Line #5 VideoGame/Blinx


1	[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blinx_120_removebg_preview.png]]
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3	->''The World's First 4D {{Action Game}}!''
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5	''Blinx: The Time Sweeper'' is a [[PlatformGame platform game]] by Artoon and [[Creator/MicrosoftStudios Microsoft Game Studios]], for the original Platform/{{Xbox}} released on October 8, 2002. It was an ill-fated attempt to give the console its own mascot, like [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]] or [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]], and was in fact, created by Sonic's creator, Naoto Ohshima. The game didn't do as well as Microsoft had hoped, sending Blinx to an [[StillBornFranchise early oblivion]]--but not before starring in the game's only sequel, ''Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space'', released on November 16, 2004.
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7	Blinx, so the story goes, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin is a Time Sweeper]], an employee of the Time Factory dedicated to the creation, distribution, and maintenance of time all across the dimensional axis. His job is important, because if glitches in time aren't found and fixed hastily, they could result in Time Monsters that threaten innocent civilians. When a group of evil pigs called the Tom-Tom Gang cause a major disruption in World [=B1Q64=], the Time Factory stops its time stream, freezing all of its inhabitants indefinitely. In spite of this, Blinx receives a {{distress call}} from a young local princess, Lena, pleading for help.
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9	Disregarding orders, Blinx leaps into a Time Portal and sets out to help her and save [=B1Q64=] from its doom.
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11	----
12	!!This game and its sequel feature examples of:
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14	* HundredPercentCompletion: To get the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Sweeper]] you must slog through and complete all the levels while finding the hidden cat medals.
15	* AbandonedMascot: Blinx was ''supposed'' to be the Xbox's mascot. He was designed similar to previous cutesy mascots like Mario, Sonic, and Crash. After the game underperformed, he was dropped as their mascot in favour of Master Chief from the ''vastly'' more successful ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' games. This change also created an AudienceShift where Xbox was marketed as "for mature gamers". Come 2015, Microsoft had abandoned the trademark for "Blinx". They still own the IP itself, but without the trademark, this means they've essentially made it unlikely any new games in the series could happen.
16	* AllThereInTheManual
17	** Owing to the game's lack of cinematics beyond a brief opening and ending, Blinx's personality doesn't show particularly strongly in the first game. The Japanese manual, however, has its entire latter half-written and illustrated by Blinx himself, giving some insight into his feelings on different characters and other minor aspects of the universe. In a peculiar variety of NoExportForYou, the manual was entirely rewritten for other regions without any first-person perspective from the protagonist.
18	** Further exacerbating the issue of certain details being released only in Japan was the lack of in-game explanation for what the various areas of the game actually were and why the environment seemed so hostile. One of the Japanese strategy guides gives a brief description of what each area was like before the Tom Toms came in and screwed everything up (saying that the Mine of Precious Moments is the world's highest-altitude mine and the machinery strewn throughout Everwinter is actually for extracting oil, for example), and explains that strange hazards such as machinery operating on its own are the result of distortions in time warping the world itself.
19	* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: In ''Blinx 2'', after the first Sweeper mission, the base is overrun by Tom-Toms. Also, [[spoiler: later, when the Sweepers have several of the Big Crystal fragments, you have to play as the Tom-Toms breaking into the Time Factory to steal them]].
20	* AmericanKirbyIsHardcore: The current page image of Blinx shows the cute cuddly Blinx from the Japanese box. Elsewhere, Blinx shows his many, many spiky teeth.
21	* AnvilOnHead: One of the second game's weapons for the Tom-Tom gang drops a metal tub on the target's head.
22	* ArtifactTitle: In ''Blinx 2'', Blinx is not playable.
23	* AscendedExtra: Benito, the leader of the Tom-Tom Gang, was barely present in the first game. In ''Blinx 2'', he appears in the cutscenes, has more characterization, and stars in a brief subplot where he wants to save Mina and falls in love with her.
24	* AttackOfThe50FtWhatever: Benito the Great.
25	* BatterUp: The Grand Slam from the second game. A one-use item that makes the victim ATwinkleInTheSky. ''Very'' satisfying to use on an annoying guard.
26	* BigBadWannabe: Benito and his Tom-Tom gang may be considered enemies of the Time Sweepers, but both games show them being completely out of their league against the time monsters that become bigger threats for Blinx to deal with.
