∇
troperville

∇
tools

∇
toys

SubpagesLaconic
Main
VideoGame
YMMV

main index

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

random

Subpages:

Video Game: Bunny Must Die

Victory Pose!

Chelsea must beat the seven devils to death!

Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils is a Japanese Metroidvania indie game released in 2006 for Windows PC by Platine Dispositif, the creator of the Gundemonium Series. The game borrows many of the mechanics from Metroid and Castlevania as well as adding many new ones. The most interesting new mechanic in the game is Bunny's ability to slow, freeze, or reverse time. There are also many other abilities, items, and weapons power-ups to play around and experiment with. As an added bonus, there's an unlockable second character that offers a different take on the game's storyline.

The introductory plot is as follows. After being near a cattomic power plant explosion, poor Bunny has been cursed with a pair of cat ears. Soon, a "fat prophet" appears and guides her to the Cave of the Devils to help get rid of her curse. Unfortunately for Bunny upon entering the cave, the "fat prophet" gets attacked by some random steer, gets stabbed twenty four times by its horns and dies. Thankfully the steer just wanders off after killing him, but Bunny is now lost in the Cave of the Devils still needing to find a way to remove her curse.

An unofficial English translation patch of the original Japanese game by Non-Directional Translations can be found here

(click on "1.1" under "Patch Version").

An official English release of Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils has been released by the doujin localization company, Rockin' Android, with optional remastered soundtrack (provided by Woofle, who arranged the soundtrack for the Steam Edition of Hitogata Happa) and slightly updated graphics. The official English version of the game was released on September 2012 though

DESURA but Rockin' Android also included the game in the Indie Royale's Back to School Bundle of 2012 before its official release. You can also find the game at GamersGate and Playism

. A Steam release may be a possibility by helping it become certain by voting for Bunny Must Die! in its Steam Greenlight page

. A demo of the official English release can be downloaded here

Not to be confused with Space Bunnies Must Die, a third person action game.

Bunny's quest through the Caves of the Devils provides examples of:

