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Added a trope example, fixed completely wrong details
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* EvolvingWeapon: Not just with weapons, almost all pieces of equipment (except Vitapods and Trinkets) evolve by gaining heat, which is gained primarily through killing the Clockworks enemies. All pieces of equipment start from level 1, and can reach a max of level 10. With each level, stats for each piece of equipment grow, and when some milestones (of levels) are attained, some bonus effects are added (e.g., decreased ChargeAttack time, faster attack speed, higher elemental defence).
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* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: The ChargeAttack of the Calibur, its upgrades and the Fang of Vog is a 360° spin that can hit multiple times. The Spur and its upgrades are mechanized swords with built-in motors that are constantly spinning.
* EvolvingWeapon: Not just with weapons, almost all pieces of equipment (except Vitapods and Trinkets) evolve by gaining heat, which is gained primarily through killing the Clockworks enemies. All pieces of equipment start from level 1, and can reach a max of level 10. With each level, stats for each piece of equipment grow, and when some milestones (of levels) are attained, some bonus effects are added (e.g., decreased ChargeAttacktime, faster attack speed, higher elemental defence).time for weapons, more health bonus for armor).
* EvolvingWeapon: Not just with weapons, almost all pieces of equipment (except Vitapods and Trinkets) evolve by gaining heat, which is gained primarily through killing the Clockworks enemies. All pieces of equipment start from level 1, and can reach a max of level 10. With each level, stats for each piece of equipment grow, and when some milestones (of levels) are attained, some bonus effects are added (e.g., decreased ChargeAttack
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Gameplay is very much in the style of ''TheLegendOfZelda'', complete with cutting down bushes to find items. The game has no ExperiencePoints, your power level (and thus what areas the game will allow you into) is determined purely by the equipment you have. There is a heavy emphasis on ItemCrafting, with the best items being synthesized from materials found in the dungeons.
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Gameplay is very much in the style of ''TheLegendOfZelda'', ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', complete with cutting down bushes to find items. The game has no ExperiencePoints, your power level (and thus what areas the game will allow you into) is determined purely by the equipment you have. There is a heavy emphasis on ItemCrafting, with the best items being synthesized from materials found in the dungeons.
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** They even pulled it off in an advertisement.'' Take a look at [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnights_ShoutOut_TheLegendOfZelda_7607.JPG this]] and don't even ''dare'' to say you didn't get [[TheLegendOfZelda such a blatant reference.]]
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** They ''They even pulled it off in an advertisement.'' Take a look at [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnights_ShoutOut_TheLegendOfZelda_7607.JPG this]] and don't even ''dare'' to say you didn't get [[TheLegendOfZelda [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda such a blatant reference.]]
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** The game itself is ''TheLegendOfZelda'' meets ''{{Diablo}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'', ''PhantasyStarOnline'' and [[FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]].
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** The game itself is ''TheLegendOfZelda'' ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' meets ''{{Diablo}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'', ''PhantasyStarOnline'' and [[FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]].
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Namespace stuff fixing
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** The Spiral Pith Helm, instead of looking like a proper archaeologist's pith helm, instead resembles the much larger one worn in the desert by [[{{Spaceballs}} another figure]] fond of wearing dark, oversized helmets.
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** The Spiral Pith Helm, instead of looking like a proper archaeologist's pith helm, instead resembles the much larger one worn in the desert by [[{{Spaceballs}} [[Film/{{Spaceballs}} another figure]] fond of wearing dark, oversized helmets.
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*** Most useful aspect of poison is it that on enemies it causes them to take damage when healed by other enemies. Keep a group inflicted with poison and their medic becomes one of your greatest allies.
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** New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a an averted trope.
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** New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a an averted trope.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Subverted earlir in the game's history. Gremlins seemed to be this at first glance since they have a society but send armies of their troops after you at every turn and you're expected to fight them without mercy. Then you reach Emberlight, the town of Gremlin outcasts, which is populated by all the Gremlins who refused to follow their overly aggressive leader.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Subverted earlir earlier in the game's history. Gremlins seemed to be this at first glance since they have a society but send armies of their troops after you at every turn and you're expected to fight them without mercy. Then you reach Emberlight, the town of Gremlin outcasts, which is populated by all the Gremlins who refused to follow their overly aggressive leader.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Subverted at first. Gremlins would seem to be this at first glance since they seem to have a society but send armies of their troops after you at every turn and you're expected to fight them without mercy. Then you reach Emberlight, the town of Gremlin outcasts, which is populated by all the Gremlins who refused to follow their overly aggressive leader.
** New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a simply averted trope.
** New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a simply averted trope.
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Subverted at first. earlir in the game's history. Gremlins would seem seemed to be this at first glance since they seem to have a society but send armies of their troops after you at every turn and you're expected to fight them without mercy. Then you reach Emberlight, the town of Gremlin outcasts, which is populated by all the Gremlins who refused to follow their overly aggressive leader.
** New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of asimply an averted trope.
** New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a
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* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Subverted at first. Gremlins would seem to be this at first glance since they seem to have a society but send armies of their troops after you at every turn and you're expected to fight them without mercy. Then you reach Emberlight, the town of Gremlin outcasts, which is populated by all the Gremlins who refused to follow their overly aggressive leader.
**New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a simply averted trope.
** Their Chaotic habit seems a bit harder to break as shown by this announcement.
-->''Punch and Vise wanted me to state for the record that they did not 'blow up' Vatel's recipe shop, but rather that it 'exploded while they were inside it.'''
**New Gremlin characters have even started moving up to the town of Haven such as the engineers Punch and Vise, and Nonna who runs a monster adoption agency turning this into more of a simply averted trope.
** Their Chaotic habit seems a bit harder to break as shown by this announcement.
-->''Punch and Vise wanted me to state for the record that they did not 'blow up' Vatel's recipe shop, but rather that it 'exploded while they were inside it.'''
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misuse as emphasis
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** They even pulled it off ''[[BeyondTheImpossible in an advertisement.]]'' Take a look at [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnights_ShoutOut_TheLegendOfZelda_7607.JPG this]] and don't even ''dare'' to say you didn't get [[TheLegendOfZelda such a blatant reference.]]
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** They even pulled it off ''[[BeyondTheImpossible in an advertisement.]]'' '' Take a look at [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnights_ShoutOut_TheLegendOfZelda_7607.JPG this]] and don't even ''dare'' to say you didn't get [[TheLegendOfZelda such a blatant reference.]]
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* DummiedOut: Played straight with Sleep: It's not a possible Stratum theme, no weapons can cause it, and the only monsters that could inflict it have been since removed from the game. Players can still use it through Sleep vials, however.
** Hilariously enough, you can still buy [[UselessItem Sleep resist trinkets]] with rare Tokens, even though it's completely impossible to get affected by it.
** Hilariously enough, you can still buy [[UselessItem Sleep resist trinkets]] with rare Tokens, even though it's completely impossible to get affected by it.
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* GlobalCurrencyException: Brinks takes the tokens you get from treasure boxes and bosses. His shop also holds many unique equips and trinkets.
** The same goes for things bought with Krogmo coins. This is at least justified by the MiniGameZone nature of where you get them, and the rich king who runs it.
** The same goes for things bought with Krogmo coins. This is at least justified by the MiniGameZone nature of where you get them, and the rich king who runs it.
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* YourMoneyIsNoGoodHere: Brinks takes the tokens you get from treasure boxes and bosses. His shop also holds many unique equips and trinkets.
** The same goes for things bought with Krogmo coins. This is at least justified by the MiniGameZone nature of where you get them, and the rich king who runs it.
** The same goes for things bought with Krogmo coins. This is at least justified by the MiniGameZone nature of where you get them, and the rich king who runs it.
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Specifying that item drops *are* distributed randomly as well; the previous wording left the subject somewhat ambiguous.
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** [[ItemCrafting Alchemy reagents]] are [[RandomNumberGod assigned randomly]], which (in theory) should result in even distribution.
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** [[ItemCrafting Alchemy reagents]] are [[RandomNumberGod assigned randomly]], randomly]][[hottip:*:All drops are "pre-assigned" to a player as soon as they appear, meaning that there's no way to change who gets it after the item appears.]], which (in theory) should result in even distribution.distribution.
*** Also applies on the rare occasions that actual equipment is dropped. LootDrama ''can'' result, but compared to all the rest, that's not too bad.
*** Also applies on the rare occasions that actual equipment is dropped. LootDrama ''can'' result, but compared to all the rest, that's not too bad.
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** On the rare occasions that actual equipment is dropped, LootDrama ''can'' result, but compared to all the rest, that's not too bad.
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* BitingTheHandHumor: An optimization update was credited with Sega sharing the mysteries of [[TechnoBabble Blast Processing]] with the development team.
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* {{Expy}}: The PvP mode Blast Network is {{Bomberman}} in all but name.
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* {{Expy}}: The PvP mode Blast Network is {{Bomberman}} VideoGame/{{Bomberman}} in all but name.
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** The game itself is ''TheLegendOfZelda'' meets ''{{Diablo}}'', ''{{Bomberman}}'', ''PhantasyStarOnline'' and [[FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]].
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** The game itself is ''TheLegendOfZelda'' meets ''{{Diablo}}'', ''{{Bomberman}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'', ''PhantasyStarOnline'' and [[FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]].
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** The Voltedge's charge attack delivers a [[BackToTheFuture 1.21 gigawatt]] shock.
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** The Voltedge's charge attack delivers a [[BackToTheFuture [[Film/BackToTheFuture 1.21 gigawatt]] shock.
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** The achievement for hitting an opponent with a snowball is "[[{{Elf}} Son of a Nutcracker!]]".
** A new set of armor for buying SonicCD on Steam or an energy pack will net you a suit of armor resembling a certain metallic doppleganger. Buying an energy pack at half that cost gives you an accessory that lets your knight sport a familiar pair of fox tails.
** A new set of armor for buying SonicCD on Steam or an energy pack will net you a suit of armor resembling a certain metallic doppleganger. Buying an energy pack at half that cost gives you an accessory that lets your knight sport a familiar pair of fox tails.
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** The achievement for hitting an opponent with a snowball is "[[{{Elf}} "[[Film/{{Elf}} Son of a Nutcracker!]]".
** A new set of armor for buyingSonicCD ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'' on Steam or an energy pack will net you a suit of armor resembling a certain metallic doppleganger. Buying an energy pack at half that cost gives you an accessory that lets your knight sport a familiar pair of fox tails.
** A new set of armor for buying
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Not to be confused with [[TengenToppaGurrenLagann the other kind of Spiral Knight]].
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Not to be confused with [[TengenToppaGurrenLagann [[Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann the other kind of Spiral Knight]].
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* KillItWithFire: A line of gremlin monsters does this. And dear god, [[DemonicSpiders they used to do it far too well]]. This troper distinctly remembers a large group being able to fill entire rooms with inescapable firey death. Their Nerf was well deserved.
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Misnamed a mission is all. Also slightly modified the description for said mission, changes under \"Incredibly Lame Pun\" section.
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** It only got worse after the introduction of missions. The most notable being a mission where you have to stop the gremlins from logging an entire level. The name? Beyond the ''Axes'' of Evil.
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** It only got worse after the introduction of missions. The most notable being a mission where you have to stop the gremlins from a gremlin logging an entire level. operation. The name? Beyond the ''Axes'' of Evil.
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* ConservationOfNinjutsu: The more knights there are in a squad, the more damage enemies can deal and take.
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* ConservationOfNinjutsu: The more knights there are in a squad, the more damage enemies can deal and take.take, so it can sometimes be easier to solo an area than bring three other players to help. Sometimes.
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Conservation of Ninjutsu in the squad system.
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* ConservationOfNinjutsu: The more knights there are in a squad, the more damage enemies can deal and take.
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One of the tropes got changed out in a recent update
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* PersonalSpaceInvader: Zombies have a leaping attack that causes this if (and that is a ''huge'' if) they connect.
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* PersonalSpaceInvader: Zombies used to have a leaping attack that causes caused this if (and that is a ''huge'' if) they connect.connected. Now the attack simply causes instant damage if they come anywhere close to you, changing it from a powerful but easy to dodge attack to an annoying (relatively) low-damage far-range attack.
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** It only got worse after the introduction of missions. The most notable being a mission where you have to stop the gremlins from logging an entire level. The name? Beyond the ''Axes'' of Evil.
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Added bullet hell example.
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** In two of Lord Vanaduke's phases, the camera pivots to be directly overhead and the game turns into this.
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* MagikarpPower: The items you can trade for Jelly Gems for are this. The Sealed Sword, a heavy sword with a rather unreliable charged attack, can be eventually upgraded into the Divine Avenger [[hottip:*:Uses a triple SwordBeam attack, giving the user a way to wear down an entire mob at once from range.]] or the Faust [[hottip:*:Inflicts Curse, which causes the enemy to take damage if they do something that isn't moving around.]]. The [[RevolversAreJustBetter Antigua]] can become an Argent Peacemaker [[hottip:*:Often agreed to be the best gun to bring to Firestorm Citadel since it destroys undead and allows the user to remain very mobile. Also wrecks the annoying Fiend types.]] or a Sentenza [[hottip:*:The double subversion, since the weapon is supposed to destroy Beast- and Gremlin-types... except both types contain mobs that specifically dodge gunfire. It turns out it's great for Lockdown though.]]
