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Examples of Circling Birdies in Video Games.


  • AI: The Somnium Files: "Member B" has these after getting flung against the wall by Date following his arrival at the Kumakura office.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: Once an enemy has had their armor bar depleted, they'll be immediately stunned, signified by a spinning star on their head. Likewise, if Ann gets hit with a heavy attack, she'll get stunned with the same effect until she gets out of it.
  • XenoGears: This comes with the confused status effect, with circling stars above the affected party members.
  • Dynasty Warriors: When a character is stunned, they will stand groggily with stars circling just above their head.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Whenever Donald Duck and Goofy (or any of your other companions, for that matter) are knocked out, stars circle their heads.
  • Metal Gear: Unconscious guards are differentiated from dead or sleeping guards by a little halo of stars merrily orbiting above their heads. As the guard gets closer and closer to waking up, one star at a time will cheerfully ascend heavenward and vanish. A guard with five stars won't be waking up for a while, but a guard with one star could open his eyes any time... (weirdly enough, the MGS games are usually considered serious. Of course, it does fulfill a gameplay function.)
  • Onmyōji (2016): When someone is under the Stun effect, they will bend over (and may or may not hold their head as though having a headache) and have stars circling above them.
  • The Legend of Heroes - Trails: Once a characters has their armor broken or hit with a stun attack, they receive circling birds.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: When sneaking around the Gerudo Fortress, Link can stun Gerudo guards with either his Hookshot or arrows. If arrows are used, then the Gerudo falls down, and has stars circling her head.
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker:
      • Auction house patrons see stars (which sound like birds) upon being stunned by Link's bids.
      • Link gets a halo of stars circling around his head after a Hurricane Spin attack.
      • Medli is the only one who has actual birds circling her head, since she is, herself, a bird.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures: The Links can perform a Hurricane Spin after they power up the Four Sword during the level, and gets a circling crown of stars after performing one. You can also your buddies with various items such as hitting them with a slingshot, running into a wall with the Pegasus boots while another player is nearby or using a Charged Attack with the magic hammer with a player nearby. All cases harmlessly stun the player. Shadow Link can also stun players with the Magic Hammer and can also be stunned during the various encounters.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks have Link become dizzy if he uses the Spin Attack too many times because the touch screen controls allows you to execute the attack much faster than in most other games. You'll also get dizzy if you roll too many times.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening has lights orbiting Link's head whenever he's knocked down by Blaino, a Mini-Boss in Turtle Rock who soon uses the opportunity to uppercut Link back to the dungeon entrance.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds has this as a Funny Background Event during the ending. After the memorial tablet of Lorule's Triforce explodes, Ravio gets knocked down and his pet bird Sheerow can be seen flying over him in this manner.
  • Feeding Frenzy: Little stars spin on top of fishes temporarily paralyzed by jellifishes.
  • Hype: The Time Quest: Defeated foes have spinning stars and circles circling above them while they disappear, while a chirping bird sound effect is heard.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy IV: An actual bird circles the character being attacked by Confusion spell animation followed by question marks at the end of the spell animation.
    • Final Fantasy V uses circling chocobos.
  • Pokémon has been using this to show the Status Effect Confusion since at least Pokémon Gold and Silver, although the ones there are bird balloons.
    • Circling birdies were part of the Dizzy Punch animation as far back as Pokémon Red and Blue.
    • Pokémon Heartgold and Soulsilver: In the minigames, the birds are replaced by Psyduck.
    • In the Pokéwalker, the player's Pokémon experience this; when knocked out, in the journal, stars circle that Pokémon's head, Blissey for example. For large Pokémon, the stars that circle its head are not in the background, but above the background. Wild Pokémon do not experience this trope; when the HP hits zero, they run away.
    • In the Gen V games during the Poke Transfer minigame, circling stars appear if two Pokémon bump into each other by mistake.
    • Pokémon Legends: Arceus removes the Confusion status in battles, but in Noble Pokémon boss battles, when a Noble Pokémon is open for a Pokémon to be sent out, when possible, stars circle that Noble Pokémon’s head. The circling stars effect also applies to the player’s Pokémon if they are sent out outside of battle with low HP.
    • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon does this for Confusion, but Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity takes it to the next level; during the intro, the hero hears birds after falling from the sky. In the Adventure Squad games, this is also used storywise; Elder Slowking gives a tutorial on how the Stacking mechanic works, and he has two of the player’s starting Pokémon use an attack on him, resulting in him being knocked into the air and back onto the ground. The second time Slowking gets back up after collapsing, it is treated as if Slowking was confused with circling birds above his head, as he further explains on how Stacking works. After this, he collapses and this time doesn’t get back up, resulting in a Bait-and-Switch moment in which the game fakes a “The End” situation.
