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Let's face it, a crossover game like Project × Zone has to be packed with these.


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    Project X Zone 
  • Chapter 29 is where you must save Zero from his Heroic BSoD? It's called "Unbeatable Love". If you follow the Japanese version of the series, you might have known that it's another translation of its title sung by Yukie Nakama.
    • The entirety of that scene is one big Shout-Out to Iris's death scene from Mega Man X4, even reusing some of the scene's lines such as "Iris, there's no world just for Reploids, it's only a fantasy", and of course, "What am I fighting for?!"
  • The Japanese version's chapter titles for when Gemini, Erica, Ogami and Sakura joins up references which game they debuted in their series.
    • Stage 6 is titled "The Banner of Love on the Skyscrapers", where "The Banner of Love" was SW3's opening song ("Ai no Mihata") and where Erica first debuts; the "skyscrapers" refers to one of Gemini's lines "To the rooftops... Bang!".
    • Stage 9's "To Scatter Evil, To Exemplify Justice" is a line from the first game's original opening song "Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan".
  • Opa-Opa, the Space Harrier guy and Scooter show up to help Ulala with her attacks.
  • Devilotte gets assisted by mecha from Side Arms: Hyper Dyne and Tech Romancer. She also ends her attack animation with a Blodia Punch.
  • Reiji and Xiaomu's intro is exactly like Rom Stoll from Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos, with the asking who is it and show yourself. To be fair, Reiji's a walking, talking Rom Stoll reference anyway.
  • Stage 15 actually takes place in the setting of the old Sega action-strategy game Gain Ground. In fact, the supercomputer from said game can be seen before the stage begins. Stage 17 is based off Gain Ground's first boss stage.
    • Also, in said stage, Xiaomu at one point refers to Lady as Mud Puppy, a character in Gain Ground who also happens to carry around a BFG.
    • Speaking of old Sega games, Stage 17's "Operation Crackdown" is a reference to the game Crack Down, where you play as agents planting explosives. To drive the reference further still, the explosives used by Kurt and company look exactly like the ones used in said game.
  • The game's opening parallels that of Namco × Capcom's.
  • Pair up Lindow with Dante and Demitri and Dante comments that Lindow's Red Right Hand is a God Hand.
    • In Dante & Demitri's post battle conversation with Lindow, Dante mentions Lindow's right arm would be good for throwing demons, something Nero from DMC 4 could do; who coincidentally has an arm kind of like Lindow's.
    • Sänger's post-battle conversation involves Dante suggesting Sänger that he should become a hunter, with him replying that he likes the sound of "The Sword That Smites Demons". Demitri replies that he knows another hunter with a ridiculous-looking sword, referring to Donovan.
  • Pair up Reiji and Xiaomu with Bruno, and Reiji will ask what kind of weapons Bruno uses, with Xiaomu responding with the Die Hard Arcade (Dynamite Cop 1) commercial.
  • When Jin and Xiaoyu rejoin the party, Jin and Heihachi try to kill each other. Xiaoyu says, "Why, Jin? So much blood! So much vengeance!"
    • Alisa calls Jin a refrigerator, Xiaoyu then corrects her calling him a warm refrigerator, Jin has no idea what they're talking about: this is another reference to Blood Vengeance.
  • When Rikiya Busujima reappears, he ends up outside a zombie-infested mansion. He tells Jill and Chris to be careful, because it's House of the Dead. Followed immediately by the chapter title which reads exactly what he just said.
    • Rikiya gets taunted by Lord Raptor when he's warned to prepare for zombie revenge.
  • Zengar Zombolt / Sänger Zonvolt has allied himself with Browning and Nanbu again. From a different reality, yes, but still...
  • In the Geo Fortress stage, when the party is attacked by Ciseaux, Vile and Phantom at the same time along with hordes of mecha mooks,note  Haken says that they are going to have a "super robot war".
