Genius Bonus / Video Games

• The English version of Advance Wars has some clever nods that only people familiar with military history and culture will likely understand:
  • Any person who has served in the army and been trained as a combatant will chuckle and nod when Grit shows up. To everyone else it's a suitable enough name for a cowboy-themed Friendly Sniper, but those familiar with Infantry Fire Control Orders will instantly recognize his name as the mnemonic GRIT used to remember the correct order and steps to issue said orders: G for group (who will fire), R for range (distance to enemy), I for Indication (identifying a target to the group), and T for type of fire (how they will fire at the enemy).
  • Sami, who specializes in infantry tactics, is a reference to Sammy L. Davis, an infanteer who received the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam.
  • And in all versions is the entire relationship between Olaf and Sturm, which is all one big gigantic reference to World War II. Black Hole is an obvious pastiche of Those Wacky Nazis, albeit with a sci-fi twist, with Blue Moon being heavily inspired by the Soviet Union. Blue Moon begins as allies of Black Hole but turns on them later on into the war and becomes instrumental in defeating them, much like the Soviet Union, and Olaf has the ability to trigger snowfall which is Sturm's only weakness, much like Nazi Germany's disastrous invasion of the Soviet Union which was heavily crippled by winter.
  • The titular two-team mechanic of Dual Strike had unique names for certain team-ups of COs when they pop their dual CO Power. A lot of them are references to bands from the '70s and '80s like Big Country (Max and Grit), Orange Crush (Jake and Rachael), Rebel Yell (Hawke and Lash), and Stormwatch (Eagle and Drake).
• ALTER EGO (2018): Before being translated, Freud's original name for the Id was "Das Es". Which is fitting since Es, the character, represents the often unhinged impulses that humanity harbors deep in their souls.
• While the species of most of your neighbors in Animal Crossing are fairly easy to recognize, Dr. Shrunk (an NPC who first appeared in Wild World to teach you new expressions) is actually a fairly obscure species of salamander, the axolotl. Similarly, Luna (the lady who runs the Dream Suite in New Leaf) is a tapir; this also references the mythological youkai baku, which resemble tapirs and are said to feed on dreams.
  • Starting with New Leaf, dealing with the counterfeit paintings and sculptures Crazy Redd sells are a lot less frustrating if you're familiar with the artwork in question or can find a reference picture of the original art, because what he sells are recreations of real-world artwork and the fakes are slightly (or in some cases, blatantly) different from the original. For example, in New Leaf the fake Valiant Statue (based on Pythokritos' Nike of Samothrace) has bat wings unlike the feathered wings of the original, and in New Horizons the fake version of the Wistful Painting (Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring") has a star-shaped earring instead of a round one.
  • Crazy Redd himself is an example, being named after a demon from The Divine Comedy, Rubicante (literally translating to "Crazy Red", more figuratively to "Red-faced Terror"). Rubicante is a grafter, someone who acquires money through unfair or illegal means, much as Redd is known to do.
  • Tom Nook's animosity towards Crazy Redd is implied to stem from a falling out the two had early in their respective careers, which makes a lot more sense when you understand how the two characters fall on the Tanuki/Kitsune Contrast (tanuki like Tom being seen as the more good-hearted of the two while foxes like Redd are seen as more deceptive), and while both a little bit questionable in their dealings, Redd is the one who will defraud the player and blatantly lie about his product, in reference to kitsunes' overt duplicity and their lean towards the selfish and malicious.
  • Nearly all of the ordinary villagers themselves have Punny Names. Some are obvious, like Marcy, a kangaroo, being based on the world "marsupial." Some are less obvious, like Jeremiah, a frog, whose name is based on the opening line of "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog."
• Antichamber: One of the items on the moral wall is the phrase "Some things don't have a deeper meaning," the image this is paired with being a pig in rollerskates, goggles, and with the number 18 drawn on its side. At first one might think this to be an invoked Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, but it might actually be a reference to a particular joke: "Step 1: grease four pigs. Step 2: write the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 on their sides with a marker. Step 3: discreetly release them in a large public building at different locations. Step 5: Watch as they search for #4."
• The Subject 16 puzzles in Assassin's Creed II contain all sorts of references, typically about various cultures' versions of The End of the World as We Know It. The "radar" puzzles in particular will contain hidden text, often in binary or other languages, that further expands on what Subject 16 is trying to tell you.
• Dmitri and Jorge of Backyard Sports throw in a lot of references to computer programming.
• BattleTech players who know their lore will be able to get why the Bull Shark Battlemech is such a big deal in its Flashpoint mission, as well as why Natasha Kerensky has such a vicious hate-on for it.
  • If you check the math, you'll note that a Bull Shark with stripped-down equipment is oddly light. Too light, in fact, to match the weight values of a stock Battlemech from the vanilla game of equal size, such as a Banshee. It also doesn't match the expected weight values of even the rare Star League-era Battlemechs that can be acquired or used. This is what will tip off canny players that the Bull Shark isn't Star League tech, but the even more advanced Clan tech. Based on the timeline and location, the only Clan which could have possibly produced the Bull Shark would have been elements of Clan Wolverine, reviled among their Clan peers after being driven out/annihilated for trying to break from the rest of the Clans.
  • Therefore, players who know Natasha Kerensky's full backstory would know that she is in fact a Clan Wolf trueborn warrior, and as such the urge to wipe out all things related to Clan Wolverine—including the Bull Shark—would have been drilled into her almost from birth. Clan Wolverine is a well-established Berserk Button for any Clanner.
• In Batman: Arkham Asylum, the last health upgrade is described as the batsuit being soaked in a secret formula. While the description is pretty vague, it sounds very much like a dilatant.
• In Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, the alchemic ingredients for gunpowder are sulfur and saltpeter. These (along with charcoal) actually do make gunpowder in real life if you grind them to a fine powder and mix them in a ratio of two parts sulfur, fifteen parts saltpeter, and three parts charcoal, as the sulfur ignites the charcoal fuel, which gets so hot it tears the saltpeter molecules apart, creating an exothermic reaction.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002) contains a plot where The Master takes over Angel's body. David Boreanaz, who plays Angel, cameoed as The Master in the season two premier after the character was killed off.
• In Cake Mania 4: Main Street when Jack reopens the Burger Barn he waxes enthusiastic.
  Jack: Oh man! This is gonna be so great. Not like the time I opened that bakery in the aquarium.^note Which actually happened in Cake Mania 2. Or the tanning salon on that oil rig. Or the ice cream stand in Wasilla.
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night's "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" won't be immediately recognizable (if at all) by most gamers unless they know André Malraux.^note Even then, this line doesn't appear in the original Japanese version (Akumajou Dracula X: Gekkou no Nocturne).
• Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly:
  • One of the new special drinks you can make is "299.792.458", whose name is the speed of light in meters per second.
  • On Hyde's final visit in playthroughs where Lua and Baileys show up late because they postponed their wedding, he mentions sado, or the philosophical way of having tea, as taught by Sen no Rikyū. Gala and the Barista don't know who Rikyu-sensei is, so Hyde tells them (and by extension, the player) to go look him up.
• In de Blob 2, in the intro comic to the Blanc Cola Cannery, Arty drinks a can of Blanc Cola, hates it, and questions if INKT put waxed tadpoles in it.
  Comrade Black, elsewhere: ...Needs more tadpole.
• Deadlight has the upside down American flags at the "Safe Point", which is actually controlled by a rogue faction of soldiers who are luring in survivors to be enslaved. Displaying something like a flag or an I.D. card upside-down is a method used by members of the military to quietly warn others they are being coerced under duress or otherwise being held hostage, suitably and smartly Foreshadowing the state of the Safe Point to any player familiar with such things.
• In Devil May Cry, very playable main character barring Nero is named after a character from the work (your first hint is that the protagonist is named Dante), and Nero was originally going to be named Rodin in honor of the man who sculpted The Gates of Hell after scenes from Dante's Inferno. The various demons, key items, and some of the locales come from a myriad of mythological sources and demonology. The Big Bad of Devil May Cry 2 was named Arius, several enemy types in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening found their namesakes in the Seven Deadly Sins, and once Devil May Cry 4 kicked the Christian symbolism into overdrive, we even had prominent human characters named after the Ordinary of Mass. Capcom seems to like this in their more supernatural series. See also: Darkstalkers, Chaos Legion...
• Diablo II: The first game featured a type of high-level demonic enemy called the Balrog. That is, there were several palette swapped variants, and the most powerful ones were called Balrogs, but the type they all belonged to was also called Balrogs. That's just an obvious J. R. R. Tolkien reference. But in the next game, while some enemies are still called Balrogs, the broader type they belong to is now "Megademon". Since "bal" in Sindarin means something like "might" (Quenya: "vala", cf. the Valar, Tolkien's "gods"), and "rog" means demon, "Megademon" is a stylistically odd but direct translation of "Balrog".
• Disco Elysium:
  • The game world has an extensive fictional history that vaguely allegorises many real-world events, ranging from things most people will get (the father of Communism in the setting, Kras Mazov, is a figure who combines the initials/overall appearance/theory of Karl Marx, with Vladimir Lenin's role as an actual revolutionary leader, and a miserable suicide in a bunker similar to the extremely-not-a-Communist Adolf Hitler) to things that will only really make sense to people who read everything about various historical events that fascinate hard-left-wingers but do not tend to occupy a large cultural niche in right-of-centre cultures.
  • The game's setting of Revachol is named after Reval — an old name for Tallinn, which is where the game's authors are from.
  • Measurehead's use of the term 'al-gul' for alcohol is sometimes interpreted as a Funetik Aksent, but he also refers to it as 'the Ghoul'. The English word alcohol comes from the Arabic al-khul or al-ghawl, meaning "flesh-eating spirit" (it is also from where we get the English word "ghoul", and also why in English, distilled alcoholic drinks are called "spirits"). "Al-gul" isn't a common transliteration of the Arabic, but it's not one that would be impossible.
  • At one point, the player character can quote some poetry by R.S. Thomas, and a different line from the poem is used in the introduction, but there is no indication where this poetry comes from (or even that the line in the intro is from the same poem quoted). The player character can suggest he learned the poem from somewhere else or claim he wrote it himself, which is significantly more funny if you know for certain that he didn't.
• In Divinity: Original Sin, on first meeting Thelyron, the healer of Cyseal, he mentions two of his past successes: curing the "unslakable thirst" of one Countess Arata by adding "a pinch of Atropa belladonna" to her morning tea, and discovering that "a single application of a tincture of Cicuta douglasii" can halt aging itself. Both plants are better known under their common names: Deadly Nightshade and Water Hemlock, respectively. And yes, they technically would cure thirst and stop aging...
• In Dominions 3, each playable nation is based on real-world mythology and history. Many unit and commander types, and almost all national hero units, are based on specific people. The game is still fun if you don't know the references, but there are a lot of historical in-jokes and tie-ins to get.
• Dragon Age: Origins:
  • The game includes a banter in which Leliana is praising Wynne for doing good for its own sake rather than for show, and comparing her favorably to women in her homeland, who will make boasts such as "Today I washed the feet of forty lepers." This is a reference to a common practice in Real Life history; medieval women would wash the feet of lepers (considered unclean, the lowest of the low) as a means of showing their charity and humility.
  • In the Leliana's Song DLC, which tells the story of her Heel–Faith Turn, there is a scene where she is escaping from jail. One of the fellow prisoners she rescues (who joins the party) is named Silas. This is likely a reference to the Biblical apostle Paul, who, like Leliana, got religion and repented of his previous life of sin and was imprisoned with his future helper Silas.
• Dungeon Overlord:
  • On the Mission screen, a Warlock is teaching a goblin about the golden ratio.
  • The illustrations for Primordial Elements contain Platonic Solids corresponding to the element in question.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The recurring in-game book, "N'Gasta! Kvata! Kvakis!", first appearing in Morrowind often confuses players by being complete gibberish. If you know Esperanto, it's a simple cipher with certain letter sequences swapped for others. Once deciphered, the text either breaks the fourth wall, or it's an ancient Sload necromage magazine article that highlights some of the issues between print and Internet-based magazine versions, like image copyrights. In fact the topics and mannerisms are written in a way very familiar for those who lived during the internet era of Bulletin Boards. Say whatever criticism you may have about the Sloads, but for them, the Eternal September never came.
  • For the literary player, finding a copy of the recurring book Palla will induce either grimaces of shock or squeals of delight when they recognize it as a corruption of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
  • Skyrim:
    • Sabre Cats have bodies more similar to bears than cats, with many a player probably thinking this was some fantasy take on saber-toothed cats. Well, the genus Smilodon had bear-like bodies stockier than modern day cats, with the most accepted theory being that it was an adaptation to take down large prey such as mammoths. Mammoths also live in Skyrim.
