History VideoGame / Tyrian

* CriticalAnnoyance: A klaxon sounds when your ship is low on armor and gets faster as you get closer to death.

* OutrunTheFireball: The destruction of the brain boss on BRAINIAC causes a massive energy surge that is shown in-game as a ''extremely'' lengthy ChainReactionDestruction. Trent uses it to perform his ScrewThisImOuttaHere.

* InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons: One of the {{secret character}}s in ''2000'' is a dragon that shoots fire and lightning as its main attacks. Also, Torm had [[OurDragonsAreDifferent worm-like dragons]] that tried to [[RammingAlwaysWorks rush the character]] for heavy damage. The final boss of Episode 2 was also a blue griffin-like dragon.

%%* GatlingGood: The Vulcan Cannon.

%% * LightningGun: The Lightning Cannon.

%%* OnlySaneMan: Or so Trent would like to think.

%%* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Trent himself at the end of Episode 4, after having just about ''enough'' of [[spoiler:Transon Lohk using him for whatever crisis happens to be going on at the time.]]

%%* SequentialBoss: The FinalBoss of Episode 1, the Dreadnaught and [[spoiler:[[BodyHorror Vykromod]]]] of Episode 4, amongst others.

* ForbiddenZone: PlayedForLaughs and BlackComedy in the Travel Tip datacube for Deliani:

* ArtShift: Episode 5, exclusively in Tyrian 2000, due to a different art director. Justified{{trope}} due to it taking place [[TimeSkip a century after the events in Episode 4]].

** [[spoiler:Javi's]] Dreadnaught in Episode 4. The game actually makes a set of green arrows pointing to the vulnerable part(s). [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by an explanation from one of your allies in a datacube prior to the mission, stating that he has a scanner that is strong enough to transmit the weak point of the Dreadnought to your ship, indicating them with green arrows. The Dreadnaught's vulnerability is also justified{{trope}} in-universe as its shielding being disrupted by a gravity field, thus when systems are activated, it draws a lot of power from the shields.

** Once fully upgraded, the Guided Micro Bombs spam the screen with a lot of miniature homing bombs that, via DeathOfAThousndCuts, do high saturation damage, making them a fantastic auxiliary weapon against single targets. The issue with them is that they are rarely found in the shop, you have no control over them if you're trying to focus fire on one target, and the more commonly available Heavy Guided Bombs can do what they can, but with quality over quantity.

Three iterations of the game were released. Version 1.x contained three episodes (with the first being released for free, as was common among shareware publishers in the '90s) and chronicled Trent's escape from Tyrian and his hunt for the Microsol invasion fleet. Version 2.x added a few extra levels to Episode 1 as well as a new fourth episode featuring a raid on the research planet Ixmucane. A later re-release, ''Tyrian 2000'' (Version 3.0), added a short fifth episode. Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance ports were started but never released. ROM images of these uncompleted games are available from the author's website. An iPhone- and iPod touch-compatible applet based on Version 2.1 is also available.

It is freeware since 2004. The official page of author Jason Emery no longer exists (and was quite sparse), so it's better to refer to [[http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/ this excellent fansite]] or [[http://tyrian.wikia.com this excellent wiki]]. Since 2010, it is also available on [[http://www.gog.com/game/tyrian_2000 GOG.com]], with the game's music encoded into a collection of [=MP3=] files (about 12 times as large, disk-space-wise, as the game itself) as a bonus download. [[http://lostgarden.com/2007/04/free-game-graphics-tyrian-ships-and.html Even the graphics were released with an open license]]. A source port of the game from Pascal to C, called ''[[https://bitbucket.org/opentyrian/opentyrian/wiki/Home OpenTyrian]]'', is available for many platforms and consoles; [[https://github.com/KScl/opentyrian2000 OpenTyrian2000]], a fork of ''[=OpenTyrian=]'' that supports ''Tyrian 2000'', is also available.

** The Mega Pulse (found only in the Full Game mode through the shop) starts relatively weak despite its unique property to split into smaller shots whenever it hits something, but when fully upgraded its strength is on par with the Laser as it's a triple blast with the center blast splitting into fireballs and the side shots splitting into a cluster of dual-pulse cannon shots. Combine this with a maxed out Rear Mega Pulse to create a mini [[BulletHell Bullet Hell]] whenever your ship is surrounded by multiple targets. Alternatively, it goes well with the Sonic Wave, letting you shower enemies in deadly Holiday colors.

