss is the fiercesome "Hopping Musha" Nosuke... a samurai on a pogo stick. After completing this stage, Dr. Cinnamon appears to allow the player to select one of two areas to head to for the next stage!
 

Stage 3-A:  Donburi Island! A twinbee stage where the player gets to play as Twinbee instead of any of the other cast members. Most of the enemies are references to "donburi" dishes (donburi, meaning "bowl", is a type of dish consisting of virtually anything cooked and served on top of rice in a bowl), I.E. a chicken and eggs for "oyako donburi". The stage features classic Twinbee power ups which are not seen in any other stage. The boss is the villainous Donburi monster Udo. Konami man pops up at the end to let you know how you scored in the stage!
 
Stage 3-B: RPG Poi Island! Another twinbee area. The player flies over an area that suspiciously resembles Final Fantasy, with some Dragon Quest thrown in for good measure. The boss is a dragon with a stretchy neck. 
 
Stage 4: The Alien Jungle! The player disembarks from the Twinbee in to a green Hell! This is Bill Rizer's home turf, and it's full of waiting gunmen and silly aliens. The typically alien-esque boss "Ariyalien" waits at the end in a little ship to finish our heroes, but of course he has another thing coming! Unlike most of the other stages in the game, this stage does not auto-scroll. 
 

Stage 5: Okashi World! A world composed of snacks and sweets, and Upa's home area. Start off by cavorting over various cakes and cookies floating majestically in the sky, avoiding flying pigs and dangerous soft ice cream. Keep going! Swim casually through an ocean of soda until you reach the chest at the end... open it to release a pair of angels who carry you to the next stage! There's no boss here, just relaxation. After completing this stage, Konami Lady appears to ask the player which of thetwo choices for stage 6 they'd prefer to go to.
 
Stage 6-A: Puzzle World!  A world where the player must complete puzzles in within 200 ticks of the timer. Each "puzzle" is a scrambled image. The player can pick up and move the pieces in any way to assemble the correct image. A train drives back and forth at the bottom threatening to crash in to Konami Lady; she can be moved to either the left or right side of the screen to prevent the train from colliding with her. Should it hit her, the player receives a time penalty. 
 
Stage 6-B: Race Go Go! Rickle jumps in his custom racer the "Mach Rickle" for a death race along a damaged highway! Jump over gaps in the road and ram through opponents to victory! The "Ultra Trailer" attempts to put an end to the player's fun at the end by dumping large numbers of barrels in the roadway, but a few missile blasts should take care of it!
 

Stage 7: Youkai Hakaba, the Ghostly Grave! This is Fuuma's home area.  Unlike many other stages in the game, this stage does not auto-scroll. Of course it's full of all sorts of ghastly demons and ghosts from beyond the grave! Ryuukotsuki awaits at the end in a new form for our heroes... he's been hitting the gym! Ebisumaru contacts the player after Ryuukotsuki is defeated to have them select the next stage they venture to... the player gets to ride in the Vic Viper for either of the stages! As a side note, the power-up system in the Gradius stages follows the classic Gradius formula.
 
Stage 8-A: The Wafuuyousai (和風要塞) Takeyabu, a Japanese Style Fortress! Avoid bamboo spikes and various Japan-themed enemies... the ship generators in this stage are classic "manekineko". Should you make it to the end, prepare to battle the terrible crab core!
 

Stage 8-B: The archaeology star, Moai field! It's summer time in moai land, so all the moai are sporting sun hats. Another popular ancient object with a mysterious purpose,  classic "haniwa" figures make an appearance in this stage alongside the more famous moai (along with Arahabaki-like ship generators!). The latter portion of the stages consists of rotating Ebisumaru heads on pillars. The boss fight is against a few moai dressed as jiang shi. After you defeat them you head towards Parsley Castle, but...
 
Stage 9: Sudden assault by a Big Core! That's right, no right-minded Bacterian can resist attacking a Vic Viper, so it's time to fight an especially large big core. Battle your way around the ship and... destroy the core! 
 
Stage 10: Taking a cue from Frogger, Rickle has to take a walk through a dangerous space highway and avoid getting run over by the futuristic vehicles and space ships. Shouldn't he be using a cross-walk? Rickle enters the castle...
 

Stage 11: Wait, this isn't Parsley Castle.. it's Castlevania! Simon should feel right at home. As one would expect, various spooky Castlevania residents are home as usual, including bats and mermen, and Frankenstein's Monsters. The boss is not a typical resident of the castle... it's a coffin with legs that pops open to contain a boxing glove on a spring. This is another stage that doesn't auto-scroll. 
 
Stage 12: Finally, Parsley Castle! Miniature brain golems roam freely here now that Warumon has taken over; indeed, the enemies seem to be reflective of most of the games our heroes are from. Defeat Warumon at the end and rescue Princess Herb... Konami World is counting on you!