Henry Stickmin Series / Tropes A to F

Henry Stickmin Series Trope Examples
A - F | G - R | S - Z

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A

• Abnormal Ammo: In Mission, early on in the Bounty/Allies route, a Toppat member uses a Gatling gun that fires swords to fight off Henry and Ellie.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The file Henry uses to wear down the bars of his cell in Prison. It takes four movements to cut through a bar.
• Accuse the Witness: In the "Lawyered Up" route in Prison, Phoenix Wright/Felix White does this, accusing the security guard witness of trying to beat Henry to death, then stuffing his body into the bag and dumping him in the vault.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Implied retroactively in Prison, for the events of Bank — Henry's lawyer Felix White argues that Henry couldn't possibly have tied the money bag shut from inside said bag, making him innocent. In reality, Henry tied off the bag without much difficulty.
• Action Girl: Ellie in Complex and Mission. She has no trouble whatsoever keeping up with Henry.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: There are two policewomen in Prison named Sally Cue and Jen Bruhn who have red hair in the original version of the game. In the remaster, their hair color is changed to blond and brown respectively, likely to differentiate them from the later-introduced Ellie.
• Agony of the Feet: One option in Diamond is to throw a bomb from a museum case at the guards. Instead, it just hurts Dave's foot and the other guard shoots Henry.
  FAIL Screen: Why would they keep a live bomb in a museum?
  • Henry ends up receiving this from some lava in the Jewel Baron route of Completing the Mission, on his way to the vault if you select the Teleporter after the infiltration phase.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the Executive/Ghost route of Mission, choosing "Plead" will have Henry try to beg Ellie not to shoot him. She doesn't let him even get a word out.
  Ellie: Uh-di-di! I don't wanna hear it.
• Air-Vent Passageway:
  • In the Sneaky Escapist route of Prison, Henry uses a chair to climb inside the air vent. Turning to the right allows Henry to escape to the roof, while turning to the left cause him to drop from the air vent and into a conference room full of cops.
  • In Airship, Henry can go into an air vent inside the Airship.
  • During the Government/Dead route of Mission, Henry and Charles bypass a broken door by climbing through a nearby air vent.
• The Alcatraz: The Wall in Complex. They have tons of security even without the guards equipped with laser spears and freaking Freddy Fazbear protecting the place.
• All There in the Manual: The remastered edition has biographies for almost every character from every game, even background characters that only appear for a few seconds and have no impact on the plot. You have to click on them to obtain the bios though.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Charles accidentally crushes Henry to death with the gravity bubble because he can't figure out whether the "up" button increases the level of gravity, or uses the gravity field to lift someone up into the air. Lampshaded by the FAIL screen.
• Amusing Injuries: Zigzagged in a game heavily involving slapstick, as some injuries result in FAILs, while others happen without resulting in FAILs.
• And I Must Scream: Happens quite a lot, mostly in FAILs.
  • One example is in Complex's Ghost route where if you choose the Shadozer, Henry will blend in with it, but when there is a big shadow coming up, he will try to emerge back from the shadows, but get stuck in the floor.
  • Another example is in the Thief/Allies route in Mission, where if you choose to surrender to The Wall, Dmitri freezes Henry and Ellie in a solid block of ice at the complex.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • Prison, should you go the Legal route, has you take control of Felix White as he defends Henry in court.
  • In Diamond, Airship, and Mission, during the last turn of the Epic, Thief, and Executive/Dead routes respectively, have you choose an action in place of a Center for Chaos Containment employee.
  • Anytime Charles and Ellie team up with Henry, there will be a few moments where you choose actions for both of them.
• Anticlimax: Several FAILs get their humor from how anticlimactic they are:
  • The remastered version of the wrecking ball in Bank has Henry ready the machine… only for someone to catch him in the act, causing him to back away slowly without incident.
  • In Airship, one of the ways Henry can get past a door is using a Power Glove… but since it's just a game controller, it does absolutely nothing.
    FAIL Text: You look like an idiot…
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Complex features a path flowchart where you can go back to certain choices rather than playing through to them again, and each choice spot has an x/y count saying how many FAILs you unlocked there. This makes getting every FAIL ending significantly easier. Additionally, a new timer is displayed for time-based events so you know how long you have left.
  • The Henry Stickmin Collection reintroduces the map system and timers from Complex, which are now usable in all previous entries (except Bank, which didn't have any timed choices and doesn't need a map). Additionally, choices that are subjected to a time limit will be labeled on the map with a little clock symbol (in the original Complex, they were just a different color).
  • In Mission, there is a little circle in the top right corner of the screen that provides the cliff notes on the selected endings. If they are a combo that's already been started, it'll have a check mark in it and the word "started" next to it. It really helps with figuring out which routes you have yet to see.
  • The Bios in Mission all have a grayscale image of the character before you unlock it. Keen-eyed players can scope out where in each game that particular image comes from, making it easier to pin down where to get those bios.
• Anyone Can Die: Aside from (obviously) Henry, none of the other major characters are safe from their deaths in the series' fails, though Galeforce's deaths aren't particularly seen.
• April Fools' Day: This video, uploaded on April Fool's 2020, claimed to be an update on the progress of Mission. It uses the Subsonic Wave FAIL from the Government/Rescue route to segue into the first several seconds of a Rick Roll, with Henry's smug face from his Mission bio superimposed on Rick's face.
• Arc Welding: The Tunisian Diamond in Diamond, and the Toppats' ruby^note The Romanian Ruby in Airship, initially seem to be unrelated. In Mission, it's revealed at the start of the Thief/Ghost route that they were part of a set of three, with the third being the Norwegian Emerald. Said Emerald is in the hands of the Toppats, which is what brings Henry to their space station. A bio on Mayor Frederickson in Mission reveals that the Toppats were planning to steal the Diamond too since the exhibit was really Frederickson's scheme to smuggle it out, but Henry got to it first.
• Arm Cannon: The Gun Forme option for Henry in Mission has him turn his artificial arm into a laser-firing weapon. However, the Right Hand Man dodges all the shots and blows Henry in half.
• Art Evolution:
  • In Bank, the stick figures are drawn more simplistic than in later games, without visible feet or hands. Even in Prison, the characters' feet had the same black outline as the rest of their bodies rather than the typical colored outlines used for the next games and most of the scenery. For Collection, the former game was rebuilt from the ground up to bring it in line with the other games, and the latter received the colored foot outlines. In the case of Bank, its complete recreation is also the reason it retroactively plays with the trope in comparison to the installments between it and Mission, as it's the only the one outside of the latter to feature the full hands characteristic of Mission's style (in the games between, characters' hands are represented with simple fingers attached to the black-line ends of the arms; none of the characters' sprites were remade from scratch to match the new hands).