** Holes is another choice between Soh Jin and the easier Bubbles. It's nightmare depending on what difficulty level you've selected. On [[HarderThanHard Lord of the Game]], your ship is probably still very under-powered as this is will be your second stage. The enemies spam projectiles like there's no tomorrow. If you had a fully upgraded ship, then maybe this would be a fair fight. The weapons offered in this world's shop might be a [[PowerupLetdown letdown too.]]

** The first bonus level in Episode 3. Aside from the aforementioned green platform ships, it also featured barriers of indestructible orange rings. Most of them move, some of them move very fast, and a couple of sections of the level have walls made of them, with just enough space between the rings for the [[DemonicSpiders sonic wave shooters]] on the other side to fire in at you while large green orbs (fortunately destructible) flew around and forced you to stay on the bottom of the screen. If you don't have side-firing weaponry and/or the Repulsor ability, you'll be dead several times before you can say "Oh crap I died".

* DifficultySpike: Deliani in Episode 1 will show players that the game's no longer pulling its punches. It contains several irritating enemy placements, enemies that fire at you very often like the plethora of turrets, and downright dangerous enemies such as the green platform ships that fire rapidly and have tons of HP. At one point the player will encounter six green platform ships at one go, which can easily cause loss of lives if the player doesn't take care of them quickly.

* FruitOfTheLoon: Fruits play a ridiculously prominent role in this ''futuristic space shooter.'' Fruit has its own weird cult. [[spoiler:The bosses of the last episode of the game? FRUIT.]] To be fair, ale and pretzels do, too. And the hot dog guns. There's even a giant carrot ship whose attacks are all based on foods. Maybe this one should be Foods of the Loon.

* HardLevelsEasyBosses: For some reason, all the bosses in Episode 5 have very little health, allowing you to destroy them in seconds. Especially visible on the "Station" level, where the boss is immediately preceded by a very hard part with several [[DemonicSpiders green platform-like ships]] firing at you from the bottom of the screen while a giant magnet keeps tossing you left and right.

* HumanoidAliens: Pretty much all of the sentient ones, the most prominent examples being the Hazudra Collectors and Emperor Milktoe.

%%* SequentialBoss: The FinalBoss of Episode 1, the Dreadnaught and [[spoiler: [[BodyHorror Vykromod]]]] of Episode 4, amongst others.

* SingleBiomePlanet: Pretty much all of them, PlayedForLaughs in the data cubes:

** ''Tyrian 2000'' includes better Windows support (though it's still a native DOS program), a few new ships and ship parts, and most importantly a new episode (albeit a short one) that wraps up the game's story.
** It also fixes the infamous Turbo Pascal divide-by-zero crash whereby on a computer significantly faster than the state-of-the-art at the time the program crashes immediately. About time.

%%* TwoDSpace: Mostly, very occasionally you can fly under or over something coming at you.

** Reading the cubes fully can occasionally lead to secret levels or side passages that the player would not have access to normally; the Ixmucane crisis in Episode 4 comes to mind here.

* ApocalypseHow: Ixmucane is destroyed Episode 4 if [[spoiler: you fail to defeat the boss in level "Core", or if you beat the boss of "Core" but fail to defeat the boss of "?Tunnel?". In the former case, the planet ''turns into a sun''. In the latter case, the planet freezes over solid -- atmosphere and all.]]
* ArtilleryGame: There's a hidden EasterEgg game called ''Destruct'', which (unusual for the artillery genre) plays in real-time.
* ArtShift: Episode 5, exclusively in Tyrian 2000, due to different art director and also unintentionally justified due to it taking place long after Episode 4 with basically everyone else that was instigating the war between three episodes dead [[spoiler:and the Zinglon cult able to amass a whole battalion of fruit-based fleet]].

** [[spoiler:Javi's]] Dreadnaught in Episode 4. The game actually makes a set of green arrows pointing to the vulnerable part(s). [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by an explanation from one of your allies in a datacube prior to the mission, stating that he has a scanner that is strong enough to transmit the weak point of the Dreadnought to your ship, indicating them with green arrows. Not only that, but there's an in-universe justification for the boss being weak in certain spots -- the shielding on the Dreadnaught is disrupted by a gravity field, and thus when systems are activated it draws a lot of power from the shields.