    • Pokémon Rumble also has this for Confusion, but Rumble Rush also does this during the Super Bosses; when a Super Boss reaches a certain amount of HP, it will put up a barrier that causes all attack to be unable to drop its HP down. To damage it again, the player must pull a Street Fighter EX and break its guard. When that happens, the Pokémon that was guarding will see stars, leaving it open for any attack and/or combo of attacks the player throws at it.
  • Dizziness in Street Fighter II was indicated by the character standing groggily with stars, bells, birds, or Grim Reapers circling their head.
  • In Bound by Blades, most of the bosses will produce swirling stars above their heads after receiving enough damage, as a sign that your attack is working.
  • Bubble Bobble (not in the NES [or Virtual Console] version): When Bub/Bob dies, after he spins out, he falls on his back and dizzily sees stars above his head while his eyes circle around (no spirals) before poofing away. It's also in the first Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move game, in which the sprite animations are based on Bubble Bobble's.
    • Bubble Symphony: Bub and Bob still fall backwards upon death (even though they spin out differently; their original spinouts being taken by Coro and Kulu) and their eyes circle around but no stars are visible.
    • In Puzzle Bobble 4 / Bust-a-Move 4, when the player loses, Bub/Bob immediately gets dizzy, gains spiral eyes, twirls around, falls forward, and has birds circling above his head. Also the case for Bub in the Game Boy Color exclusive Bust-A-Move Millennium, and Bob in SPACE Puzzle Bobble. (Bob the unlockable character cries instead in BAMM.)
    • Bubble Bobble Plus (WiiWare): They spin out as fast as in the arcade original and end up lying on their back before they poof away. There are no hovering stars. According to this.
  • In Team Fortress 2, a player hit with a baseball will be temporarily stunned and treated to a third-person view of their character in a dazed trance, complete with "BONK!" written over their heads with stars circling it.
    • There's also the Halloween version (When they get in contact with the ghost in Harverst and one of the Headless Horseless Horsemann abilities), where instead of "BONK!" it's "YIKES!".
  • In the Wii Punch-Out!!, when an opponent is stunned, birds circle around their head. Some fighters will instead have something else related to their nationality/gimmick circling their head- for example, Piston Hondo has circling egg sushi.
    • Unsurprisingly, as it's basically a knockoff of the Punch-Out!! series, Glu's Super KO Fighter 2 uses the trope in the same fashion when a fighter is knocked down. The fighter 15 Cent, a parody of 50 Cent, sees circling dollar signs, for example. Your character sees simple stars. The trope actually factors into gameplay, as the fewer circling items above the character's head, the more likely he is to be able to get back up.
  • The Game Over screen of Ape Escape has Spike lying flat on his back with stars circling his head.
  • Happens in Monster Hunter to monsters if they get smacked in the head with a blunt weapon enough times, or if they get hit with a flash bomb. Can also happen to the hunters if they get hit with certain attacks, or receive too many hits within a short span of time (In which case the number of stars deonotes how much time is remaining in the stun).
  • In the Tales Series, such as in Tales of Symphonia, circling birdies denote being stunned, which can happen to pretty much anyone who suffers enough abuse in a short period of time, or if they get smacked upside the head with a Pow Hammer.
  • Any enemy stunned by Commander Keen's Neural Stunner in Keen 4, 5, and 6 will see stars around its head — if you don't, that means the stunning is only temporary. Fortunately, this applies to Keen himself if he gets stunned by his own fire in 6.
  • The final frame of Mario/Jumpman's death animation in most versions of the original Donkey Kong includes a plain white halo. It was likely intended as this but limited by hardware.
  • In the first two Donkey Kong Country games, Diddy will get a ring of stars over his head if you lose a life while playing as him. In Donkey Kong Country Returns, enemies you stun with the peanut popgun/ground pound get an actual birdie circle.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Paper Mario 64: When Tutankoopa attempts to attack Mario with a spell, it backfires and ends up hitting him instead, stunning him with spinning stars.
    • Most of the Mario Party games feature this with birds if a character is stunned by something like dangerous areas or hazards on the game board. An example is the minigame Dizzy Rotisserie in Mario Party 6, which has all characters be freed from rapidly-spinning cages, remaining dizzy as a result and having stars orbiting their heads. They have to move into the dungeon's exit in 30 seconds or less (the dizziness alters the control scheme, so this is easier said than done), or else the Bowser statues will begin exhaling fire while rotating, roasting whoever remains.