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* MagikarpPower: The items you can trade for Jelly Gems for are this. The Sealed Sword, a heavy sword with a rather unreliable charged attack, can be eventually upgraded into the Divine Avenger [[hottip:*:Uses a triple SwordBeam attack, giving the user a way to wear down an entire mob at once from range.]] or the Gran Faust [[hottip:*:Inflicts Curse, which causes the enemy to take damage if they do something that isn't moving around.]]. The [[RevolversAreJustBetter Antigua]] can become an Argent Peacemaker [[hottip:*:Often agreed to be the best gun to bring to Firestorm Citadel since it destroys undead and allows the user to remain very mobile. Also wrecks the annoying Fiend types.]] or a Sentenza [[hottip:*:The double subversion, since the weapon is supposed to destroy Beast- [[hottip:*:Useful against slimes and Gremlin-types... except both types contain mobs that specifically dodge gunfire. It turns out it's great for Lockdown though.also during Lockdown, not so much against gremlins.]]
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** The weapons are a {{Subversion}}; they lack elemental or status damage, but when fully upgraded their specialty is ''knockback'', and they do it very well.
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** The weapons are a {{Subversion}}; [[SubvertedTrope subversion]]; they lack elemental or status damage, but when fully upgraded their specialty is ''knockback'', and they do it very well.
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* IAmNotShazam: The slime-themed boss is named Royal Jelly (many times throughout the game!), yet some people still insist on calling it the Jelly King.
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* IAmNotShazaam: The slime-themed boss is named Royal Jelly (many times throughout the game!), yet some people still insist on calling it the Jelly King.
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* IAmNotShazaam: IAmNotShazam: The slime-themed boss is named Royal Jelly (many times throughout the game!), yet some people still insist on calling it the Jelly King.
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* DownloadableContent: March 2012 introduced Expansion Missions, which are gauntlets the player can purchase in the real world for a small fee to obtain exotic gear. The first of them is "Operation: Crimson Hammer", which pits players against the gremlin commander Warmaster Seerus.
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* MundaneUtility: The descriptions for some items state they can be used for non-combat purposes, such as the Volcanic Salamander Mask being used as a coffee pot, the Volcanic Salamander Suit being used as a stove, and the Chroma Tear being used as a contact lense.
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* MundaneUtility: The descriptions for some items state they can be used for non-combat purposes, such as the Volcanic Salamander Mask being used as a coffee pot, the Volcanic Salamander Suit being used as a stove, the Heater Shield being used as a stove top, and the Chroma Tear being used as a contact lense.lense.
** Some descriptions invert this such as the Punch Gun intended to be used in emergencies to blast open damaged drop pods and the Venom Veiler being used for destroying insects on crops (and can also apparently destroy the crops themselves).
** Some descriptions invert this such as the Punch Gun intended to be used in emergencies to blast open damaged drop pods and the Venom Veiler being used for destroying insects on crops (and can also apparently destroy the crops themselves).
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* BigBoosHaunt: The main hub for Tier 2 is a haunted hotel with a ghost concierge.
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* BigBoosHaunt: The main hub for Tier 2 is a haunted hotel with a ghost concierge. That and the Candlestick Keep levels.
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* BoringButPractical: The Calibur, Valiance, and Blast Bomb. They do normal damage with no extra effects (outside of Valiance's knockback ability at 5-Star). However, they do good damage without having to worry about resists or triggering any DemonicSpider abilities from the elemental slimes, have unique abilities (Calibur's charge attack, Valiance's knockback, Blast Bomb's DPS), and you don't even need to bother with buying recipes because Missions will give you the recipes for free.
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* BoringButPractical: The Calibur, Valiance, and Blast Bomb. They do normal damage with no extra effects (outside of Valiance's knockback ability at 5-Star). However, they do good damage without having to worry about resists or triggering any DemonicSpider abilities from the elemental slimes, have unique semi-unique abilities (Calibur's charge attack, Valiance's knockback, Blast Bomb's DPS), and you don't even need to bother with buying recipes because Missions will give you the recipes for free.
** The game makes a very poor attempt at redeeming this by giving you an "energy blast" whenever you revive with energy that stuns and damages nearby enemies, but in order to do anything substantial (it powers up the more times you revive in one tier), you'd need to spend OVER 500 CE AT ONCE. Note that most (sane) players would give up when the revive cost hits 40 or so.
* IAmNotShazaam: The slime-themed boss is named Royal Jelly (many times throughout the game!), yet some people still insist on calling it the Jelly King.
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* JackOfAllStats: The items you get from Kozma (which seem to be standard-issue from their flavor text) are this. The defense items all provide health bonuses and defend against piercing damage, but none of the items have any elemental or status modifiers (good or bad), meaning equipping only them gives you high health and defense against a common damage type, but vanilla attack damage and no defense against status effects or elements.
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* JackOfAllStats: The items you get from Kozma Missions (which seem to be standard-issue from their flavor text) are this. The defense items all provide health bonuses and defend against piercing damage, but none of the items have any elemental or status modifiers (good or bad), meaning equipping only them gives you high health and defense against a common damage type, but vanilla attack damage and no defense against status effects or elements.elements.
** MasterOfNone: Most of this gear is either mediocre or greatly outclassed by tier 3. For example, the Barbarous Thorn Shield not ONLY gives piercing/normal defense like Aegis (albeit marginally less), but also gives Sword Damage Bonus on top of that.
** MasterOfNone: Most of this gear is either mediocre or greatly outclassed by tier 3. For example, the Barbarous Thorn Shield not ONLY gives piercing/normal defense like Aegis (albeit marginally less), but also gives Sword Damage Bonus on top of that.
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[[quoteright:270:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnightsLogo_6730.jpg]]
A new casual MMO by Three Rings, the makers of ''PuzzlePirates''.
The members of an unidentifiable race have crash-landed on the hostile planet Cradle. This ain't your standard planet, either. Just below the surface is a huge {{steampunk}} dungeon full of monsters, traps, whirling gears and energy fields. As a Spiral Knight equipped with [[ILikeSwords swords]], [[TheGunslinger guns]], or [[ThrowDownTheBomblet bombs]], you must join up with other players to fight down to the glowing core of the planet: an energy source powerful enough to restart their space ship.
Gameplay is very much in the style of ''TheLegendOfZelda'', complete with cutting down bushes to find items. The game has no ExperiencePoints, your power level (and thus what areas the game will allow you into) is determined purely by the equipment you have. There is a heavy emphasis on ItemCrafting, with the best items being synthesized from materials found in the dungeons.
One of the most unique aspects of the game is that, to an extent, the players themselves construct dungeons. The "Arcade" lobby consists of several dungeons on the left, from which players can collect [[PowerCrystal colored minerals]], and several receptacles for those crystals on the right. Every two days or so, one of those receptacles will ''become'' a new dungeon, and the levels available in it are determined by how many crystals, and of which color(s), have been poured into it whilst it was still a receptacle.
The game is free to play for a limited amount of time each day, but energy can be purchased for real money (or from other players for in-game currency) for extended play and to unlock some premium features such as carrying additional weapons. It is implemented in Java and can run in a browser window or full screen, and runs very well for a full 3D game even on low-end computers.
Available [[http://www.spiralknights.com/ here]]. On June 14, 2011, it became available on {{Steam}} as one of its first free-to-play games.
Not to be confused with [[TengenToppaGurrenLagann the other kind of Spiral Knight]].
----
!!Tropes:
* AbnormalAmmo: The Alchemer lines, all of them. The charged shots of the upgraded versions of the Antigua fire light/dark birds at the end.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: A whole bunch of the level and stage names and item descriptions have this.
* AdorableEvilMinion: Devilites and Gremlins.
* AfterBossRecovery: Danger Rooms, each room of an Arena floor, and the actual bosses have this. Along with a chance to recover right before bosses.
* {{Alchemy}}: Not true alchemy per se, but its the feature that allows you to take recipes, materials, and crafting costs, and create new and upgrade equipment.
* AllegedlyFreeGame: you can't get far without Crystal Energy, which must be bought by real money. But Crystal Energy can be sold in-game for [[GlobalCurrency crowns]], so that most of the content is available to non-paying players. So, if you're clever, you can use ''somebody else's'' money to make progress.
* AntiPoopSocking: The Energy system prevents free players from going on infinitely. You have a "Mist Tank" of 100 Energy which refills every 22 hours. Again, Crystal Energy can supplement this. See BribingYourWayToVictory for more details.
* ApocalypticLog: The artifacts gained from defeating the bosses.
* ArmorIsUseless: In tier 3 and Lockdown, you take so much damage that the best course of action is to use armor that gives other bonuses or protects against annoying statuses and just try not to get hit.
* ArtifactOfDoom: Implied with some of the weapon's descriptions.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Royal Jelly and Lord Vanaduke.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Faust and Gran Faust tend to be this. Though the charge move can inflict Curse, one of the most useful status effects, it quite often inflicts the status on the player, making them essentially unable to attack for 30 or more seconds. Worse in Tier 3 dungeons, where even using the status-effect removal item may end up taking off a huge chunk of health if it ends up being cursed (which it will be most of the time). You can actually curse the enemies without using the charge attack. Faust's normal attack curses enemies, but not you. Only charge is the issue here.
** A lot of the armors without normal defense, elemental defense, shock, or fire resistances are said to be this. Shock and Fire are simply some of the hardest statuses to deal with, Normal damage is literally everywhere, and Elemental damage is all too prevalent in elemental themed strata. This is getting better now that enemies are doing the proper damage and pierce/shadow turrets have been implemented.
*** A more specific soloing example of this is the Vitasuit Deluxe, a 4-star armor. It has the second highest health bonus of any fully leveled armor (highest is the Ancient Plate Mail but it decreases your overall speed) but it only has normal defense so that health bonus is negated since most enemies in lower strata do more non-normal damage then normal, however it becomes AwesomeButPractical when used for medicing purposes by someone not on the front lines when in a group.
** The Wild Hunting Blade embodies this. Each slash produces a phantasmal golden wolver head that bites the area in front of the knight using it. However, it's extremely rare to see any player use this weapon with any degree of seriousness, as the Vile/Dread Venom Striker series (a branching alchemy path) does the same amount of damage to 5/6 enemy types and carries a poison effect, and the extreme close-range style of the blade, lack of flinching, and useless charge attack render both inferior to many other swords of the same level. Most players just get it because it looks cool.
** The Volcanic Pepperbox. Identical to the Autogun, but with a chance to cause fire? Sounds great, looks cool, but terribly low damage even with the fire it causes.
* BadassAdorable: Pretty much every single living thing you can find in the Clockworks, including the Spiral Knights themselves.
* BeatingADeadPlayer: Enemies don't intentionally do this, but all of the big-hitting mobs can launch corpses across the room if they hit them, and Greaver status clouds can cause effects on dead players.
* {{BFS}}: The Troika line. So big that the first two swords, both of them filled with cracks, are said to rely less on cutting and more on crushing your enemies ([[ConanTheBarbarian and seeing them driven before you]], according to the Kamarin). The third sword, though repaired, still mentions blunt force in its description.
** Most if not all of the [[InfinityPlusOneSword 5-star swords]] are absolutely huge.
** The [[AnAxeToGrind Hatchet]] and its upgraded variety, the [[TheSameButMore Heavy Hatchet]] could also count, despite the fact that they're extremely low-level.
* BigBadassWolf: Snarbolax, the (currently only) tier one boss. Alpha Wolvers (and Wolvers in general) also count.
* BigBoosHaunt: The main hub for Tier 2 is a haunted hotel with a ghost concierge.
* BigFancyCastle: Scarlet Fortress and the Royal Jelly Castle.
* BoringButPractical: The Calibur, Valiance, and Blast Bomb. They do normal damage with no extra effects (outside of Valiance's knockback ability at 5-Star). However, they do good damage without having to worry about resists or triggering any DemonicSpider abilities from the elemental slimes, have unique abilities (Calibur's charge attack, Valiance's knockback, Blast Bomb's DPS), and you don't even need to bother with buying recipes because Missions will give you the recipes for free.
* BottomlessMagazines: [[DoubleSubversion Double Subverted]]; Guns do require reloads (Some guns can only fire one or two shots before needing one). However, if you use a gun with a six bullet clip, fire five shots, and wait a split second, you can fire another six shots without your character reloading.
* BossArenaIdiocy: The Snarbolax's boss room contains one of those bells you've seen throughout the dungeon. Obviously, hitting him with the bell's stun effect is the only way to knock his invincibility effect out. Bonus points for the fact that Snarby does a couple of hit-and-runs during the previous levels, including one in an InescapableAmbush room ''with no bell''. Also a TacticalSuicideBoss, because he's only vulnerable to bell-stun whilst using his bite combo (unless you use a vortex to drag him to the bell), and the fight would be much harder if he just spammed ground thorns and spikes from the corners.
** Justified- it turns out the recon teams that first explored the place set up the bells to help you.
* BossDissonance: Mario type for the Roarmulus Twins and the Ironclaw Munitions Factory leading to them. The Royal Jelly and its palace ''were'' a Kirby type, but then they nerfed him.