    • Frostbite Spiders: One wonders why they deal regular poison damage, instead of frost damage. Well, you know what happens when you get a severe enough case of frostbite? Necrosis. You know what else causes necrosis? Brown recluse venom.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VI:
    • The entire final battle against Kefka draws heavily upon inspiration from Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. The first segment of the Tower of Gods◊ is set against a demonic visage of Kefka, submerged up to its waist into the ground, mirroring Satan's portrayal in The Divine Comedy as encased in ice up to his waist. The second segment is a group of humans, beasts and machinery, representing purgatory and its population of beings that were not virtuous enough to ascend into heaven, but also not wicked enough to go to hell. Third is an outright Pietà Plagiarism with Kefka replacing Jesus the Saviour, which represents heaven. Lastly is the fight against Kefka himself, who descends from up high and declares that he will destroy all life, all dreams and all hope, mirroring the moment when Dante meets with God in the grand finale of the book and God tells Dante the meaning of life.
    • The music, "Dancing Mad", not only incorporates several, very poignant leitmotifs from throughout the game, such as "Catastrophe", "Omen", "Battle to The Death" and "Kefka", but also draws inspiration from Johann Sebastian Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" and George Frederic Handel's "Messiah." All in all, the music is just as much a part of Kefka's Badass and Blasphemous Boast as the visual imagery of the fight is.
  • Barret in Final Fantasy VII optimistically compares the wire leading to the upper plate to a 'golden shiny wire of hope', and Cloud fails to get the analogy. Barret's actually referencing a famous Japanese literary work called "The Spider's Thread" where Buddha extends a golden spider thread down to Hell so that a single sinner who showed a single act of mercy can climb up to Paradise. This adds a lot of Rule of Symbolism and some Hidden Depths for Barret (the indication being that he's more well-read than Cloud).
  • The equations featured during Sephiroth's Supernova attack cutscene in Final Fantasy VII aren't just for show, and actually involve advanced physics based on the planetary attraction forces of the Sun, Earth, and the area of a circle, implying the asteroid in the cutscene is moving in only two dimensions. Also featured in the sequence is a diagram of the Ptolemaic model of the Solar System◊, depicting the seven celestial spheres.^note The Earth at the centre (as this is an example of a geocentric model), followed by the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
  • Final Fantasy IX:
    • The music for one of the nastier dungeons uses a slowed-down version of the opening of "Dies irae," the best-known of Gregorian chants, as its bass line. Since it's an ominous chant about the Day of Judgment, it's rather appropriate.
    • Some secondary villains on the first disk are called The Black Waltzes. Zidane guesses there are only three of them because of the name. The Waltz is performed at three beats to the measure.
• Most of the Support Conversations involving Miriel in Fire Emblem: Awakening are about actual scientific phenomena, the exception being the Running Gag of Kellam lacking presence to the point of being invisible to others.
  • In her supports with Vaike, she realises the psychological and physiological effects of a Kiai.
  • Her supports with Stahl are about muscle memory.
  • Her supports with Laurent are about studies on fire and reference the relationship between the heat of the flame and its color, as well as various metallic powders burning with different colors. It also ends up with Laurent putting all that in practice by making fireworks.
  • Her supports with Lon'qu start by referencing how the moonlight is actually reflecting sunlight.
  • Her supports with Ricken starts with an experiment on electrolysis.
• For a low budget Indie game Five Nights at Freddy's and its sequel has quite a few. Freddy himself is a shout out to the Muppet creator, and his signature jingle is about a person whose job is to face beings who can and will kill him. One of them is clever foreshadowing of the sequel's status as a prequel. 100.50 for 30 hours of work is how much one actually would get for a minimum wage job in 1987...
• The graphics for bard songs in Forsaken World use correct musical notation. For those who aren't musically inclined, the description lists the notes in text.
• The location of the obligatory theater in Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch is actually pretty subtle. It's the Nickelodeon in the saloon.
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has similar - the Master Sergeant of your squad has the codename "Pepper".
• There are some aspects of the Greek era of the God of War franchise that some Greek mythology and history buffs will appreciate. For instance, in God of War III, right before his boss fight, Hercules references two of his 12 Labors, finding the Golden Apples of Hesperides and killing the Nemean Lion.
  • This continues into the Norse era as well. For instance, those that know their Norse mythology will know that the reason the witch destroys Atreus' mistletoe arrows is because Baldur in the original Norse mythos was killed by a spear made of mistletoe, thus it stands to reason that the game's version of Baldur would share the same weakness.
• Grand Theft Auto:
  • Classic example in Grand Theft Auto III, a series of levels labeled "The Crook", "The Thieves", "The Wife" and "Her Lover".
  • An extremely subtle nod to Stanislavski (as well as playwright Anton Chekhov), can be found in the next-gen and PC versions of Grand Theft Auto V. When Michael consumes a peyote plant and hallucinates that he's a seagull, one of the hallucination dialogues has him question to himself if this is a joke. Then he reminds himself that seagulls don't do jokes, they do theatre. And shit.
• Hacknet uses very Hollywood Hacking-esque text commands, but if you're familiar with Unix-derived systems, you'll notice it's using a simplified version of the modern Linux terminal, and many of the commands are valid in the real world. Additionally, all IP addresses used are randomly-generated but valid, traffic uses the correct standardized ports, and many of the exploits you use are based on sound real-world theory. All this might clue a savvy player in that PortHack isn't meant to be a magical tool - it's really that powerful.
• Half-Life:
  • The series is full of these, mainly regarding physics, and quantum mechanics in cosmology. This is where most people hear about Dark Energy and the Calabi-Yau Model for the first time.
  • This extends to the Fan Remake of the first game, Black Mesa, where some of the lab whiteboards feature actual scientific concepts, such as inorganic chemistry, biology and quantum physics. There's also the scientist in "Anomalous Materials" who's reviewing a research paper written by one Dr. Truman and bemoans his misuse of the Boltzmann constant and misspelling of "Chandrasekhar limit".
• One early puzzle in Hidden Expedition 6: Smithsonian Hope Diamond involves putting the correct heads on a collection of "American Legend" bobblehead dolls. Alongside such better-known figures as Washington, Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt, we have one Harriet Quimby.
• In Homescapes, Austin asks his father why he has a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum in the upstairs living room.
  William: Believe it or not, that was a gift. I called Mrs. Broom a witch, and she happened to have a sense of humor.
• In Jet Set Go, the award for performing forty dance steps in the Galapagos is called "Do the Darwin", a reference to Charles Darwin's research trip to the Galapagos Islands.
• KanColle has tonnes of little details on the shipgirls that make reference to the history of their namesakes.
  • Those smoking holes in the flight decks of Akagi, Kaga, Souryuu, and Hiryuu in their medium damage art is reflecting the lethal bombing they received in the disasterous Battle of Midway.
  • Roma's medium damage art shows her second turret has only a fiery mount remains. The damage she received from German bombers in Malta ignite her magazine and blow her entire turret sky high.
