Shout Out / Freedom Planet

Freedom Planet

• Sky Battalion BGM takes the cake when it comes to music. It opens with a strong resemblance to the Storm Owl's stage theme from Mega Man X4, then crosses into the Air Battle music from Sparkster and tosses in the unmistakable beats of the Flying Battery zone from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. All of the above, naturally, are airship stages.
  • Note that the level also has you disable exactly THREE enemy airships.
• The first few seconds of the Pangu Lagoon boss theme is also reminiscent of X's intro stage.
• Serpentine's boss appearance in Fortune Night mimics one of Green's Seven Force forms from Gunstar Heroes. Syntax in Final Dreadnought 1 also mimics Seven Force's Crab and Urchin Force forms.
• Then in Jade Creek, Serpentine's helicopter is a near-exact homage to the first boss in Vectorman. By hacking into the game data, the content there reveals that Torque's battle style is akin to Vectorman's as well.
• Lilac's fighting style (melee attacks with charge-up directional dashes that have invincibility frames) appears to be lifted directly from the Genesis version of Sparkster. Likewise, the enemies are either Mecha-Mooks or assorted cartoon animals with highly developed Schizo Tech. Serpentine, in particular, borrows heavily from Sparkster's Lizard Folk, some of which were snakes with arms.
• Commander Torque's shellduck disguise kinda resembles Socket.
• The goofy face Lilac occasionally makes on the save file screen is a nod to Sonic emerging from the first game's title emblem.
• Relic Maze has Lilac try to reach the Kingdom Stone before Zao's forces do. Along the way, both her and the invading Zao forces encounter a number of large emerald-shaped gems that are more than likely decoy stones. Pangu Lagoon likewise has a section very reminiscent of the Hidden Palace Zone from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, where shield crystals take the place of Chaos Emeralds.
• The game's Diesel Punk Wutai setting bears more than a passing resemblance to the Benderverse; Fortune Night stage might as well be called Republic City Zone. Unlike Avatar, though, the game's world is a bit closer to actual Chinese history and culture in that it has THREE great kingdoms and FIVE elements.
• The "running boss battle" segments were used before in Sonic Advance 2.
• During the boss battle with Serpentine, he'll say, "Those who cross Brevon will die!"
  • His upward shooting attack resembles an attack performed by Fighting Fefnir.
  • His flamethrower pattern not-so-subtly resemble's one of Burner Man's attacks.
• Neera's pre-battle taunt is "You betrayed the law!"
• Fans of Digimon noted that the extra lives in this game (which resemble chibi-head versions of the character being played, that also happen to be trapped in cages and bounce around happily when freed) looked very similar to the Baby Digimon of the franchise◊, strongly resembling the ones who look more like their evolved/older forms.
  • Additionally, Milla almost resembles a more anthropomorphized version of Terriermon, right down to having the same color scheme (white and green), green markings on the ears, and being mistaken for a rabbit despite being based on particular species of dogs.
• The Kingdom Stone was responsible for aiding the sapience and intelligence of the lifeforms on Avalice through unknown means — just like the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• As mentioned above, Torque follows the "Prime Directive," a concept originating in Star Trek: The Original Series in which space travelers are prohibited from interfering with the culture or technological progress of civilizations less advanced than their own.

Freedom Planet 2

• Milla's house has a poster with a rabbit character who is otherwise a dead ringer for Edward Elric.
• One of the enemies is called a Traumagotcha, which is a floating mechanical orb with a screen featuring Aaa's face or Serpentine's head, if infected by Code Black, a clear nod to Tamagotchi.
• The Shuigang Palace has a portrait of a panda, presumably a former king, in a pose that's a dead ringer for King Harkinian from Link: The Faces of Evil saying “mah boi, this peace is what all true warriors strive for”.
• You can find a hedgehog couple in Adventure Square – a blue hedgehog named Sunny whose motto is “gotta take it easy” and dislikes going fast, and a pink hedgehog named Amelia who's a clingy wife to Sunny, wields a mallet and has used it for, of all things, eating salad.
  • Later in the game, Amelia talks about how Aaa used to follow her around like a tail, and tells of Pinky, a character of an unspecified species who patrols Parusa's volcano and considers himself “a guardian of these emerald isles”.
  • After the game is cleared, Sunny recalls a recurring dream “where a mad scientist with crazy eyebrows wants to turn everyone into robots”, and Amelia speculates what threats may come in the future, be it evil clones, time travel or “a nanomachine virus that turns everything it touches into zombies”.
• The Battlesphere ad has a blatant one.

  "Are you a bad enough dude to survive the Battlesphere?"

• At the D-Pad arcade, one of the cabinets is running a Street Fighter game with Ryu and Guile fighting on the screen.
  • Also at the D-Pad arcade is an NPC who makes references to a bunch of different games and shows via thinly-veiled expies, with the most obvious being Shantae and RWBY.
• After Askal saves Milla from the descending spike trap in Robot Graveyard, she thanks him with: "Thanks Askal! I was almost a Milla sandwich!".
• The second Optional Boss in the Battlesphere is Lemon Bread, an expy of Melon Bread from Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier. It's the same anagram name Undertale used for its own reference to that character.
• Upon talking to Milla in the final episode's hub area, she'll quote from Potion Seller by saying that even if you want her potions before going into battle they might be too strong for you.
• The shmup level where you chase after Bakunawa, and then the first level at Bakunawa proper (a stage full of floating planetoids, spinning cylinders, and grind rails) are respectively called Bakunawa Chase and Bakunawa Rush. When the developer, under her VTuber alias Spacey Bat, streamed the game as part of the 9th anniversary celebration for the first game, she confirmed this was deliberate.
• Captain Kalaw's Idle Animation resembles that of Captain Falcon's in Super Smash Bros.. The fight with him resembles a match of that game, and one of his moves greatly resembles Donkey Kong's "Spinning Kong" special.
  • When you beat Captain Kalaw's first stage in the Sky Bridge boss fight, he reenters the fight shouting "I am the terror that flaps for justice!".
• Serpentine says "[...] witness the power of a fully operational Syntax!" in the intro to Nalau Lake.
• The three guards in the Battlesphere wear Judge Dredd-esque uniforms, and one of them mentions practicing her "I-am-the-law face."
• Classic Mode can be unlocked early by entering the level select code from Sonic the Hedgehog on the title screen.
• In Shuigang on top of a building, you can find four sailor seagulls with different colored scarves very renaissant a certain group of ducks.