* BossInMookClothing: Giant Lichen Colonies. For a while, they were the only users of piercing damage and thus no-one was properly defended against them. In addition to a bigger version of the spine-shooting spin the normal Lichen Colony uses, they can summon large thorns from the ground in a large area around them. To make it worse, they love using a FlashStep to ground thorn combo. Their appearance is usually preventable, but some rooms seem engineered to force one (Lichen Colony+4 normal lichens behind two rows of stone blocks, anyone?), or, in tier 3, ''start with them''.
* BreatherLevel: Treasure Vaults. No enemies except for a smattering of Chromalisks, pleasant scenery, treasure boxes and crowns everywhere. As a bonus, getting a Treasure Vault level usually means ''not'' getting an [[MultiMookMelee Arena]] or worse, a [[DeathWorld Graveyard.]]
** It's worth noting that, while Treasure Vaults are certainly the least ''dangerous'' of those three level types, they're also typically the least ''profitable''. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Fo4DZiWdU Catchy music, though...]]
* BreathWeapon: Zombies have literal versions. Gun Puppies and Kats also fire bullets from their mouths, although the Gun Puppy at least has the excuse of being a construct.
* BribingYourWayToVictory: Energy is the secondary currency of the game, used for everything from moving down dungeon levels to resurrecting your character to crafting items. You're limited to a (quickly exhausted) daily allotment of 100 of the free Mist Energy, but you can purchase unlimited quantities of Crystal Energy.
** Mist Energy regenerates 100 points over 22 hours to a maximum of 100; 4.545 energy every hour (slightly under 1 energy per 13 minutes). Crystal Energy prices, in contrast, have approached 6,000 crowns per tank-of-100-CE.
** Finally: some actions (alchemy; "[[InterchangeableAntimatterKeys Silver Keys]]" for Lockboxes) require huge investments of Energy. A single piece of Tier-5 equipment requires ''800'' Energy at a go, which is upwards of 40,000 crowns, in addition to 25K for the recipe, a 5K crafting fee, and maybe more if you bought reagents at the auction house... and you'll want all five pieces of Tier-5 gear eventually. Making that many crowns is certainly possible, but shelling out cash is way more practical.
** The Elevator Pass (making all levels cost no energy to go to) is only available as a purchase for real money, and its mere announcement caused CE prices to rise due to speculation.
** Expansion Missions (the first one containing exclusive, untradable equipment) can only be purchased with real money, although with Steam it's possible to trade for it.
* BulletHell: Branching spawn triggers in Arenas mean that you can sometimes have up to sixteen Gun Puppies at the same time. In T3 they fire 5 bullets every time they attack.
* {{Cap}}: These are put in place in the earlier stratas for your gear (i.e. a 5* sword will do only slightly more damage over a 1* sword in the first strata, but keep gaining power in strata 2 and beyond). They HandWave it by saying that the Core powers everything including your gear, so the closer to the Core you get the more your gear powers up.
* CameraScrew: See FakeDifficulty. This is especially evident during the fight with Lord Vanaduke- both his strongest minions and many of his attacks have high damage but long start up times before they attack, and if you can't see them then the attack will probably hit you without you having any time to do anything about it.
* CasualDangerDialog: Pit Bosses just walk around the brawls while saying stuff like "Looks like someone's getting a promotion." and "We can use a guy like you in management." to power-up their allies.
* CharacterLevel: Characters don't level up, but their equipment does, and the level of your gear is the standard by which {{Broken Bridge}}s are repaired.
* ChargedAttack: Every single weapon has one of these and can be charged up by holding down the attack button. Though, each weapon has differing charge times and can have different effects.
** Bombs can only be placed down after charging them. If you fail to charge them all the way, you'll simply put the bomb back down without placing it.
** All enemies have specific animations they go through whilst preparing to attack, accompanied by a distinctive three-pronged aura underneath them indicating where they will attack to. As the tiers get higher, the amount of time they ''play'' these charging animations gets shorter...
* {{Chiptune}}: Some tracks mix chiptune and conventional instruments.
* ChoiceOfTwoWeapons: Players start with two weapon slots [[hottip:*:Temporary extra slots are buyable with a small amount of Crystal Energy]], and can use whatever weapons they wish to in both slots. The starting loadout is TheMusketeer, with a bomb available from the first mission.
* CirclingStars: This combined with a gong means that someone just got Stunned.
* CollapsingCeilingBoss: Lord Vanaduke's attacks usually cause flaming rubble to fall from the ceiling.
* ColorCodedMultiplayer: You can select this at character creation. While this has an effect on the colors of your armor, the main difference is the player's dot on the minimap.
* {{Combos}}: ''Very'' useful as with swords, if all hits connect, then the last hit will knock down or flinch the enemy.
* ContinuingIsPainful: Continuing (by yourself, or when everyone is defeated) costs energy. It costs [X] (which is determined by what Tier of dungeon you're in) and doubles every time you die. Needless to say, you're not supposed to waste energy.
* TheCorruption: The Swarm.
* CuteMachines: Love Puppies. Especially when you read the description for the True Love Locket they drop.
* CycleOfHurting: One of the biggest threats in Tier 3, due to perfect status infliction rates. Get hit by enemy with the Shock attribute, get paralyzed by Shock, get hit by another enemy with Shock, get paralyzed by Shock being reapplied, repeat until dead. Or: Step on freeze floor, watch health drain off as the trap reapplies Freeze to keep you there.
* DamageSpongeBoss: The Royal Jelly, not really because of a massive health pool, but because it regenerates its HP by absorbing its minions.
* [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Dangerous Forbidden Sword]]: The [[MeaningfulName Faust and Gran Faust]] swords have some of the highest stats of any weapon in the game, but conversely have a chance to Curse the user when using the charge attack, which damages them if they use certain weapons. Similarly the Fang of Vog has a chance of setting the player on Fire.
* DarknessEqualsDeath: If you wander into the dark areas of Candlestick Keep, a [[InvincibleMinorMinion Grimalkin]] will form and start hunting you until you reach a lit area.
* DeathOfAThousandCuts: The Cutter line of swords does lots of little hits. One of the more popular sword lines, since it's very good at "juggling" groups of foes.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: In groups, downed players can be revived by other players by receiving half of their remaining health. Unless the group as a whole is lacking in healing supplies and hearts, death tends to be more inconvenient than punishing. Death can actually be beneficial to others, by transferring Heat from a player that doesn't need it to a player that does.
* [[DieChairDie Die Bush Die]]: Bushes (and similar decoration objects) may drop money or hearts. Obstacle boxes drop nothing, but they may be hiding buttons for unlocking doors.
* DifficultButAwesome: The Blitz Needle, Callahan, Radiant Sun Shards, Sudaruska, Dread Venom Striker, and to a lesser extent piercing-type swords. All of them are difficult to aim/control, or leave you open for a fair bit (or both), but have very worthwhile effects and damage if you can control them effectively.
* DodgeTheBullet: Certain enemies start jumping around all over the place the moment a projectile gets anywhere near them, and most projectiles are slow enough to miss. It's also almost always possible for the player to do this consistently, assuming they haven't stumbled into BulletHell.
* DoNotRunWithAGun: Your character walks a lot slower when firing/charging most guns, and comes to a complete halt to unleash a charge attack and to fire certain guns (i.e. the Autogun line)
* DropTheHammer: Gremlins tend to try to smash you with hammers made out of their wrenches. Warmaster Seerus wields a rocket hammer that can be obtained by the player.
* DualBoss: The Roarmulus Twins (both their normal and Shadow Lair variants) and the Rabid Snarbolaxes. Only in the latter case do they have separate health.
* DungeonShop: Perhaps the most important feature of the midpoint levels is the recipe merchant.
* EldritchAbomination: Possibly the Snarbolax.
** The Swarm. So far the only members of the swarm that have been seen are all located in the shadow lair and are unkillable, and send wave after wave of corrupted monsters after you that drop nothing and continuously respawn. The echo logs at the end of each boss in the shadow lair describe it as "endless hunger", "a darkness", and "neither beast nor god, it is a creation unlike all."
* EldritchLocation: The Shadow Lairs [[spoiler:and the floor that comes after the boss]].
* ElementalRockPaperScissors: There are 3 damage types; Shadow, Piercing, and Elemental (plus normal which is average against everything). Each of the 6 enemy types is resistant to one, neutral to one, and weak to one, and deal different types to the players depending on their family type. [[StandardStatusEffects Fire]] deals normal and Shock deals elemental.
* EmptyRoomPsych: The maps have plenty of dead ends, some at the end of long detours from the main route. However, all will, at the very least, have enemies, treasure boxes, or minerals.
* EnergyEconomy
* EternalEngine: The ''entire'' planet can be considered one.
* EverythingFades: Robots explode, beasts and fiends vanish in a puff of smoke, and zombies disintegrate. Item drops stay until picked up, but uncollected hearts blink out of existence after a time. The only enemies that don't disappear are Gremlins and Zombies, if there is something around that might revive them (Grim Totems or Gremlin Healers in Tier 3).
* EvolvingWeapon: Not just with weapons, almost all pieces of equipment (except Vitapods and Trinkets) evolve by gaining heat, which is gained primarily through killing the Clockworks enemies. All pieces of equipment start from level 1, and can reach a max of level 10. With each level, stats for each piece of equipment grow, and when some milestones (of levels) are attained, some bonus effects are added (e.g., decreased ChargeAttack time, faster attack speed, higher elemental defence).
** Most higher tier items need their lower tier equivalent as part of the crafting recipe, and at a certain level for 4 and 5 star items to boot.
* [[ExplodingBarrels Exploding Cubes]]
* {{Expy}}: The PvP mode Blast Network is {{Bomberman}} in all but name.
* TheFaceless: The knights' faces are always either hidden in shadow or obscured by their helmet if it covers their face (i.e., the Wolver line helmets). At first glance they look like robots but the description of several items and the existence of the Mecha Knights confirms that they're organic.
* FakeDifficulty: The heavy delays and lag spikes that accompany almost every Clockwork run make the game even harder than it would normally be, causing a lot of unforseen damage. This is especially apparant with T3 Devilites: They attack very fast but can easily be interrupted by damage, which basically is the key in fighting them, next to shielding of course. One will need clairvoyance to actually do that with the delay though. Their sheer number and jumping around will also often screw up the auto-targetting, causing knights to flail after a different enemy than the one they want.
** The camera is fixed at such a perspective that much more space above the Knight is visible than below. This makes it extremely difficult fighting ranged enemies from above, since the projectiles will be much closer to you by the time you can see them, and you have to close to dangerous distances to even target them. Additionally, enemies with heavy hitting long-reach attacks (such as Lumbers and Grimalkins) can wind up on you without seeing them if you're at just the wrong distance. Maps tend not to lead you top-down too often, but it does happen, and it also affects arena strategy.
** It can be difficult to judge a horizontally-traveling projectile's exact location, since Knights and monsters are more than 1 tile high. This is particularly true when they're flying over non-uniform terrain or empty space. And worst when the projectile is fired from a different elevation, in which case a projectile that looks 3 tiles above a space could actually just be drawn very high, and hit the Knight there.
** The Roarmulus Twin levels are especially infamous for how laggy and stuttery they are. Considering the lag is caused by high-explosive rockets flying in all directions that you have to dodge, often while fighting things, the end results are often [[ThatOneLevel unpleasant for many people]].
** Retrodes were a big cause for this before the Jan 4, 2012 patch being infamous for taking decent sized chunks off of anyone near them almost immediately after they spawned, though the nerf they and other enemies got in that patch might have been overkill depending on who you ask.
* FireballEyeballs: Devilite Overtimers have them.
* FrickinLaserBeams: The signature attack of Retrodes, which does a lot of damage and inflicts status if the Retrode is elemental. Also possessed by the Roarmulus Twins after they [[TurnsRed reach their third phase]].
* FriendlyFireproof:
** Averted for some enemies: Lumbers, Trojans, Rocket Puppies, and shocked Quicksilvers will all happily kill other mobs if you line it up just right. The Ice Cube and Blast Cube monsters effectively turn into bombs upon death. Played straight for the players (however, they can still hurt each other by shooting an explosive cube next to someone, or by pushing mobs into allies).
** Partially averted for summoned Mecha Knights. While their normal attacks can't hurt players, they occasionally suffer from Shock and can spread it to nearby players.
* GirlishPigtails: The Spiral Tailed Helm, Emberbreak Helm, Firebreak Helm, and Blazebreak Helm have these attached to it.
* GlassCannon: The Mad Bomber set causes this. You become weaker to the four main status effects, but each piece gives two levels (out of six) of charge time reduction and damage bonus for bombs. The Chaos set used to be this before being nerfed.
** The Wolver set and Bristling Buckler is a mild example, having lower defense than other sets in exchange for increased sword damage.
** The Swiftstrike Buckler is a shield that gives you 3 levels of attack speed increase, but since it's a 3 star equip and there are no higher versions of it, you trade in a lot of defense potential.
** The Striker in Lockdown is this combined with a FragileSpeedster: Boosted sword damage and speed, a dash ability, base health in T3 (compared to Recon +10 and Guardian +12).
* GreenHillZone: Aurora Isles, Jigsaw Valley, and Treasure Vault levels. May or may not have the simplicity that a Green Hill Zone implies.
* GunTwirling: How you [[UnorthodoxReload reload]] most of the guns.
