Spectacular Sparky is a 2021 video game developed by FreakZone Games (the same devs behind
The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, as well as
Knight Terrors) and published by
Nicalis. You play as Sparky, a
Bounty Hunter resembling a rabbit who travels through outer space looking for bounties to claim.
Spectacular Sparky contains examples of the following tropes:
- Afraid of Clowns: Sparky is a Heroic Comedic Sociopath who constantly maintains a cheerful attitude, but he is horrified when he meets Melonhead, a floating, disembodied clown face. It's hard to tell whether or not Melonhead actually wants to fight Sparky, but there is a boss fight anyway, implying that Sparky is killing him just for being a clown.
- Amazon Chaser: Sparky still looks up to Nightshade even after the fifth time she tried to kill him, much to her bewildement.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Space Badger - the target of the fourth stage - is described by Shiggy as someone who wants to be the first criminal ever to be guilty of every crime in the galaxy, including....
Sparky: Even Mail Fraud?!
Shiggy: Especially mail fraud...
Sparky: You've chilled me to my core, shigsy. That badger is toast!
- Broken Pedestal: Subverted. Sparky meets Nightshade, a famous bounty hunter who's apparently tough enough to cause Shiggy to panic, who basically shit talks him and tries to kill him to get to the bounties first. On top of all that, Sparky trounces her every time they meet (in fact, she's one of the easier mini-bosses in the game) despite her getting constant upgrades. Sparky still admires her, and says this is apparently one of the better interactions with his many heroes (apparently all of the other ones resulted them being reduced to red stains on his blaster).
- Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Melonhead has a distorted, high-pitched voice that fits with his Monster Clown motif.
- Expy:
- Sergeant Blownaparte is basically Dr. Eggman but part Spider-Mech, part crazy ex-military guy. His voice even sounds like Mike Pollock's Eggman voice.
- Sparky himself can be linkened to Max, as both are cartoon rabbits with similar body shapes, facial structures, and high-pitched voices, as well as a particular penchant for violence.
- Melonhead is clearly based on Melon Bread, another boss from a run-and-gun game. They're both floating, disembodied faces with two eyeballs, a round red nose, and several sharp teeth.
- Fartillery: Space Badger's T-Rex can't turn around when Sparky gets behind it, not like it needs to as it's equipped with bomb that come out of it's rear.
- Feel No Pain: Seargent Blownaparte had his pain receptors turned off for a part of his fight with Sparky...until Sparky told Blownaparte's AI to turn them on.
- Floating Limbs: Sparky is rendered this way, both on in-game sprites and the artwork.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: In what is now a FreakZone tradition, Sparky gets to fight off The Giant Claw itself at the end of the shoot'em up section leading to the fourth stage.
- Hard Mode Perks: The Frenzy Mode - avialable as an unlockable game mode thus seperate from the difficulty modes - gives Sparky unlimited stamina and makes overheating no longer an issue, at the cost of the health being constantly drained (at the rate dictated by how much armor does he have, with more armor slowing down the drain), thus has to keep the health up by collecting stars out of defeated enemies.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The usual difficulty names are prefixed with "Super", inspired by Alien Soldier.
- Implied Death Threat: Shigg delivers one in a cutscene leading to the third stage after defeating Sgt. Blownaparte. Notably, Sparky gets him to back down with a threat of his own.
Sparky: Well, he sure was a fun guy! I really think we had a connection there towards the end!
Shiggy: Know the feelin' Sparks. Somethin' in the air?
Sparky: You mean aside from the blood, gristle and bullets? Cut to the chase, Pops. Who dies next!
Shiggy: ...Yeerp, can't argue with that.
- Lethal Lava Land : The fourth stage - Atomic Ring, a sun-mining facility - has this theme.
- Locomotive Level: The third round of the Mechopolis stage takes place inside the moving Blownaparte Express, eventually taking it outside to have a sub-boss fight on top of the train.
- Mad Scientist: Sparky's final target is Dr. Votsit, prides himself in creating creatures out of two different organisms and elements, including Sparky and Shigg (not like Sparky believes that).
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Sparky is some sort of... rabbit stardust alien, and Shiggy is an "Antropormorphic Shark-pig".
- And then the final level features mooks that are literally spliced together with two of the previous mook types, producing variations of mooks with the previous games enhanced with abilities and traits of other.
- Monster Clown: Melonhead, a floating face consisting of disembodied eyeballs, a clown nose, and sharp teeth. He runs a balloon company, and upon meeting him, Sparky immediately recognizes Melonhead as a clown and panics. He also has a Creepy High-Pitched Voice and a tendency for Laughing Mad.
- The Nicknamer: Sparky gives Shigg a lot of various nicknames, not much of it does the latter approve.
- Nominal Hero: While Sparky never harms anyone that isn't on the Bounty list or anyone who attacks him first (in fact, he actually tries to talk Four Forearms out of fighting him, albeit more in an "out of my way" way than anything else), it's pretty clear he's a Comedic Sociopath who loves killing, though he goes out of his way to spare Nightshade whenever they fight, and Shiggy is never harmed either.
- Overheating: Sparky's gun, and apparently others are prone to this, with the tutorial DJ mentioning he can no longer feel anything in his right hand, and if you overheat your gun, the ammo type is destroyed, and Sparky takes a bit of damage.
- One-Winged Angel: For the second phase of his boss fight, Dr. Votsit grows much larger in size, gains claws on his hands he gets crazy eyes and half of his face is missing a skin, and his arms and neck are completely skeletal.
- Punny Name: Four Forearms. It pisses off the owner to no end, because everyone thinks he's saying 4 4arms instead of 4 forearms.
- Recurring Boss: Nightshade is fought a whole four times.
- Shout-Out:
- Take That!: When Sparky reaches the room with failed Sparky clones made solely out of Sparky's saliva within the final stage, Dr. Votsit makes a comparsion to Alien: Resurrection.... and then proceeds to have a tangent on that movie.
Dr. Votsit: ...I mean, what was up with that movie?! Being merged with an alien does not make a person good at basketball!
- Unexpected Shmup Level: The proper run'n'gun stages are interspersed inbetween with the Shoot 'Em Up sections. The the later parts of the last two stages themselves also have vehicle sections of their own.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sparky is a Heroic Comedic Sociopath who enjoys killing things and constantly maintains a cheerful and jokey personality. However, he is apparently terrified of clowns, and he panics when he sees Melonhead, who happens to be a disembodied, clownlike face.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Sgt. Blownaparte may be a brutal cyborg dictator who tries to kill Sparky with missiles and bombs, but it's easy to feel sorry for him when you learn that he had to become a cyborg after suffering grievous injuries in war, which caused him to go mad. He gives off Shell-Shocked Veteran vibes.
. (Although Coldsteel says it as "nothing personnel," to fit with his Stylistic Suck design.)