  • In Jin and Xiaoyu's Special Attack, there's a part where Jin is performing Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs to the enemy while they're pinned to the wall. That sequence is similar to one part of Jin's three-way fight with Kazuya and Heihachi in Tekken: Blood Vengeance. Funny enough, the poor recipient of that move during the movie itself was none other than Heihachi.
  • Sometimes when Ryu and Ken defeat an enemy, Ryu will utter his famous Street Fighter II victory quote - "You must defeat my Shoryuken to stand a chance!" Ken follows it up with "There are also different kinds of Shoryuken, so you might take a while."
    • Ryu and Ken's left+A attack is directly taken from the final fight with Bison in the Street Fighter II animated movie: Ryu holds the enemy in place while Ken performs a Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku on them, followed by Ryu performing a Shoryuken on them.
      • Their Shotoclone status is pretty much brought up in the game as well. Winning with Batsu as their Solo Unit will make him utter the victory quote he used in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom regarding their fighting style being similar to Shimazu Karate. Starting a fight with Ulala as their Solo Unit will make her interview Ken while pointing at Ryu, causing Ken to wonder why he and friend are always being mixed up.
      • If Akira and Pai get paired up with Rikiya, the latter warns the former not to use martial arts that might shoot out ki energy. This is also another reference to the Shotoclone status of Akira in the Virtua Fighter series since he only uses attacks that don't involve the expending of ki energy.
      • Similarly, if you pair Bahn with Akira and Pai, he will offer to teach Akira his Dragon Upper, to which he happily obliges, causing Pai to dissuade him from Ki Shooting once more.
  • Pair up Valkyrie with Riela, and the former will advise the latter to "Use your gifts responsibly, it is the duty of people with great power." Just switch a few words around, and it's similar to the classic line delivered by Uncle Ben in Spider-Man.
    • Pair up Juri with Akira, and sometimes they will get into an argument about Tae Kwon Do. Pai, however, makes an offhand comment that she saw Juri shoot webs out of her legs.
  • Mii Koryuji's Martial Cheerleading.
  • Jill uses her double knee drop from her appearances in the Mercenaries games as well as her burning shoulder tackle and four-shot rocket launcher from Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Her cartwheel kick is her charged melee attack from Resident Evil: Revelations. Chris, conversely, is using a combination of weapons from Resident Evil 5 and Revelations, including the unlockable Hydra shotgun and the Pale Rider revolver. He also has the Grenade Launcher from RE 5 and used it the same way as in his Hyper Combo in MVC3.
  • In the Ghosts and Goblins stage, Batsu mentions that the world sounds like "Constant. Meaningless. Death.".
  • After defeating Nemesis for the first time, Chris starts to repeat the Jill Sandwich line before being interrupted by Jill.
    • In Jill's Bio, it mentions that she is a master of unlocking.
  • When Valkyrie screws up and calls both Kurt and Riela as Kurt Seven and Riela Thirteen, Xiaomu wonders whether Riela is an assassin.
  • Frank's use of the Double Lariat and the Flash Kick with Hsien-Ko is a reference to Zangief and to Charlie/Guile, the only Street Fighter characters (Not counting the EX characters) to execute the former and the latter.
  • When Chris asks if the rainbow in the Endless Frontier is strong enough to support the entire party Xiaomu responds with this
    Xiaomu: "Yep. Could bust out a go-kart if you felt like it."
  • In one chapter, the party ends up at the bottom of a fortress (The Tarqaron). Since they had to climb up a bit, Bruno remarks how he did not wish to scale a building ever again. Both Dante and Lady aren't too happy having to deal with tall buildings either in following chapters.
  • A weapon you can acquire over the course of the game is the "Divine Implements". It is described as a sword, bead and mirror set thought to be lost forever.
  • The "Dead Rising" baseball bat attack is a callback to one of Frank's supers from Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Most of the rest of his arsenal is stuff he could use in the original Dead Rising, although his flipkick from that game has turned into something a lot more like Guile's Flash Kick.