* GunsAreWorthless: Subverted. They don't dispatch enemies nearly as fast as swords do, but range advantage is often worth it (especially when fighting Vanaduke). They are also a good means of hitting switches or explosive cubes at a safe distance, and may be used to lure enemies into areas more suitable for players to fight in.
** Played straight however with the gear meant for gunslingers with lower defenses and weaker secondary benefits then their bomber and swordsman counterparts.
* HardModePerks: Playing on higher tiers gives you more crowns so you can purchase more recipes and Crystal Energy and more heat so you can upgrade your weapons faster. The second half of any tier is much more profitable than the first half, too.
* HeartContainer: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]].
** Most armors/helmets also give you health bonuses, as well as certain trinkets. However, as with other gear, these bonuses only become active past a certain depth of dungeon.
** There are also "Vitapods," which increase the owner's health bar by the number specified on the pod. However, they're immediately dropped once you leave the Clockworks--meaning you need a new one for every single dungeon crawl. (This is not as irritating as it sounds, as they drop fairly frequently ''and'', if you start from Moorcroft Manor or Emberlight, can be purchased from in-town vendors.)
* HelpfulMook: The rare version of the Gun Puppy family, the Love Puppy, heals you. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential And then you kill them for the health trinkets they can drop]].
* HerdHittingAttack: Bombs. The Shock status effect also hits anything around the afflicted when it procs. And yes, there is a bomb capable of inflicting shock.
* HubLevel: Haven (the Arcade, specifically) contains all the gates that lead to the various dungeons of the Clockworks. There are also various checkpoints along the way to let players heal up and prepare for the next stratum.
* {{Invisibility}}: The main power of Recons in Lockdown.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: The player can equip shovels and wrenches to attack enemies with.
* IncrediblyLamePun: A few of the level names fall into this, like Everybody's Fired and Hiring Freeze[[hottip:*:Devilite levels, fire- and ice-based]].
* InterchangeableAntimatterKeys: Most apparent in the Deconstruction Zone and the second part of the Royal Jelly's palace, as well as Silver Keys for players' lockboxes.
* JackOfAllStats: The items you get from Kozma (which seem to be standard-issue from their flavor text) are this. The defense items all provide health bonuses and defend against piercing damage, but none of the items have any elemental or status modifiers (good or bad), meaning equipping only them gives you high health and defense against a common damage type, but vanilla attack damage and no defense against status effects or elements.
** The weapons are a {{Subversion}}; they lack elemental or status damage, but when fully upgraded their specialty is ''knockback'', and they do it very well.
* KaizoTrap: Has since been fixed, but Ironclaw Munitions Factory had a nasty one for a couple of hours after being added: The lasers that covered the hallway to the boss elevator were invisible, and since you have to lower the fences blocking the lasers to get to the elevator... For a lesser version, the Royal Jelly's minions don't die until after his somewhat long death animation finishes playing so they can kill you before NoOntologicalInertia kicks in.
* LagCancel: Shield Canceling: Using your shield before the end of a standard combo or right after a charge attack cancels the rest of the animation. Like all other shield techniques, very important to survival.
* LethalLavaLand: One of the various areas in the Clockworks.
** Firestorm Citadel is arguably the most difficult of LethalLavaLand levels if not the most difficult levels in the game as it is.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: The Game. Skillful use of your shield is vital to surviving: it not only allows you to absorb a certain amount of damage without harm, but the shield-bubble applies a knockback to all nearby foes, allowing you to push them towards something (a Wolver bell) or just away from you. Trojans, Mecha Knights, and Darkfang Thwackers also carry shields to block attacks with.
** RegeneratingHealth: The shield-bubble can only take so much pounding before it [[BreakableWeapons caves in]]. It will come back after 8 seconds, and regenerates up to its full defense value any time it isn't being actively wielded.
* MagikarpPower: The items you can trade for Jelly Gems for are this. The Sealed Sword, a heavy sword with a rather unreliable charged attack, can be eventually upgraded into the Divine Avenger [[hottip:*:Uses a triple SwordBeam attack, giving the user a way to wear down an entire mob at once from range.]] or the Faust [[hottip:*:Inflicts Curse, which causes the enemy to take damage if they do something that isn't moving around.]]. The [[RevolversAreJustBetter Antigua]] can become an Argent Peacemaker [[hottip:*:Often agreed to be the best gun to bring to Firestorm Citadel since it destroys undead and allows the user to remain very mobile. Also wrecks the annoying Fiend types.]] or a Sentenza [[hottip:*:The double subversion, since the weapon is supposed to destroy Beast- and Gremlin-types... except both types contain mobs that specifically dodge gunfire. It turns out it's great for Lockdown though.]]
* MeaningfulName: The Faust and Gran Faust both refer to, well, ''{{Faust}}''- they deal shadow damage and have a chance to curse you for a long time if you use their charge attack, referencing the archetypal DealWithTheDevil.
* MightyGlacier: Guardians in Lockdown: The Guardian Shield ability not only makes them about twice as hard to kill as anyone else, they can shield allies and even heal on the field. They possess the highest health of the three classes, and slight boosts to Sword and Bomb use. They are also the slowest movers on the field.
* MultiMookMelee: Arena levels, any of the Danger Rooms. The amount of enemies spawned can be daunting... and at least one wave will contain foes that are difficult to stagger.
** Royal Jelly Palace is mostly about dealing with large amounts of jello cubes trying to kill you.
* MundaneUtility: The descriptions for some items state they can be used for non-combat purposes, such as the Volcanic Salamander Mask being used as a coffee pot, the Volcanic Salamander Suit being used as a stove, and the Chroma Tear being used as a contact lense.
* {{Nerf}}: The Chaos set (damage bonus but stat weaknesses) and the Royal Jelly boss, among other things.
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:The ultimate fate of the [[TheSquad Alpha Team]], supposedly one of the best knights the Spiral Knights had to offer. It's said that they found a way into the core and never came out. It's also said that their souls inhabit the bodies of Trojan Knights.]]
* NinjaLooting: At least partially averted. The game is designed to emphasize the CoOpMultiplayer experience.
** Some combination of the following is [[EnoughToGoAround administered to all party members]] regardless of who actually picks them up: [[GlobalCurrency crowns]], tokens, [[ExperiencePoints heat]] and [[PowerCrystal minerals]]. (The game's manual says all of them are, but this claim is contradicted by in-game observation.) [[HeartsAreHealth Healing Hearts]] are also instanced for convenience.
** [[ItemCrafting Alchemy reagents]] are [[RandomNumberGod assigned randomly]], which (in theory) should result in even distribution.
** [[StandardRPGItems Healing capsules, attack vials]] and [[HeartContainer Vitapods]] are competition-worthy, and all of them except the last [[EverythingFades are dropped upon exiting the dungeon]] anyhow.
** On the rare occasions that actual equipment is dropped, LootDrama ''can'' result, but compared to all the rest, that's not too bad.
* NintendoHard: Some of the lower depths can become this - ''especially'' the Tier 3 ones. Also, all danger rooms apply, due to the abundance of spikes and few safe walking locations - not to mention, all the [[GoddamnedBats ene]][[DemonicSpiders mies]]...
** Though you're already going to hate Tier ''2'' when you first enter it. Hell, Tier '''1''' is pretty difficult with your starting equipment.
* NoConservationOfMass: The Royal Jelly spits out mini-jellies periodically in battle, at no cost to itself. It then absorbs these jellies now and then for health.
* NonLethalKO: The Knights themselves only get knocked down no matter what hits them. Any nearby Knight can help them up. They even continue to blink while downed.
* NoOntologicalInertia: The Royal Jelly's death also causes every other enemy in the room to splat.
** Though you need to beat them both down, destroying one of the Roarmulus Twins automatically destroys the other.
* NoOSHACompliance: The Ironclaw Munitions Factory has electric floors and rocket launchers set up along its corridors. Worker safety is not top priority for gremlins.
* NotCompletelyUseless: Poison in general is a very underwhelming status effect, lowering enemy attack power (when the best defense is to not get hit in the first place) and preventing them from being healed (when there are usually more attractive options for neutralizing healers). It is all but necessary, however, for dealing with the Royal Jelly, who heals rapidly and is easily capable of outhealing an unprepared party.
** Also goes for when it's applied to players. Just avoid getting hit until it wears off and don't attempt to use healing items in that period. Unlike poison in most other games, it causes no damage by itself.
** Poisoned enemies also take more and deal less damage, making it only semi-useless.
* ObviousRulePatch: The May 17 update had a couple. While the Basil change [[hottip:*:Teleporting to Basil would cause his entire inventory to empty out except for 1* items]] was quickly accepted, the binding rule change [[hottip:*:A bound equip would carry over its bound status to any equip made with it. Motive seemed to be plugging a massive BribingYourWayToVictory possibility.]] causes uproars due to coming out of nowhere and leaving a bunch of people with equips they were planning to sell but no longer could.
** In addition, the more appreciated AFK kicker for the Blast Network.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The [[XtremeKoolLetterz Kats]] are ghosts. Phantoms also apply.
* PathOfMostResistance: Arena levels have three stages, and you can proceed to the next depth after finishing any stage, but most players do all three stages for the mass of crowns earned in the process, [[ShmuckBait whether they're prepared or not]]. Many players will also wait for arena levels before going down an elevator for this reason.
** Danger Rooms are optional areas (with energy locks) that are basically a long, difficult arena stage, including the massive crown payoff afterward.
** Despite being a random draw, this is why some people prefer Graveyards over Treasure Vaults. Once you can deal with Phantoms, all that is left are element-neutral zombies with predictable spawns. And a ''lot'' of them.
* PersonalSpaceInvader: Zombies have a leaping attack that causes this if (and that is a ''huge'' if) they connect.
* PlayerPreferredPattern:
** Vog Cub, Owlite or Thorn shield, Gran Faust/Divine Avenger, Polaris, Krogmo trinkets. There is some variation, but expect to see those a ''lot''.
** Wolver sets! People love 'em.
*** Gets to the point of painful ComplacentGamingSyndrome in Lockdown due to the set in combination with the Striker class making you an almost untouchable GlassCannon.
* PlayingWithFire: Fire is an element that both the player and enemies can use.
* PointOfNoReturn: Party buttons act like this per level, as they cause a gate to appear behind you when you step on them to open the gate in front of you.
* PowerupLetdown: Weapons paths that deal lesser damage for an improved bonus vs a certain enemy type (i.e. Cautery Sword, Cold Iron series, Heavy Deconstructor) tend to be this as the lesser damage vs everything else is too great to ignore (although there can be other potential benefits, such as Cold Iron's charge attack being able to reliably hit more)
* PressXToDie: The effect of the Curse status effect. As a bonus, the most common way for a player to be afflicted with Curse is using the Faust or Gran Faust's charge attack.
* PunchedAcrossTheRoom: Lumbers do this to anything they hit. The player can do this to lighter enemies with heavy swords and the Calibur's charged combo.
* PurpleIsTheNewBlack: Shadow-based weaponry and attacks are usually purple (one notable exception being the Faust and Gran Faust, which are burgundy). Shadow damage and defense is also depicted by a purple meter.
* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: Partly subverted, as the overall theme of the level can be decided by the number of crystals deposited in a certain terminal. The rest is random and cycles with time though.
** The levels themselves are not randomly generated, but which level you get next often is, unless you happen upon a string of connected levels (usually leading up to a boss).
* ReverseShrapnel: The Dark Reprisal bomb causes a bunch of dark projectiles to spin around the bomb's detonation point, constantly damaging enemies that run into it.
* RewardingVandalism: In classic Zelda style. Some of the destroyable objects even strongly resemble similar objects from Zelda.
* RecursiveAmmo: The Alchemer series of handguns uses elemental bullets that also split up at higher weapon levels.
** Lord Vanaduke's mask, in his second and fourth stages, shoot large bullets that whirl around and shoot streams of smaller bullets.
* {{Retirony}}: Mentioned in the description of the Blackhawk gun. "...It's said to contain the soul of a knight who was only two days from retirement."
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Snipes. Please don't step on them.
* RoyalRapier: The Flourish series. It even replaces normal damage with piercing damage.
* RuleThirtyFour: Yes, it exists. [[FurryFandom For some reason]], gremlins are the biggest victims in this case. And of course, wolvers and the Snarbolax.
** Just look at the [[http://media.spiralknights.com/v/20110814022124/images/wallpaper/imf/spiral_knights_imf_1024x768.jpg official]] [[http://media.spiralknights.com/v/20110814022124/images/wallpaper/snarbolax/spiral_knights_snarbolax_1024x768.jpg artwork]]. They're cute!
* {{Salaryman}}: The Devilites. They throw office supplies at you.
* SchizoTech
* ShieldBash: Shielding for a half second causes all enemies surrounding the player to be knocked back. This trick is just as important as actually blocking attacks to surviving. It even works if your [[FridgeLogic shield is broken]].
* ShootTheMedicFirst: [[MookMedic Silkwings and Gremlin Menders]] are capable of healing their allies, which are probably beating on you at the same time. Both are very dangerous if left alone; The Silkwing heals enemies by touch, meaning it can heal enemies fast, and Menders get area heals and even a Revive in higher tiers.
* ShoutOut: Lots.
** The "Sentenza" gun is said to have been wielded by one who possessed "[[TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly angel eyes]]".
