Get used to it, you're going to be seeing a lot of this.
Syukusho Gakuen...known as Shrink 'High in it's English incarnation, is a Japanese game created in RPG Maker VX. The plot revolves around the detective, Chijinda You, investigating the mysterious events and disappearances at Yabaize High School. The game plays itself out like a straight JRPG, where you explore for clues and items and engage in various battles for the first part of the game. You'll find yourself running into characters from Japanese anime left and right. You can even get Kyon as a party member. It seems quite innocent enough.Then you find out just why it's called Shrink 'High.Needless to say, the focus of the game takes a sudden turn. Suddenly, 90% of the cast is bigger than you. And most of the 90% will either mistake you for an insect, or be a part of the secret society that's behind it all, and will doanything to ensure you don't meddle in their plans anymore.This game was until recently Japan Only, but a fan translation was created with added content.
This game provides examples of:
Academy of Adventure: Yabaize High School and the surrounding area. No, this is not just because of the A.S. Society's shenanigans; there's a fair bit of paranormal activity going on that has nothing to do with them.
Almighty Janitor: The nameless C-Rank Member you first encounter is quite a bit more powerful than average. Part of this is, of course, because you meet her well before C-Rank members become regular enemies, but she also has more HP than normal and, when you fight her while shrunk, is capable of attacking with both feet instead of just one, a skill only shared by Reina and Madoka.
Amazon Brigade: The Advanced Sciences Society. All its full-sized combat members are female.
Anti-Villain: The majority of the high-ranked villains, in contrast to the rank-and-file Mooks.
Artificial Stupidity: Shamisen the cat is an uncontrollable party member, and he's usually not very helpful to your party. When you want him to leave someone alone because you have them caught in a Sleep/Poison lock, Shamisen will helpfully scratch them awake with his claws. When you want him to attack, Shamisen might just decide to use his "Catnap" ability, going to sleep and allowing him to recover HP and AP...whether or not he needs any and whether or not you need him fighting.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: THIS a thousand times. It's essentially the entire point of the game, and once you're shrunk you'll be hard pressed NOT to run into this. It's not just humans, either...
Most of these are just POV specific though, as the game DOES focus on shrinking. For this trope played completely straight see the Director snapping and enlarging herself to ran rampant in the endgame. And, while missing the 'attack' part, Narue possibly enlarging to help fight her off.
Author Appeal: Macrophilia, obviously, along with a variety of related fetishes.
Authority Equals Asskicking: Higher-ranked A.S. members are exponentially more powerful than lower-ranked members, whether they're actually in combat units or not.
Bragging Rights Reward: The Challenger's Soul. It's a decently-powerful accessory, but if you're strong enough to get it, the rest of the game will be a cakewalk anyway.
Charles Atlas Superpower: Kyon lacks Chijinda's Psychic Powers, and his abilities primarily revolve around developing his raw stats to higher-than-normal levels.
Charm Person: The "Moe Appeal" and "Tsundere Appeal" attacks can inflict the "Love-Struck" status effect (essentially Paralysis that only works on men). So can Kanon's "Call Me Queen!" attack, which is a charm effect delivered via a whip strike. The player characters are made of sterner stuff than most, though; the average shrinky gets Love-Struck just by getting a glimpse of a giantess' panties.
Cry for the Devil: The video diaries are there to give the player a chance to see the Vice-Director's Start of Darkness, and thus humanize a character who generally acts like a murderous Jerkass.
Degraded Boss: You can fight a C-rank fighter early on, first at human size, then as a shrinky. You don't fight any other A.S. members until much later.
Boss in Mook Clothing: You can fight C-rank A.S. members while shrunk. It's probably better to just run.
Disc One Nuke: Subverted by a Magnificent Bastard of a game designer. The Death Note is an Easter Egg item that's not all that hard to find, and kills all non-boss enemies on the field when used. It also reduces your party's max HP if used too often, and doesn't tell you about it until you suddenly look at your HP and find that you're a hundred HP short of where you should be. There's a couple of times where it's really virtually necessary to use to pass opposition that's entirely beyond your level, but otherwise, use with caution.
Completing the Madoka quest early can get you a piece of endgame-class gear.
Save Scumming the Lottery can net you a legendary supersword.
Dual Boss: At one point, the Vice-Director and Erika team up to fight you together. If you defeat one, the other Turns Red.