  • Tama and Kiso are prefering artic camo on their riggings, marking their service in the Northern sea and their paint scheme. The same with other girls with camo in their persons like Zuikaku, Haruna, and Ushio.
  • Oboro's crab is pointing to a just-so story among the IJN sailors that the ship's funnel was often invested by crustaceans. So does Bismarck with a certain black cat.
  • Yamato's Kai art has her kneesock written with the IJN slogan, "No man can oppose the Emperor". A flag written with that slogan was raised on Yamato when she sailed to her suicide mission in Okinawa.
  • Kashima's beret has two flags on it. In navy's flag signal, the flags means "I'm doing exercise. Please make way". Kashima is a training cruiser.
  • The Takao-class heavy cruisers and the Kongou-class fast battleships share a voice actress because one of the Takaos, Maya, was mistaken for a Kongou-class by the American submarine that sunk her.
  • Despite what the fanon likes to say, Ryuujou is actually boastful that she's flat-chested as it makes her silhouette distinct. Ryuujou is the only carrier that didn't have an island, which makes her overstructure purely a flight deck. This, indeed, makes her silhouette distinct as her flight deck makes her entirely flat at the top compares to even other carriers which have their command towers on their overstructures.
• In Kingdom of Loathing, jokes about J. R. R. Tolkien's "Cellar door" idea, and a parody of the rats' song from the novel version of Coraline are all over the place.
• The theme for the final boss of Kirby and the Forgotten Land (which ends with the boss attempting to smash Planet Popstar into the planet you're fighting on) is called "Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit". The Roche Limit is distance where a celestial body's gravity is overpowered by anothers tidal forces and torn apart.
• One of the side quests in Legend Of The Void 2 is called "Planck's Constant."
• In The Legend of Zelda series, the most obvious nod is to a certain Celtic goddess of horses. However, one can drive oneself mad with what appear to be this, such as noting that the Koroks in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker look suspiciously similar to how kodama are depicted in Princess Mononoke. Also, in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the description for the male and female golden snails ends with "it might actually be a [opposite gender]" in small text. This is a reference to the fact that real-life snails are hermaphrodites.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask:
    • Guru Guru's story and the Bremen Mask you receive for listening are a reference to The Bremen Town Musicians, a story of four animals to seek to travel to Bremen to become musicians. Mirroring Guru Guru's own life, the four animals never actually get what they wanted but never-the-less find happiness by living the rest of their lives in a cottage they find along the way.
    • Odolwa's chanting isn't random gibberish, but actual Mayan. His three phrases, "K’iinam took ool. K’iinam took ool" "Tookik taal! Tookik taal!" and "A’alik beora! A’alik beora!" mean "Head will ache and burn. Head will ache and burn," "Come burn! Come burn!" and "Dance now! Dance now!" respectively.
• Lemmings: One level in Lemmings 2: The Tribes has the title "22934", a number that has no obvious significance to the level. All skills in the level are available in quantities of 1 (written "01" in-game) or 10, and putting them together makes a binary number that translates to 22934.
• All over the place in Marathon, which contains numerous references to philosophy and mythology (the name "Durandal" was not picked out of a hat). Many of the terminals also contain gibberish characters... some of which are actually hex values that contain meaningful messages if one knows how to decipher them. The developers even went so far as to hide the code for an entire multiplayer level in two terminals that, to the average user, contained nothing but a long string of nonsense.
• In one of the sidequests in Mass Effect you are sent to eliminate a rogue VI, which is an advanced computer intelligence that doesn't have the self-awareness to become true AI. When you destroy the VI, it sends out a signal that your helmet displays as binary. It translates as "help", so the people who translate it know the VI actually did become self-aware.
  • In another sidequest, Shepard will quote Crime and Punishment.
  • Several of the location names in the first game are references to the history of space travel, ranging from the commonplace to the obscure.
    • The Tereshkova system is named for Valentina Tereshkova, first woman and first civilian in space.
    • The Gagarin system is named for Yuri Gagarin, first man in space.
    • The Grissom system and Grissom Academy are named for an in-universe character named John Grissom, likely a reference to Gus Grissom/John Glenn, the second and third Americans in space.
    • The planet Benda is named for a minor planet in the solar system's asteroid belt.
  • Mass Effect 2: in one of Shepard's favorite shops on the Citadel, charming the clerk results in Shepard saying:
  "You wouldn't believe how often I hear 'Why is the ship turning around? We're only halfway there!"
  • When Legion hacks a rocket turret during their loyalty mission, one of the possible random comments is "Executing sudo command." 'Sudo,' short for 'superuser do,' is a Linux command that allows an admin to give certain users temporary admin privileges. (Even more hilariously, in the early stages of that mission, Legion informs us that Geth do not use windows.)
  • One star cluster has systems named after physicists (Chandrasekhar, for example), and one system has all the planets named after biologists - Darwin, Wallace, Franklin, Watson, Crick and so on.
  • In the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, the last lines of Jack's rejected submission to Galactic Poetry Monthly are part of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility warning message.
  • A vending machine in the game announces proudly that its product will "bring your ancestors back from the dead". Hilarious on its own, even funnier if you know the source. This is a reference to an urban legend about the famous Pepsi slogan "Come Alive with Pepsi!" was mistakenly translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Dead".
• The first Max Payne game is filled with references, mostly to Norse mythology.
  • The nightclub "Ragna Rock" is a pretty clear reference to Ragnarok, the final battle between the gods.
  • The game takes place during a terrible snow storm, referencing the Fimbulwinter, the storm that precedes Ragnarok.
  • The plot starts with Alex Balder getting betrayed and shot by his partner. The Norse god Balder is killed when mistletoe is shot into his chest, an event that contributes to Ragnarok.
  • Project Valhalla developed the supersoldier serum Valkyr. These reference valkyries, who take slain warriors to Valhalla.
  • The one-eyed and enigmatic Alfred Woden has the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin's name. He resides in the Asgard Building. Asgard is the home of the Norse gods.
  • The Aesir Corporation's name references the Aesir, the Norse pantheon.
  • Max's necklace pendant is a Norse longship.
• Mega Man:
  • In Mega Man 8, Search Man's two-headed design is nothing but a silly quirk to a casual player, but it's actually a nod to the fact that snipers usually work in pairs in real life: One shooter and one spotter.
  • The combined form of Bit and Byte in Mega Man X3 is known as Godkarmachine O Inary, which is a big old mish-mash of Shinto and Buddhist references. Bit and Byte's Japanese names (Vajurila FF and Mandarela BB) are also Buddhist references.