** One of the "Wolver Den" levels is "[[{{Rayman}} Raving Rabids]].
** Also The "Nameless Poncho" is a shout-out to the DollarsTrilogy. The creators seem to love those movies.
** The [[CosmeticAward Achievement]] for defeating the Snarbolax is [[LewisCarroll "O Frabjous Day!"]].
** One of the monsters in the Jelly line is called the Jelly Green Giant, after the Jolly Green Giant of canned and frozen veggie fame.
** They even pulled it off ''[[BeyondTheImpossible in an advertisement.]]'' Take a look at [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnights_ShoutOut_TheLegendOfZelda_7607.JPG this]] and don't even ''dare'' to say you didn't get [[TheLegendOfZelda such a blatant reference.]]
** The Magnus's 5 star form is called the [[DirtyHarry Callahan]]. The descriptions also reference this.
** The Radiant Silvermail sounds very similar to RadiantSilvergun.
** There's a technologically-inclined NPC Knight named [[SamAndMax Bosco]] in the western part of Haven.
** The description for the Heavy Demo Helm notes it "...might be handy if you, [[ResidentEvil the master of exploding]], take it with you."
** The Voltedge's charge attack delivers a [[BackToTheFuture 1.21 gigawatt]] shock.
** A subtle holiday-themed one with the Nightblade's upgrade, ''Silent Night''blade.
** The Spiral Pith Helm, instead of looking like a proper archaeologist's pith helm, instead resembles the much larger one worn in the desert by [[{{Spaceballs}} another figure]] fond of wearing dark, oversized helmets.
** The achievement for hitting an opponent with a snowball is "[[{{Elf}} Son of a Nutcracker!]]".
** A new set of armor for buying SonicCD on Steam or an energy pack will net you a suit of armor resembling a certain metallic doppleganger. Buying an energy pack at half that cost gives you an accessory that lets your knight sport a familiar pair of fox tails.
* ShovelStrike: The Slime Slasher weapon, a beginner's... uh... "sword".
* ShowsDamage: The Roarmulus Twins start breaking down when they take enough damage, signaling a phase change. Vanaduke's mask also does this, completely shattering after the second bullet phase.
* SituationalSword: The Cautery Sword, which is useless not only because of CripplingOverspecialization, but because you can turn a Brandish (the base for Cautery Sword) into a Nightblade, which does the job better.
* SlippySlideyIceWorld
* SmashMook: Lumbers are huge constructs that can club you with their tree trunk of an arm. Has pretty good range and can stun you, so get out of the way or block. While the attack does speed up as you go deeper, they suffer from a cooldown that is long enough to allow two melee combos if you evade.
* SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear: People, when you need to leave your party, please remember to drop any useful items you might have before entering an end-of-level elevator.
* SpikesOfDoom: Spikes, brambles, ''poisoned'' brambles... All of those are annoying obstacles that do more damage in later levels and that enemies often use as cover, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard since they aren't harmed by them.]]
** For extra fun, spikes can be hidden under certain blocks. Not only can you easily step on them right as you destroy the blocks they were hidden under, you just removed an obstacle for the monsters nearby.
** Jelly cubes were eventually updated to be covered in spikes (in order to justify a gelatinous cube dealing piercing damage, presumably), and can summon spikes from the ground.
* SpinAttack: The Calibur series of swords has this as their charged attack. The Royal Jelly also goes invulnerable, TurnsRed, and spins around the area when it has been weakened enough.
** The Fang of Vog adds an IncendiaryExponent to the Calibur charge, allowing it to set both user and enemy on fire.
* StandardStatusEffects: Curse (take damage if you use marked weapons), Fire (drains HP), Freeze (can't move or turn), Poison (decreased attack, can't heal), Shock (damage and induces flinching), Sleep (can't do anything, but you regenerate), and Stun (decreased move and attack speed) are available. The player actually gets stronger variations of some effects, like Freeze inflicting damage if the enemy "thaws out".
* StunGuns: You have the actual Stun Guns which are low tier weapons that can stun, and then you have the Magnus, which are essentially more powerful two-shot punch guns with a chance of stun.
* SuicideAttack: Howlitzers. Once the base is destroyed, the skull falls off and attempts to charge someone before exploding.
* SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: In case that skull on the elevator monitor didn't tip you off, the health pads right before a party button (that spawns the boss) should.
* SwirlyEnergyThingy: The Graviton Bomb and its more powerful upgrade, the Graviton Vortex.
** And now the Electron Charge and its upgrades.
* SwordBeam: The Avenger series of swords has these included in the charge attack. They're shaped like giant glowing swords and explode after flying a short distance.
** The Faust also the same, except the 5-star version instead of shooting 3 beams like the Divine Avenger, shoots one huge sword beam. The Faust's charge can also curse you unlike the Avenger.
** Winmillion, a 4-Star sword that cannot be upgraded, shoots a beam with every slash. Arguably a LethalJokeWeapon that provides bombers with consistent damage in melee and the utility of a ranged weapon in a single weapon slot. Not to mention a good substitute for a gun if you're going for a pure swordsman set.
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: The three weapon types; swords do high single target damage at close range, guns do low single target at long range, and bombs do moderate damage in a circular area but only work after charging them. There's many weapons of each type, however, including a bomb that works like a gun, a sword that works like a bomb, two guns that work like bombs in different ways, 2 swords that fire projectiles, and numerous other variations.
* TeleportingKeycardSquad: Some keys are set so monsters appear the moment a party member gets within grabbing distance.
* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: By selecting the head with molded steel GirlishPigtails.
* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: Firestorm Citadel, a five-floor gauntlet that serves as Tier 3's only boss dungeon, is the closest thing there is to this trope. Presumably, the Core will be one, if it opens.
* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Bombs are one of the three weapon types. They specialize in [=AoE=] damage or status infliction.
* TrojanHorse: A Trojan Knight is a living knight statue with a horse head. It's a type of enemy that can only be defeated by attacking its back. It may rarely drop a kind of material called the [[AWorldwidePunomenon Trojan Horseshoe]].
* TurnsRed: When its HP gets low, the Royal Jelly turns pink and starts spinning all over the arena, doing much more damage than before, and only stops for a few seconds at a time for you to attack it.
** If a Devilite Pit Boss walks up to a normal Devilite and tells it that it has to work overtime, they start glowing and throw pitchforks that cause debuffs instead of office supplies, as well as gaining a close-range melee attack.
*** Alternatively, the Pit Bosses can turn other Devilites into Yes Men, who stand around the pit bosses and heal them. If a Pit Boss dies near a Yes Man, it TurnsRed and starts attacking you.
* UnorthodoxReload: Most guns do this via GunTwirling, the remainder just eject spent shells without loading in new ones.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: A few enemies use the same equips that the players use, but will never actually drop them. This was especially prevalent with the Blackened Crest being used by Vanaduke's guards, as some players believed the item was impossible to get despite being the prerequisite to the Crest of Almire. [[hottip:*:Eventually, it was found in a tier 2 treasure chest, and has since been added to the token shop.]]
** Interestingly averted with three Gremlin items: The Wrench Wand, Thwack Hammer, and the ultra rare Darkfang Shield, which is ONLY from random drops. The Deconstructor bomb line may also count; it looks similar to the Gremlin bombs, and shows a Darkfang emblem in the explosion but isn't quite as identical as the other equips.
* {{Unwinnable}}: Sometimes, ghost blocks[[hottip:*:When hit, these make the contiguous set of blocks touching it vanish]] appear with respawning unbreakable blocks. A careless knight (or party of knights) can get trapped [[http://oi54.tinypic.com/24d3nlc.jpg once the blocks respawn.]]
* UnsoundEffect: These accompany the onset of any of the StandardStatusEffects, along with the zombie revival mechanic.
* [[XMeetsY X Meets Y Meets Z Meets Potential 27th Letter of the Alphabet]]:
** The game itself is ''TheLegendOfZelda'' meets ''{{Diablo}}'', ''{{Bomberman}}'', ''PhantasyStarOnline'' and [[FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]].
** And the map layouts are like an inverted [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks Spirit Tower]] or [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass Oceanus' temple]].
** Then there's the [=PvP=] mode Lockdown, with class mods that give abilities like sprinting at the cost of low health, or the ability to go invisible and negate opponent's armor/defense. Combine this with the main objective being Control Points/Domination and this seems like Spiral Knights meets ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' with a dash of ''ModernWarfare''.
** The Iron Lockboxes and their keys are also rather reminiscent of ''Team Fortress 2''.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Heat Amplifiers. While some items (4 and 5 stars in particular) do take a lot of heat (item XP) to level, the 800 energy amplifiers cost would earn you more heat (plus other stuff) if spent on runs, and that CE would last longer buying 2 Weapon and 2 Trinket Slot upgrades which last a month instead of 48 hours.
* YesMan: They are small and green guys who heal the Pit Bosses, only spawned in the first place when a Pit Boss compliments a Devilite. Normally they won't attack the players, but if their boss is killed they will turn into an Overtimer.
* YourHeadAsplode: Mecha Knights' heads explode upon death.
* YourMoneyIsNoGoodHere: Brinks takes the tokens you get from treasure boxes and bosses. His shop also holds many unique equips and trinkets.
** The same goes for things bought with Krogmo coins. This is at least justified by the MiniGameZone nature of where you get them, and the rich king who runs it.
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Normally, boss fights come right at the end of a particular tier, so once you've defeated a boss, you're home free. However, once you beat a boss from the Shadow Lairs after a line of grueling dungeons and intense battles, and are ready to head back up and celebrate... [[ItGotWorse Welcome to the Unknown Passage.]]
----
A new casual MMO by Three Rings, the makers of ''PuzzlePirates''.
The members of an unidentifiable race have crash-landed on the hostile planet Cradle. This ain't your standard planet, either. Just below the surface is a huge {{steampunk}} dungeon full of monsters, traps, whirling gears and energy fields. As a Spiral Knight equipped with [[ILikeSwords swords]], [[TheGunslinger guns]], or [[ThrowDownTheBomblet bombs]], you must join up with other players to fight down to the glowing core of the planet: an energy source powerful enough to restart their space ship.
Gameplay is very much in the style of ''TheLegendOfZelda'', complete with cutting down bushes to find items. The game has no ExperiencePoints, your power level (and thus what areas the game will allow you into) is determined purely by the equipment you have. There is a heavy emphasis on ItemCrafting, with the best items being synthesized from materials found in the dungeons.
One of the most unique aspects of the game is that, to an extent, the players themselves construct dungeons. The "Arcade" lobby consists of several dungeons on the left, from which players can collect [[PowerCrystal colored minerals]], and several receptacles for those crystals on the right. Every two days or so, one of those receptacles will ''become'' a new dungeon, and the levels available in it are determined by how many crystals, and of which color(s), have been poured into it whilst it was still a receptacle.
The game is free to play for a limited amount of time each day, but energy can be purchased for real money (or from other players for in-game currency) for extended play and to unlock some premium features such as carrying additional weapons. It is implemented in Java and can run in a browser window or full screen, and runs very well for a full 3D game even on low-end computers.
Available [[http://www.spiralknights.com/ here]]. On June 14, 2011, it became available on {{Steam}} as one of its first free-to-play games.
Not to be confused with [[TengenToppaGurrenLagann the other kind of Spiral Knight]].
----
!!Tropes:
* AbnormalAmmo: The Alchemer lines, all of them. The charged shots of the upgraded versions of the Antigua fire light/dark birds at the end.
* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: A whole bunch of the level and stage names and item descriptions have this.
* AdorableEvilMinion: Devilites and Gremlins.
* AfterBossRecovery: Danger Rooms, each room of an Arena floor, and the actual bosses have this. Along with a chance to recover right before bosses.
* {{Alchemy}}: Not true alchemy per se, but its the feature that allows you to take recipes, materials, and crafting costs, and create new and upgrade equipment.
* AllegedlyFreeGame: you can't get far without Crystal Energy, which must be bought by real money. But Crystal Energy can be sold in-game for [[GlobalCurrency crowns]], so that most of the content is available to non-paying players. So, if you're clever, you can use ''somebody else's'' money to make progress.
* AntiPoopSocking: The Energy system prevents free players from going on infinitely. You have a "Mist Tank" of 100 Energy which refills every 22 hours. Again, Crystal Energy can supplement this. See BribingYourWayToVictory for more details.
* ApocalypticLog: The artifacts gained from defeating the bosses.
* ArmorIsUseless: In tier 3 and Lockdown, you take so much damage that the best course of action is to use armor that gives other bonuses or protects against annoying statuses and just try not to get hit.
* ArtifactOfDoom: Implied with some of the weapon's descriptions.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Royal Jelly and Lord Vanaduke.
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Faust and Gran Faust tend to be this. Though the charge move can inflict Curse, one of the most useful status effects, it quite often inflicts the status on the player, making them essentially unable to attack for 30 or more seconds. Worse in Tier 3 dungeons, where even using the status-effect removal item may end up taking off a huge chunk of health if it ends up being cursed (which it will be most of the time). You can actually curse the enemies without using the charge attack. Faust's normal attack curses enemies, but not you. Only charge is the issue here.
** A lot of the armors without normal defense, elemental defense, shock, or fire resistances are said to be this. Shock and Fire are simply some of the hardest statuses to deal with, Normal damage is literally everywhere, and Elemental damage is all too prevalent in elemental themed strata. This is getting better now that enemies are doing the proper damage and pierce/shadow turrets have been implemented.
