The shoot'em up genre has a strong tradition of laughing at itself. Witness Parodius (the classical example), Space Bomber, the self-mocking and sly humour in the Psikyo, V-System and Raizing character-based shoot'em ups, Gun*Nac...you get the idea? The classical case of this would be the Parodius games, where a company creates a solid but joke version of a flagship game series, and populates it with characters from other games (not necessarily shoot'em ups) it has made, maybe even a mascot, and, of course, insane (and even risqué) humour. Taito had the essential elements for this: a flagship series (Space Invaders-what else?) and enough game series or recurring heroes(Darius, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Kiki Kaikai) to fill a game. And a Space Invaders parody did they make, and then some. There was a no-frills Space Invaders DX in 1994, which had a parody mode where you played as some Taito characters, but not as our beloved Silver Hawks. Come 1995, we got Akkanvader (I use its Japanese title as it's easier to type), a true parody game in the style of Parodius. You can play as the original Space Invaders ships, Something-Chans (from Kiki Kaikai) a cat and dog from heaven knows where, oddly-coloured turds (I kid you not!) and 'Cride' or a gun-toting 'Bonnie' in a paunchy Silver Hawk . Where's Tiki? Or Bub? Or Chack N'? Damn you, Taito! Curiously enough, 'Cride' flies the blue Hawk and 'Bonnie' the red one. The shark mouths on them are kind of neat too. Each ship had some kind of special shot: Sayo-Chan and Miyo-Chan (sic) have exploding (when they work) shots, which makes them a good choice.

On to the game. The music is suitably comical, including a retouched Space Invaders 'theme', with lots of cute mewing sounds, tinkles and very apt SFX(for once Taito didn't screw up this department). There are a bunch of themed levels (outer space, the sea, a haunted house, a place to eat), all of which have the traditional invaders bearing down on you. Not entirely traditional: the invaders themselves consist of the 'classical' invaders, touched up in various ways, ranging from straight cute versions of the invaders to a barrage of vaguely human/porcine creatures (including one memorable creature who flashes her knickers at you ). In addition to this, the player's craft starts to look 'alarmed' when the invaders get too close for comfort. Movement is related to one dimension as usual, but Taito has been able to stretch the original Invaders gameplay quite a bit, bulletspam and bosses being added too. Weaponwise, you have a chargeable shot this time, as well as powerups: a bowling ball (which invaders like to throw at you too), a timestopper, limited 'powerful shots'...

Darius-wise, level two is a food plant or something-"I'm hungryyy..." says the player-whose boss is an appetizing mixture of Darius bosses called #106780 Yamato (no relation to the Darius II guy). You get King Fossil (who meets an amusing fate), Octopus and Tough Spring tempura. The choice of King Fossil as food is curious, since coelecanths are nasty to eat.



The next stage is at the sea-side ("I can't swim..."), and the boss could be My Home Daddy's girlfriend. A nasty little invader knocks on a hermit crab's shell and an irate dame in a leotard (or swimsuit?) with claws and some crustacean headdress comes out to kick your ass (in spite of some feeble I-didn't-do-its).

Stage	Boss
11	#106780 Yamato
19	My Home Daddy's Girl

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