  • The characters, backgrounds and items are much more detailed in the games' remasters in Collection at a similar level to Mission, even if many assets were recycled.
• Art Initiates Life: In Airship, Henry can use a Magic Pencil, but that makes him draw a Nutshot Crawler which does a Groin Attack on him.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • In the ending of Mission where Charles dies, Henry salutes with his left hand. It doesn't matter whether you're right- or left-handed; tradition demands that everyone always salutes with the right. Perhaps justified as Henry has no military experience as far as we know.
  • The Government uses M1911s and Glock 17s as their pistols in Airship and Mission. In reality, the U.S. Army uses Beretta M9s as their standard handgun.
• Artistic License – Physics: Some of the choice outcomes flagrantly violate real-life physics for the sake of the Rule of Funny, which is Lampshaded on a few FAIL screens.
  • For example, the magnet FAIL in Complex (on the "Wait For Transfer-Toppat Clan" route), where Henry manages to pull the Toppat Clan airship with a magnet:
    FAIL Screen: You see, because the entropy of, uh… Alright, I can't BS my way outta this one.
  • In Mission, if you pick the Bounty/Dead path, one of the correct choices is to plow Henry's tank into the train from the side. Somehow, this doesn't cause the entire train to derail despite the high speed it was going at.
  • One correct choice in the Executive/Dead path involves Henry abusing the game's physics engine by jamming a rock into a tight corner, causing it to vibrate and fly upwards with him riding it.
• Art Shift:
  • In the Government/Allies route Mission, Henry uses a down-grader tool that turns everything into poorly drawn figures; the Toppats take their frustration at being unable to undo the change out on Henry and Ellie using the sticks their guns turned into.
  • During the Executive/Betrayed route of Mission, the Spirit form battle gives the characters defined lips and ups the contrast to further its reference to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
• Ascended to Carnivorism: When Henry shrinks himself in Diamond, he is confronted by an earthworm. Some earthworms can eat microscopic animals, these being nematodes and rotifers, but the earthworm behaved more aggressively than usual for the species, and a shrunken-down human like Henry would probably not normally be on the menu.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The German words that Freidrich Spielen actually says don't match the subtitles. For example, while the subtitles read "Why do we have so many boxes here anyway?", he actually says "Why is the horse so small?"
  FAIL Screen: Yunno, I don't think this guy knows what he's saying.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: The Henry Stickmin Collection is normally in 16:9, but changes to 2.39:1 for some cutscenes in Mission.
• A-Team Firing: The guards in Prison suffer from this, but Henry himself suffers from this as well in Diamond. One scenario has him steal a night guard's rifle and try to shoot him down with it from point-blank range, but he still manages to miss. And in Complex, he needs to be electrocuted to avoid missing or teamkilling.
• Attack Backfire: Multiple examples. In Prison, firing a rocket launcher will result in the rocket getting reflected back at Henry. In Airship, firing a laser cannon at the Right Hand Man will result in Henry getting blown off the ship due to the backdraft.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In Diamond, Henry can use a Mega Mushroom to grow to a massive size.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Many of the weapons and tools included as options in the games are pretty awesome on paper, but they have a tendency to backfire horribly.

B

• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In the Bounty/Allies route of Mission, once Henry hoists the Toppat's money car into the air, Ellie ponders how they're going to get it out of the area. The game stops and offers you three choices — all of which are meta jokes on the choices you get in these games — but before you can actually select one, the game resumes and the Right-Hand Man lands on the money car to challenge Henry and Ellie. You're then given three totally different options for how to deal with him.
  • On the Executive/Dead route, the Duplicatorange creates a copy of Henry that he sacrifices to get past a sniper tower. And it works! Actually, no, the real Henry was the one who got shot, and the game refuses to follow the clone, resulting in a FAIL screen.
  • On the Executive/Allies route, Henry once again finds himself hanging off the edge of a ledge at the complete mercy of Reginald. This time, however, Henry has earned Reginald's loyalty for putting his own neck on the line for the clan, and he pulls him up to safety.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: The very first obstacle in the Thief/Dead route is to get past the main gate of the rocket while speeding by on Henry's Scooter. Going under it, over it, or straight through doesn't work. The solution? Simply stop in front of the gate and politely ask the guard to open the gate. The Guard is caught off guard enough to do so without question, only realizing his mistake after Henry got through.
• Big Bad: Reginald Copperbottom (the Toppat Clan's leader) franchise-wide, especially in Airship. Complex has Dmitri Petrov and Mission has the Right Hand Man depending on the route.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Depending on the previous endings chosen in Mission, the overall main villain varies, although the Right Hand Man is treated as this for the game as a whole because It's Personal with Henry and he's more powerful than almost anyone else.
  • Most of the time, it's a member of the Toppat Clan. It's mostly Reginald, the Right Hand Man, and/or Sven Svensson. Special mention goes to Mr. Macbeth for being the Big Bad of the Little Nest Egg ending and that ending only.
  • Hero Antagonist-wise, General Galeforce is the Big Bad under most routes that have Henry oppose the Government.
  • Dmitri Petrov for the Thief/Allies route, returning in that route and that route only so he can recapture Henry and Ellie.
  • Ellie Rose is the Big Bad of the Toppat Civil Warfare route, as she caused a rift in the Toppat Clan to oust Henry from it due to him abandoning her back at The Wall, and ultimately becomes the leader.
• Big First Choice: In every game after Bank, which route the player goes on is typically determined by their very first choice, with some exceptions:
  • Prison: Starting from Henry's cell, choosing the Drill starts Badass Bust Out and choosing the Cellphone starts Lawyered Up. The File gives the player two options - choosing the Window results in a FAIL, and choosing the Cell Door starts Sneaky Escapist.
  • Diamond opens with a choice to Bust In or Sneak In. "Sneak In" gives a choice to break into the museum through the roof (which starts Unseen Burglar) or the wall (which starts Just Plain Epic). "Bust In" is much simpler - selecting it starts Intruder on a Scooter.
  • Airship opens with four methods of getting onto the titular Airship - the Earpiece starts Government Supported Private Investigator, the Grapple Gun starts Pure Blooded Thief and the Sticky Hand starts Lightning Quick Larcenist. What ending you get after selecting the Cannonball is determined by a Last-Second Ending Choice - the Tank earns you Relentless Bounty Hunter and the Dummies earn you Rapidly Promoted Executive. The Missile and the Parachute both end in FAILs.
