Since the thread was bumped, might as well update that while you guys were talking about jerking off and onaholes I beat Parappa the Rapper 2, and a report on
>Maybe my grievances with its gameplay were fixed in 2?
It did that and more ヽ(´∇`)ノ

The gameplay was much tighter, characters even more larger than life, the visuals and music got an upgrade and above all made me realize what actually makes the series special more than all of that; it's a rhythm game that lets you make your own rhythms.
I didn't really catch onto it in 1, but to get more points you had to do more than just copy whatever your instructor was doing, but do a freestyle that matches the flow of them. 2 makes this much more clear, after stage 1 every song tells you "do your own thang, mon!" With some really competent beats to back it up, knowing this makes it so much more goddamn fun. I'm going through 1 again to get COOL mode on the stages (´ー`)

Why don't other rhythm games do that.. (;´Д`)