100% Completion
Action Girl: Bunny.
- Dark Action Girl: Chelsea subverts this trope as she's actually a heroic Action Girl.
American Kirby Is Hardcore: The loading screen for Rockin' Android's version of the game has a silhouette of Bunny carrying all the weapons in the game, and has a more "actiony" Bunny in the title.
Another Side, Another Story: If Bunny collects seven time power ups and beats the game, it unlocks the mode Chelsea and 7 Devils, where you play as Chelsea to see more of the plot.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Chelsea handles about as differently from Bunny as you can guess. In general, Chelsea plows through the trickier jump and time puzzles Bunny had to suffer through, but she's somewhat more awkward to control in combat.
Anti-Frustration Feature: During the fight with Chelsea, resurrecting yourself with Bunny Dolls warps you back to the start of the current phase of the boss fight you're on, and allows you to backtrack into the previous room to switch weapons. Ordinarily Bunny Dolls force you to restart the given room you're in entirely.
All There in the Manual: Full names of most bosses can only be found in manual and Achievements list.
Badass Adorable: Bunny. Seriously, how many Rule of Cute tropes can you count on her just on this page?
Bait and Switch: In a Blackout Basement, there is a sign that says "It's too dark to read this sign." If you turn on the lights and read it again, you realize that it actually says "It's too dark to read this sign."
Beehive Barrier: The walking machines with the big cannons use one to protect themselves when hit.
Berserk Button: Bunny strongly objects to being called a cat.
- The first boss, El Bobomboi, also takes her role as the First Devil very seriously. It's possible to get to the second boss and beat it first, but if you do this, El Bobomboi gets pissed and opts to attack at full power, making the fight against her several times harder.
BFS: Bunny's weapon, the Faust Samurai.
- Which, notably, makes it Bunny's Faust Samurai.
Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Based on the time controlling powers of her race, Bunny apparently an actual bunny, and not just a girl in a suit. The game also features male bunnies, which are distinctly more rabbit-like. So it seems to be that males of the bunny race are actual bunnies, while the females are mostly human-looking girls.
Breast Expansion: Bunny gets a special suit which grants the ability to increase her bust size, weapon power, and ability to take less damage at the cost of her agility. Bunny's default posture is actually a little bizarre until she gets this upgrade, when suddenly the pronounced backward slouch counterbalances the prodigious mammaries in front.
Black Magician Girl: Chelsea
Boobs of Steel: Bunny's defense and offense rise when under the influence of her Breast Expansion inducing Dynamite Body upgrade.
Bullet Hell: One of Chelsea's modes as a boss, as well as the seventh Devil whom Chelsea fights.
Cast from Hit Points: Inverted; there's a time power that gives you life in exchange for time.
Chekhov's Skill: The final time power, "Alternative". The game doesn't bother explaining what it does when you get it, and you can never use it until the end of the game, when it rewinds time back to the beginning of the game and unlocks Chelsea.
Chunky Salsa Rule: If you get smashed into a wall, the game gives you a message that says "Whoops; you're inside a wall!" and you die.
Continuity Nod, or perhaps Mythology Gag: If the Achievements screen is to be believed, the scythe wielding girl that appears right before Baron Vladmu's boss area is named Selena Millfall. Is this a mere coincidence, or could she be connected in some way to Eryth Millfall?
Cosmetic Award
Cute Kitten: Nuko Do Maron, the third Devil, is a giant photo-realistic kitten.
Decoy Protagonist: Bunny's actually just screwing everything up by being around; Chelsea's the real hero. This is switched around in the very end when Bunny saves the day.
Demonic Possession: Chelsea's final bosses include Bunny being possessed by Dechronos.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: You take on an evil demon lord at the end of the game.
Double Jump: One of Chelsea's spells.
Edge Gravity
Eleventh Hour Super Power: Bunny in her invincible gold suit comes in to rescue Chelsea immediately after Chelsea loses a Hopeless Boss Fight.
- Arguably, the time ability Alternative.
Eloquent In My Native Tongue: While Bunny can never understand what most of the bosses are saying, Chelsea has no problem communicating with them (except the pumpkin girl boss, who's too shy to carry on a conversation anyway).
Essence Drop: Enemies will drop Time Crystals when Bunny kills them, refilling her Time Meter.
