In the 2017 publication 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, Ted Dickinson and Robert Mejia said PaRappa's design offers insight into the transnational uptake and circulation of both African American and Japanese cultures. Within the context of Japanese culture in the mid-1990s, PaRappa's exaggerated facial features and youthful appearance situate him as a product of its kawaii culture, the devotion to an aesthetic which "idolizes the presocial" as a form of escapism from the structures of society that affects the likelihood of one's success. PaRappa's kawaii presentation is also grounded in his unbridled optimism, and in his childlike interspecies love for Sunny Funny which is characterized as adorable and depoliticized. Dickinson and Mejia observed that PaRappa and his music is disconnected from the "historically oppositional politics" of African American music and is firmly on the side of the "party rap" scenes favored by Japanese record labels in the mid-1990s, which appropriates the hi-hop genre's commercial iconography. Nevertheless, they concluded that the transnational circulation of hip-hop has created a space of productive difference for Japanese youth, allowing them to think through the challenges unique to their various circumstances, and that in this instance PaRappa's character and music is a "good faith form of appropriation" which still offers significant cultural meaning to Japanese consumers of that time period. PaRappa's appearance in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale was met with a mixed response. Greenblat was not impressed to see the character portrayed in a weapon-filled battle game, although he was pleased that PaRappa appeared to be making a comeback with further video game appearances and he did consider Battle Royale to be a fun game. Ishaan Sahdev from Siliconera assessed PaRappa's play style as "brutal" and accessible in a similar fashion as Kratos from God of War, but is offset by his very limited range. Greg Miller from IGN had a good impression of playing with PaRappa, praising his "rad 2D-like" art style where he folds like a piece of paper to move as well as his arsenal of general uses, but felt he is held back by his "Level 3 Super" move. On the other hand, Jeff Marchiafava from Game Informer considered PaRappa to be among the game's worst characters and mocked him as being inept and out of place. Apollo Chungus from Hardcoregaming101 praised the reprisal of Dred Foxx as PaRappa and the character's overall presentation, but felt that the shading of his