  • Shout-out Chapter Titles:
  • Item Shout-outs, in no particular order:
  • When Batsu says the Geo fortress looks like a video arcade Xiaomu requests to choose the first song, what is her first choice you may ask? Magical sound shower.
  • Xiaomu taps into her inner Phoenix Wright in her intro in the final chapter complete with an objection.
  • During Chapter 21 intro, Xiaomu suggests "Doctor Balrog's Misery" as a gate key phrase.
  • Whenever Arthur's origin is discussed, he is said to come from the world of ghosts and goblins.
  • At one point, the party has to break down a barrier. Once that's taken care of, Xiaomu says, "Yeah! Smash that barrier, space that harrier!"
  • When Juri joins the group, Heihachi comments he eagerly awaits her "sudden but inevitable betrayal."
    • Also with Heihachi, after a majority of the groups return to their home worlds, and the Portalstone is normal again, he mentions how he has no use for it and that the South Pole is looking more promising.
  • In Chapter 4, Reiji asks Chun-li how they arrived. After Chun-li's explanation, Xiaomu has this to say
  • The title of Chapter 34 "Is Paris Burning Again?" is a shoutout to the full title of Sakura Wars 3 with the official title "Sakura Wars 3: Is Paris Burning?".
    • It's also a real-life shoutout from the actual battle in the Liberation of Paris with the Allies (consisting of American troops, Free French troops and French guerrilla fighters alongside Spanish Republican exiles) against Nazi German-led forces (alongside Vichy Milice militia forces). During this time, Adolf Hitler supposedly asked military governor Dietrich von Choltitz if he followed his orders to raze Paris rather than allow it to be recaptured by Allied forces with the question "Is Paris Burning?"
  • Also during Chapter 34, Kite points out how the empty city of Paris is just another illusion.
  • Kill an enemy with Reiji, Xiaomu, and Saya and Saya may suggest that they team up and call themselves The Outfoxies: this is referring to an old obscure Namco arcade game that basically boils down to "Super Smash Bros. with guns".
    • During Chapter 16, Xiaomu also claims how she's one of Shinra's top "ghost chasers", likewise referring to a Japan-only SNES Banpresto game with the same name.
  • At the end of the Ghosts 'n Goblins level, Arthur holds the key to the huge gate they got from beating the Stehoneys and exclaims "Open up! I have a key for getting in!", a reference to the phrase mangled by translation in most of the games that pops up whenever you defeat a level boss.
  • After Juri gets tired of Seth and tells him she's gonna send his ass down to hell, Xiaomu agrees and tells him to say hi to cyberdemons when he gets there.
  • During the Chapter 5 intro, Xiaomu misremembers Kogoro's name as Mani Karabera.
  • There's one scene in Chapter 16 where Nobuyuki Hiyama plays several characters at once in a row, all with distinct voices - the yellow goblins suddenly appear, followed by a reaction from Haken, Batsu and Demitri, all of who were voiced by Hiyama, and Demitri even briefly lapses into goblintalk at the end of his line.
    • This happens again in the sequel, except Batsu and Haken aren't around anymore. Demitri still lapses into goblintalk.
  • Batsu sure enjoys referencing Rival Schools a lot.
    • When Mii asks about how Batsu is doing with his studies, Batsu mentions that he isn't being aggressive enough. It's the direct quote of Hayato Nekketsu's victory quote in the Rival Schools series, and Hayato acts like Batsu's mentor. Of course, Kogoro doesn't know the context.
    • When paired up with Gemini and Erica, they mention the Party-Up Technique which is three characters teaming up with the enemy.
    • When paired up with Akira and Pai and winning, he will mention that he knows another friend named Akira who also does a similar kung fu style. Akira says that he'd like to fight her at some point, to which Pai replies that cheering him on might be difficult.
    • He also likes to reference voice acting gags - he says towards Zero that he can do Cyclone Twisters, which is Roy's Burning Vigor attack. Guess who is Roy's voice actor.
      • Similarly, Jin comments that Batsu should change his uniform, prompting Batsu to reply that he reminds him ofhis discipline school committee head named Kyosuke. Guess who is Kyosuke's voice actor.