*** A more specific soloing example of this is the Vitasuit Deluxe, a 4-star armor. It has the second highest health bonus of any fully leveled armor (highest is the Ancient Plate Mail but it decreases your overall speed) but it only has normal defense so that health bonus is negated since most enemies in lower strata do more non-normal damage then normal, however it becomes AwesomeButPractical when used for medicing purposes by someone not on the front lines when in a group.
** The Wild Hunting Blade embodies this. Each slash produces a phantasmal golden wolver head that bites the area in front of the knight using it. However, it's extremely rare to see any player use this weapon with any degree of seriousness, as the Vile/Dread Venom Striker series (a branching alchemy path) does the same amount of damage to 5/6 enemy types and carries a poison effect, and the extreme close-range style of the blade, lack of flinching, and useless charge attack render both inferior to many other swords of the same level. Most players just get it because it looks cool.
** The Volcanic Pepperbox. Identical to the Autogun, but with a chance to cause fire? Sounds great, looks cool, but terribly low damage even with the fire it causes.
* BadassAdorable: Pretty much every single living thing you can find in the Clockworks, including the Spiral Knights themselves.
* BeatingADeadPlayer: Enemies don't intentionally do this, but all of the big-hitting mobs can launch corpses across the room if they hit them, and Greaver status clouds can cause effects on dead players.
* {{BFS}}: The Troika line. So big that the first two swords, both of them filled with cracks, are said to rely less on cutting and more on crushing your enemies ([[ConanTheBarbarian and seeing them driven before you]], according to the Kamarin). The third sword, though repaired, still mentions blunt force in its description.
** Most if not all of the [[InfinityPlusOneSword 5-star swords]] are absolutely huge.
** The [[AnAxeToGrind Hatchet]] and its upgraded variety, the [[TheSameButMore Heavy Hatchet]] could also count, despite the fact that they're extremely low-level.
* BigBadassWolf: Snarbolax, the (currently only) tier one boss. Alpha Wolvers (and Wolvers in general) also count.
* BigBoosHaunt: The main hub for Tier 2 is a haunted hotel with a ghost concierge.
* BigFancyCastle: Scarlet Fortress and the Royal Jelly Castle.
* BoringButPractical: The Calibur, Valiance, and Blast Bomb. They do normal damage with no extra effects (outside of Valiance's knockback ability at 5-Star). However, they do good damage without having to worry about resists or triggering any DemonicSpider abilities from the elemental slimes, have unique abilities (Calibur's charge attack, Valiance's knockback, Blast Bomb's DPS), and you don't even need to bother with buying recipes because Missions will give you the recipes for free.
* BottomlessMagazines: [[DoubleSubversion Double Subverted]]; Guns do require reloads (Some guns can only fire one or two shots before needing one). However, if you use a gun with a six bullet clip, fire five shots, and wait a split second, you can fire another six shots without your character reloading.
* BossArenaIdiocy: The Snarbolax's boss room contains one of those bells you've seen throughout the dungeon. Obviously, hitting him with the bell's stun effect is the only way to knock his invincibility effect out. Bonus points for the fact that Snarby does a couple of hit-and-runs during the previous levels, including one in an InescapableAmbush room ''with no bell''. Also a TacticalSuicideBoss, because he's only vulnerable to bell-stun whilst using his bite combo (unless you use a vortex to drag him to the bell), and the fight would be much harder if he just spammed ground thorns and spikes from the corners.
** Justified- it turns out the recon teams that first explored the place set up the bells to help you.
* BossDissonance: Mario type for the Roarmulus Twins and the Ironclaw Munitions Factory leading to them. The Royal Jelly and its palace ''were'' a Kirby type, but then they nerfed him.
* BossInMookClothing: Giant Lichen Colonies. For a while, they were the only users of piercing damage and thus no-one was properly defended against them. In addition to a bigger version of the spine-shooting spin the normal Lichen Colony uses, they can summon large thorns from the ground in a large area around them. To make it worse, they love using a FlashStep to ground thorn combo. Their appearance is usually preventable, but some rooms seem engineered to force one (Lichen Colony+4 normal lichens behind two rows of stone blocks, anyone?), or, in tier 3, ''start with them''.
* BreatherLevel: Treasure Vaults. No enemies except for a smattering of Chromalisks, pleasant scenery, treasure boxes and crowns everywhere. As a bonus, getting a Treasure Vault level usually means ''not'' getting an [[MultiMookMelee Arena]] or worse, a [[DeathWorld Graveyard.]]
** It's worth noting that, while Treasure Vaults are certainly the least ''dangerous'' of those three level types, they're also typically the least ''profitable''. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Fo4DZiWdU Catchy music, though...]]
* BreathWeapon: Zombies have literal versions. Gun Puppies and Kats also fire bullets from their mouths, although the Gun Puppy at least has the excuse of being a construct.
* BribingYourWayToVictory: Energy is the secondary currency of the game, used for everything from moving down dungeon levels to resurrecting your character to crafting items. You're limited to a (quickly exhausted) daily allotment of 100 of the free Mist Energy, but you can purchase unlimited quantities of Crystal Energy.
** Mist Energy regenerates 100 points over 22 hours to a maximum of 100; 4.545 energy every hour (slightly under 1 energy per 13 minutes). Crystal Energy prices, in contrast, have approached 6,000 crowns per tank-of-100-CE.
** Finally: some actions (alchemy; "[[InterchangeableAntimatterKeys Silver Keys]]" for Lockboxes) require huge investments of Energy. A single piece of Tier-5 equipment requires ''800'' Energy at a go, which is upwards of 40,000 crowns, in addition to 25K for the recipe, a 5K crafting fee, and maybe more if you bought reagents at the auction house... and you'll want all five pieces of Tier-5 gear eventually. Making that many crowns is certainly possible, but shelling out cash is way more practical.
** The Elevator Pass (making all levels cost no energy to go to) is only available as a purchase for real money, and its mere announcement caused CE prices to rise due to speculation.
** Expansion Missions (the first one containing exclusive, untradable equipment) can only be purchased with real money, although with Steam it's possible to trade for it.
* BulletHell: Branching spawn triggers in Arenas mean that you can sometimes have up to sixteen Gun Puppies at the same time. In T3 they fire 5 bullets every time they attack.
* {{Cap}}: These are put in place in the earlier stratas for your gear (i.e. a 5* sword will do only slightly more damage over a 1* sword in the first strata, but keep gaining power in strata 2 and beyond). They HandWave it by saying that the Core powers everything including your gear, so the closer to the Core you get the more your gear powers up.
* CameraScrew: See FakeDifficulty. This is especially evident during the fight with Lord Vanaduke- both his strongest minions and many of his attacks have high damage but long start up times before they attack, and if you can't see them then the attack will probably hit you without you having any time to do anything about it.
* CasualDangerDialog: Pit Bosses just walk around the brawls while saying stuff like "Looks like someone's getting a promotion." and "We can use a guy like you in management." to power-up their allies.
* CharacterLevel: Characters don't level up, but their equipment does, and the level of your gear is the standard by which {{Broken Bridge}}s are repaired.
* ChargedAttack: Every single weapon has one of these and can be charged up by holding down the attack button. Though, each weapon has differing charge times and can have different effects.
** Bombs can only be placed down after charging them. If you fail to charge them all the way, you'll simply put the bomb back down without placing it.
** All enemies have specific animations they go through whilst preparing to attack, accompanied by a distinctive three-pronged aura underneath them indicating where they will attack to. As the tiers get higher, the amount of time they ''play'' these charging animations gets shorter...
* {{Chiptune}}: Some tracks mix chiptune and conventional instruments.
* ChoiceOfTwoWeapons: Players start with two weapon slots [[hottip:*:Temporary extra slots are buyable with a small amount of Crystal Energy]], and can use whatever weapons they wish to in both slots. The starting loadout is TheMusketeer, with a bomb available from the first mission.
* CirclingStars: This combined with a gong means that someone just got Stunned.
* CollapsingCeilingBoss: Lord Vanaduke's attacks usually cause flaming rubble to fall from the ceiling.
* ColorCodedMultiplayer: You can select this at character creation. While this has an effect on the colors of your armor, the main difference is the player's dot on the minimap.
* {{Combos}}: ''Very'' useful as with swords, if all hits connect, then the last hit will knock down or flinch the enemy.
* ContinuingIsPainful: Continuing (by yourself, or when everyone is defeated) costs energy. It costs [X] (which is determined by what Tier of dungeon you're in) and doubles every time you die. Needless to say, you're not supposed to waste energy.
* TheCorruption: The Swarm.
* CuteMachines: Love Puppies. Especially when you read the description for the True Love Locket they drop.
* CycleOfHurting: One of the biggest threats in Tier 3, due to perfect status infliction rates. Get hit by enemy with the Shock attribute, get paralyzed by Shock, get hit by another enemy with Shock, get paralyzed by Shock being reapplied, repeat until dead. Or: Step on freeze floor, watch health drain off as the trap reapplies Freeze to keep you there.
* DamageSpongeBoss: The Royal Jelly, not really because of a massive health pool, but because it regenerates its HP by absorbing its minions.
* [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Dangerous Forbidden Sword]]: The [[MeaningfulName Faust and Gran Faust]] swords have some of the highest stats of any weapon in the game, but conversely have a chance to Curse the user when using the charge attack, which damages them if they use certain weapons. Similarly the Fang of Vog has a chance of setting the player on Fire.
* DarknessEqualsDeath: If you wander into the dark areas of Candlestick Keep, a [[InvincibleMinorMinion Grimalkin]] will form and start hunting you until you reach a lit area.
* DeathOfAThousandCuts: The Cutter line of swords does lots of little hits. One of the more popular sword lines, since it's very good at "juggling" groups of foes.
* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: In groups, downed players can be revived by other players by receiving half of their remaining health. Unless the group as a whole is lacking in healing supplies and hearts, death tends to be more inconvenient than punishing. Death can actually be beneficial to others, by transferring Heat from a player that doesn't need it to a player that does.
* [[DieChairDie Die Bush Die]]: Bushes (and similar decoration objects) may drop money or hearts. Obstacle boxes drop nothing, but they may be hiding buttons for unlocking doors.
* DifficultButAwesome: The Blitz Needle, Callahan, Radiant Sun Shards, Sudaruska, Dread Venom Striker, and to a lesser extent piercing-type swords. All of them are difficult to aim/control, or leave you open for a fair bit (or both), but have very worthwhile effects and damage if you can control them effectively.
* DodgeTheBullet: Certain enemies start jumping around all over the place the moment a projectile gets anywhere near them, and most projectiles are slow enough to miss. It's also almost always possible for the player to do this consistently, assuming they haven't stumbled into BulletHell.
* DoNotRunWithAGun: Your character walks a lot slower when firing/charging most guns, and comes to a complete halt to unleash a charge attack and to fire certain guns (i.e. the Autogun line)
* DropTheHammer: Gremlins tend to try to smash you with hammers made out of their wrenches. Warmaster Seerus wields a rocket hammer that can be obtained by the player.
* DualBoss: The Roarmulus Twins (both their normal and Shadow Lair variants) and the Rabid Snarbolaxes. Only in the latter case do they have separate health.
* DungeonShop: Perhaps the most important feature of the midpoint levels is the recipe merchant.
* EldritchAbomination: Possibly the Snarbolax.
** The Swarm. So far the only members of the swarm that have been seen are all located in the shadow lair and are unkillable, and send wave after wave of corrupted monsters after you that drop nothing and continuously respawn. The echo logs at the end of each boss in the shadow lair describe it as "endless hunger", "a darkness", and "neither beast nor god, it is a creation unlike all."
* EldritchLocation: The Shadow Lairs [[spoiler:and the floor that comes after the boss]].
* ElementalRockPaperScissors: There are 3 damage types; Shadow, Piercing, and Elemental (plus normal which is average against everything). Each of the 6 enemy types is resistant to one, neutral to one, and weak to one, and deal different types to the players depending on their family type. [[StandardStatusEffects Fire]] deals normal and Shock deals elemental.
* EmptyRoomPsych: The maps have plenty of dead ends, some at the end of long detours from the main route. However, all will, at the very least, have enemies, treasure boxes, or minerals.
* EnergyEconomy
* EternalEngine: The ''entire'' planet can be considered one.
* EverythingFades: Robots explode, beasts and fiends vanish in a puff of smoke, and zombies disintegrate. Item drops stay until picked up, but uncollected hearts blink out of existence after a time. The only enemies that don't disappear are Gremlins and Zombies, if there is something around that might revive them (Grim Totems or Gremlin Healers in Tier 3).
* EvolvingWeapon: Not just with weapons, almost all pieces of equipment (except Vitapods and Trinkets) evolve by gaining heat, which is gained primarily through killing the Clockworks enemies. All pieces of equipment start from level 1, and can reach a max of level 10. With each level, stats for each piece of equipment grow, and when some milestones (of levels) are attained, some bonus effects are added (e.g., decreased ChargeAttack time, faster attack speed, higher elemental defence).
** Most higher tier items need their lower tier equivalent as part of the crafting recipe, and at a certain level for 4 and 5 star items to boot.
* [[ExplodingBarrels Exploding Cubes]]
* {{Expy}}: The PvP mode Blast Network is {{Bomberman}} in all but name.
