was changed to make him an onion master. The game's soundtrack was made using samplers rather than MIDI synthesizers, which were common at the time. Initially all of the teachers' songs used sampled vocals. These could, however, not be used in the final game and were redone "while maintaining the concept of each tune". The lyrics were written in Japanese by Matsuura and then translated by rapper Ryu Watabe while he was freestyling. All of the music was recorded at a studio in New York. The game also is one of the first PlayStation games to use in-game motion capture in order to portray more realistic character movement. Promotion for the game proved to be somewhat of a problem. Before this, there had been no similar games, and the team struggled with what genre to market the game as. Many staff members at Sony felt that PaRappa did not qualify as a game and Matsuura himself recalls initially being unsure as well. The game, however, became massively successful, which prompted SCEA, despite having a strict policy against 2D games, to release the game in North America. According to Greenblat, SCEA did not know how to market the game and aimed its marketing primarily at children, a demographic he noted would have trouble completing the game. Reception PaRappa the Rapper sold 761,621 copies in Japan during 1997, making it the 7th best-selling video game of 1997 in that region. In May 1998, Sony awarded the game a "Platinum Prize" for sales above 1 million units in Japan alone. , the game has sold copies in Japan and 214,398 copies in the United States, for a combined copies sold in Japan and the United States. The game received near-universal acclaim from critics, who hailed PaRappa the Rapper as a unique game with irresistibly catchy songs. Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly commented, "Several of the tunes are so catchy, you'll be singing them for days." Hsu also made it his pick for "Sleeper Hit of the Holidays". IGN wrote that "while the words may seem a little strange ... this just adds to the quirky nature of the game. The music is top-notch as well." GamePro concurred: "The melodies are funk phenomenons, and the raps are so silly, they'll make you laugh in spite of yourself." The graphics and animation were also widely praised. GameSpot remarked, "All of PaRappa's characters are comically