  • Alisa's victory quote with X and Zero involves her wondering what the difference between Reploids and androids is. X thinks that Reploids can't take off their head and asks Zero if he agrees, to which he offers no comment, referring to Mega Man X2 where Zero spent most the game in pieces that X had to collect.
  • Bruno's intro quote with Jin and Xiaoyu involves Jin saying how there's lots of weird detectives around, to which Bruno comments he's heard of one who spends most of his time rolling around on the ground, referring to Lei Wulong from Tekken.
  • Bahn's victory quote with Haken and Kaguya involves Kaguya saying how Bahn's fighting style reminds her of someone she knows, referring to Aledy in Endless Frontier EXCEED.
  • Saya's intro quote with Kurt and Riela involves her commenting on their numbers and deciding she's Number 99, referring to the final boss in Namco × Capcom.
  • The Cross Gate being used in the series goes way back in Super Robot Wars Alpha. Although considering The Reveal of both Second Super Robot Wars Original Generation and Coffin of the End involves the gates themselves, the Cross Gate found on Earth turns out to be a major bit of Foreshadowing for Moon Dwellers.
  • Pairing up Vashyron with Ryu and Ken will result in a conversation where the Ryu and Ken state that as an ex-solider, he should be launching Sonic Booms from his hands instead of using guns, referencing Guile from the Street Fighter series.
    • Similairly, pairing the two up with Imca will result in Ken saying that they can handle cars with their fists. Imca states that is impossible, but Ryu says it's rather common on their world. This alludes to the famous car-destroying minigame from Street Fighter II and Street Fighter IV.
  • KOS-MOS escorting Seth in Chapter 19 of the game alludes to a character voiced by Mariko Suzuki escorting another character played by Akio Ōtsuka (who voices Seth) in Time Crisis 4.
  • As usual, Xiaomu's habit of calling her signature Containment Field "Xiaomu Wave" and one of her attacks "Xiaomu Zan" are ones to Dangaioh.

    Project X Zone 2 
  • During his attack animation, Captain Commando summons the assistance of Michelle Heart from Legendary Wings, Cyber Blue from Battle Circuit and the Colonel and Sargent Space Fighters from Exed Exes.
  • Some of the attacks Felicia uses come straight from her incarnation in Pocket Fighter/Super Gem Fighter.
  • In Chapter 1, Reiji finally finishes Rom Stoll's Catchphrasenote  Only, he modifies it in that he says "he has no name to give to Ouma. Because they already know it anyway."
    • Really, half of Reiji's quotes are either references to Kyosuke Nanbu or Rom Stoll. It would take half of the page to quote them all. But here's a couple of them:
    Reiji: [During a Counter Attack] You came too close to me! (Kyosuke would say the exact same thing in 2nd Super Robot Taisen OG on PS3 during a counter attack.)
    • And another one, where Reiji quotes another series opening:
      Xiaomu: [After defeating an enemy] How did you like that? That was our latent power!
      Reiji: They were really weak! Where are the strong ones? (This is an almost exact quote from Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos' second opening. Both quotes were changed for the Localization, probably for being too obscure.)
  • In Chapter 3, the team confronts Kazuya Mishima, prompting Reiji to try and negotiate with him. Upon being accused of this, Xiaomu brings up this lovely tidbit.
    Xiaomu: Well yeah. With that Devil gene of yours we'll want to contain you before you go full Tetsuo on us.
  • Xiaomu throws in another anime reference at the end of Chapter 5 after Chun-Li remarks about the weirdness of the team.
    Xiaomu: I didn't expect today to turn into Xiaomu's Bizarre Adventure... but at least we can hit the reset button.
    • Less than a minute later, there's another bout of Lampshade Hanging with yet another reference thrown in.
    Xiaomu: [to Chun-Li] Speak for yourself. Is there anyone except you at Interpol? No wonder that Carmen chick gets away every time.

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