  • Complex opens with four options - "Charge Tackle" starts Presumed Dead and "Play Dead" causes a FAIL. "Boost Up" and "Wait for Transfer" both lead to forks with two choices:
    • Choosing "Boost Up" leads directly to the "Maintenance Vent" fork - from here, choosing to abandon Ellie starts Ghost Inmate, whilst choosing to help her starts Convict Allies.
    • Choosing "Wait for Transfer", then choosing "Laser Plane" in Henry's Cell leads to the "Phone a Friend" fork - calling the Toppat Clan starts The Betrayed, whilst calling the Government starts International Rescue Operative.
  • Mission opens with a screen asking you to combine two endings (one from Airship, one from Complex) to determine which route you start. From here, two routes offer Last Second Ending Choices:
    • The Thief/Allies route ends with a choice between siding with the Toppat Clan, the Government, the Wall, and nobody. Siding with the Toppat Clan earns the ending Toppat Recruits and siding with the Government earns Pardoned Pals, and siding with the Wall or nobody leads to a FAIL.
    • Normally, the Executive/Dead route has only one choice which leads to an ending ("Fingerprint Scanner", which earns Toppat 4 Life). Earn every FAIL and ending in the game beforehand, and the option "Multiverse Imbalance" becomes available - selecting it earns Multiversal Correction.
• Bilingual Bonus: The Japanese spoken by the RHM in the Executive/Betrayed route is laughably broken and unnatural, fittingly for Henry Stickmin's Affectionate Parody nature as a reference to the broken Gratuitous English of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
• Bittersweet Ending: Mission comes with three.
  • The Government/Dead ending: Valiant Hero. The Toppat space station has been officially destroyed and the plans of the remaining members are ruined, making them unlikely to rise again. But it came at the cost of Charles' life, who sacrificed himself to make sure that Henry could get away, with the latter obviously being completely crushed by the outcome.
  • The Executive/Ghost ending: Toppat Civil Warfare. To get her revenge on Henry, Ellie escapes from The Wall and reveals that Henry betrayed her. Due to Reginald and the Toppats being pretty big on loyalty, Henry gets dethroned, and is left with only three allies on his side: Geoffrey Plumb, Thomas Chestershire, and Dave Panpa. Meanwhile, Ellie becomes the leader of the Toppat Clan after Henry is overthrown and Reginald and the Right-Hand Man are inadvertently killed by Henry and the loyalists. After that, The Toppat Clan is now locked into a very one-sided civil war. However, this is subverted, as we never see how Henry or Ellie will win the war.
  • The Executive/Betrayed ending, Revenged, is by far the most bitter. Henry officially gets Reginald back for trying to kill him by putting an end to the Right Hand Man, killing Reginald, his killer and plowing the Airship into the Toppat launch site, leaving the Toppat Clan leaderless, ruining their plans, and destroying a good chunk, if not all, of their assets, making recovery unlikely. But thanks to a cheap shot from Reginald before the ship crashes and he bleeds out, it doesn't take long until Henry dies too. Worse yet, it is implied that the newest Toppat members who haven't committed any crimes yet as well as Dave Panpa perished in the crash as well, and since Henry never met and worked with Ellie and/or Charles, no one will remember him for his heroic action of taking down the Toppat Clan. He dies exactly how he started: alone.
• Black Comedy: Pretty much nearly every scene that contains injury or body count is Played for Laughs, especially involving Henry's failures, where the FAIL screens seem to like to chuckle and are definitely not afraid of.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Henry makes use of one in the Executive/Betrayed route of Mission to battle the Right-Hand Man. Likewise, the Right-Hand Man has an even larger one that can be used as a blunt weapon.
• Blade Brake: One FAIL in Mission involves Henry and Ellie jumping out of the Toppats' rocket to escape pursuit, and Ellie using this technique to slow their descent. It works just a little bit too well, and they find themselves stuck halfway up the rocket just as it's about to launch.
• Blatant Item Placement: No matter where he is, Henry always finds multiple objects he can use. Even objects you would not expect to find in that location. Who would expect to find a crowbar in a museum, for instance?
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: During the reference to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in Mission, the characters begin speaking in Japanese as a homage to the anime. Subtitles are provided, but the dialogue is filled with grammatical errors, misprounciations, and is overall nonsensical, much to the amusement of Japanese fans. The creators have admitted that they just used all the Japanese they learned from watching anime.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!:
  • In the "Cleaned 'em Out" ending of Mission, the Toppat Clan apparently had a few gold-plated AK-47s and M1911s.
  • The Painting Portal fail in Mission has Henry jump into a painting just like in Super Mario 64. Here, he comes face to face with Jaques Kensington, a previous Toppat leader, who then one-shots him with a golden Desert Eagle.
  • Discussed in Airship. When Henry passes over a group of Toppats in a meeting in the Government route, they're discussing the pros and cons of a solid gold cannon; with one Toppat pointing out how insanely heavy it'd be and another claiming the airship has enough power to handle it.
• Bloodless Carnage: No deaths in the series feature gore or blood, and explosions are always off-screen.
  "U GET CUT! Y U NO BLEED?"^*The laser cauterized it.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • A sniper from a helicopter can do this to Henry on Diamond's Aggressive route if he doesn't react quickly enough. Even the FAIL message lampshades this.
  • And later in the same game, a police officer can do this to Henry if Henry tries to bribe him, or again if Henry doesn't react quickly enough.
  • In Complex, Charles has the option to snipe a Mook blocking Henry's path. He hits Henry instead.
  • Complex also lets Henry do this to Ellie if you give Henry the Sniper Rifle and Ellie the Crossbow.
  • In the Government/Allies route, an unnamed Toppat snipes Ellie and Henry, if they decided to land in the control tower.
  • In the Executive/Ghost route of Mission, Ellie does this to Henry if he pleads for his life in a FAIL screen.
• Boom in the Hand: In Diamond, Henry can attempt to use a sticky grenade for one segment. However, he ends up being unable to throw it due to being stuck to his hand, resulting in it blowing him up.
• Boom Stick: Some guards in Complex have these. It turns out they can fire blasts of energy capable of vaporizing a person. In-universe, they're called Spears of Shocks according to the pickpocket option.
• Boring, but Practical: More often than not, it's the simpler and more mundane tools that get the job done rather than the awesome gadgets. For example:
  • In Prison, the file actually gets Henry out of his prison cell, while the rocket launcher and teleporter do not.
  • The Legal route of Prison is this incarnate: Henry simply calls his lawyer, who gets him acquitted of the charges.
• Boxed Crook:
  • This is the setup of Airship, with the Government approaching Henry with an offer of a pardon in exchange for him helping them bring down the Toppat Clan.
