* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** The ''Tempest 2000'' soundtrack, as expected from Jeff "Yak" Minter. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqgPjgXbzv4 Here's a sample.]]
** ''[=TxK=]'''s soundtrack is composed by multiple people, and as such is inspired by ''Tempest 2000''. Notable candidates include ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKSwdpDf700 You Like]]'' and ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WuRtiXjqW0 Noise Pulse.]]''
** ''Tempest 4000'' includes both of the above.
* DemonicSpiders:
** The Pulsars, which appear starting from level 17 in the original. Each time they change to a new lane, they will shoot an electrical charge that will instantly kill you if you happen to be there while they release the charge. Even the control panel lampshades this by saying "'''VERY DANGEROUS'''".
** In ''[=TxK=]'', Pulsars lose some speed, but now their electrical charges last much larger and if one stays near the top of the play field too long, it will generate a Fuseball that will never leave the top of the play field until you kill it.
** Fuseball Tankers and Pulsar Tankers, for different reasons. The former will immediately spawn two Fuseballs when shot, quickly crowding up the web with a highly unpredictable foe. If you shoot the Tanker before it reaches the top, the Fuseballs will gun for the top of the web and take you out if you don't immediately move out of the way. The Pulsars released by the Pulsar Tankers can similarly zap you immediately upon spawning in without warning.
* EventObscuringCamera: Specific to ''Space Giraffe'', where the camera is positioned to create blind spots in your vision (i.e. columns perpendicular to the screen). Additionally, there is camera spinning starting on stage 49.
* GoodBadBugs: The first ROM-set was plagued by a bug (sometimes claimed to be a test routine that was overlooked when preparing the game for release) which meant that ending the game with a score in a certain pattern could be used to do various tricks -- including getting 40 free credits. (Referenced in ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'', although the instructions in that book are wrong.) Naturally, this was soon fixed at the behest of arcade owners.
* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: Earning an extra life. Even the current shape sparkles in different colors in celebration.
* NightmareFuel:
** Space Giraffe, in which the audio and visual designs are reminiscent of descriptions of Polybius.
** The monsters depicted on the arcade cabinet look pretty scary.
* PolishedPort: The Macintosh port of ''Tempest 2000'', which unlike other ports retains nearly every feature of the game and keeps the graphics very close to the original release, and even offers the ability to play at a higher resolution and with far less lag than the Jaguar version contains. The downside is it requires a pretty specific window of old Macintosh hardware to function properly.
* PortingDisaster: The unreleased Atari 2600 port only had enough memory to feature one screen from the arcade's selection of 16 screens, and it ends up looking like a striped pair of men's underwear.
* ScrappyMechanic:
** In ''[=TxK=]'', you can be killed by an enemy's bullet even if you're in a lane adjacent to where the bullet was fired.
** ''[=TxK=]'''s Autosave system is also faulty. If you quit a game mid-progress by pressing Start then Select, it does not record the highest level you reached, along with the best score and number of lives you had for each level. Only by saving the settings in the Options menu or getting a Game Over, intentionally or otherwise, will the game actually save.
* SelfImposedChallenge: In ''[=TxK=]'', beating levels without ever jumping [[note]]In ''[=TxK=]'', you can no longer gain score if your ship is in mid-air, compared to Jeff's earlier installments that let you still gain points while airborne[[/note]].
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