    • In Wario World, when an enemy or boss that Wario can use a Mad Move on is punched enough (or, in the case of some enemies and bosses, if a specific method is done correctly, such as doing a Ground Pound on them), they'll become dazed and birds will circle around their head. Now Wario is able to pick them up and use a Mad Move on them, though he has to do this before the enemy or boss recovers after a certain time. Of course, some bosses are immune to being dazed (such as Dual Dragon, as punching one of its heads enough times would simply leave it open to the other's fire breath attack, and Red Brief J, who cannot be hurt by Wario's punches at all), and Wario can also be dazed if he is hit by a powerful attack that deals a lot of damage, such as a shockwave.
    • Boom-Boom in New Super Mario Bros. U and onwards has circling stars in his head.
    • In both Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World circling stars appear over Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach and Rosalina (the latter three appear in 3D World) if they die.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Any character stunned by a broken shield or reflector, exploded Deku Nut, Mewtwo's Disable move, Weavile's False Swipe, Wario's Wario Waft, or Luigi's Negative Zone will be rendered immobile and a tweeting sound effect is heard. Button Mashing may get the player out of the "stunned" effect sooner.
    • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Stunned characters see circling stars. Additionally, Gogoat sees stars if it crashes into a wall.
  • Falling from great heights causes this (and loss of a hit point) in The Lost Vikings. If you are in the unfortunate situation of already having only one hit point, the poor viking hitting the ground will splash to tiny pieces and die.
    • Also occurs if Eric tries to ram a wall that DOESN'T break on impact.
  • Each Darkstalkers character has a different circling something when dizzy. Felicia has white cats, for example. Some, like Morrigan, have little versions of themselves.
  • Invoked in BioShock 2. If you club a splicer while guarding a Little Sister, she comments "Daddy's makin' you see stars 'n' birdies!"
  • Stunning in RuneScape causes stars to appear with bird sounds.
  • Metroid: Samus Returns: Whenever Samus uses a melee counter on an enemy, they will be stunned and have stars spin around them.
  • A character in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 whose guard has been broken will stand there, dazed and with yellow birds circling over his or her head.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • In one cutscene of Sonic Unleashed, as Chip explains on how he lost his memory, when he said "And then nothing," he sees stars and tiny versions of himself circling his head (Wii version only, for they are replaced with normal stars in all other versions), as seen here. In another cutscene, Eggman sees stars after a kid throws a rock at Eggman's head, as seen here.
    • Any time a character in Sonic the Fighters is knocked onto their back, they briefly see circling stars.
    • In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Knuckles gets circling... something orangey-yellow when he starts coming to after being briefly knocked out during a cutscene in Hidden Palace Zone. Due to graphical limitations and the size of the circling objects, they're hard to identify, although they are most likely birds or abstract shapes.
  • Creature World also has Seeing Stars Head Bonk, and Seeing Birds Head Bonk, in which users see stars, or birds when they wear the hat. There is also a hat in which users have hearts in their eyes and hearts circling the user's head.
  • Bomberman games sometime feature this with birds or stars when players or enemies are stunned. In Bomberman Blast, if a player is stunned, the tweeting of birds can be heard from the Wii Remote Speaker.
  • MapleStory has this trope; players and enemies that are dazed get a halo of circling mushrooms. This happens after taking damage by a certain enemy and so on.
  • Toonstruck features circling stars at one point. And you need to take these as an item.
  • The Neverhood: While they're not shown, falling to the bottom of the drained lake for the first time will result in a cutscene of Klaymen being stunned, which is accompanied by typical "birdies" sounds.
  • Eastern Exorcist have a halo of silver stars popping up whenever you inflict enough hits to stun enemies, which works even on bosses. They'll be disoriented for a few seconds, allowing you to spam a few more hits before they recover.
  • In Epic Mickey, Mickey sees Gremlins after getting slammed in the face while freeing one from a safe. The gremlin then flies over to him, takes a moment to glance between Mickey and the circling versions of himself, then comments on what a good likeness they are.
  • World Heroes has this trope with stars, birds, or angels circling a dazed fighter's head. (Click on this link to go to the sample combos, in which most fighters were dazed by combos.)
  • Spyro the Dragon, in the original trilogy at least, sees stars whenever he's hit. Also, in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy Version of Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Spyro's friends Sheila, Sgt Byrd, Bentley and Agent 9 also see stars whenever they are hit.