  • In Mission, the GSPI/CA route leading to the "Triple Threat" ending has Henry and Ellie tasked with stopping the Toppat Rocket by the Government.
• Breaking Old Trends: Mission does this a couple of times.
  • The Special BROvert Ops and Cleaned 'em Out routes are only times in the series where Gadget Gabe doesn't get Henry killed, after his gadgets did so in every previous game besides Bank.
  • The Valiant Hero route is the only time where Charles crashing his vehicle into something actually works after failing in the two previous games.
  • The Jewel Baron route has Henry actually rejecting the Teleporter and smashing it on the ground, due to it repeatedly failing to work in all but one of the previous games.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: In Diamond, several scenarios involve Henry or the guards using museum pieces to fight one another. For example, Henry can use a model airplane, shield, and Super Mushroom, while the guards use a cannon against the giant Henry. Sometimes this doesn't work, because the weapons are in a museum and are therefore disarmed.
• Bribe Backfire:
  • Trying to bribe a police officer with the titular diamond in Diamond gets Henry shot for committing a federal offense.
  • In the Bounty/Dead route of Mission, when Mr. Macbeth confronts Henry, Henry can try to bribe him. However, he attempts to do so with the money that he has yet to steal from Mr. Macbeth's own clan, which of course doesn't work.
• Brick Joke:
  • Potentially occurs in Mission. In the Executive/Ghost route, one of the options at the first choice is to make a Save State. One of the options at the end of the Thief/Ghost route is "Load Save" which, if you've chosen the "Save State" choice before, sends you all the way back to it.^note If you haven't, then "Load Save" just jumps back to halfway through the previous cutscene, with the Toppats charging up their Kill Sat.
  • Can also happen in Airship. In the "Thief" route, the airship's pilot will be forced to deploy some evasive maneuvers to avoid a flock of ducks. In the "Government" route, if you wait too long before grabbing the incriminating evidence, Charles will complain about a duck that flew into his propeller.
• Bubble Shield: The "Intruder on a Scooter" route of Stealing the Diamond features Henry using a big bubble to defend himself from a Sniper, a blatant homage to Sonic's Water Shield.
• Bumbling Sidekick: Charles on the Earpiece route in Airship and IRO route in Complex is far more likely to accidentally kill Henry than help him.
• Butt-Monkey: Henry. Quite a few of the options will result in a humiliating injury happening to him. Then, there's Charles, who also goes through many misfortunes and comical deaths just like Henry whenever he's trying to assist him. Not even Ellie is safe from this either when she's tagging along with Henry.

C

• Calculator Spelling: In Stealing The Diamond on the "Just Plain Epic" route, one of the options drops a capculator in front of Henry which types into itself "1337" which amuses Henry. Then it divides by zero.
• Call-Back:
  • Many of the games make references to previous ones. Airship even opens with a Call-Back to each of the three games that came before it.
  • In Prison, one of Henry's attempts to escape has him land in the middle of the street, where he immediately gets run over by a van from the bank Henry tried to rob in Bank.
  • The Warp Star option for Presumed Dead route caused Henry to jettison back to prison, similar to how he jets back into his cell with the Jet Pack option from Prison. (He actually winds up in the same cell, which the game lampshades.)
  • A particular room in the Thief/Ghost route in Mission is one to the prototype of the entire series, Crossing the Pit, featuring all eight of the same options. Most of them fail in the exact same way that they did in Pit.
  • The Executive/Betrayed route of Mission has two:
    • At the beginning of the route, Henry crashes into the Toppat airship's cockpit and confronts the Right Hand Man, who tries to protect Reginald. This is precisely what happened at the start of the Executive route of Airship.
    • At the end of the route, one of the options specifically references the Betrayed ending of Complex. It's the "Drop" option, which leads to Henry letting Reginald fall from the airship in the same way Reginald did to him in Complex.
• Came Back Strong:
  • With the right selection of previous endings in Mission (anything with Airship's Bounty and Executive endings), Right-Hand Man is given a cybernetic upgrade after his defeat.
  • Henry Stickmin himself gets a similar upgrade in the Executive/Betrayed timeline.
• Captain Ersatz: For copyright reasons, the name Phoenix Wright in Prison was replaced with Felix White in the remaster.
• Car Chase Shoot-Out:
  • In the Intruder on a Scooter route of Diamond, while driving away from the museum, Henry is chased by a police car, and the passenger officer leans out the window to open fire on him.
  • In the Presumed Dead route of Complex, Henry is driving a Wall truck and being chased by Wall staff, and the player must pick an option to fight back. Picking shoot will cause Henry to pull out a handgun and open fire on the staff, then promptly crash into a tree because he was trying to shoot at the guards while driving, and was not paying attention to what was in front of him.
  FAIL Screen: Eyes on the road, man!
  • In the Toppat King route of Mission, the bridge to the rocket is blocked and the player must choose someone in the jeep to get through the blockade. Picking Ellie, the driver, has her pull out an assault rifle and attempt to shoot down the blocking guards. However, since she is trying to drive and shoot at the same time, this merely causes her to lose control of the vehicle and the jeep falls off the bridge.
  FAIL Screen: Shooting from a moving vehicle is actually really hard. Especially if you're supposed to be driving.
• Cartoon Bomb:
  • They are used in Bank alongside other explosives.
  • In Airship, Henry uses one to break the door, only to fail due to not having cover.
  • This is repeated in Bounty/Ghost, where Henry uses one to blow up the door in his cell, again without proper cover.
  Henry: (upon realizing that he has no cover) Wait...
• Cartoon Cheese: Henry can eat one in Diamond.
• Catch and Return: In Prison, the Badass Bust Out ending ends with the police chief attempting to shoot Henry. While dodging the attack, Henry catches one of the bullets and uses it to either break the chief's gun (original version), or knock it out of his hands (Collection version).
• Ceiling Cling: Used successfully by Henry in Airship (with the help of glue on his hands) in order to make it past a meeting room filled with Toppat members.
• Cerebus Syndrome:
  • While Bank, Prison, and Diamond have light and humorous FAILs, their plots continue to develop.
  • Airship features a sad FAIL when a scene involving a Dark Energy Blaster involves a CCC employee crying while looking at a family photo as he meets his fate. The FAIL screen says nothing, as if to show a moment of silence.
  • With Complex, the plots become more dramatic, such as with Betrayed, where Henry is betrayed by Reginald just over wanting his old position and lets Henry die.
  • With Mission, this occurs with Charles through developing him as more than just a Bumbling Sidekick. It is especially evident with the relationship with Henry thereof for the ending of the Government/Dead path as Charles sacrifices himself to save Henry. This is considered to be the saddest moment of the whole Henry Stickmin series. Furthermore, it is arguably the most emotionally resonant in hindsight, as Charles willingly throws Henry into an escape pod so that Henry can be saved.