Everything's Better with Princesses: Chelsea, the elf princess.
Evolving Attack: Chelsea's shot becomes more powerful when she defeats a boss.
Excited Video Game Title!
Excuse Plot
Expy: There's a female shinigami as Death and the boss, Baron Vladmu, is a highly bastardized version of Dracula from Castlevania.
- There's also one boss who's pretty much identical to Seven Force from Gunstar Heroes.
Extra Eyes: The boss Eyes of Thirteen Sages is nothing but eyes. It shoots fireballs from its eyes.
Faceless Eye: Moon's Shadow Endymion, who you fight before Nuko Do Maron, which is just a large floating eye. It also shoots fireballs.
Fan Translation: By Non-Directional Translations years before Rockin' Android officially localized the game.
Faking the Dead: The "fat messenger of god" is shown to be alive and well after Bunny's playthrough.
Forehead of Doom: The first boss, El Bobomboi, has a large forehead. If you Sequence Break and fight her after the second boss, you can see this is her Berserk Button.
Fragile Speedster / Mighty Glacier: Bunny can change outfits later in the game. In her normal outfit, she is a Fragile Speedster, while in her busty outfit, she is a Mighty Glacier, with improved attack and defense but lower jumps and moves slower than normal.
Furry Ear Dissonance: Played for Laughs. Bunny get catgirl ears to complement her bunny ears, giving her four ears total.
Gainaxing: Bunny in her busty outfit.
Guide Dang It: "It's not a bug?"
- Also, to get to the final boss Chelsea and The Seven Devils, you have to break into the Very Definitely Final Dungeon ahead of time, via a secret entrance that not only wasn't necessary at all in Bunny Must Die, but is not revealed when Chelsea uses the Eye Of Truth (which reveals pretty much every other hidden block or gate or item), and then use the Wrath of God power to break into the final chamber. There's really no indication that the secret entrance is one, either.
  - It's slightly easier to figure out if you actually went back to the area as Bunny (ostensibly to get the Green Orb door) after triggering the flags that cause Chelsea to spawn — the gate that once blocked the Time upgrade is broken, so Chelsea must have passed by to get to the final area, since gates she destroys are gone for good, and only gates that she needs to destroy to get through her route are broken in Bunny Must Die mode. After you figure that out, you just need to search past the upgrade for it.
- It's impossible to know the requirements for unlocking Achievements. The only way to get them is to stumble on them by accident or save scum once you discover the existence of the "Defeat boss X with weapon Y" Achievements.
- How about the dolphin room? You have to switch the lights off to open the gate at the far side. While this is a reasonable thing to try, it isn't readily obvious that turning off the lights does anything, because the gate will shut the second you take any damage at all.
Goomba Stomp
Glass Cannon: Chelsea hits harder than Bunny, but she lacks a lot of the mobility skills that Bunny has, or comes by them much later in the story than Bunny obtains hers. She also doesn't get any way to boost her defense until very late in her story.
Gratuitous English: The Dracula knockoff speaks in English, much to the Japanese-speaking Bunny's dismay. Specifically, he speaks entirely in Zero Wing quotes. In the English patch, he instead speaks in Gratuitous German and says, among other things "Ich bin ein Berliner".
- Bunny herself starts each loadup of the game by crying "Let's go, go, go!" whilst Chelsea set "Get ready." Furthermore, Chelsea and Bunny both announce power and time/mana boosting pickups in English. Chelsea announces her spells in English too; Bunny does the same for her items.
Hartman Hips: Bunny, without the Breast Expansion-inducing suit.
Heart Container
Hopeless Boss Fight: Chelsea gets stomped by the final boss.
- And then the trope gets inverted when Gold Bunny comes to her rescue and uses the superpowers it gave her while she was possessed to kick its ass in return. It's impossible to lose this fight.
I Love Cattomic Power: Well, okay, Bunny doesn't, because of her new cat-ears, but one of the game's levels suggests that Cattomic power can be used to make Cat Girl Super Soldiers.
Instant Death Radius: One of Chelsea's final bosses has this ability.
Improbable Weapon User: One of Chelsea's most damaging attacks is a ladder, and it's her only way to deal damage above her.
I Want My Mommy: When brought down to critical health, one of Bunny's possible reaction lines is her crying for her mom to save her.
King Mook: One of the levels involves fighting with a series of boss versions of the flying pumpkin enemies, with a Moe Antropomorphic version.
