The key word here is "DYING"
WARNING! Contains traps that will annoy the heck out of you! The developers takes no responsibility for smashed controllers!
Eryi's Action is a devilishly hard platformer by the doujin circle XTAL SWORD. It is the Spiritual Successor to Shobon no Action.
The story of this game puts the player in the role of the titular heroine, Eryi, a fairy who wants to eat a savory melon she has been eagerly waiting for. Unfortunately, her desired melon has been stolen by a troll (in several senses of the word) named Farta, and Eryi sets out from her house to hunt down her precious melon.
In this game, your skills and wits will be tested as you go through many traps and hazards you won't see coming. And you will probably die. A lot. Mercifully, Death Is a Slap on the Wrist and you have limitless lives so you can try to avoid being killed by the elaborate traps again... and again... and again...
An English version of the game was released on DESURA on September 9th, 2012, by Nyu Media; and released via Steam Greenlight on November 9th, 2013. The English Web site for the game and the game's trial version can also be found here
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Be warned, this game can be addicting, especially if you're a masochist.
Eryi's Action provides trope examples of:
- Achievement Mockery: Over half of the game's Steam achievements involve Eryi dying, making the level harder, or making the level Unwinnable by Design.
- Action Bomb: One of the game's mooks is one.
- All Trolls Are Different: Farta. She looks more like how you would think a fairy would be.
- Anti-Frustration Features: There's always a quick way to suicide if you realise you've screwed up, such as the explode option in the RPG-BossBattle.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: There is a certain trap that looks like a spring mushroom, but if you jump onto it, it will catapult Eryi into the horizon, after which she ends like this.
- Boss Battle: Every third level is against a boss, but the format is never the same.
- Bottomless Pits: A frequent obstacle, and the game makes sure to optimise your chances of falling into one.
- Bullet Hell: One of the bosses is a shmup-style flight level with lots of bullets to avoid. Two bosses, including the extra boss.
- Checkpoint: In the form of green mini-flags, compared to the big one at the end of the stages.
- Clothing Damage: Some traps will tear Eryi's clothes off, but she manages to cover herself.
- Curtains Match the Window: Eryi has green eyes and hair.
- Dating Catwoman: As explained on the website, Eryi is a masochist, and Farta is a sadist who "loves her very much" (and just loves to torment her).
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: With infinite lives and frequent Check Points, you never have to replay more than a few screens if you die, and you can try as many times as you have the patience for.
- Determinator: No matter how many times Eryi gets taken out, her resolve never falters.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil: Played for laughs in the manual, where one of the requirements to play the game is "money, because if you are reading this and didn't pay for the full game, we'll send Farta the Troll at you. Yes, you!"
- Drop the Washtub: Just one of the many, many ways this game can kill you. The game starts with a pattern of them falling down while Eryi is still in her house.
- Easily Forgiven: For all the hell Farta puts Eryi through, the last shot shows them enjoying the melon together. No hard feelings, indeed.
- Effortless Achievement: Overlapping with Achievement Mockery, the first achievement the vast majority of Steam players will get is "Metal Dished", which they get from getting killed by one of the falling washtubs at the very start of the game. While Eryi is still in her house.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Just like in other Platform Hell games, you should NEVER trust anything in this game. That warp pot? Will most likely take you into a spike pit to kill you. That innocent patch of ground? Probably has retractable spikes. The game even tries to kill you with falling pans inside Eryi's house! You even have to be careful on the world map.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: We are told by the game's webpage that Eryi is a masochist and Farta is a sadist who is in love with Eryi. It definitely makes sense, considering how this game is choke-full of traps and Eryi manages to cope with them without quitting it.
- Genki Girl: If you leave Eryi standing still, her Idle Animation starts with her bouncing up and down on the spot and ends with her making a helicopter out of her hair.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: If you manage to get to the end of Extra Mode and defeat Farta, rather than getting Eryi's melon at last, you have to face a UFO. It appears out of nowhere with no pomp or ceremony and has no reason to show up other than giving the game one last chance to shout "Screw You!" at the player.
- Harder Than Hard: The Extra Mode. It's much worse than the "normal" difficulty.