  • Special mention goes to the Executive/Betrayed route in Mission, where Henry is on a quest for revenge after being cybernetically augmented in order to recover from his wounds.
  • The Executive/Ghost route seems more dramatic than all but above two other routes; it shows the downfall of Henry's leadership after when Ellie exposed him that he abandoned her, almost everything in the Clan is against Henry, and after that started an outraging civil war between the two major participants. Granted, it ends on a cliffhanger, but this doesn't help the fact, story-wise, severely lack of humor when compared most routes.
• Cerebus Retcon: Minor example. In the Flash version of Diamond, the Teleporter seemingly warps him too high only to reveal he's barely a foot above the museum roof, whereas in the remake, it teleports him a good distance above it, hurting him on impact. It still works, though.
• Chainsaw Good: During the Cannonball Route in Airship, in Final Fantasy-style battle with the Right Hand Man, Henry pulls out a chainsaw and a hockey mask if you choose the "tool" option.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Using a tool gun in Complex to levitate out of the complex causes the game to 'kick you out' for cheating. The FAIL screen that follows contains these exact words.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In the Bounty/Allies and Bounty/Dead routes of Mission, Henry uses the tank he stole at the end of the Bounty route of Airship. The former even begins with Ellie exclaiming "Wait… you have a tank?!"
  • Thief/Allies has Charles himself become this, as in this route he only plays a minor role getting Henry onto the airship before Henry goes rogue to steal the Romanian Ruby. He shows up again at the end of that route and recognizes Henry, allowing him to side with the government and be pardoned along with Ellie.
  • Mission also has a few cross-route examples, as minor background elements in some routes are actually important to others.
    • In Special BROvert Ops, Henry hides behind a cooler labeled 'fill with beer once airborne'. In the Cleaned 'Em Out route, he hides in this cooler to sneak into the room where the Toppats were keeping their treasures.
  • In Triple Threat, Henry and Ellie break an installation of some sorts while being dropped in to the Toppat base. Special BROvert Ops reveals that this is a SAM turret. It targets Charles and Henry has to deal with it.
  • Mr. Macbeth, the train operator, has only one line in Capital Gains (calling for Right Hand Man Reborn to deal with Henry), but he's the main antagonist in Little Nest Egg (where Right Hand Man is The Ghost).
• Chekhov's Gunman: Subverted during the Ghost Inmate route in Complex. The game claims "Ellie will remember that" when Henry abandons her after she helps him out. She never appears again during that route. Double Subverted in the Executive/Ghost route of Mission, where she returns for revenge.
• Chrome Champion: In the Bounty/Ghost route of Mission, Henry can wear the metal cap from Super Mario 64 to make his whole body metallic. It makes him strong enough to break a metal door as well as immune to bullets.
• Cliffhanger: The ending of the Executive/Ghost route (TCW, Toppat Civil Warfare) is the most open in the whole game, since it ends with Henry escaping the Airship with Geoffrey, Thomas, and Dave in tow and seemingly declaring war on the Ellie-led Toppat Clan. Tellingly, this is the only route to end with the golden text reading "Mission Complete?".
• Collection Sidequest:
  • The Henry Stickmin Collection offers Character Bios. You obtain a character's bio by right-clicking on them during a game.
  • Prison (doughnuts), Diamond (paintings), Complex (appearances by a G-Man Captain Ersatz), and Mission (Among Us character plushies) have separate collection sidequests of their own.
• Coincidental Dodge: The tranquilizer dart FAIL in Diamond happens because the guard Henry tries to shoot does a yawing stretch as the dart flies by. This results in the dart bouncing around the ventilation system before hitting Henry.
  FAIL Screen: Whoa! What are the odds of that??
• Comically Missing the Point: The FAIL screens do this numerous times.
• Company Cross References: Mission contains several references to Among Us, another game made by Puffballs United and Innersloth.
  • There are collectible plush versions of the crewmates scattered across multiple paths. Collecting them all unlocks the "Assemble the Crew" achievement.
  • Henry's purple mask that he wears in most of the Dead routes is taken from the game.
  • A poster inside the space station's bar shows an Imposter with a knife with the phrase "SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING."
  • One FAIL in the Bounty/Ghost route has Henry ejecting himself out of the space station, with the text "Henry was not The Imposter" appearing as he floats through space.
    FAIL Screen: Hmm… seems there is still an imposter Among Us.
  • The "S.S. Annie" FAIL in the remastered Complex also has one: the sound that plays when Henry kills the captain (and subsequently gets killed himself) is the same sound that plays for a Crewmate when they're murdered by an Imposter.
  • Another one in the remastered version of Complex: one of the bios is for a guard named Polus Petrovich and it's mentioned in his card description that he "won a sweepstakes and got to name a planet after himself." This is referring to Polus, the planet which the Polus Outpost map in Among Us takes place.
• Compilation Re-release: The Henry Stickmin Collection, which includes remastered versions of all 5 previous games in addition to the new 6th and final game.
• Continuity Nod: Throughout the games, events from a previous game are frequently mentioned.
  • For example; in the "Legal Ending" of Prison, Henry's lawyer presents a Doctor's Analysis in which it says that Henry survived a lot of cuts and hits the day they found him, referring to the many FAIL-scenarios from Bank.
  • Two of the prison guards from Prison return in Diamond (one as a museum guard, because he got fired after Henry escaped^note he had been the one who had failed to check the cake for anything suspicious; the other as an officer during the police chase). So does the truck driver from Bank (after that incident, he decided that driving a money truck was too dangerous).
  • In the start menu of Airship, you can take a look in Henry's garage and see both the police car he stole in the "Badass Ending" of Prison, and the scooter he used in the "Aggressive ending" of Diamond, while later the military shows Henry footage of his previous adventures to prove they know about his past.
  • In Complex, Henry can call either Charles the Helicopter pilot or the Toppat Clan (both from Airship) for help to get out of prison. Also in Complex, one of the FAIL scenarios takes Henry back to the prison in Prison; this one is given a lampshade:
    "This place seems familiar."
• Controllable Helplessness: If you pick one of the wrong options in the Undertale-style battle in Mission, you have a chance to move Henry's SOUL around to dodge the attack. There's no chance you'd actually be able to dodge it due to it covering the whole bullet board or being too accurate, and it'll inevitably lead to a FAIL screen once Henry is hit.