  • Sly Cooper: Whenever you knock out a guard, stars can be seen circling around them.
  • Dirk from Dragon's Lair II has this trope, but only consists of circling hearts in one death scene... no, two, in Level 3, and circling stars in another death scene in this longplay.
  • Wii Party features numerous ways to inflict this trope (stars with bird sound effects) upon your Miis, as this montage demonstrates.
    • Wii Play and Wii Play: Motion also uses the stars to the duck in Wii Play and the Mii you selected in Wii Play Motion's minigame Cone Zone.
  • In Kirby Mass Attack, when Kirby is stunned, a bird circles Kirby's head. World 2's boss gets circling stars.
  • In Brain Dead 13, if you defeat Vivi, a bat circles Vivi's head.
  • Power Instinct has this starting with the first game, but one of the stuns are flying hearts. The second game takes this to the next level with circling objects, such as people, sushi plates, chicks, and fish.
  • So you are playing Fighter's History, and you fight an opponent. However, if you hit a weak spot multiple times and when a character is stunned, this game has circling objects that differ from each character, similar to Darkstalkers. Take Liu Feilin for example. When Feilin is stunned, she sees circling fairies. For another example, Liu Yungmie sees circling unicorns when she is stunned.
  • Happens often in the Raving Rabbids series after they get hit on the head with an object.
  • In Crusader of Centy, the first boss, the Big Bad Wolf, attacks by hitting himself on the head with a hammer, causing stars and birds to circle his head. He then uses these objects to damage you.
  • In Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf, Ralph gets stars circling over his head when running into a wall. And in one instance, Daffy Duck gets them too.
  • In World of Warcraft, a character can get "dazed" if a monster hits him from behind, resulting in a 50% reduction to his movement speed for 3-4 seconds. While he's dazed, an animation of swirling stars appears over his head.
  • The ending of Super Tanooki Skin 2D has Mario seeing stars.
  • In Spelunky, stars (or little birds in the remake) circling over a lying character indicate that they are simply stunned rather than killed.
  • Justin Bieber, Robert Pattinson, Nicki Minaj, Pitbull and the other various celebrities featured in the online boxing game "The Brawl" experience the stars version of this trope when they take enough abuse.
  • Quik the Thunder Rabbit has circling birdies when the player character suffers Collision Damage.
  • True to its desert theme, in Tiny and Big when Tiny gets hit by a boulder thrown by Big without dying (or is stunned for, ahem, other reasons), a set of small rocks circle around his head.
  • Wii Sports:
    • Wii Sports Resort has Cycling, a bike sport. One of the features of this sport is that it has a stamina system. If a Mii's stamina runs out, he/she stops in his/her tracks with stars circling his/her head.
    • Wii Sports Club has the Boxing sport from the original Wii Sports. One of the differences, though, is the inclusion of a stun system in which after a Mii's HP goes down to a certain point, he/she is stunned and sees stars, leaving him/her unable to punch, though he/she can still dodge.
  • In Little King's Story, you can cause a couple of bosses to get hurt in ways that induce Circling Birdies And Stars while they're stunned. If the Onii King is in the throes of a tantrum when an Onii has thrown something to him for him to throw, he won't catch it, and be stunned. If you cut a totem pole while the Owl Hag is standing on it, she'll fall and be stunned.
  • Iosa the Invincible from Iji has lights orbiting her head when stunned. She sees less and less as she gets close to recovering.
  • This occurs a couple times in Injustice: Gods Among Us, when an opponent is caught in Wonder Woman's lasso of truth or when Zatanna puts her opponent in a hypnosis stars will circle their heads.
  • In one version of Battle Chess, Rook takes Knight and Bishop takes Knight both involve head trauma for the knight, complete with "cuckoo" sound effect.
  • Pikmin:
    • Pikmin (2001): Olimar has circling stars after he crash lands.
    • In the second Pikmin short movie, "Treasure in a Bottle", the Yellow Pikmin's plan is to use a Bomb Rock to free the Red Pikmin trapped in the bottle. It works at first, but the Red Pikmin falls back into the bottle. When the three Pikmin go to the bottle, the Red Pikmin that was stuck is now dazed and has circling stars around its head.
  • In Chip Chan Kick, stars will circle over stunned enemies while a twittering sound effect plays.
  • In a cutscene in Rita James and the Race to Shangri La a Yeti which gets clonked by a low-hanging stalactite sees light flashes and spirals.