Lethal Joke Item: The aforementioned ladder. Seriously, that thing is powerful!
Let's You And Her Fight: Bunny and Chelsea.
Life Meter: Both heroines.
- Mana Meter: As Chelsea. Bunny's Time Meter acts in place of this since used for similar things like freezing time or giving herself large, bountiful breasts.
Little Miss Badass: Bunny, Chelsea, a couple of the devils and even some of the Mooks.
Marathon Boss: The final boss fight for both characters (fights plural for Chelsea) have seven different phases plus one fight that you can't lose. Thankfully for Bunny, if you use a Bunny Doll after you die, the game picks up from the form you were at last, restores your HP and Time gauges, and allows you to walk back to the previous room and switch weapons.
Metroidvania
Miss Swears-a-Lot: Bunny in Non-Directional Translations Fan Translation of the game, as she uses instances of "fuck" and "shit" in certain parts of the story. She also dropped an Atomic S-Bomb after realising she unknowingly helped the free the game's Big Bad.
Mutually Exclusive Powerups: Bunny can use several different weapons, but only one at a time.
- Self Shooter: Rapid-fire throwing knives. Bunny's default weapon.
- Spike Hammer: An Epic Flail. Does massive damage, but is hard to control.
- Faust Samurai: A Laser Blade. Supposedly possessed by a demon.
- Black Wing: Precision Guided Boomerangs. Can return to Bunny or orbit around her.
- Roppongi Missile: Weak homing missiles that choose their own targets.
Nice Hat: Chelsea's hat
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bunny killing the devils ends up screwing up what Chelsea was there to do.
Nintendo Hard: You will die, many, many times and the game keeps track (the death counter is located near the spot where the yellow and white maps are next to each other). It's called "Bunny Must Die!" for a reason. There is an Achievement for dying 1,000 times, as well.
One Curse Limit: One boss attempts to curse Bunny in his death throes. It doesn't work, because of this.
One-Hit Kill: Two bosses have these: Baron Vladmu has his flashing attack (which can be avoided by looking away from him when he does it), and Chelsea's third form summons gigantic crosshairs to chase the player around and shoot at her. If it grazes you it does minimal damage, but if it's dead-on, BAM! HEADSHOT!
Our Demons Are Different: A photo-realistic cat as a devil, for exmaple.
Our Time Travel Is Different
Our Vampires Are Different
People Jars
Platform Hell: While the platforming in the game is far from simple, the last two areas veer sharply into this quite suddenly. Expect to dash-jump from small platforms into a chain of wall jumps, often resulting in you *landing* on a small platform.
Playboy Bunny: Bunny's outfit as pictured above. A few of the Mooks wear one too.
Reset Button: The final time power, "Alternative". Bunny instinctively activates it when Dechronos is trying to kill her. It rewinds time back to the beginning of the story, and lets you play as the "alternative" protagonist, Chelsea. Chelsea's actions are different this time around (for one, Bunny doesn't beat Bobomboi before she gets a chance to), so the power ends up creating an "alternative" history.
Running Gag: Bunny being unable to communicate with any of the bosses.
Bunny: "Aww man, this guy doesn't listen to anybody either!"
Secret A.I. Moves: Bunny and Chelsea as bosses have attacks that you can't ever do.
Sequence Breaking: Lampshaded by the first devil, El Bobomboi. If you sequence break and get to defeat other devils first, when you have to forcefully fight her to progress with the game, she gives you a conversation about how she was supposed to be the first boss you fought, Turns Red, and gives you one hell of a fight. This is needed to get an Achievement.
Shaggy Dog Story: By the end of the game, Bunny still hasn't gotten rid of her cat ears.
Shout Out: At least a few.
- Weapons, time, and mana can be found in destroyed torches � la Castlevania.
- The boss Baron Vladmu fights very similarly to Castlevania's Dracula. He talks entirely in Zero Wing quotes in the original Japanese material.
- The doors near the final boss area are a definite homage to Metroid.
- The opening textdump is an almost line-by-line parody of Fist of the North Star, down to obligatory setting of year 199X.
- Bunny's ability to stop time and throw knives is very much an homage to Dio Brando and Sakuya Izayoi. There are also yukkuri-like enemies resembling Leaf.
- One secret area shows a character having an epileptic fit in front of a TV showing a mouse-like thing on a blue and red flashing background, a reference to an infamous Pok�mon episode.
- The Seventh Devil, Septentrion Pleiades, is a nod to Seven Force.