• Conviction by Contradiction: The "Lawyered Up" ending in Prison relies on Felix White being able to claim that Henry couldn't possibly have tied the disguise bag shut while in it (reasonable by real-world standards, though not actually true; Henry did exactly that, as the audience knows full well) and therefore he must have been stuffed there by the guard, Winston Davis (an utterly absurd reach). The judge accepts this with no apparent issue.
• Cool Airship: The Toppat Clan's airship in… erm, Airship.
• Cool Bike: Henry's motorized kick scooter from Diamond. It gets even cooler in the Jewel Baron pathway of Mission, where it can now go into space.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Sometimes the option that lets Henry progress is the most ridiculous one.
• Critical Failure: Trying to use Wizard Magic to open a door in Airship makes Henry freeze himself. The FAIL screen mentions that he rolled a 1.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Henry may be clumsy and sometimes even dumb, but this is also the same thief who managed to escape from a prison just with some gadgets in his arsenal, steal the Tunisian Diamond unscathed, have a group of soldiers kidnap him to successfully infiltrate an airship of a gang leader because of his skills, and finally manage to escape The Wall, a maximum security prison that holds the worst criminals and has never lost a single inmate until Henry showed up. Mission features his most impressive repertoire to date, whether it's fending off the military, destroying the Toppat Clan's space station Kill Sat, making off with the Toppat Clan's absurd amount of money and artifacts, or even stealing their entire space station.
• Cryo-Prison: If Henry and Ellie choose to surrender to Dmitri during the "Pure Blooded Thief/Convict Allies" route, they will be taken to a special section of The Wall compound in which they are cryogenically frozen and encased in blocks of ice, never to see the light of day ever again.
• Curse Cut Short: In Prison, when Henry uses a belt of grenades and throws a grenade at the guards, only for it to bounce into the room he's in as he closes the door. The grenade blows up on him shortly after he realizes his mistake.
  Henry Stickmin: What the f— *explosion*
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Henry either has the superpowers, or the gadgets, of dozens of fictional characters. With Zero Point Energy alone, he could probably make a fortune in legitimate money.
  • Eventually Subverted in the SSR ending in Mission: The Stickmin Space Resort ending, from the Thief/Dead route. After stealing the Toppat Clan's satellite base, Henry opens it up as a space resort staffed by reformed members of the Toppat Clan.
• Cutting Off the Branches: Zig-zagged.
  • Prison establishes that Henry used the bag to get into the bank in Bank, as that's the only ending where he ends up getting arrested.
  • In Airship, Captain Galeforce lists Henry's past crimes when explaining why he was recruited in the opening cutscene. The files can show photos and information from any of the previous games' endings. Bank can even have a photo of Henry Tele Fragged in the wall instead of being arrested in the vault. In The Henry Stickmin Collection, which files are shown depend on which ending you got most recently in each of the previous games.
  • Even though every game since Prison has multiple endings, the games that follow afterwards hardly make any attempts to firmly establish one of the endings of their predecessors as canon and discard the others. A good example of this can be found in Complex, in which your choice of path after the "Wait for Transfer" can determine whether Henry sided with the Toppat Clan or the Government. (In the remake, the options may be initially locked; you can't contact an organization for help if you didn't side with them first.)
  • Mission allows the player to determine which endings from Airship and Complex the game should treat as canon. However, some combinations are not compatible; Henry is unable to be rescued by Charles if he didn't help the government, and cannot pick "The Betrayed" as an ending unless he has become the leader of the Toppat Clan.

D

• Dangerous Backswing: A FAIL in Diamond results from Henry swinging a flail that gets caught on a boat above him, dragging him off his scooter.
• Dark Reprise: A sad piano rendition of the Toppats' theme plays in the Revenged ending.
• Deadly Force Field: The Deflector Shield around the Toppats' orbital station in Mission counts. If Charles chooses to shoot a hole in the space station so Henry can climb through, Burt Curtis will raise the shields and Henry will be cut in half.
• Death by Irony: In the Executive/Betrayed route, Henry can attempt to kill Reginald Copperbottom by dropping him off the airship, which is how Reginald originally killed Henry. It doesn't stick, as Reginald had a parachute built into his hat.
• Death from Above: The final correct choice of the Undetected route in Diamond is to simply drop the heavy, huge diamond on the guard from above.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: The Executive ending in Airship has the leader of the Toppat Clan admitting defeat and telling Henry that he's now the new leader. Depending on the choices he'll either just turn them in to the authorities anyway or fly off and start a new life as a supervillain. This is subverted in the sequels where Reginald clearly resents Henry's leadership and will stab Henry in the back to take the Clan back. Depending on the route, he can succeed or Henry can earn his true respect by saving the Clan.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In Bank, one of Henry's attempts at breaking the wall has him using a Lazer Drill that would have succeeded if he realized that the wall would fall onto his position.
  • A FAIL in Diamond involves Henry ditching his scooter to escape the cops, only to realize that he left the diamond behind with the scooter...which didn't even continue very far before it (and the police) stopped. The FAIL screen lampshades it.
  • A FAIL in Complex involves Henry and Ellie getting on a truck full of prisoners to escape… but there's no one driving the truck, and it's implied that the back door is now locked.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Averted, Ray Rudolpho (the guy in quarantine) in Complex has leprosy as explained in the bio, which causes his skin to look bad and his hand to fall off.
• Disembodied Eyebrows: All characters' eyebrows float above their heads.
• Disposable Decoy Doppelgänger: Henry at one point can use a Duplicatorange to create a clone of himself, enabling him to avoid being shot by a sniper. Trying to use this option triggers a fail, as the real Henry is the one who gets shot.
• Dodge the Bullet: Henry does this at the climax of one of the routes in Prison.
• Dog Pile of Doom: On the Bounty/Rescue Route in Mission, one of options for getting past the Right Hand Man is a dogpile. If chosen, Henry and his team will dogpile on the Right Hand Man and then the Right Hand Man's own men become ecstatic and join in on the dogpile in excitement. The choice ends up being a fail though, as the Right Hand Man blows everybody off of him.
  Fail Screen: Everyone! Pile on!
• Donut Mess with a Cop:
  • In Prison, several guards can be seen eating donuts. Clicking on all the donuts in the game gets you a medal.
  • Also invoked in one of the bios in the same chapter. The bio for Kev Portly mentions that he joined the police force specifically because he loves donuts and knows that cops eat donuts.
• Downer Beginning:
  • Prison starts with Henry still imprisoned at the West Mesa Penitentiary after his attempted robbery.
  • Diamond starts with Henry living an awful life, barely any money, and his house just looks depressing.
  • Complex starts with Henry having been captured and imprisoned in The Wall, a prison from which nobody has ever escaped.
• Downer Ending:
  • Bank ends with Henry getting arrested.