  • The Besmirched Noble's Son (with his default name being Sonny in the Switch version) in Miitopia finds himself dizzy and circled by some stars after taking a beating from goblins in Easin Hills.
  • Animal Crossing:
    • Animal Crossing: City Folk uses this trope when you go to the city and enter Katrina's Fortune Shop. No matter what you ask her, Katrina will drop an anvil or wash pail on your character's head and your character will hear tweeting birds and see stars for a few seconds.
    • Animal Crossing: Wild World onwards has the scorpion and the tarantula who can and will pursue you if you come near them with your net out, and if you miss or do not get away quickly enough, your character will see stars and then pass out.
  • Stunned angels and demons in both Bayonetta games have stylistic pentagrams circling above them when they are stunned.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when a Nazi guard is knocked out during a fist fight, swastika-shaped stars appear over his head. Even in the German version, which otherwise went with No Swastikas.
  • In the video game version of Shrek 2, some enemies and bosses can be dazed, with birds circling above them. This can also happen to teammates who have their HP reach zero in battle.
  • In LEGOLAND, this occurs to two different characters when they hit their heads in the intro; JP sees circling bricks and wrenches while Bob sees circling flowers and leaves.
  • In Farmcraft a chicken which gets hit on the head by a falling tractor part sees tiny chickens.
  • In XCOM 2, a disoriented character has curved lines circling their head.
  • In the PaRappa the Rapper related game Um Jammer Lammy, this occurs to Lammy when she slips on a banana peel before dying and going to Hell. This, however, only occurs in the Japan and PAL versions; in the USA version, this trope doesn't happen; instead, Lammy gets her belt snagged on the shop door and flung back to the previous stages of the game before ending up on an island, causing an Impact Silhouette.
  • Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom shows orbiting birds for the "stunned" status effect (usually inflicted on enemies via Ground Pound, but a few enemies can also stun the player character).
  • Creatures from the Creatures game series can fall unconscious and have stars circling on top of their head. If you don't try to help it, the creature will die.
  • In Telepath RPG, when you beat Cerzak in battle, rather than fading away in purple like everyone else, he'll fall over with stars circling over his head until you win the battle, this is the only time in the series that a character does not die when out of HP.
  • The teacher from The Classroom 1 has circling stars when hit by a grenade launched into the classroom.
  • In The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout, Bugs sees stars whenever he gets hit, which prevents him from using his hammer for a few seconds.
  • In Dink Smallwood mod Lost Forest Romp Dink sees birds after being given a drink containing powdered slayer claw.
  • Whiplash: The enemies will have stars floating around their heads when they are stunned.
  • FTL: Faster Than Light uses two circling stars to indicate that a character has been stunned.
  • The first Chibi-Robo! has instances where Chibi Robo can become dazed, either through spinning on the control stick enough times or being bonked by a washpan after charging, in which case Chibi Robo sees pixelated birds. In the latter case, Telly Vision will count how many times the washpan has been dropped.
    • Also in the first game, one instance in which Telly's attempt at singing "Teriyaki Blues" can get interrupted is when sitting down to watch Telly sing. In this case, right before Telly can even sing, the same washpan falls down and bonks Telly, causing him to see pixelated birds and look around. After this, he leaves, but not before giving Chibi Robo some Happy Points for his time.
  • Mr. Bean: Around the World: Most of the time, when Mrs. Wicket catches Mr. Bean, she hits him on the head with a ruler, causing him to see stars.
  • It had little effect on gameplay, but any head-on car crash in Road Rash would leave your biker struggling with twinkling stars as they got back to their feet.
  • In Doom Eternal, the way to defeat the Marauder is to wait for its eyes to flash green, then shoot it, which stuns it and leaves it open to further attack. While stunned, circling stars appear around its head along with a sound effect. The same applies to the Final Boss of the DLC expansion "The Ancient Gods: Part 2".
  • In the Mega Man Star Force games, both Mega Man and enemies will have birds circle around their heads when confused by an attack.
  • The King of Fighters averts this by simply showing the character standing groggily after being stunned for taking too much punishment.
  • In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: The Clash of Ragnarok's Eight Fistsnote , characters will have little stars circling above their heads when hit by an attack that breaks an environmental object, provided they stand close enough to that object.
  • The icon for the Stunned status effect in Deep Rock Galactic is represented by circling stars.
  • Duo, the owl mascot for Duo Lingo gets flashing stars in some of the game animations when he is dizzied, such as the completion screen when he gets spun around by Vikram.
  • Stunned enemies in Sorcery School have little stars.

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