It was the greatest game ever.. 20 years ago :) playing a crass game as a crass teenager made it an amazing experience. I do think some of the design decisions/pacing/controls would feel extremely dated now
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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A lot of early 3D console games - whether platformers or FPS games, have aged pretty poorly. Go try to play GoldenEye again and see how it feels compared to modern shooters. Really Super Mario 64 is kind of the outlier.
Conker and Banjo Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 are all cut from the same cloth at mid-90s Rare. The Xbox release version fixed a few things with Conker but broke others. Honestly Conker was one of the first "parody" type games (at least as major console releases went anyway) and it only works well if you have the nostalgia goggles to appreciate it as it existed in an era where if you wanted to play 3D platformers, you were mostly limited to baby games like Croc, Spyro, or the other Rare platformers.
Conker was the first “parody” type game
Parodius was released in 1988, and I wouldn't even definitively say it was the first.
Hell, Leisure Suit Larry came out in ‘87.
Leisure suit Larry is not really a parody like Conker was though, was it? I thought it was just a point and click adventure game with dirty jokes.
Forgive me, if I’m wrong on that. I actually have not really played the leisure suit Larry games. 
I think, Conker not only makes fun of platformer games and game mechanics in general, but directly references movies like Saving Private Ryan, the Alien franchise, and the Matrix. 
I think it had a mix of dirty jokes and parodies. It’s been ages since I’ve played it.
Hopefully someone who remembers it better can chime in, otherwise I guess I know what my weekend downtime plans are.
Parodius to me isn’t a parody, but maybe I’m missing the references. It’s a shmup with funny sprites nnit? How does funny sprites equal a parody? Not being hostile, btw, just looking to get your POV.
Parodius is a parody of Gradius (hence the name).
is it just wordplay or is it a straight up parody?
It's a "silly" version of Gradius. Wikipedia can explain it better than I can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parodius:_The_Octopus_Saves_the_Earth
“Many of the characters and enemies are derived from that famous shooter series [Gradius], while other elements are extracted from other Konami titles, such as Antarctic Adventure and TwinBee. This game is of particular note in the series as being heavily infused with Japanese culture and folklore.”
Thanks. Until now I thought Parodius was just trying to be a funny take on shmups. I understood the Gradius/parody portmanteau, but I didn’t realize it was a true parody (e.g., clearly borrowing characters/enemies in a humorous way).
I guess it should have qualified it as a “major console release.”
maybe watch a playthrough?
If you are at the farm, and climbing up a REALLY high ladder, I think there's a context sensitive button under the water. You have to jump far enough out to trigger the ding of the button below and I think you smash through the water.
I replayed it a few years ago and although I beat it back in the day, I only got about half way this time. The dated controls made it very frustrating.
The controls and camera, as with a lot of games at the time, aren't great. I've played it as an adult after me and my friends being obsessed as teens. I'd guess I'm not the only one that played this game in a friend group and played the hell out of the capture the flag. I think the attraction to the game came a lot from laughing with friends. The main game has bright spots in gameplay for sure, but it can be a real chore at times too. I remember watching the single player struggle even back then.
I liked a lot of the parodies and jokes in Conker's Bad Fur Day, but the game had too many frustrating parts in between them. About half of this game should have been left on the cutting room floor, but Rare wouldn't cut their bad ideas out of the game unless Nintendo was supervising them.