  • The "Lightning Quick Larcenist" "ending" in Airship has Henry accidentally disappoint the Government, although the game acknowledges it as a FAIL.
  • The Betrayed ending of Complex is a clear one. Reginald murders Henry to reclaim his leadership of the Toppats. Henry gets better, though.
• The Dragon:
  • Reginald Copperbottom has the Right Hand Man (the Toppat member with the red mustache).
  • Grigori Olyat acts as Dmitri's right hand man, though he doesn't really do much.
  • Ellie Rose is this to Henry after the two team up. It's also a heroic version if Henry sides with the Government.
• Dread Zeppelin: The Toppat Clan's airship classifies.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Played for laughs in Mission's Toppat Civil Warfare ending, with Henry's escape pod smashing into Reginald and Right-Hand Man by accident, killing them instantly.
  • Played straight in the Bounty/Rescue route with Right-Hand Man obliterating Henry's strike team.
• The Dying Walk: At the end of the Executive/Betrayed route of Mission, Henry, having been hit by a cheap shot from Reginald that's shorting his cybernetics, limps away from the impact site using a branch as a crutch, sits against a rock and quietly passes away.

E

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The series started with this very simple prototype named Crossing the Pit.
  • Bank can also be considered this. Compared to the other games, it's relatively simple and straight-forward; the player can only make a choice in the very beginning, and every choice results in failure. The stick figures are drawn even more simplistic than in later games, without visible feet or hands (although this was changed in the remastered version).
  • Prison stands out with trying to justify where Henry gets the various items he uses to break out, such as out of a cake or out of a supply crate. Later games only do this occasionally, with most of the items going unexplained for Rule of Funny.
  • Prison and Diamond also count, as their endings aren't given unique names compared to the later installments. And just like Bank, this is also corrected in their remasters.
  • When Henry cuts himself in half with a laser in Diamond, the Fail screen justifies the lack of blood by saying that the laser cauterized the wound. Later games have other occasions where Henry can get cut or severly wounded in other way, still without blood, but the games do not bother explaining the lack of blood those times, as if blood didn't exist in the first place in the Henry Stickmin universe.
• Easily Forgiven: The Thief/Allies route in Mission involves Henry and Ellie trying to join the Toppat clan so they'll be safe from both the government and the Wall. Depending on the players choice during the face-off between the three factions, either he is forgiven by the government for abandoning the airship mission to steal a ruby when he stops the Toppat rocket launch (likely because the Government got what they wanted out of him anyway), or he is forgiven by the Toppats for breaking into their airship and stealing their ruby (though Reginald was impressed by his thieving skills) when he helps them escape from the government and returns said ruby.
• Energy Weapon: The point-defense weapons on the Toppat Clan's station in Mission are a trio of laser cannons that fire green bolts.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Rupert Price is barely keeping it together as he slowly aims his rifle toward Henry in the Lightning Quick Larcenist joke ending of Airship for unintentionally bringing a teddy bear in a safe.
• Epic Fail: Some of Henry's choices end in absolutely humiliating things happening. For example, trying to snap the final guard's neck in Diamond's Unseen Burglar path results in Henry falling down the small flight of stairs that's right beside him.
  FAIL Screen: I told you man, I told you about stairs!
  • In Mission, one of the mooks has a clear shot at Henry with a sniper rifle. It takes him four shots to hit his mark, turning the normally quick-time-event into a moderate-time-event.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Both the Toppat Clan and the Wall employ men and women from all over the world.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Toppat Clan may be evil, but at least they let their members go to visit their families. Additionally, the Clan is bound to a code of honor which apparently includes not selling out or leaving behind people that help them out just because, which Henry learns the hard way in the Executive/Ghost route of Mission.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Guards, Henry's own tools, worms…
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Henry versus the Toppat Clan in Airship and some of the routes in Mission. Subverted if he joins them in one of the endings or if he becomes a better person by working with the government.
  • Played straight whenever the Toppat Clan and the Wall confront each other.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Happens in several pathways of Mission that use the Presumed Dead ending from the previous game as a starting point; Henry is hiding out in a bar, and overhears something important (be it from a Toppat member talking out loud on his phone, or two drunk soldiers talking to each other) that prompts him to go on his mission for that pathway.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Early on in the Bounty/Allies route in Mission, Henry and Ellie are driving a tank in an assault on the Toppats' train, and a gun turret from the nearby caravan is shooting back. Henry fires a shell from the tank, seemingly missing… but hitting the mountain above an oncoming tunnel, causing a rockslide and blocking the train tracks, thereby crashing the train.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The various games are all named after what Henry will be doing.
  • Breaking the Bank has Henry breaking into a bank.
  • Escaping the Prison chronicles Henry's escape from prison. (Becomes Exact Words when done through the Lawyered Up route.)
  • Stealing the Diamond features Henry's theft of the Tunisian Diamond.
  • Infiltrating the Airship has Henry infiltrating the Toppat Clan's airship.
  • Fleeing the Complex has Henry fleeing from the complex known as The Wall.
  • Zig-zagged in Completing the Mission, as what the titular mission is varies wildly from route to route, from official government operations to heists and to an epic battle for revenge.
    • Subverted in the Executive/Ghost route, as the story ends with Henry, his loyalists, and Dave escaping the airship, but their mission of taking back control of the clan from Ellie not currently possible. The game lampshades it by adding a question mark on the "Mission Complete" text.
• Explosive Punch: The series has parodied Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch and similar moves of his as a running gag since Diamond.
  • One of the options in the first proper phase of Diamond's "Unseen" route is to make Henry attempt to do the Falcon Punch against the museum's rooftop guard, only to interrupt when he notices that only smoke is coming out of his fist. To quote the fail screen immediately shown afterwards:
    Only one man is capable of doing that punch.
  • The opposite outcome happens with the "Government" pathway's Falcon Kick from Airship, which causes Henry to burn himself into ashes.
    I think you put too much energy into it that time.
  • Complex's "Allies" route has the KNEE, in which Henry blasts out Grigori and (accidentally) Ellie with the Knee of Justice. This is followed by a "YOU WIN, PERFECT" message taken directly from Street Fighter II Turbo as Henry smiles awkwardly, which the fail screen lampshades:
    Whoa whoa whoa! You can't go mixing fighting game references like that!
  • Mission's "Capital Gains" route brings the gag to a tasteful conclusion. Henry and Ellie have to fight the Right Hand Man Reborn, and the correct option is replicating an iconic smash clip, "The Wombo Combo". They finish it off with their "Stickmin Pawnch", which finally succeeds and kills the Right Hand Man again.