* TheFaceless: The knights' faces are always either hidden in shadow or obscured by their helmet if it covers their face (i.e., the Wolver line helmets). At first glance they look like robots but the description of several items and the existence of the Mecha Knights confirms that they're organic.
* FakeDifficulty: The heavy delays and lag spikes that accompany almost every Clockwork run make the game even harder than it would normally be, causing a lot of unforseen damage. This is especially apparant with T3 Devilites: They attack very fast but can easily be interrupted by damage, which basically is the key in fighting them, next to shielding of course. One will need clairvoyance to actually do that with the delay though. Their sheer number and jumping around will also often screw up the auto-targetting, causing knights to flail after a different enemy than the one they want.
** The camera is fixed at such a perspective that much more space above the Knight is visible than below. This makes it extremely difficult fighting ranged enemies from above, since the projectiles will be much closer to you by the time you can see them, and you have to close to dangerous distances to even target them. Additionally, enemies with heavy hitting long-reach attacks (such as Lumbers and Grimalkins) can wind up on you without seeing them if you're at just the wrong distance. Maps tend not to lead you top-down too often, but it does happen, and it also affects arena strategy.
** It can be difficult to judge a horizontally-traveling projectile's exact location, since Knights and monsters are more than 1 tile high. This is particularly true when they're flying over non-uniform terrain or empty space. And worst when the projectile is fired from a different elevation, in which case a projectile that looks 3 tiles above a space could actually just be drawn very high, and hit the Knight there.
** The Roarmulus Twin levels are especially infamous for how laggy and stuttery they are. Considering the lag is caused by high-explosive rockets flying in all directions that you have to dodge, often while fighting things, the end results are often [[ThatOneLevel unpleasant for many people]].
** Retrodes were a big cause for this before the Jan 4, 2012 patch being infamous for taking decent sized chunks off of anyone near them almost immediately after they spawned, though the nerf they and other enemies got in that patch might have been overkill depending on who you ask.
* FireballEyeballs: Devilite Overtimers have them.
* FrickinLaserBeams: The signature attack of Retrodes, which does a lot of damage and inflicts status if the Retrode is elemental. Also possessed by the Roarmulus Twins after they [[TurnsRed reach their third phase]].
* FriendlyFireproof:
** Averted for some enemies: Lumbers, Trojans, Rocket Puppies, and shocked Quicksilvers will all happily kill other mobs if you line it up just right. The Ice Cube and Blast Cube monsters effectively turn into bombs upon death. Played straight for the players (however, they can still hurt each other by shooting an explosive cube next to someone, or by pushing mobs into allies).
** Partially averted for summoned Mecha Knights. While their normal attacks can't hurt players, they occasionally suffer from Shock and can spread it to nearby players.
* GirlishPigtails: The Spiral Tailed Helm, Emberbreak Helm, Firebreak Helm, and Blazebreak Helm have these attached to it.
* GlassCannon: The Mad Bomber set causes this. You become weaker to the four main status effects, but each piece gives two levels (out of six) of charge time reduction and damage bonus for bombs. The Chaos set used to be this before being nerfed.
** The Wolver set and Bristling Buckler is a mild example, having lower defense than other sets in exchange for increased sword damage.
** The Swiftstrike Buckler is a shield that gives you 3 levels of attack speed increase, but since it's a 3 star equip and there are no higher versions of it, you trade in a lot of defense potential.
** The Striker in Lockdown is this combined with a FragileSpeedster: Boosted sword damage and speed, a dash ability, base health in T3 (compared to Recon +10 and Guardian +12).
* GreenHillZone: Aurora Isles, Jigsaw Valley, and Treasure Vault levels. May or may not have the simplicity that a Green Hill Zone implies.
* GunTwirling: How you [[UnorthodoxReload reload]] most of the guns.
* GunsAreWorthless: Subverted. They don't dispatch enemies nearly as fast as swords do, but range advantage is often worth it (especially when fighting Vanaduke). They are also a good means of hitting switches or explosive cubes at a safe distance, and may be used to lure enemies into areas more suitable for players to fight in.
** Played straight however with the gear meant for gunslingers with lower defenses and weaker secondary benefits then their bomber and swordsman counterparts.
* HardModePerks: Playing on higher tiers gives you more crowns so you can purchase more recipes and Crystal Energy and more heat so you can upgrade your weapons faster. The second half of any tier is much more profitable than the first half, too.
* HeartContainer: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]].
** Most armors/helmets also give you health bonuses, as well as certain trinkets. However, as with other gear, these bonuses only become active past a certain depth of dungeon.
** There are also "Vitapods," which increase the owner's health bar by the number specified on the pod. However, they're immediately dropped once you leave the Clockworks--meaning you need a new one for every single dungeon crawl. (This is not as irritating as it sounds, as they drop fairly frequently ''and'', if you start from Moorcroft Manor or Emberlight, can be purchased from in-town vendors.)
* HelpfulMook: The rare version of the Gun Puppy family, the Love Puppy, heals you. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential And then you kill them for the health trinkets they can drop]].
* HerdHittingAttack: Bombs. The Shock status effect also hits anything around the afflicted when it procs. And yes, there is a bomb capable of inflicting shock.
* HubLevel: Haven (the Arcade, specifically) contains all the gates that lead to the various dungeons of the Clockworks. There are also various checkpoints along the way to let players heal up and prepare for the next stratum.
* {{Invisibility}}: The main power of Recons in Lockdown.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: The player can equip shovels and wrenches to attack enemies with.
* IncrediblyLamePun: A few of the level names fall into this, like Everybody's Fired and Hiring Freeze[[hottip:*:Devilite levels, fire- and ice-based]].
* InterchangeableAntimatterKeys: Most apparent in the Deconstruction Zone and the second part of the Royal Jelly's palace, as well as Silver Keys for players' lockboxes.
* JackOfAllStats: The items you get from Kozma (which seem to be standard-issue from their flavor text) are this. The defense items all provide health bonuses and defend against piercing damage, but none of the items have any elemental or status modifiers (good or bad), meaning equipping only them gives you high health and defense against a common damage type, but vanilla attack damage and no defense against status effects or elements.
** The weapons are a {{Subversion}}; they lack elemental or status damage, but when fully upgraded their specialty is ''knockback'', and they do it very well.
* KaizoTrap: Has since been fixed, but Ironclaw Munitions Factory had a nasty one for a couple of hours after being added: The lasers that covered the hallway to the boss elevator were invisible, and since you have to lower the fences blocking the lasers to get to the elevator... For a lesser version, the Royal Jelly's minions don't die until after his somewhat long death animation finishes playing so they can kill you before NoOntologicalInertia kicks in.
* LagCancel: Shield Canceling: Using your shield before the end of a standard combo or right after a charge attack cancels the rest of the animation. Like all other shield techniques, very important to survival.
* LethalLavaLand: One of the various areas in the Clockworks.
** Firestorm Citadel is arguably the most difficult of LethalLavaLand levels if not the most difficult levels in the game as it is.
* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: The Game. Skillful use of your shield is vital to surviving: it not only allows you to absorb a certain amount of damage without harm, but the shield-bubble applies a knockback to all nearby foes, allowing you to push them towards something (a Wolver bell) or just away from you. Trojans, Mecha Knights, and Darkfang Thwackers also carry shields to block attacks with.
** RegeneratingHealth: The shield-bubble can only take so much pounding before it [[BreakableWeapons caves in]]. It will come back after 8 seconds, and regenerates up to its full defense value any time it isn't being actively wielded.
* MagikarpPower: The items you can trade for Jelly Gems for are this. The Sealed Sword, a heavy sword with a rather unreliable charged attack, can be eventually upgraded into the Divine Avenger [[hottip:*:Uses a triple SwordBeam attack, giving the user a way to wear down an entire mob at once from range.]] or the Faust [[hottip:*:Inflicts Curse, which causes the enemy to take damage if they do something that isn't moving around.]]. The [[RevolversAreJustBetter Antigua]] can become an Argent Peacemaker [[hottip:*:Often agreed to be the best gun to bring to Firestorm Citadel since it destroys undead and allows the user to remain very mobile. Also wrecks the annoying Fiend types.]] or a Sentenza [[hottip:*:The double subversion, since the weapon is supposed to destroy Beast- and Gremlin-types... except both types contain mobs that specifically dodge gunfire. It turns out it's great for Lockdown though.]]
* MeaningfulName: The Faust and Gran Faust both refer to, well, ''{{Faust}}''- they deal shadow damage and have a chance to curse you for a long time if you use their charge attack, referencing the archetypal DealWithTheDevil.
* MightyGlacier: Guardians in Lockdown: The Guardian Shield ability not only makes them about twice as hard to kill as anyone else, they can shield allies and even heal on the field. They possess the highest health of the three classes, and slight boosts to Sword and Bomb use. They are also the slowest movers on the field.
* MultiMookMelee: Arena levels, any of the Danger Rooms. The amount of enemies spawned can be daunting... and at least one wave will contain foes that are difficult to stagger.
** Royal Jelly Palace is mostly about dealing with large amounts of jello cubes trying to kill you.
* MundaneUtility: The descriptions for some items state they can be used for non-combat purposes, such as the Volcanic Salamander Mask being used as a coffee pot, the Volcanic Salamander Suit being used as a stove, and the Chroma Tear being used as a contact lense.
* {{Nerf}}: The Chaos set (damage bonus but stat weaknesses) and the Royal Jelly boss, among other things.
* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:The ultimate fate of the [[TheSquad Alpha Team]], supposedly one of the best knights the Spiral Knights had to offer. It's said that they found a way into the core and never came out. It's also said that their souls inhabit the bodies of Trojan Knights.]]
* NinjaLooting: At least partially averted. The game is designed to emphasize the CoOpMultiplayer experience.
** Some combination of the following is [[EnoughToGoAround administered to all party members]] regardless of who actually picks them up: [[GlobalCurrency crowns]], tokens, [[ExperiencePoints heat]] and [[PowerCrystal minerals]]. (The game's manual says all of them are, but this claim is contradicted by in-game observation.) [[HeartsAreHealth Healing Hearts]] are also instanced for convenience.
** [[ItemCrafting Alchemy reagents]] are [[RandomNumberGod assigned randomly]], which (in theory) should result in even distribution.
** [[StandardRPGItems Healing capsules, attack vials]] and [[HeartContainer Vitapods]] are competition-worthy, and all of them except the last [[EverythingFades are dropped upon exiting the dungeon]] anyhow.
** On the rare occasions that actual equipment is dropped, LootDrama ''can'' result, but compared to all the rest, that's not too bad.
* NintendoHard: Some of the lower depths can become this - ''especially'' the Tier 3 ones. Also, all danger rooms apply, due to the abundance of spikes and few safe walking locations - not to mention, all the [[GoddamnedBats ene]][[DemonicSpiders mies]]...
** Though you're already going to hate Tier ''2'' when you first enter it. Hell, Tier '''1''' is pretty difficult with your starting equipment.
* NoConservationOfMass: The Royal Jelly spits out mini-jellies periodically in battle, at no cost to itself. It then absorbs these jellies now and then for health.
* NonLethalKO: The Knights themselves only get knocked down no matter what hits them. Any nearby Knight can help them up. They even continue to blink while downed.
* NoOntologicalInertia: The Royal Jelly's death also causes every other enemy in the room to splat.
** Though you need to beat them both down, destroying one of the Roarmulus Twins automatically destroys the other.
* NoOSHACompliance: The Ironclaw Munitions Factory has electric floors and rocket launchers set up along its corridors. Worker safety is not top priority for gremlins.
* NotCompletelyUseless: Poison in general is a very underwhelming status effect, lowering enemy attack power (when the best defense is to not get hit in the first place) and preventing them from being healed (when there are usually more attractive options for neutralizing healers). It is all but necessary, however, for dealing with the Royal Jelly, who heals rapidly and is easily capable of outhealing an unprepared party.
** Also goes for when it's applied to players. Just avoid getting hit until it wears off and don't attempt to use healing items in that period. Unlike poison in most other games, it causes no damage by itself.
** Poisoned enemies also take more and deal less damage, making it only semi-useless.
* ObviousRulePatch: The May 17 update had a couple. While the Basil change [[hottip:*:Teleporting to Basil would cause his entire inventory to empty out except for 1* items]] was quickly accepted, the binding rule change [[hottip:*:A bound equip would carry over its bound status to any equip made with it. Motive seemed to be plugging a massive BribingYourWayToVictory possibility.]] causes uproars due to coming out of nowhere and leaving a bunch of people with equips they were planning to sell but no longer could.
** In addition, the more appreciated AFK kicker for the Blast Network.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The [[XtremeKoolLetterz Kats]] are ghosts. Phantoms also apply.
* PathOfMostResistance: Arena levels have three stages, and you can proceed to the next depth after finishing any stage, but most players do all three stages for the mass of crowns earned in the process, [[ShmuckBait whether they're prepared or not]]. Many players will also wait for arena levels before going down an elevator for this reason.
** Danger Rooms are optional areas (with energy locks) that are basically a long, difficult arena stage, including the massive crown payoff afterward.
** Despite being a random draw, this is why some people prefer Graveyards over Treasure Vaults. Once you can deal with Phantoms, all that is left are element-neutral zombies with predictable spawns. And a ''lot'' of them.