• Metal Gear:
  • A lot of foreshadowing hints are given through characters' signature firearms, meaning lots of character details are hidden to players who aren't gun nuts. For instance, Meryl's use of a Desert Eagle and Ocelot's use of an SAA both riff off stereotypes in the Japanese gun Otaku community of fans of those guns (Meryl loves the image of being a soldier much more than she likes actually being a soldier, so goes for something Awesome, but Impractical; Ocelot uses a gun that nerds like and that you can do fun tricks with, as well as (as Liquid points out) it being a gun that tends to shoot bullets that stay in the body and kill slowly, which also reinforces his sadism). EVA in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater handles her Mauser using a Chinese technique, and hers is (as she says) a Chinese copy, hinting at her actual backstory long before there's any reason most players will suspect it. Solid Snake's signature weapon is the SOCOM Mk. 23, a gun that in real life is known for being heavy and impractical, which makes his ability to handle it effortlessly into a glint of something superhuman about him.
  • Metal Gear Solid gives Snake some baffling dialogue during Sniper Wolf's death scene - first, telling her that the reason she's called Wolf must be because she is a Kurd, and second, apparently randomly informing us of the Yupik word for 'Wolf'. This only makes sense if you know that the Turkish words for wolf (kurt) and Kurd (Kürt) are extremely similar, though nothing else in the game informs us of this - by telling her the Yupik word for "wolf" (which is completely different from "Kurd"), he's trying to suggest that as she is dying in Alaska, Yupik territory, she is dying as a (proud, noble) wolf rather than as a (wartorn, oppressed) Kurd. If you don't know this, the train of logic comes off as complete nonsense.
  • The "la li lu le lo" motif in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is based around a fact of Japanese linguistic acquisition that is fairly common knowledge in Japan, but relatively obscure in the West except to Japanophiles. ("L" is the missing letter from the Japanese language; "la li lu le lo" is arranged in the order that Japanese syllables are written, but is made of syllables that do not exist in the language.) Emma has some dialogue in one of her speeches about how the la li lu le lo could have deleted letters from the alphabet which hints at what this is supposed to mean, but she's talking about the English alphabet. External Gazer riffs on this with a joke about an organisation called the "i ro ha ni o he do", which is even more obscure to Western audiences (the first line of a Japanese poem used as a traditional order for the syllabary before the more practical and familiar a-i-u-e-o grids).
  • Both Japanese and English players missed the Significant Anagram in Raiden, and Snake's response about how "Raiden" is the lightning through that rain comes off as a mistranslation instead of a reasonably clever bit of wordplay punning off the Japanese meaning of the word "Raiden", 'lightning bolt'.
• One of the recurring weapons from Metroid is the Wave Beam, its main property is its ability to pass through objects and hit the targets behind them. In physics, particles with a long wavelength can come around objects whereas shorter wavelength particles travel on a straight line and can be blocked by them (for example light has a short wavelength and can be easily blocked by an object, sound on the other hand can be heard even without a direct line of sight to the source).
• In Metro: Last Light, protagonist Artyom visits an underground theatre that has survived through the nuclear fallout, and his friend Pavel jokingly refers to him as Stanislavski. To deconstruct the reference, the developers of a video game about 21st century nuclear war expect you to catch a reference about a 19th century theatre director responsible for Method Acting.
• On a nautical map in Mishap 2: An Intentional Haunting one of the coastal areas is called the Abyss of Aspidochelone, while a minor ghost you can capture during chapter three is called Petey Plecostomus.
• All of the Mighty Numbers in Mighty No. 9 are named after a real-life object or concept covering a tremendously wide variety of subjects. Some are more obvious than others—someone playing the game can be expected to know what "Seismic," "Battalion," and "Aviator" mean, but the others range from SAT vocabulary to specialized knowledge.^{An explanation for the other Mighty Numbers' names} A "Pyrogen" is a protein that creates a localized fever and is why your body is warmer wherever it hurts, the "Cryosphere" consists of the collective parts of the Earth that are permanently iced over, a "Dynatron" is a type of oscilloscope used in World War I, to "Brandish" someone is to strike them with great force, a "Countershade" is an artistic technique in which a 3-dimensional object is painted to cancel out its natural shading, and a "Beck" is a gesture to get someone's attention and can definitely be used on its own, without the "beck and call" phrase.
• In one mission in Modern Warfare 2, a corkboard in a terrorist safehouse holds a diagram of the chemical structure of RDX, a military-grade high explosive.
  • While gamers are an audience expected to understand a lot of military jargon, Modern Warfare requires the player to sit down with a book of U.S Military code phrases to get a full idea as to what is going on around them. "Oscar Mike" is just the start. For instance, anyone familiar with the phrase "Broken Arrow" will undoubtedly have an additional Oh, Crap! moment at the start of "Wolverines!", whereas the rest will probably wonder what the hell that Christian Slater movie has to do with a Russian invasion.
  • During the Chernobyl mission's sniping section in Call of Duty 4, Captain MacMillan tells the player to compensate for the Coriolis effect.
  • In the Modern Warfare 3 mission "Blood Brothers," Soap and Yuri escape a bomb by leaping out of a window in Prague. That is to say they were defenestrated in Prague.
• Mother 3 had a few, but by far the most egregious example is the naming of the Magypsies (Ionia, Doria, Phrygia, Lydia, Mixolydia, Aeolia, and Locria) after the names of the modal scales.
• The Neverhood has a few bizarre jokes that only make sense if you've read The Bible.
  • "Hang me from a tree by my hoop and we can play Absalom!"
  • And then there's that one story in the Hall of Records that parodies Gnosticism...
  • Well, the entire Hall of Records is a parody of the Old Testament.
• No Man's Sky's stars have a "Spectral Type" that's based on the Morgan-Keenan Method of stellar classification.
• In Outlast Dr. Wernicke has the painting Prometheus in his cell. Like Prometheus, Wernicke brought forbidden knowledge to humanity and was punished with imprisonment.
• Parasite Eve 2: If you actually know what "Neoteny" means, a bit more of what the cult is trying to do makes sense. Well, as much sense as the intentions of a cult usually make. Neoteny is a term referring to an "adult" lifeform, showing traits from a younger form (the classic example being the axolotl; a species of salamander which retains the fins and gills which most other species of salamander lose after growing out of their larval stage). So basically, the cult is trying to "revert" humanity into more primitive forms in order to "reboot" humanities evolutionary process (somewhat ironic, given some researchers argue that a lot of the traits that set humans apart from other primates are neotenous).
• Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness: Episode One has the first robot you meet ask you "01100110 01110101 0110001101101011?" "01100110 01110101 0110001101101011!". 01100110 01110101 0110001101101011 is binary for "Fuck". The robots want to rape you. It doesn't help that they're also called "Fruit Fuckers"...