• Explosive Stupidity: Whenever Henry have an option to use an explosive, it never goes well to him. For example, in Prison, during the Sneaky route, Henry can at one point use a belt of grenades to dispose of some guards, but the one grenade he throws bounces right back into the storage room he's hiding in. He realizes his mistake mere seconds before the grenade goes off.
• Extremely Short Timespan: According to the Omega Ending of Mission, the events of Prison happened about a year ago from it, implying that the entire series takes place over such a timespan.
• Eye Scream:
  • A couple of FAILs involve this.
    • In Prison, there's an option to pull a rocket launcher out of the cake. The rocket misses the bars, goes through a duct, and flies back at Henry, drilling into his eye before exploding.
    • In the hallway standoff of the Allies route in Complex, Henry can choose to throw a grenade while Ellie shoots it with a crossbow, sticking in a guard's eye. The result? The guard runs at Henry in order to kill him.
  • In the Executive/Betrayed route of Mission, the Right-Hand Man ends up with Henry's blade arm embedded in his cybernetic eye. It doesn't seem to affect him much; he just yanks it out and keeps fighting.

F

• Face Death with Dignity: In Airship, a chaos containment officer has the option to activate a dark energy blaster (or, in the Collection, a dark energy bomb) that disintegrates everyone in the vicinity. He takes one last look at a picture of his family before he closes his eyes as the screen fades to white.
• Face–Heel Turn: Winston Davis, the policeman who put the disguise bag in the bank trunk without realizing Henry was inside it and was later fired (and possibly arrested in the Lawyered Up route), is shown as a member of the Toppat Clan in Airship.
• Facepalm: Henry facepalms when he tries to shoot the train and fails in the Bounty/Dead route of Mission.
• Failed a Spot Check: There are numerous times when characters fail to notice something that should definitely be in their field of vision. To wit:
  • Diamond:
    • During the Burglar path, Henry teleports to the Museum's roof and then hides from a guard... who was already looking in Henry's direction and somehow didn't notice.
    • Also during the same path, Henry catapults himself to the exit next to two guards and neither of them notice, even though at least one of them should have the door in their field of vision.
  • Complex:
    • Henry uses the raccoon powerup to fly over to the other side of the dock. The two people guarding the dock fail to notice this, despite Henry flying at best 10 meters above their heads towards the spot they are directly looking at.
    • Somehow, nobody notices when the entire Toppat airship is hovering next to the Wall until they come storming.
• Failure Is the Only Option:
  • The prototype to the entire series, Crossing the Pit, has every option lead to the stickman failing to get across.
  • In Bank, every choice the player makes will eventually lead to failure. The other games avert the trope, though; there are still plenty of ways you can fail, but they also have multiple ways of succeeding.
• Faking the Dead:
  • One of the options in Complex. It gets Henry pushed out the trash disposal.
  • Also appears in the PD (Presumed Dead) ending in Complex.
• Fartillery: In Airship, while chasing the Big Bad down a hallway, Henry can eat a can of beans and use the resulting farts to gain the extra speed needed to make it past the closing Slow Doors.
• Fission Mailed:
  • Subverted in Prison. Using the jetpack on the roof causes it to sputter out and the FAIL screen comes up, then it starts to work and propels Henry upward... but it's so uncontrollable that Henry crashes back into the cell he was in, bringing up the real FAIL screen.
  • At the climax of Complex's ''Presumed Dead¡¡ ending, the player is given a quick-time event. For every other quick-time event in the game, doing nothing leads to a FAIL. Here, no choice works. The correct option is to do nothing and let Dmitri kick the truck off the cliff, where it is revealed that Henry survived.
  • In Mission with the CorrupTick option, which, in sequence: causes graphical glitches, fake crashes the game to the title screen, then loads back before the choice but now none of the characters have animations, before it glitches out one more time and then the real FAIL screen shows up. Additionally, in this FAIL screen, 'FISSION MAILED' appears instead of the usual 'MISSION FAILED'.
• Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: The turret on Henry's tank in the Bounty/Dead pathway of Mission proves to have this; Henry tries to use it to shoot at the Toppats' train, but the tank, which doesn't swivel its gun, winds up missing and shoots a plateau well away from the train, resulting in a FAIL. This design issue comes up also in Bounty/Allies, so Henry can't hit the threat immediately in front of him, but he can hit a distant target well behind the threat.
• Flashback Cut: Mission always begins by flashing back to events of the two routes it's based on. It only does a few shots lasting less than a second each, though.
• Flat "What":
  • Sometimes the actions Henry chooses will baffle the Have a Nice Death screen. A good example would be the "Distract" option in Complex; Henry starts dancing, followed shortly after by the guards and Ellie joining in.
    FAIL Screen: I... Wh... I just... Whaat.
  • Also in Complex, one of the guards will be utterly confused if Henry uses "Flash" to escape the Cafeteria, resulting in this.
• Flash Step:
  • An option in Complex.
  • If Henry chooses "Gun Forme" in Mission, the Right Hand Man will dodge all his attacks this way, then blow Henry in half.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In Diamond, the mayor wears a top hat and showcases a diamond. He, alongside large gemstones, are connected to the Toppat Clan.
• Four Is Death:
  • When Henry is on top of the Toppats' rocket in the Thief/Dead route of Mission, the Toppats' sniper fires on him. Three shots over the course of a timed event will miss, but if Henry does not choose an option, the fourth will hit true.
  • Henry can stomp on the SAM turret at the beginning of the Government/Rescue pathway of Mission; on the fourth stomp, the SAM turret will finally point downward... right at Henry.
• From Nobody to Nightmare:
  • Over the course of the games, Henry goes from a simple guy who got caught robbing a bank to a notorious thief whose exploits include breaking out of an average jail, stealing a giant rare diamond, taking down or taking over a massive criminal organization, and escaping one of the most well-guarded prisons in the world. This is especially pronounced in certain paths of Mission where Henry remains fairly anonymous, like the Thief/Ghost one, where from the Toppats' point of view he's just some random jewel thief who inconvenienced them once (they don't even know his name), yet suddenly returns and completely annihilates their organization (thanks in part to their own actions) within the span of an hour.
  • Ellie turns into this in the Executive/Ghost route of Mission as she follows Henry to the Toppats' airship and rallies the clan against him for abandoning her. All that ends with her becoming the new leader to fight against the remaining members of Henry's faction of the clan.
• Funny Background Event: For the FAIL in Prison where Henry falls in the middle of a meeting, the cop in the right-hand corner is visibly fumbling his gun.
• Fusion Dance: In Mission's Triple Threat route, Henry combines with Ellie Dragon Ball Z-style and challenges the Toppats, though they promptly get blown out the base and land in a crater... just like Yamcha.

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