27	* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: The various areas of [=B1Q64=] from Blinx 1, corrupted by the breaking of time, have been twisted into far stranger versions of themselves, with particular note being the incredibly warped streets and buildings of Time Square, day and night existing at once in Deja Vu Canals, and minecarts in the abandoned Mine of Precious Memories moving on their own without operators due to the aforementioned broken time.
28	* BossRush: Momentopolis, from the first game. The entire area is comprised of all the previous boss battles, immediately followed by the final boss.
29	* BraggingRightsReward: Completing all of the challenges in Blinx 2 and saving every last medal gets you [[spoiler:a picture of the shopkeeper from Blinx 1]].
30	* ColourCodedTimeStop: Blue with the pause crystals
31	* ClockRoaches: Unswept Time Crystals become Time Monsters. The sole objective of the first game is to eliminate all of them in each stage. Time Sweepers are the corrective function than the monsters that result from the misuse of time factory products, however.
32	* ConspicuousElectricObstacle: Forge of Horrors has a lightning emitter that shoots electricity between electrodes.
33	* ConvectionSchmonvection: Played completely straight in the final world, Blinx can be two inches from lava ''while standing on a metal surface suspended above flames'' and be completely unharmed.
34	* CycleOfHurting: Fairly easy to stumble into, since extra lives function by rewinding time in the stage by a few seconds. Thus, if you happened to already be stuck at the point it rewinds to, you end up having to either restart the level or just watch yourself die over and over.
35	* DarkerAndEdgier: The second game has more of a MildlyMilitary feel compared to the original, and a [[ApocalypseHow higher-stakes plot]]. It's still ultimately about cats fighting pigs and blob monsters by picking up trash with a vacuum cleaner, though.
36	* DemotedToExtra: In the sequel, Blinx isn't playable and isn't given as much characterization as Benito.
37	* DoubleUnlock: In both games, collecting every Cat Medal unlocks the ultimate Sweeper in the shop. You still have to buy them, and they're both very expensive -- in the first game, the TS-X7 Supreme costs 90000G, three times as much as the second priciest item.
38	* EldritchAbomination: The time monsters are a surprisingly cutesy example.
39	* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:At the end of Blinx 2, the Tom Toms realize that stealing the Big Crystal is going to destroy time itself, so your Time Sweeper team and your Tom Tom team work together to defeat the Scissor demon.]]
40	* EpicRocking: The final boss takes eleven hits to defeat, and its music theme changes for every single hit, making for a song with ''eleven distinct sections'' (plus one for when you defeat the boss)''.'' When all the sections are combined into one uninterrupted song, it totals over '''nine minutes.''' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF_7eSCR5lQ Hear it for yourself.]][[note]]The link also comes with denotations and skips to every section of the song.[[/note]]
41	* EternalEngine: The final world (Forge Of Hours). It features plenty of jumping between gears, [[SpikesOfDoom spikes,]] and copious amounts of lava.
42	* FeedItABomb: The best way to kill Keroppers (And the Kerofish from the sequel) is to shoot bombs at them, because they have an annoying habit of swallowing ammo.
43	* FunnyAnimal: The page picture should be a clue. The Time Factory's staff and the Time Sweepers are anthropomorphic cats, and the time-stealing Tom-Toms are anthropomorphic pigs.
44	* GogglesDoNothing: Subverted. ''If'' Blinx is equipped to sweep fire, the goggles will come down.
45	* JumpedAtTheCall: Blinx, big time. And he's a HumbleHero to boot, not wanting to save Lena's world for recognition or gratitude, but simply because it was the right thing to do.
46	* KingMook: The bosses in Blinx 1 are mostly stronger versions of minor enemies until about halfway into the game, where the bosses are just stronger versions of the previous bosses.
47	* MineralMacGuffin: Although there are Time Crystals all over the place, only the Big Crystal in Blinx 2 is a proper MacGuffin. The Tom-Tom leader wants it because it's shiny.
48	* MissionControl: They're there in Blinx 1, but after Blinx jumps in the portal, you never hear from them again. In the sequel, you wish you could be so lucky. Your 'Operator' directs you every step of the way and more or less gives away every puzzle.