** Missiles. All of them. They look and sound very nice, and most of them can deliver splash damage, but for whatever reason, they always seem to do a lot less damage than cheaper and easier-to-find weapons such as the Pulse Cannon that you start out with. The Atomic [=RailGun=], your front gun in Super Tyrian mode, also falls into this category as well, more so given that the [[InNameOnly only good thing going for it is its name]].

** ''Tyrian 2000'' gives us the Gencore Solar Shield, which does not draw power from your generator to recharge, but by the time it is available, there is another shield that gives you the same protection for just over half the price, and the drain on the generator isn't really an issue except with constant-fire weapons like the Lightning Cannon and Zica Flamethrower.
** The Guided Micro Bombs are like this in a similar vein to the missiles. For some reason, it's extremely rare to find them in the shop. Their main feature is that fully upgraded, they spam the screen with a lot of miniature bombs that home in on targets automatically and cause little damage. The issue is that you have no control over them when you'd like to focus-fire one target and the more common Heavy Guided Bombs can do what they do but with quality over quantity. It works fine against bosses as they're the only target typically but can make the levels more difficult to complete due to the RandomNumberGod.

%%* BattleshipRaid: Dread-Not is a borderline example.

* BigBad: Microsol

It is freeware since 2004. The official page of author Jason Emery no longer exists (and was quite sparse), so it's better to refer to [[http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/ this excellent fansite]] or [[http://tyrian.wikia.com this excellent wiki]]. Since 2010, it is also available on [[http://www.gog.com/game/tyrian_2000 GOG.com]], with the game's music encoded into a collection of [=MP3=] files (about 12 times as large, disk-space-wise, as the game itself) as a bonus download. [[http://lostgarden.com/2007/04/free-game-graphics-tyrian-ships-and.html Even the graphics were released with an open license.]] A source port of the game from Pascal to C, called ''[[https://bitbucket.org/opentyrian/opentyrian/wiki/Home OpenTyrian]]'', is available for many platforms and consoles.

* FrickinLaserBeams: Any weapon that has "Laser" in its name. Even the projectiles fired by the constant Laser aren't {{hitscan}} like the Soul of Zinglon.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Mega Pulse is easy to find, available as early as the second level via an easy-to-find SecretLevel powerup, and is surprisingly powerful at full power. It is available long before the [[FrickinLaserBeams Zica Laser]], [[WaveMotionGun standard Laser]], and SDF Main Gun yet can feasibly be used for the entire game. It pairs well with the equally accessible rear Sonic Wave, which can be directed to fire four powerful waves forward with the SecondaryFire toggle (once fully upgraded).

* FrickinLaserBeams: Any weapon that has "Laser" in its name. Even the projectiles fired by the constant Laser aren't HitScan like the Soul of Zinglon.

* BonusMaterial: ''Tyrian 2000'' includes a CD soundtrack with 25 tracks from the game, as pointed out on the box. The GOG.com re-release includes a digital soundtrack of 40 tracks from the game in [=MP3=] format, taking ''much'' more disk space than the game itself.

* RereleasedForFree: After XSIV Games, the original distributor and publishers of ''Tyrian 2000'' went bankrupt, the developers opted to re-release the game as freeware in 2004, followed by releasing the game's source code and graphics under an open-source licence. In 2010, GOG.com also began distributing the game pre-packaged with DOSBox for free along with the game's soundtrack as a bonus.

* BlessedWithSuck: Your Story Mode game turns into [[spoiler:a Super Tyrian run]] if you are flying The Stalker 21.126 at the end of Episode 4 [[spoiler:and complete Zinglon's Revenge. All your weapons and sidekicks will be replaced by whatever you managed to generate while playing the minigame and your shield gets dropped to a basic level.]] The ease with which a player can accidentally ButtonMash some of the [[SomeDexterityRequired secret twiddles]] for the hidden special weapons or functions, combined with the fact that all of them drain some of your shields or your armor, means that you will inevitably trigger one at a bad moment. Using a mouse to play, however, makes it a lot harder to execute them, although this may not be a good idea in some cases. If you choose to [[HeroicWillpower just finish the last episode]] and adapt to the quirks of The Stalker 21.126, however, this trope is subverted as instead of [[spoiler:reloading your game and skipping Zinglon's Revenge]], you will be rewarded with [[spoiler:the secret code to use the [[PurposelyOverpowered Nort Ship Z]] in Super Arcade Mode]].