• The opening of Persona 3 is full of philosophy, including a whole paragraph of Descartes that gets flashed on screen for a couple seconds. The PSP remake prefers Nietzsche, and it throws in some complex math too.
  • The Shin Megami Tensei metaseries, which includes the Persona games, is also generally chock full of very obscure mythology references. The tameable/fusable "demons" include Greek and Roman gods, Judeo-Christian angels, both Eastern and Western dragons, Japanese mythological creatures and Aztec deities. Splitting Satan and Lucifer into separate figures is a particularly good example, since Judaism and Christianity are very different traditions and even shared figures tend to be very differently characterized. Satan in Judaism is a divine prosecutor working for God, while Lucifer fills Christianity's Satan as tempter role created by combining the two. Confusing to people who are familar only with Christianity, but a neat bonus for people who are also familiar with Jewish views on the supernatural.
  • The entire Persona series is rooted in Jungian psychology, mainly the titular Personae and the Shadows the characters fight regularly. Persona 4 also utilizes some Nietzsche in its underlying themes as well, both in the stereotypical Nietzsche Wannabe sense and Nietzsche's actual philosophy.
  • In Persona 4, Izanami may come right out of left field when introduced as the ultimate mastermind behind the game's events, unless you know that Izanami is the wife of Izanagi - the Protagonist's initial persona - in Japanese Mythology. In fact, the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is named after the Japanese underworld where Izanagi went to see Izanami after she died.
  • Certain games in the series like to focus on a particular mythology or religion, offering little moments like these to people who know a lot about them. Persona 3 has Greek mythology, Persona 4 has Japanese mythology, and the Digital Devil Saga duology focused on Hindu mythology and Buddhism.
  • One of the recurring, and best, healing items in the series is 'Soma'. The word originates from Hindu mythology and is thought to be the drink of the gods.
• Pico's School: When Pico calls Cyclops a poser, Cyclops retorts that Pico listens to techno. There was a sizable overlap in the early techno scene and the goth music scene, with many fans of one being fans of the other. This paid off decades later in the game Love Conquers All, where Pico shows he also listens to same goth music that Cassandra calls "the best in all time and space", which gives the two some common ground to talk things over.
• Pokémon:
  • The English translator for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl is also a writer for Something Awful. So for fun, he subtly slipped in a few references that a meme-savvy gamer in the 2000s might catch, such as the line "My Pokemon is fight!".
  • Also there are tons of weird, out-there Pokemon that are based on obscure animals.
  • Archeops, a Pokémon with both a base stat total and National Pokédex number of 567 (as an aside, this is the only Pokémon whose Pokédex number matches its base stat total), is based on the Archaeopteryx, considered to be a transitional fossil between feathered dinosaurs and birds. If you're looking for a book on feathered dinosaurs at the library, you'll find it at 567.9 in the Dewey Decimal system.
  • Empoleon is roughly the same height as Napoleon Bonaparte. His real height, mind you, not the height most people think he was.
  • Exeggcute is a part Grass-type Pokémon that looks like a bundle of eggs. It's an often ignored Pokémon that has a very interesting concept. It's a Visual Pun on a eggplant. In Alola, it evolves into a coconut tree, and is hunted by Crabrawler. There is a very obscure species of crab in real-life, the coconut crab, which (as the name implies) eats coconuts.
  • Pokémon Black and White is set in the Pokémon world's counterpart to New York City. While there are many story-related reasons for the games' titles, there's also the very NYC black-and-white cookie.
  • It may seem odd for the ability Dazzling to block priority attacks and only those, but it's actually based on dazzle camouflage (as also seen in the Western Animation sub-section), in which ships during World War I would sometimes be painted in bright, garish patterns designed to confuse and disorient anyone looking at it. The idea is to make it unclear where the ship is and which way it's going so that preemptive attacks would miss, hence why Pokémon with Dazzling cannot be hit by priority moves.
  • The reasoning behind some of the weirder parts of the franchise's Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors setup are usually exercises in esoteric thought. The Fairy-type is the biggest example of this, as their type match-ups only make sense if one is knowledgeable about their portrayal in not only medieval European mythologies, where iron is commonly citied as one of the few things that can kill them (hence their Steel-type weakness), but also the portrayal of their equivalents in ancient Eastern mythologies (where fairy magic is said to be one of a dragon's few weaknesses).
• Professor Layton happens to have a colleague called Dr. Avogadro. Not only is the latter named after the famous Italian physicist who coined Avogadro's number (6.022 x 10^23), but the name sounds similar to "Abogado", which means lawyer in Spanish and Filipino.
• In Rakuen, the medications listed on the treatment plan in the Boy's room are Pemetrexed Disodium and Carboplatin. Those working in the healthcare field may immediately recognize these as part of a chemotherapy regimen with the notorious possible side effect of making your hair fall out.
• Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal contains a pair of of planetoids named 'Obani Gemini'. Both planetoids have their own name - one is 'Castor', the other is 'Pollux'. Castor and Pollux are the two main stars of the Gemini constellation. And when The Dragon tries to create an artificial third planetoid, she names it 'Obani Draco', after a huge constellation (the fact that she and the constellation are The Dragon is a coincidence).
• RayStorm is actually a reference to the Roman Empire and its fall. For starters, the bosses are named after enemies of the Roman Empire and are even fought in the places where said enemies came from. This gives more insight to the story.
• Resident Evil:
  • It's never mentioned or noticed by any of the characters in Resident Evil 2, but Ada Wong fires her weapon◊ on a 45 degree angle and uses the edge of the slide to aim. This is actually a tactic used by Chinese Special Forces, and it screams out loud that she's a spy to anyone playing the game who knew it.
  • In Resident Evil 5, the player encounters Reapers, which are mutant cockroaches with praying mantis-like arms. These mutated arms are likely a reference to the fact that cockroaches and mantises are—as unlikely as it seems—evolutionary relatives.
  • Resident Evil: Revelations. Count the references to The Divine Comedy. It may take a while.
  • Bruce McGivern's awkward way of carrying a handgun in Resident Evil: Dead Aim is a real life technique. It's used in two kinds of situations: when one is alone and could easily be ambushed from behind as it allows one to cover their rear very quickly, and when one is going to be carrying the weapon for a long time as it keeps one's arms from getting tired. Both are situations Bruce is in.
• Certain mechanical items in the game series The Room carry Classical or biblical references. The designer of these pieces obviously believes Smart People Know Latin.
  • The clock in the first game carries the motto "Non est ad astra mollis e terris via", which translates to "There is no easy way from the earth to the stars." The very last puzzle has you operating a model of the solar system to make use of the Null, with surprising results.
