Fantastic Journey (video Game) - Gameplay

Gameplay

Overall, the gameplay is identical to that of its predecessor, Parodius (Parodius Da! in Japan), with several new characters to choose from. Also new, if you play a two-player game, the second player will have a different set of characters to select. They are clones of the first player characters, except with different names and slightly altered sprites or changed color palettes. These characters include: Vic Viper/Lord British, Pentaro/Hanako, Twinbee/Winbee, Takosuke/Belial, Hikaru/Akane, Mambo/Samba, Michael/Gabriel and Koitsu/Aitsu.

In the Parodius series, starting with Gokujō Parodius, the Power Meter was changed from a bar with the weapon names as text to a bar with pictures indicating the powerups. The borders of each icon determine the gameplay type chosen, red for auto, yellow for semi-auto and blue for manual. As this kind of power meter is shorter, two separate power meters appear on screen on a two player game. Note that the SNES parodius games still use the classic power meter and that the PSX and PSP version of Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius simply use the first letter of the weapon name.