Basic Trope: A Stealth-Based Mission where stealth is encouraged, but not required.
- Straight: In Tales of Troperia XVI, Stella needs to infiltrate the Big Bad's base and disable some alarms so that the rest of the party can come inside. Despite being a Fragile Speedster on her own, the enemies are slow and weak, making it quicker and easier to simply kill them instead of sneaking past.
- Exaggerated: All enemies are One Hit Point Wonders who can only deal Scratch Damage even if they manage to get an attack off, so killing them is far easier than sneaking past with no downside.
- Downplayed: The enemies are still challenging when fought, though it is still easier than sneaking past.
- Justified: The Big Bad is using the base as a trap for the party, so he staffs it with his weakest minions who are easily dispatched to lull them into a false sense of security.
- Inverted: The party is about to storm the base, but it's actually easier to sneak through and accomplish the objective.
- Subverted: Stella can simply kill the guards instead of using stealth, but the following mission is a Timed Mission where the time limit is halved because the guards had more time to call for reinforcements.
- Double Subverted: ...but even halved, the time limit is still far longer than it reasonably takes to complete the mission.
- Parodied:
- Zig-Zagged: Stella can kill her way to the final alarm instead of using stealth, however, it triggers a very difficult boss battle if she does so.
- Averted: The Stealth-Based Mission gives a Non-Standard Game Over if Stella enters combat.
- Enforced: The producer of the game hates stealth-based missions, so he orders the dev team to make combat a viable alternative.
- Lampshaded: After turning off the final alarm and reuniting the the party, Quirby observes the dead guards and says to Stella "weren't you supposed to sneak through?"
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Discussed:
- Conversed:
- Deconstructed: If Stella attacks her way to the final alarm instead of sneaking, she is captured by the Big Bad who executes her in front of the party.
- Reconstructed: If Stella attacks her way to the final alarm instead of sneaking, the party can search the area with no guards present where they find a prototype weapon which deals triple damage to the Big Bad's minions, making future battles far easier. They would not have found it Stella had snuck through.
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama:
