Fantastic Journey is a scrolling shooter arcade game and the third title in the Parodius series produced by Konami. The game is a parody of the Gradius series of games. Players select one of eight playable characters to progress through the game with; these include: the Vic Viper, the starship from Gradius; TwinBee, the protagonist of his self-titled series; Pentarou, son of the penguin from Antarctic Adventure; Takosuke, a hat-wearing octopus and the son of Tako; Hikaru, a Playboy bunny girl riding a rocket; Mambo, a mute sunfish; Michael, a stern angel pig; and Koitsu, a stickman riding a paper airplane. Each of these characters feature their own unique set of weapons, all being modified after the standard Gradius weapons. Overall, the gameplay is identical to that of its predecessor, Parodius Da!, with several new characters to choose from. Also new is that if you play a two-player game, the second player will have a different set of characters to select. They are clones of the first player characters, except with different names and slightly altered sprites or changed color palettes.