A hilarious parody of JRPGs, and a decent game in its own right.
Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden - Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa (longest game name ever) is essentially a parody of JRPGs made by an obviously very dedicated group of non-profit developers, but it's also a decent game in its own right.
Although Shut Up and Jam Gaiden is heralded by the developers as an "unofficial sequel" to Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam and Shut Up and Jam 2; Gaiden in truth has absolutely nothing to do with those games. The year is 2041, you assume the role of ex-basketball star Charles Barkley who was responsible for sending the world into what is called the "Cyberpocalypse" twelve years ago after performing a Chaos Dunk that killed millions. Set in "Neo New York" Charles Barkley and his twelve year old son Hoopz are thrown into an epic conflict when basketball legend and hero of the Space Jam (yes that fruity Loony Toons/Michael Jordon movie from the mid 90's occurred in this game's inane universe) Michael Jordon attempts to arrest Barkley for performing another Chaos Dunk.
The story is essentially a mish-mash of JRPG cliches; the protagonist who mopes around feeling sorry for himself, the ridiculously evil organization with an acronym name, illogical and over the top plot points and dungeons etc. There's also real life satire thrown into the mix, and a town dedicated to the internet phenomenon known as "furries". Having played many JRPGs I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Gaiden as it did a good job at subtly poking fun at typical JRPG storytelling elements such as ridiculously long cinematics and dialogue expositions, and the satire added to the game's humor nicely.
The game wouldn't be complete without JRPG battles. Unfortunately Gaiden uses a system similar to Chrono Trigger in which monsters are a physical form in the field and you only enter battle when you get too close; meaning that the game never pokes fun of random battles which is disappointing. The battle system is pretty standard, though; all characters take turns in performing attacks and in the end it comes down to performing the right moves whether they be standard attacks or "magical" attacks. Some of the standard attacks are actually reflex mini-games that require you to press a button at just the right time for maximum effect; I thought this was an interesting feature and definitely made the game more enjoyable than it would have been if all you could do was one standard attack.
Gaiden resembles an SNES RPG visually; the developers even ripped some of their tile sets from popular JRPGs of yore. Hilariously, a lot of the character dialogue portraits are actually photoshopped pictures of the people the characters represent in real life: IE Charles Barkley is actually... Charles Barkley.
From an audio perspective Gaiden is also pretty good. There's no voice acting and sound effects are a rarity, but the music isn't bad. The music consists of random JRPG-like themes, and remixes of the Space Jam theme song which I found hilarious.
Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden - Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa is a great game for its humorous nature alone. Combine JRPG spoofs with satire and a kicking rad musical score and you've got one epic game. Since this game is free everyone should play it, but hey in the immortal words of Charles Barkley: "If you can't slam with the best than jam with the rest".
+ Genuinely hilarious
+ Interesting take on JRPG gameplay mechanics
+ Radical musical score
+ B-Baaaallllllssssss
- Random battles weren't parodied
- Some of the boss battles were a little too difficult