  • The drum table in the epilogue to the first game carries a Talisman Company label, which includes a reference to Job 38:17: "Have the gates of Death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?". Later in The Room Two, you have to conduct a Spooky Séance and explore the lab of a scientist who attempted to revive his sister from the dead using the Null. He was partly successful.
  • In The Room 3 there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when you lift the first pyramid out of it's box. Directly under is a small plaque reading "Elpis." Elpis was the God of Hope, who chose to remain in Pandora's box after all the horrors had escaped. Yes, the very first puzzle in the game has you opening Pandora's box.
  • Also in the third game: the tokens you put in the fortune teller booth read: "Acta Probita Exitus," which translates to "The end justifies the means." Later you discover that Maggie Cox's soul was imprisoned in the mechanical fortune teller body inside the booth.
• In Scarface: The World Is Yours, Tony Montana survives the opening shootout at his mansion, but he is forced to give up his fortune to law enforcement. The amount of money he loses is $65,884,703 - the exact worldwide box office total of the original movie.
• One of the Adjab Dunes puzzles in Scribblenauts Unlimited is a reference to Zeno of Elea's "Achilles and the Tortoise" paradox.
• The Investigation missions in The Secret World are meant to require all kinds of different knowledge, some of it amazingly obscure. While some of them are intended to be solved with Google (unless you just happen to, say, read Romanian) a few of them have side points that are practically easter eggs. One early puzzle involves reconstructing and playing a partial piece of sheet music; it's significantly easier if you recognize John Dowland's 1596 lute piece "Flow My Tears" and can sound out in your head what notes come next.
• The Sexy Brutale: Some of the names of guests are strange, but they reference something you wouldn't know unless you knew a little Greek or if you knew how tequila is brewed.
  • The name "Lafcadio" comes from the Greek place-name Lefkada, which in turn comes from the Greek word for "white." Lafcadio's mask, before the Bloody Girl's blessing, is pure white, and he's a preacher so he probably would know these things.
  • The name "Thanos" comes from the name "Athanasios" which means "immortal" or "undying," which is appropriate for the oldest guest in the mansion and ironic given that everyone in the mansion is already dead.
  • Real tequila is made from blue agave plants. Tequila Belle and Willow Blue are great friends and interact with each other around 1:00. Tequila's dialogue with Willow indirectly leads to Willow's death.
• Silent Hill: Homecoming has an unusual one. The original series was developed in Japan, and has lots of forgivable errors regarding American culture. Homecoming was developed in the United States by American studio Double Helix Games, and the devs did their work regarding background details about the US Army. If you understand American military culture at all, and you remember that the devs were American and had done their homework, you have a good chance to guess The Reveal right about the time you finished the tutorial level. There's no possible way Alex can be mistaken for anything except someone trying to impersonate an American soldier, even if it is because of a psychiatric disorder. He was never trained to fight in any way but Alex believes he's an experienced veteran regardless, so the game's combat is clumsy and awkward to reflect that he has actually no idea how to fight.
• The Sims Medieval: in a quest you get the screenshot of a tablet with writing in Runes. The transliterated message is: nom donuts are so good like them lots
• The codes contained in the readme file to Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion which allow you to skip to a particular room are written in binary. Luckily, the same file also contains an URL to decode these codes. Specimen 7, the area leading up to it, and the cat's Cryptic Conversation is simply full of Mind Screw, but it starts to make sense once you realize it's all references to Jungian psychology.
• General Pepper from the Star Fox series. Think about it. If you don't get it, here's another clue for you all: in the Star Fox comic in Nintendo Power, Fara asks why Pepper didn't do something. His answer? "I was only a sergeant then..."
• Starsiege: Tribes and its sequel Tribes 2 featured a number of maps with obscure names that would seem meaningless to most people, but brilliant to those who know something about archaeology (Skara Brae), meteorology (Katabatic), history (Masada), metallurgy (Recalescence), et cetera.
• Twelve in Street Fighter III, whose speaking is half understandable in battle, but has his victory quotes (as in after the battle) are all in binary code. One of the funniest is 00101 01101 00001 01111, meaning "LMAO". ^note The first character's binary representation is incorrect, however, as a character in Twelve's cipher is representable by its index in the alphabet ("00001" for 'A', "00010" for 'B', etc.). "00101" is 'E', not 'L'; 'L', instead, is supposed to be "01100".
• In Super Robot Wars, this and Bilingual Bonus crop up occassionally in the names of mecha and their attacks. This is only notable because almost all of the games are Japan-exclusive, making this the primary method of figuring out the correct way to say the names. One notable example is the "Ley Buster" attack, which was called "Ray Buster" until fans made the connection between Ley Lines and another character's "Akashic Buster" attack.
• As explained by Sakurai-san himself in their reveal, Byleth's appearance in Super Smash Bros. was foreshadowed by Sakurai-san counting to 17 in binary, and there are 17 main games in Fire Emblem.
• Tales of the Abyss uses the modal scales, though not as explicitly. Tear is a "Locrian" Sergeant and Van is a "Dorian" General. It's easy to assume these are indications of the hierarchy in Daath, especially when you consider who's at the top - Ion, who's named after the first modal scale.
  • There are other music bonuses in Abyss on top of that. In Tales Series games you're normally limited to carrying around fifteen of each healing item. In Abyss it's extended to sixteen. Why? In everyday life, we like things rounded into fives and tens. But in music, it's (usually) simplest when things are in four - 4/4 time, for example. So the game rounds it to a multiple of four instead of a multiple of five. Another one occurs when you open the menu and realize it's decorated with musical staves.
  • You also get bonuses for having knowledge of the Kabbalah - that's where the names Sephiroth, Qliphoth, Daath, Keterburg, St. Binah, Grand Chokmah, Hod and Malkuth originate from. It's especially fun when they give places a double meaning. "Keter", the term from which Keterburg originates, represents the divine will of the God to create - appropriate, since Keterburg is where Jade decided to play God and create the first replica.
  • And there's a little literary one - you can find a Vorpal Sword in the same area in which you encounter an enemy called the "Jabberwocky."
• In Team Fortress 2, The Sniper has an apricot air freshener. The "apricot" is a real-world sniper slang for the medulla oblongata, a popular "sweet spot" to aim for. The team has confirmed this was an intentional reference.
  • Likewise only those that play a lot of FPSes are likely to get the fact he drives a camper.
  • In the "Meet the Spy" trailer, one of the many signs on the board at the beginning reads "defenestrated". Defenestration is the act of being thrown out of a window, which actually happens to the Sniper later on.
  • Another example from "Meet the Sniper". The line "be polite, be efficient, have a plan to kill everyone you meet" is a popular quote amongst United States Marine Corps soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Thief series has a few of these:
  • In the first game, a Hammerite text quotes Peter Paul and Mary's song "If I Had a Hammer".