49	* OrangeBlueContrast: Time Factory architecture is typically all blue with orange highlights. This carries over to the game interface when playing as a Time Sweeper. Blinx wears a blue jumper and is an orange cat (more so in the sequel where he appears in cutscenes within the Time Factory on badly calibrated [=TVs=] as an orange blur on a solid blue background. In the first game, he's more cherry red.)
50	* PressXToNotDie: Giant cannon pops out in front of you? No problem, just press X.
51	* ResetButton: Whenever Blinx gets hit or falls off, the game will rewind to seconds before it happened.
52	* SaveThePrincess: In the first game.
53	* SlippySlideyIceWorld: World 7 - Everwinter.
54	* SpacePirates: The Tom Toms are this.
55	* SpeakingSimlish: In ''Blinx: TTS'', the cast spoke in a gibberish language, but in ''Blinx 2'', they all speak English (or it is at least translated into English).
56	* StealthBasedGame: As a Tom-Tom, [[TheCaper you're supposed to sneak into and out of Sweeper controlled areas]] by using gadgets with Space-manipulating powers. [[spoiler:And while there's nothing stopping you from using power weapons to wipe the floor with the enemy, the game introduces additional enemies to make this less and less of a good idea. The very first round has guards with shields and burst rifles who can take two hits from a bazooka before being defeated. Tom Tom round 3 introduces guards with red flashlights who will raise the alarm if they see you (Summoning more units), and round 4 introduces shielded guards who are invincible unless you break their shield with a time grenade (And those reinforcements are also shielded).]]
57	* TheStinger: The first game has a scene after the credits. [[spoiler:Lena gives Blinx a massive thank-you hug after rewinding time, as he [[HumbleHero quietly left]] without saying goodbye first time round.]]
58	* TankGoodness: The Tom-Toms get a tank in the sequel.
59	* TimeCrash: The Time Factory creates and supplies time to all 'worlds'. Leaving unswept Time Crystals in a world makes it difficult to do that, and [=B1Q64=]'s supply of time would have had to be frozen for the safety [[TheNeedsOfTheMany of all the other worlds]] if it weren't for Blinx's intervention. In the sequel, an attack on the Time Factory stops the entire factory from functioning. We're led to believe that this is very bad. Then on top of that, the Time Goddesses decide that perhaps the universe isn't so great after all.
60	* TimeMaster: The Time Sweepers, including Blinx himself.
61	* TimedMission - In ''Blinx 1'', there's an instant game over once the timer reaches 10 minutes from Blinx's perspective, regardless of how many RETRY powers you're holding. Probably justified by the imminent collapse of time in World [=B1Q64=].
62	* TookALevelInBadass: Blinx himself. While true, he was pretty competent in the first game, by the time the second rolled around, he not only had a new (very cool) voice, but had apparently learned some new tricks: in the opening sequence alone, he saves a squad of Time Sweepers from a missile by slowing time, jumps on and across the debris ''while still in slow time'', and even gets a good version of a GoodScarsEvilScars.
63	* TurnsRed: A number of the later bosses do this around half health.
64	* UpdatedRerelease: The Platinum Hits re-release of the original game lowers the difficulty a bit — some bosses take fewer hits, some monsters are replaced with weaker versions of themselves (or even other monsters), a few enemies are repositioned, and even others are gone (notably, no Benito Brother appears in World 1-2, though this leads to less gold).
65	* ViewersAreMorons: The helpers in the second game interrupt the game every five seconds to spell out what to do, no matter how obvious it is. In some cases, they won't ''immediately'' tell you what to do, but you won't get much opportunity to try to work out what to do before they lose patience and tell you outright.
66	* VillainousGlutton: The pigs of the Tom-Tom gang, especially their boss Benito. [[spoiler: In fact, the boss of the Time Sweeper's round 4 in the sequel is a giant Benito that attempts to eat the player. This is also how the player is supposed to defeat the boss; by getting eaten and shooting its insides.]]
67	* VirtualPaperDoll: Rather than playing as Blinx in the second game, you design your own characters to play as.
68	* WeaponsThatSuck: The Time Sweepers' main method of attack. The Tom Tom Gang in the sequel also has several mediocre weapons like a machine gun and burst rifle, both of which pale in comparison to the one-hit wonders that are the bazooka, crossbow, and laser gun.
69	* WeirdMoon: A sizable bite seems to have been taken off of World [=B1Q64=]'s moon.

Context VideoGame / Blinx