At some point the design minds at Konami, a company associated with perfecting the shoot 'em up game genre, went koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs and started an offshoot series of titles whose sole purpose was to parodize the emblematic Gradius series. The appropriately titled Parodius series took the visceral satisfaction of flying what is essentially a gun with wings through space, replaced all the sprites with seemingly random objects and characters, filled the soundtrack with wacky renditions of public domain music and, just to make sure you took it seriously, ramped up the difficulty level.
I like to think the initial planning for a Parodius game consists mainly of a big brainstorming session where nobody ever says "no."
Suzuki: How about sumo wrestlers?
Muta: How about a hybrid cat/pirate ship?
Takano: How about volcanos?
Araki: Yeah, volcanos. With faces!
Hasumi: And instead of lava, they spew eggplants.
Endo: Absolutely. How about a giant Vegas showgirl?
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