  • Thief: Gold features a mission with several obscure nods to Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. First, the protagonist encounters a man named Raoul living in the caverns under the opera house (albeit in the musical, Raoul is not the one who resides there, but the Phantom's real name - Erik - is not mentioned in the musical). Further allusions include a ballet dancer named Christine being mocked for her lower-class upbringing (the protagonist of the musical, Christine, was orphaned and raised in the opera house) and a haughty soprano storming out of a rehearsal telling the manager to "find a new leading lady" (a central plot point in the musical).
  • The phrase "Bunch of taffers in this city" is used in multiple missions in Thief 2. Since "taffer" is the all purpose curse word in the series, and the city is always referred to as "The City", this hearkens strongly to the oft-repeated "Bunch of savages in this town" line from Clerks.
  • Also in the second installment, there is a book titled "Hunting of the Frumious Bandersnatch".
• Everywhere in Touhou Project, especially in the spellcards and music. By far the most famous is the title of U.N. Owen Was Her?, referencing the Agatha Christie story And Then There Were None, in which the characters are invited by someone calling themselves U.N. Owen (i.e. Unknown).
  • The boss to whom the aforementioned song belongs also has her second to last spell card named Secret Barrage "And Then Will There Be None?". The same boss also has some other spell cards with terms such as Starbow Break and Catadioptric.
  • The Komeiji sisters have many of these: their costumes are negati or specifying tempo for movements as ves of one another, Koishi's theme sounds the same played backward or forward, and many of Koishi's spell cards have Psychology related themes such like Instinct "Release of the Id", Suppression "Super-ego", Subconscious "Rorschach in Danmaku" and one that Dr. Freud would be proud of, Rekindled "The Embers of Love", which is a barrage of danmaku phalluses. And yes, most of the attack patterns used by these bosses and others do reflect the meaning in their names. Also, from the wiki:
  Koishi's musical theme, Hartmann's Youkai Girl, may refer to Eduard von Hartmann (whose most famous work is entitled The Philosophy of the Unconscious) or Heinz Hartmann (as many of Koishi's spellcards seem to make references to ego psychology.)
  • There are quite a few of these in the Shoot the Bullet spellcard names too including Reality Warper and Barrier Maiden Yukari Yakumo having a card based upon the boundary between wave and particle (which does indeed resemble the boundary between wave and particle). You can check out all the card names here and all all the genius references added by the good contributors of Touhou Wiki.
  • The plot of Ten Desires heavily references religious conflicts during the Asuka period of Japan. This is the family of the Stage 5 midboss, this is the family of the Stage 5 boss, and this is the Stage 6 boss. Sort of.
  • The lore of the Outside World claims the extinction of supernatural creatures are to be blamed on Outside World's humans' gradual rejection of supernatural because of their increasing knowledge of science. It's outright stated in the exposition by the characters of the future that the Grand Unified Theory will be completed and humanity will base the explanations of miracle on Theory of Everything. Then, why people who are the closest scions of future humanity like Yumemi and Renko are chasing after supernatural despite being genius scientists and specializing in physics? One of the rejection against Grand Unifed Theory is Incompleteness Theorem which claims there are things that just can't be proven true or false because of the variable's lack of measuring scale. Supernatural existence is dwelling in this paradox, as faith is the substence the supernatural feeds on as faith can't be measured by laws of physics for being its direct opposite. Stephen Hawkins is one of Gödel's supporters. Hawkins is explicitly said as Yumemi and Renko's idol.
• Trails Series:
  • In The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, a particular character has a pet gyrfalcon. Only people knowledgeable in falconry and/or medieval history will understand the symbolism of this: gyrfalcons were traditionally given to kings. Or, in this case, a princess in disguise. Rarely is foreshadowing so subtle.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: Doubling with Meaningful Name, the Noble alliance calling their airship The Pantagruel. While Pantagruel could also refer to a musical ensemble, it is also the title of a collection of extremely vulgar and obscene books. And Pantagruelism is synonymous to Hedonism- a fitting name then, in reference to the Noble Alliance’s attitude. Fittingly enough, Class VII raids the second half of the pair, the Gargantua battleship in Cold Steel IV.
• In Unpacking, the silver fern flag, an alternative to the New Zealand flag, can be seen in the dining room of the third house (2007).
• The Wolf Among Us, par for the course, contains a lot of references to obscure European folklore and fairy tales. The average gamer might get a few of the more well-known ones, but many will likely elude you.
• In The World Ends with You, the math jokes that Sho Minamimoto makes vary from simple to comparatively advanced. To give a notable example: Level i Flare, which is lightly foreshadowed by the mentioning of imaginary numbers. The "Level x" spells in the Final Fantasy games hit all enemies whose level is divisible by the number placed in x. i is the square root of negative 1, and negative 1 is a square root of 1. In addition, i is the most basic imaginary number, meaning Level i Flare is a powerful attack that will hit more than a Level 1 Flare would.
• World of Warcraft is so chock full of references to other things that even the smartest player is bound to miss on a few. On the websites that collect data about the game, discussions about new items frequently flare up concerning whether or not the name of an item or an NPC references something or not.
  I can't wait till this quest is done and I can look for another Garibaldi artifact.
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown has a twofer. On the standard (conventional) assault rifle, the magazine has a couple wraps of red tape around it. This is both a reference to Die Hard 2 and military color codes. In Die Hard 2, the turncoat military unit uses magazines wrapped in blue tape, allowing an eagle-eyed viewer to figure out they're using blank/training ammunition before it's revealed making this an inversion of the film's use. In military color coding, blue is used to designate friendlies as well as "safe" practice ordinance, while red denotes hostiles and "live" or lethal ordinance.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3: One late-game quest involves Colony Tau giving "Spongy Spuds" to Colony 9 (which had been struggling with food supplies after the destruction of their Flame Clock) for the latter to cultivate. This results in Colony 9's food problems being completely solved, inspiring Zeon to spread Spongy Spuds to other colonies in the hopes that it will lead to lasting peace and prosperity in Aionios. In real life, potatoes (a.k.a. spuds) have a much larger number of nutrients than other staple crops like wheat, rice, and barley, on top of requiring much less land to grow than those crops; one study by Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian even estimates that up to one quarter of the massive population growth and urbanization the Old World experienced from 1700-1900 can be attributed to the introduction of potatoes making it much easier for people to survive. So Zeon isn't being overdramatic; spuds really can make life much easier for people.
• The title and Excuse Plot of Xor are a reference to the programming concept of XOR (bitwise exclusive or) masking.

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