- Idle Animation: Eryi does... something like bouncing up and down when she's not moved for a little while.
- Invisible Block: It's usually best to jump from over a Bottomless Pit as early as possible, since there's a distinct chance you'll bump your head into suddenly appearing blocks otherwise, which will cause you to fall to your doom. Probably again.
- Kaizo Trap: But of course! What did you expect? That the level would end after you got to the goal? HA!
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Somebody had fun writing the game's manual.
- Level Goal: A large green flag at the end of each level. There will be a Kaizo Trap involved. No exceptions.
- The Lost Woods: Stage 2.
- The Many Deaths of You: Eryi has several distinct death animations, including but not limited to: Clothing Damage, getting splashed with hot water, getting propelled into the sky, being turned into a snowman, and being frozen. There's even Steam achievements for dying in these non-standard ways!
- Meaningful Name: Overlaps with Bilingual Bonus, as "Eryi" in Chinese can be rendered as "Two One" - or what her life counter is going to go past in a split second.
- Meaningless Lives: As if taking a page from Shobon no Action, the game starts with a 3-life counter that runs into the negatives very
quickly, and which currently serves as the page image for the trope. - Multiple Endings: Depending on what difficulty you beat the boss on and whether or not you grab the melon at the end.
- Nintendo Hard: Expect to die and learn from your mistakes. A lot. The game's manual lampshades this, as it makes many references to smashing keyboards and controllers.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Eryi. Even when the game goes into RPG-mode, she still only has 1 HP. Everyone else has HP in the thousands.
- Our Trolls Are Different: Very different — Farta the troll looks more like a fairy (she's even more fairy-like than Eyri, who actually is a fairy). She's also a troll in another sense.
- Platform Hell: Though, the emphasis is more on figuring out how to get around the sadistic traps rather than pixel-perfect movements like in I Wanna Be the Guy.
- Player Nudge: There are several hint blocks that give an idea of what you need to do when the solution isn't obvious, or where there's a new gameplay mechanic coming up.
- Point-and-Click Map: And the game will try to kill you there, too!
- Press Start to Game Over: The game will try to kill Eryi inside the house she starts in by way of washtubs. Good thing she has infinite lives!
- Puzzle Boss: Most of them. Special note goes to Artie, in which you are sent into an RPG-esque battle where you have to figure out a specific combo in order to take him out within 5 turns, while avoiding his attacks.
- Schmuck Bait:
- The Warp Pots. As the player will soon discover, every single one of them, except for the exit of the water level, is a death trap.
- Any platform that looks like it serves to make a longer jump easier. 95% of the time it's a trap and jumping on it will kill you.
- Spikes of Doom: It wouldn't be Platform Hell without them. Quite often, they also chase you down. Or up.
- Spiritual Successor: To Shobon no Action, made by the same lead developer. Both games have "Action" in the title, very similar styles of traps, and infinite lives coupled with life counters that go into the negatives.
- Temporary Platform: Many platforms will disappear the moment you step on them, usually before you have the chance to jump to escape the inevitable Bottomless Pit or Spikes of Doom.
- They Killed Eryi Again!
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Plenty of it in this game, and what makes the game interesting.
- Troll: The game's webpage notes that Farta stole Eryi's melon, not because she was hungry, but for the sake of annoying her, and seeing Eryi fall into her traps time and time again amuses her.
- Tsundere: Farta loves Eryi. It's just that her way of expressing her love is being a total bitch.
- Under the Sea: One of the levels takes under the sea.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: All of the bosses have different mechanics, only one of which is a traditional Platform Game boss. There's a race boss, an RPG boss, and a SHMUP boss.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: The final battle with Farta is exactly this. Eryi gets a Mecha Expansion Pack specially for the occassion, too!
- Unwinnable by Design: If a trap or mistake doesn't kill Eryi outright, it will likely prevent her from getting to the goal. For example, in Stage 1, you can use a bomb on the goal flag to destroy it.
- A Winner Is You: The basic ending already isn't that special - just all the game's characters walking by before you see a shot of Eryi eating her melon with an injured Farta looking on. But what's your reward for completing the game's hard mode? ...the exact same ending, set to different music, with Farta in a slightly different pose in the final shot.