- The shinigami miniboss looks just like Eryth Millfall from the Gundemonium games by the same creator, though she also bears resemblance to Elly of Touhou. She also throws scythes around in a way that much resembles Death from Castlevania.
- Chelsea's third phase summons sniper crosshairs to shoot at Bunny, and when they're first summoned, Golgo 13's face appears on the screen for a brief second.
- If Bunny manages to piss her off, El Bobomboi will say she'll write her name in a notepad. The translation will blatantly point this out.
Species Given Name: Bunny is a Bunny. Her name is Bunny.
Spice Up The Subtitles: Bunny is pretty foul-mouthed in the fan translation patch.
Spread Shot: As Chelsea defeats the Devils, her attack becomes a more and more powerful Initial Burst.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The original game had two songs that sounded quite similar to ones in existing games. The music for the first area (Devil's Trash Heap), "KnightmareAgain", has a bit that sounds like the main area theme from Maze Of Galious. The music for the forest area, "Chosen One", sounds like the entryway music in the NES version of Shadowgate. The official localized western release published by Rockin Android features a remixed soundtrack that has substantially different tracks for these two areas (and names them "Knightmare Regain" and "The Unchosen One", amusingly).
Sword Lines
Talking Is a Free Action
Time Trial: After achieving 100% Completion as Bunny, your total game time becomes visible at the bottom of the screen. The Rockin' Android version includes achievements for beating the game in under two hours and achieving 100% completion in under one hour. Considering the fact that using a save point adds 100 seconds to your time instead of 60 due to a design oversight, this is not hard.
Timey Wimey Ball: As Bunny's time abilities all tend to work very differently.
Too Awesome to Use: Chelsea's Elixirs.
Treacherous Advisor: The "fat messenger of god" is actually the traitorous devil Dechronos.
Unusual Ears: Bunny's cursed-on cat ears, in addition to her usual bunny ears. She's a little touchy about it.
Unwitting Pawn: In Bunny's part of the game, she's being used to further Dechronos's selfish plans.
Videogame Cruelty Potential: Unlike all of Bunny's other bosses, Chelsea stays on the screen, out cold but alive, after you beat her. And you can keep attacking her after she's already down. And the game rewards you for this by giving you Time refill gems each time you hit her.
- You can do the same to Bunny as Chelsea, but there's no reward this time around.
Wall Jump: One of Bunny's gained abilities.
Wave Motion Gun: A lot of enemies shoot continuous beams, but the large walking turret enemies probably count the most. Probably the worst example is the first stage of the Chelsea fight, where she shoots massive beams that chase Bunny down and absolutely wreck her HP if she gets caught in one of them.
White-Haired Pretty Girl: Bunny.
Widget Series: If the plot didn't convince you, some of the bosses may. One boss is a giant photorealistic cat that shoots "Cattomic" fires from his paws. Another is a Dracula knockoff who speaks in Gratuitous English (or German in the English patch), has guns built into his giant pompadour and his... well... elsewhere, and can kill Bunny instantly by flashing her. Oh, and you can fight exploding yukkuris and get abducted by a hidden UFO. Yup, this game is weird.
You Gotta Have Pink Hair: Chelsea. Some of the devils and Mooks also have odd hair colours.
You Have Researched Breathing: A rather tongue in cheek usage: Bunny starts the game without the ability to turn around and thus walk right. Barely one screen to the left of your starting point is the Gears of the Past, the item that gives you this ability. The game even adds a fancy color effect every time Bunny turns around.
- This serves mostly as a shout out/parody of the original Metroid, where the Morph Ball was similarly just left of the start, and was necessary to get any further in the game. The game's creator seems to be poking fun at the idea of not just starting you with an ability you will spend no part of the game without.
- Interestingly, Bunny does start the game with the ability to dash backwards a short distance, and the Jump Physics also allow you to move backwards while airborne, which means it is possible, though quite inconvenient, to move right without the power-up. Needless to say, there are people who have finished the game without this power-up. In fact, if you're going for a low completion-run, skipping the Gears of the Past may be a good idea.
Zero-Effort Boss: The very, very final boss of the game has you playing a super-powered Bunny throwing BFSes and auto-parrying all attacks.
Zettai Ryouiki: Our Playboy Bunny protagonist with thigh-highs.