Games of the Abstract: Harmful Park (1997)

 

Developer: Sky Think Systems

Publisher: Sky Think Systems

Two Player

Playstation One

 

One of the greatest tragedies of the videogame market is that, not yet one with great preservation and archiving, there are countless obscure games, let alone widely released ones, from old consoles which were low print runs and never re-released, which is why for better and for worse emulation is something that exists even if it is a whilst a moral grey area. Harmful Park is a great argument about this issue as, whilst it has had a 2012 re-release digitally for the PlayStation Network in Japan only, Harmful Park is still a game that is obscure, worse as it is seen as a rare title as a result of its limited print run back in the day as a Japanese only title. It is sad as, from an obscure studio called Sky Think Systems, we have a scrolling shoot 'em up whose imagination, a sense of whimsy and weirdness as a "cute-em-up", alongside pushing the original Playstation's technology, is incredible.

The titular park is a theme park hijacked by a mad scientist and his minions, some dough creatures which in the final level you actually see being baked to life as lovingly rendered in a background animation. Stealing a female scientist's diary in the coup, she sends her two daughters, on flying air bikes, to stop him and get the diary back. Over six levels (with a secret hard seventh), you travel various sites of the park, from the horror land to the one devoted to roller coasters, and as with other scrolling shooters, you avoid enemy bullets (and enemies), acquire power-ups to improve your firepower, and gain points as you defeat enemies and bosses. Harmful Park structurally is like many 2D shooters of this ilk, scrolling to one side as a side-scroller (left-to-right), but the style is a thing of surreal, multicoloured beauty. Most shooters do not advertise their PSOne box cover with a pie with the game logo in it. Only the Parodius franchise, Konami's lengthy series of parody shooters, is close to Harmful Park for me for this type of strange and openly inventive scrolling-shooter parody which is still a challange.

Harmful Park starts befittingly with the sight of spinning tea cups, a swinging pirate ship that cries when you shoot at it, and that the first boss is a dinosaur kaiju that is inflated up to fight you. Background animation, even how the enemies you fight, are animated is exceptional, and the eccentric sense of humour the game possesses continues throughout and increases. Probably the best set piece is in Level 2 two as, a giant figure over a small congregation, you witness a groom being jilted at the wedding altar by the bride, with both his tears and the reunited couples' love hearts being actual projectiles to avoid. Gulliver, giant sized and tied to a train, from Jonathan Swift's legendary novel is here just because, not a shootable enemy but one whose arms you have to avoid at a section. There is a Level around a cow train, a whale boss who fires flotsam-and-jetsam at you (including Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)), a giant Frankenstein powered by a dancing cat, each level usually with sections where something new, delightfully weird and trying to destroy you appears. Only one joke throughout may come off as crass in the modern day in how one of the bosses is a giant young woman at a cinema who, depending on what difficulty you play at, is a kogal (a Japanese schoolgirl who dresses like an American valley girl) who is comically depicted as unattractive in the easier modes, stereotypically beautiful in the harder modes. Aside from this, this is the kind of game which manages to make even an enemy flying at you on floating giant petrol cans, breathing fire at you, cute. You might even feel sorry for some of these critters, as some do not attack, but there is a percentage for getting everything enemy per level too.

The weapon system is itself of note as, giving you all four from the beginning and with the power-ups literally to power them up further up to four stages, they are a curious lot. I openly admit sticking to the "ice cream" beam, an all-purpose lazar cannon which becomes more than one as you increase it. "Potato" is your standard fire. "Jelly beans" are homing sweets of death which, if you power up, increase in rapid fire and could be of great use especially as this is a score based game of combos and hitting every target, which can be sandwiched behind you. "Pie" is annoying as the joke of throwing a curving giant pie that takes many out is funny, but is slow, requiring power-ups to improve. All can be changed by a button click, and if you are lucky, if you lose a life you can save your charged attack of choice if you were on another at the time. All have their own specials with limited number of unless you get collectable increases.

Aside from two player multiplayer games, this is a short game of six levels, whose difficulty crawls slowly up with the final level. Like the best of arcade games, which is an irony I will get into in this paragraph, it escalates to a final level which has multiple sections, meaning even short loading times, where one can contend with the perils a falling elevator with giant fruit boxes, and a final encounter in the villain's lair, a beer garden which looks frankly wholesome if everything was not trying to kill you. It is surprising that this was a Playstation One exclusive than an arcade game, but the bigger concern for me personally is the obscurity of the title. It is, in context to these shooters, a thing of beauty, a playfully silly piece of pure whimsy where nothing is considerably dull. There is no weird touch in the background if you spot it that is not fun or weird (like unexpected UFO cow abductions), and the game does challenge without becoming a bullet hell game. That is not to disparage the later sub-genre which is of admiration, but in the sense that this is meant to be a fun romp whose difficulty options (and the ability to continue after a game over immediately) allows you to improve and have the challenge ready at your fingertips. The specials can mow through bosses depending on the difficulty level, and the point is to improve, score more points and just enjoy the experience. Knowing it had a re-release as late as 2012 does offer hope of this getting preserved, but never was the term "cult" apt. Harmful Park is a little gem I adored and could only wish, even if a Sony exclusive, it was readily available beyond Japan.