Holy Umbrella: Dondera no Mubou!!Translation is an Action RPG-ish game (or "comical action game," as the Japanese blurb on the back cover describes it) developed by Earthly Softnote for the Super Famicom and published by Naxat Soft in 1995. The characters were designed by Tatsuya Egawa, of Magical Taruruto-kun and Golden Boy fame. A Fan Translation patch was released by Aeon Genesis in 2009.
It all begins on a rainy day when one schoolboy picks up an umbrella. Suddenly he's transported into a fantasy world whose peace is being threatened by the Dondera Army. It's up to this boy to discover the powers within the umbrella and use them to (of course) save the world.
This game contains examples of:
- Belly Mouth: The Big Bad has one of these. During his short stint as a playable character, you can shoot powerful flame attacks from it. Exaggerated by the final boss, who not only sports one, but his body is made entirely out of interlocked metallic faces.
- Boss Rush: The penultimate area has a roulette wheel of six previous bosses, followed after a cutscene by a rematch with Donderasaurus.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:Dondera Tank: This is the fifth time I've shown up. If I didn't show some diversity, well... I thought the player might get bored.
Emperor Dondera: What!? Player?!
Dondera Tank [pointing directly toward the viewer]: Look! Over there! The one holding the controller, looking at us!
Emperor Dondera [exasperated]: Dumbass! You know we're not supposed to muck around with the fourth wall!
Dondera Tank: But...
Emperor Dondera: Enough already! You've already wasted more than enough of the player's time. Sorry about this, folks. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled game! - Character Portrait: Characters have animated portraits displayed next to their speech boxes. The portraits usually fit a small rectangular frame, though some of their emotes exceed it. One character described in another character's Info Dump also gets a portrait.
- Collapsing Lair: A couple of aspects of this trope are subverted: the Emperor Dondera is undefeated and on the loose when his castle is set to explode, and you don't have a chance of fleeing before time runs out (yet somehow things turn out all right).
- Cool Train: The Pickle Express is a first-class ocean-going train.
- Double Jump: Bonto is the only character who can double-jump. This might seem like just to compensate for Bonto's small size, but switching to Bonto is necessary to get through certain places because other characters can't jump as high.
- The Dragon: The Donderasaurus is the Emperor Dondera's most trusted lieutenant and a Recurring Boss, yet not nearly as powerful in actual Boss Battles as in cutscenes.
- Dynamic Entry: Viper tries to take out several bosses this way, but usually just gets curbstomped.
- Elemental Weapon: A rare instance of elemental power being applied to umbrellas. These include the Ice Umbrella, Wind Umbrella, Fire Umbrella, Water Umbrella and Thunder Umbrella, each of which is obtained from a locked chest inside a church.
- Escape Rope: The first item you acquire other than the titular umbrella is a jewel that can whisk you back to the world map.
- Flower from the Mountaintop: A rare fruit known as the iceapple, which happens to be the only known cure for petrification, was rendered almost extinct by overharvesting, and the only place where it is still believed to grow is at the remote peak of Mt. Apex.
- Full Moon Silhouette: In the flashback scene where you play as Viper sneaking into Thurgical Castle, a large full moon remains fixed in the top center of the background so that Viper can be frequently silhouetted against it.
- Get on the Boat: The Pickle Express, technically not a boat but a Cool Train. It first gets attacked by pirates and then swallowed by a whale.
- Global Currency: The universally-accepted coinage is known as "seville."
- Goldfish Poop Gang: Dondera Tank is an unusual example in that your first encounter with him is a Hopeless Boss Fight. He still returns repeatedly after being defeated, each time with a new body and the same old bluster. In his fourth appearance, he gets taken out by another character before the player can fight him. The fifth time around, he desperately tries to prove he's still relevant by singing a Villain Song and Breaking the Fourth Wall when Dondera complains about it.
- Goomba Springboard: Jumping off mummies to gain height is the only way to land a hit on Donderasphinx.
- Grimy Water: Though Super Not-Drowning Skills are ordinarily in play, it's still a bad idea to take a flying leap into the Gastric Sea (the Emperor Dondera does just that in a cutscene).
- Guest-Star Party Member: Big Bad Emperor Dondera serves as a party member while inside the Mammoth Whale.
- Healing Potion: You can buy healing potions in several strengths, though you have to find the bottles to put them in elsewhere.
- Heart Container: Strength Orbs add an extra heart to your Life Meter. They are usually obtained from treasure chests.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: Besides Signpost Tutorials, there are a few NPCs who explain controls, such as the one who mans the "Bargain Info Corner" in the First Town and offers lengthy explanations of the game's action controls and submenus.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player gets to name the protagonist. This is justified by the Summon Everyman Hero plot.
- Hopeless Boss Fight:
- The very first thing the happens after you get Trapped in Another World is a fight with Dondera Tank. You get to defeat Dondera Tank several times later in the story, and you do have your actual primary weapon at this point, but there's still nothing you can do here except get wiped out and watch Dondera Tank attempt a Finishing Move but then get blown up by someone else.