* PersonalSpaceInvader: Zombies have a leaping attack that causes this if (and that is a ''huge'' if) they connect.
* PlayerPreferredPattern:
** Vog Cub, Owlite or Thorn shield, Gran Faust/Divine Avenger, Polaris, Krogmo trinkets. There is some variation, but expect to see those a ''lot''.
** Wolver sets! People love 'em.
*** Gets to the point of painful ComplacentGamingSyndrome in Lockdown due to the set in combination with the Striker class making you an almost untouchable GlassCannon.
* PlayingWithFire: Fire is an element that both the player and enemies can use.
* PointOfNoReturn: Party buttons act like this per level, as they cause a gate to appear behind you when you step on them to open the gate in front of you.
* PowerupLetdown: Weapons paths that deal lesser damage for an improved bonus vs a certain enemy type (i.e. Cautery Sword, Cold Iron series, Heavy Deconstructor) tend to be this as the lesser damage vs everything else is too great to ignore (although there can be other potential benefits, such as Cold Iron's charge attack being able to reliably hit more)
* PressXToDie: The effect of the Curse status effect. As a bonus, the most common way for a player to be afflicted with Curse is using the Faust or Gran Faust's charge attack.
* PunchedAcrossTheRoom: Lumbers do this to anything they hit. The player can do this to lighter enemies with heavy swords and the Calibur's charged combo.
* PurpleIsTheNewBlack: Shadow-based weaponry and attacks are usually purple (one notable exception being the Faust and Gran Faust, which are burgundy). Shadow damage and defense is also depicted by a purple meter.
* RandomlyGeneratedLevels: Partly subverted, as the overall theme of the level can be decided by the number of crystals deposited in a certain terminal. The rest is random and cycles with time though.
** The levels themselves are not randomly generated, but which level you get next often is, unless you happen upon a string of connected levels (usually leading up to a boss).
* ReverseShrapnel: The Dark Reprisal bomb causes a bunch of dark projectiles to spin around the bomb's detonation point, constantly damaging enemies that run into it.
* RewardingVandalism: In classic Zelda style. Some of the destroyable objects even strongly resemble similar objects from Zelda.
* RecursiveAmmo: The Alchemer series of handguns uses elemental bullets that also split up at higher weapon levels.
** Lord Vanaduke's mask, in his second and fourth stages, shoot large bullets that whirl around and shoot streams of smaller bullets.
* {{Retirony}}: Mentioned in the description of the Blackhawk gun. "...It's said to contain the soul of a knight who was only two days from retirement."
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Snipes. Please don't step on them.
* RoyalRapier: The Flourish series. It even replaces normal damage with piercing damage.
* RuleThirtyFour: Yes, it exists. [[FurryFandom For some reason]], gremlins are the biggest victims in this case. And of course, wolvers and the Snarbolax.
** Just look at the [[http://media.spiralknights.com/v/20110814022124/images/wallpaper/imf/spiral_knights_imf_1024x768.jpg official]] [[http://media.spiralknights.com/v/20110814022124/images/wallpaper/snarbolax/spiral_knights_snarbolax_1024x768.jpg artwork]]. They're cute!
* {{Salaryman}}: The Devilites. They throw office supplies at you.
* SchizoTech
* ShieldBash: Shielding for a half second causes all enemies surrounding the player to be knocked back. This trick is just as important as actually blocking attacks to surviving. It even works if your [[FridgeLogic shield is broken]].
* ShootTheMedicFirst: [[MookMedic Silkwings and Gremlin Menders]] are capable of healing their allies, which are probably beating on you at the same time. Both are very dangerous if left alone; The Silkwing heals enemies by touch, meaning it can heal enemies fast, and Menders get area heals and even a Revive in higher tiers.
* ShoutOut: Lots.
** The "Sentenza" gun is said to have been wielded by one who possessed "[[TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly angel eyes]]".
** One of the "Wolver Den" levels is "[[{{Rayman}} Raving Rabids]].
** Also The "Nameless Poncho" is a shout-out to the DollarsTrilogy. The creators seem to love those movies.
** The [[CosmeticAward Achievement]] for defeating the Snarbolax is [[LewisCarroll "O Frabjous Day!"]].
** One of the monsters in the Jelly line is called the Jelly Green Giant, after the Jolly Green Giant of canned and frozen veggie fame.
** They even pulled it off ''[[BeyondTheImpossible in an advertisement.]]'' Take a look at [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SpiralKnights_ShoutOut_TheLegendOfZelda_7607.JPG this]] and don't even ''dare'' to say you didn't get [[TheLegendOfZelda such a blatant reference.]]
** The Magnus's 5 star form is called the [[DirtyHarry Callahan]]. The descriptions also reference this.
** The Radiant Silvermail sounds very similar to RadiantSilvergun.
** There's a technologically-inclined NPC Knight named [[SamAndMax Bosco]] in the western part of Haven.
** The description for the Heavy Demo Helm notes it "...might be handy if you, [[ResidentEvil the master of exploding]], take it with you."
** The Voltedge's charge attack delivers a [[BackToTheFuture 1.21 gigawatt]] shock.
** A subtle holiday-themed one with the Nightblade's upgrade, ''Silent Night''blade.
** The Spiral Pith Helm, instead of looking like a proper archaeologist's pith helm, instead resembles the much larger one worn in the desert by [[{{Spaceballs}} another figure]] fond of wearing dark, oversized helmets.
** The achievement for hitting an opponent with a snowball is "[[{{Elf}} Son of a Nutcracker!]]".
** A new set of armor for buying SonicCD on Steam or an energy pack will net you a suit of armor resembling a certain metallic doppleganger. Buying an energy pack at half that cost gives you an accessory that lets your knight sport a familiar pair of fox tails.
* ShovelStrike: The Slime Slasher weapon, a beginner's... uh... "sword".
* ShowsDamage: The Roarmulus Twins start breaking down when they take enough damage, signaling a phase change. Vanaduke's mask also does this, completely shattering after the second bullet phase.
* SituationalSword: The Cautery Sword, which is useless not only because of CripplingOverspecialization, but because you can turn a Brandish (the base for Cautery Sword) into a Nightblade, which does the job better.
* SlippySlideyIceWorld
* SmashMook: Lumbers are huge constructs that can club you with their tree trunk of an arm. Has pretty good range and can stun you, so get out of the way or block. While the attack does speed up as you go deeper, they suffer from a cooldown that is long enough to allow two melee combos if you evade.
* SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear: People, when you need to leave your party, please remember to drop any useful items you might have before entering an end-of-level elevator.
* SpikesOfDoom: Spikes, brambles, ''poisoned'' brambles... All of those are annoying obstacles that do more damage in later levels and that enemies often use as cover, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard since they aren't harmed by them.]]
** For extra fun, spikes can be hidden under certain blocks. Not only can you easily step on them right as you destroy the blocks they were hidden under, you just removed an obstacle for the monsters nearby.
** Jelly cubes were eventually updated to be covered in spikes (in order to justify a gelatinous cube dealing piercing damage, presumably), and can summon spikes from the ground.
* SpinAttack: The Calibur series of swords has this as their charged attack. The Royal Jelly also goes invulnerable, TurnsRed, and spins around the area when it has been weakened enough.
** The Fang of Vog adds an IncendiaryExponent to the Calibur charge, allowing it to set both user and enemy on fire.
* StandardStatusEffects: Curse (take damage if you use marked weapons), Fire (drains HP), Freeze (can't move or turn), Poison (decreased attack, can't heal), Shock (damage and induces flinching), Sleep (can't do anything, but you regenerate), and Stun (decreased move and attack speed) are available. The player actually gets stronger variations of some effects, like Freeze inflicting damage if the enemy "thaws out".
* StunGuns: You have the actual Stun Guns which are low tier weapons that can stun, and then you have the Magnus, which are essentially more powerful two-shot punch guns with a chance of stun.
* SuicideAttack: Howlitzers. Once the base is destroyed, the skull falls off and attempts to charge someone before exploding.
* SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: In case that skull on the elevator monitor didn't tip you off, the health pads right before a party button (that spawns the boss) should.
* SwirlyEnergyThingy: The Graviton Bomb and its more powerful upgrade, the Graviton Vortex.
** And now the Electron Charge and its upgrades.
* SwordBeam: The Avenger series of swords has these included in the charge attack. They're shaped like giant glowing swords and explode after flying a short distance.
** The Faust also the same, except the 5-star version instead of shooting 3 beams like the Divine Avenger, shoots one huge sword beam. The Faust's charge can also curse you unlike the Avenger.
** Winmillion, a 4-Star sword that cannot be upgraded, shoots a beam with every slash. Arguably a LethalJokeWeapon that provides bombers with consistent damage in melee and the utility of a ranged weapon in a single weapon slot. Not to mention a good substitute for a gun if you're going for a pure swordsman set.
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: The three weapon types; swords do high single target damage at close range, guns do low single target at long range, and bombs do moderate damage in a circular area but only work after charging them. There's many weapons of each type, however, including a bomb that works like a gun, a sword that works like a bomb, two guns that work like bombs in different ways, 2 swords that fire projectiles, and numerous other variations.
* TeleportingKeycardSquad: Some keys are set so monsters appear the moment a party member gets within grabbing distance.
* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: By selecting the head with molded steel GirlishPigtails.
* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: Firestorm Citadel, a five-floor gauntlet that serves as Tier 3's only boss dungeon, is the closest thing there is to this trope. Presumably, the Core will be one, if it opens.
* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Bombs are one of the three weapon types. They specialize in [=AoE=] damage or status infliction.
* TrojanHorse: A Trojan Knight is a living knight statue with a horse head. It's a type of enemy that can only be defeated by attacking its back. It may rarely drop a kind of material called the [[AWorldwidePunomenon Trojan Horseshoe]].
* TurnsRed: When its HP gets low, the Royal Jelly turns pink and starts spinning all over the arena, doing much more damage than before, and only stops for a few seconds at a time for you to attack it.
** If a Devilite Pit Boss walks up to a normal Devilite and tells it that it has to work overtime, they start glowing and throw pitchforks that cause debuffs instead of office supplies, as well as gaining a close-range melee attack.
*** Alternatively, the Pit Bosses can turn other Devilites into Yes Men, who stand around the pit bosses and heal them. If a Pit Boss dies near a Yes Man, it TurnsRed and starts attacking you.
* UnorthodoxReload: Most guns do this via GunTwirling, the remainder just eject spent shells without loading in new ones.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: A few enemies use the same equips that the players use, but will never actually drop them. This was especially prevalent with the Blackened Crest being used by Vanaduke's guards, as some players believed the item was impossible to get despite being the prerequisite to the Crest of Almire. [[hottip:*:Eventually, it was found in a tier 2 treasure chest, and has since been added to the token shop.]]
** Interestingly averted with three Gremlin items: The Wrench Wand, Thwack Hammer, and the ultra rare Darkfang Shield, which is ONLY from random drops. The Deconstructor bomb line may also count; it looks similar to the Gremlin bombs, and shows a Darkfang emblem in the explosion but isn't quite as identical as the other equips.
* {{Unwinnable}}: Sometimes, ghost blocks[[hottip:*:When hit, these make the contiguous set of blocks touching it vanish]] appear with respawning unbreakable blocks. A careless knight (or party of knights) can get trapped [[http://oi54.tinypic.com/24d3nlc.jpg once the blocks respawn.]]
* UnsoundEffect: These accompany the onset of any of the StandardStatusEffects, along with the zombie revival mechanic.
* [[XMeetsY X Meets Y Meets Z Meets Potential 27th Letter of the Alphabet]]:
** The game itself is ''TheLegendOfZelda'' meets ''{{Diablo}}'', ''{{Bomberman}}'', ''PhantasyStarOnline'' and [[FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]].
** And the map layouts are like an inverted [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks Spirit Tower]] or [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass Oceanus' temple]].
** Then there's the [=PvP=] mode Lockdown, with class mods that give abilities like sprinting at the cost of low health, or the ability to go invisible and negate opponent's armor/defense. Combine this with the main objective being Control Points/Domination and this seems like Spiral Knights meets ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' with a dash of ''ModernWarfare''.
** The Iron Lockboxes and their keys are also rather reminiscent of ''Team Fortress 2''.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Heat Amplifiers. While some items (4 and 5 stars in particular) do take a lot of heat (item XP) to level, the 800 energy amplifiers cost would earn you more heat (plus other stuff) if spent on runs, and that CE would last longer buying 2 Weapon and 2 Trinket Slot upgrades which last a month instead of 48 hours.
* YesMan: They are small and green guys who heal the Pit Bosses, only spawned in the first place when a Pit Boss compliments a Devilite. Normally they won't attack the players, but if their boss is killed they will turn into an Overtimer.
* YourHeadAsplode: Mecha Knights' heads explode upon death.
* YourMoneyIsNoGoodHere: Brinks takes the tokens you get from treasure boxes and bosses. His shop also holds many unique equips and trinkets.
** The same goes for things bought with Krogmo coins. This is at least justified by the MiniGameZone nature of where you get them, and the rich king who runs it.
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Normally, boss fights come right at the end of a particular tier, so once you've defeated a boss, you're home free. However, once you beat a boss from the Shadow Lairs after a line of grueling dungeons and intense battles, and are ready to head back up and celebrate... [[ItGotWorse Welcome to the Unknown Passage.]]
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