** The boss of Gyges, Episode 2 is essentially a large mouth with two CombatTentacles.

* EasyModeMockery: Savara in Episode 1 has a drastically different (i.e. more challenging) layout on Hard difficulty or higher. If you play Episode 3 on Easy or Normal difficulty, it ends when you complete Fleet. On Hard difficulty or higher, [[spoiler:you continue on to Tyrian X, Savara Y and New Deli, where you can purchase some of the more powerful weapons in the game and are given an early chance to buy the Prototype Stalker-C, probably the most useful ship in Story Mode and the second strongest in terms of hull strength.]] To balance this out, the additional levels are quite a bit more difficult as compared to many of the game's other levels and might take a few attempts for a new player to complete.

[[caption-width-right:349:[[http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/boxfront.jpg INTENSE SERIOUS FUN!]]]]

* {{Deconstruction}}: Episode 4 veers into a surprisingly poignant deconstruction of stereotypical [[OneManArmy "one man against the world"]] video game plots. Microsol keeps coming up with bigger and bigger threats, old foes return as EldritchAbomination [[BodyHorror Body Horrors]], the good guys are shamelessly taking advantage of Trent's uncanny ability to single-handedly destroy these threats over and over again and Trent... Trent is tired of it all.

** Averted for your character. An ''[[MostAnnoyingSound annoying]]'' warning will occur [[CriticalAnnoyance once your armour is low]].

** The Mega Pulse (found only in the Full Game mode through the shop) starts relatively weak despite its unique property to split into smaller shots whenever it hits something, but when fully upgraded its strength is on par with the Laser as it's a triple blast with the center blast splitting into fireballs and the side shots splitting into a cluster of dual-pulse cannon shots. Combine this with a maxed out Rear Mega Pulse to create a mini [[BulletHell Bullet Hell]] whenever your ship is surrounded by multiple targets. It also goes well the Sonic Wave, letting you shower enemies in deadly Holiday colors.

** The Sonic Wave for your rear slot is available in the very first level, yet it's one of the most versatile weapons in the game. Fully upgraded, you can use SecondaryFire to direct four powerful waves forward which act like a powerful secondary front weapon. You'll probably learn to get used to seeing those green waves on the screen for most of the game due to how much firepower this weapon provides.

** The Mega Pulse (found only in the Full Game mode through the shop) starts relatively weak despite its unique property to split into smaller shots whenever it hits something, but when fully upgraded its strength is on par with the Laser as it's a triple blast with the center blast splitting into fireballs and the side shots splitting into a cluster of dual-pulse cannon shots. Combine this with a maxed out Rear Mega Pulse to create a mini [[BulletHell Bullet Hell]] whenever your ship is surrounded by multiple targets. It also goes well the Sonic Wave, letting you shower enemies in deadly Christmas colors.

** The Mega Pulse (found only in the Full Game mode through the shop) starts relatively weak despite its unique property to split into smaller shots whenever it hits something, but when fully upgraded its strength [[spoiler:is on par with the Laser as it's a triple blast with the center blast splitting into fireballs and the side shots splitting into a cluster of dual-pulse cannon shots. Combine this with a maxed out Rear Mega Pulse to create a mini [[BulletHell Bullet Hell]] whenever your ship is surrounded by multiple targets.]]

** The Guided Micro Bombs are like this in a similar vein to the missiles. For some reason, it's extremely rare to find them in the shop. Their main feature is that fully upgraded, they spam the screen a lot of miniature bombs that home in on targets automatically and cause little damage. The issue is that you have no control over them when you'd like to focus-fire one target and the more common Heavy Guided Bombs can do what they do but with quality over quantity. It works fine against bosses as they're the only target typically but can make the levels more difficult to complete due to the RandomNumberGod.

** The Guided Micro Bombs seem to be the case. For some reason, it's extremely rare to find them in the shop. Their main feature is that fully upgraded, they spam the screen a lot of miniture bombs that home in on targets automatically. The issue is that you have no control over them when you'd like to focus-fire one target and the more common Heavy Guided Bombs can do what they do but with quality over quantity. It works fine against bosses as they're the only target typically but can make the levels more difficult to complete due to the RandomNumberGod.