- Averted with Donderasaurus, who is unstoppable in his earlier bouts with the protagonist and Viper but only because these take place entirely in cutscenes.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: Emperor Dondera traps the Princess and Saki's father in a Crystal Prison to get the Kid Hero to hand over the Rainbow Orb. The crystal is broken soon after.
- Hyperactive Sprite: Almost any character in Three-Quarters View will walk in place unless it's an NPC you're currently talking to. Even petrified NPCs can often be seen going through their normal walking motions (with a gray Palette Swap).
- I Can Still Fight!:Viper: Alright then. [Starts to leave]
Princess: Viper! You're too weak to move!
Viper: Sorry, but I really gotta dash. Gotta act before the Princess loses her strength. - I'm Standing Right Here: After completing a Fetch Quest with the Emperor Dondera in your party:Vegette: Hm, guess I'll have to reassess you guys. I bet you guys could even take out the root of all evil, that damned Emperor Dondera.
Dondera: Hey now, wait just ONE— - Invincibility Powerup: In some areas, you can find glowing orbs that makes you invincible and able to destroy enemies by running through them for a short time.
- Jaw Drop: When the protagonist is surprised, his jaw drops as his face bulges out of the normal bounds of the Character Portrait.
- Kick Chick: Saki attacks enemies by kicking them, can do a "wall-kick jump," and slides through narrow passages feet-first.
- Kid Hero: The protagonist is an ordinary schoolboy Trapped in Another World who soon proves himself more competent at mounting a rescue mission than the local troopers, who are astonished that a "mere child" has outdone them.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: The game gives the player free rein to search people's houses for money and items to take.
- Legendary Weapon: The umbrella found and wielded by the player character has a "Legend of the Holy Umbrella" about it.
- The Man Behind the Man: After defeating the Emperor Dondera, you are then confronted by the true Emperor, a monstrous figure who was in Demonic Possession of him the whole time.
- The Maze: The Royal Tomb consists mostly of identically-sized chambers, each with no apparent entrance or exit. However, the Light of Brilliance will let you see in the space immediately around you which walls and floors are false.
- Medusa: There's a villainess named Donderadusa, who, aside from magically turning people into stone, looks and acts much more like a stereotypical Cat Girl than a classical Gorgon.
- Non-Human Sidekick: The talking bird-thing Bonto is the first character to join you on your adventure, though he doesn't do so when you first meet.
- Ocular Gushers: Numerous characters, including the Big Bad, spray jets of water out of their eyes when saddened.
- Parasol of Pain: The player's main weapon is a magical umbrella.
- Parasol Parachute: The Gliding Brooch upgrades the umbrella to allow the player to do this.
- Party in My Pocket: The Side View action stages let you switch out the hero for anyone in the party.
- Playable Epilogue: After defeating the Final Boss, you get a chance to say goodbye to everyone in Thurgical before going back to your own world.
- Pop Quiz: A Mad Scientist puts you through a quiz towards the end of the game. You have to answer all the questions correctly, but there are only three of them.
- Respawning Enemies: Enemies will respawn as soon as their spawn point is offscreen.
- Rock–Paper–Scissors: You have to win two rock-paper-scissors games in a row to obtain the Plot Coupon that lets you Get on the Boat.
- Signpost Tutorial: Signposts in the Side View levels say which way the player should go, which techniques to use here or how the player needs to use them.
- Sissy Villain: Emperor Dondera. The fact that the eyes of his chest mouth resemble breasts doesn't help. Incidentally during the short time he's in your party, his attacks are ridiculously powerful.
- Spikes of Doom: The Side View stages contain typical spiked pits. However, late in the game, you can find the Walking Brooch, which allows you to land on and walk through spiked pits without taking damage.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: You get to bounce off round bumpers with faces.
- The Stinger: After the credits, a retired Dondera goes fishing and catches Dondera Tank, who is rather displeased with having been left at the bottom of the ocean.
- Taken for Granite: All the townspeople in Surelulla Village who didn't happen to be hiding when a certain lady comes to town get turned to stone. Reviving them requires a rare fruit from a mountaintop. Saki also gets petrified when Donderadusa launches a surprise attack.
- Trapped in Another World: The adventure begins as the protagonist picks up a mysterious umbrella and is instantly transported into the fantasy world of Margence.
- T. Rexpy: Donderasaurus is essentially a T. rex in spiky armor. It's The Dragon to Emperor Dondera, though not a dragon.
- Trauma Inn: A normal feature of towns, doubling as (free) Save Points.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: The Emperor Dondera is said to have been a "quiet, hard-working man" prior to opening the first seal. At this point he underwent a grotesque transformation, as shown through a retrospective Character Portrait.
- Wall Crawl: The protagonist acquires this ability by finding the Clinging Brooch (one of the few non-umbrella-related brooches). Viper, being a thief, also has this ability in the flashback scene where you get to control him.
- Welcome to Corneria: Some Lampshade Hanging on this in the Playable Epilogue, where one of the returning NPCs says: "This is the house next to the entrance to Thurgical City. I've been saying this sorta thing for the whole game!"
- Womb Level: Donderamaid sends the Mammoth Whale to swallow the Pickle Express. It turns out that an entire town exists inside the whale, as well as a sea of gastric acid and other areas.