Earn Your Happy Ending: After defeating the Director, she reveals she is actually from a distant post-apocalyptic future two centuries from now, and the atrocities she had committed were all necessary to her plan to ensure that it never comes to pass. With her defeated, humanity still faces the spectre of collapse, but the nations of the world are forewarned against the threat and the Vice-Director can help restore the surviving shrinkies to normal.
Even the Girls Want Her: The Director. At least one girl at Yabaize is shown having heart-shaped thoughts of her.
Everything Trying to Kill You: From bugs, mice, birds, to robots, to giant high school girls, you'll be hard pressed to find something that won't try to kill you.
The game takes place in Yabaize High School, which can roughly be translated into English as 'One Dangerous High School'.
Fetish-Fuel Future: For some reason, everyone at Yabaize High (with the exception of Kyon) is into the giantess fetish. Every boy goes crazy with lust when he's shrunken and looks up at a girl, and every girl who gets a chance to play with shrinkies thoroughly enjoys it. (This may have been arranged by the villains.)
Forced Level Grinding: If you don't want to be killed by mice, you'd best grind your ass off. There's a Schmuck Bait item available that appears to assist in this. However, the Death Note will ''take away your Max HP if you use it more than a few times. And the worst part is that you won't even know that your Max HP went down unless you look. Did we mention that the game is Nintendo Hard?
Fun with Acronyms: "Advanced Science Society." The Vice-Director even pokes fun at it once.
"Get Out of Jail Free" Card: Erika gets off completely scot-free for murder and cannibalism, and Mia's probably getting released as soon as the stink dies down. This is justified: Mia's in an extremely good position to plea-bargain, being the only one who the authorities can turn to to restore the shrinkies to normal.
Guide Dang It: There are a lot of times that you're given absolutely no indication of where to go, particularly near the beginning of the game, and there are many items that can be Lost Forever without warning or indication that they were even there.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: It was distributed via Megaupload, which is currently deceased as a site, and the translator has moved onto other things.
Mad Scientist: The Director and Vice-Director, as well as many lower-ranking A.S. members.
Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Characters from several anime and games cross into the game. Some are even main characters.
Mecha-Mooks: The majority of the A.S. Society's forces are composed of these.
Meta Guy: Kyon. He's in charge of Lampshade Hanging, Shout Outs and generally having an encyclopedic knowledge of anime, manga and video game tropes and memes.
Medium Awareness: Kyon is more or less aware that he's in a video game, though he doesn't bring it up too often. At one point, he even mentions that "there's enough holes in the fourth wall around here already."
Motive Rant: Chijinda encourages the Director to give one as she's dying.
Take Up My Sword: After she tells Chijinda her motives, she urges him to save the world in his own way and prevent her timeline from coming to pass. Should he be up for it, she'll even offer him leadership of the A.S. Society.
Nintendo Hard: If you're not careful, mice can murder you if you stray too far without grinding. Not to mention the widespread status inflicting enemies, as well as the instant death scenes you can trigger.
Redemption Equals Death: Possibly. The Furyou Brothers can make a Heroic Sacrifice to ensure that you get to the enlarger. It's possible to avert this by defeating Reina, however.
Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: The Vice-Director and Erika, to the point that they're able to channel The Power of Love in their boss fight. Digging into the story makes it clear that they also share this relationship with the Director.
Shrink Ray: What you run into after the first quarter of the game and a weapon of choice for the villainesses.
Strong Flesh Weak Steel: Whenever a named opponent is using any kind of Powered Armor, they're actually far stronger outside the armor. Averted with the 90-series tanks, which really are better-armored than Chijinda and Kyon, though they may be offensively weaker depending on how powerful your weapons are.
Swallowed Whole: Usually a Non-Standard Game Over when done by a giantess, though on one occasion it's required for the plot to progress. Also an attack used by slightly less super-scaled monsters.
Sympathy for the Devil: If you do the diary sidequest, Chijinda goes through a lot of this with regards to the Vice-Director.
The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Almost EVERY enemy in the game has an ability that will give them two physical attacks in one if they choose to use it, and some bosses will even be able to attack twice separately in the same turn.
Even worse, in later sections of the game, certain enemies are able to launch off rather potent combos of status effects. Alone, and used once, the status effect is generally ignorable, but when two enemies somehow get two attacks per turn, and each enemy uses the incapacitating attack twice on different characters, they can rather effectively prevent your entire party from attacking. Most noticeable upon the eventual regrowth of your characters and all the girls are suddenly accompanied by genetically mutated lions.
Tsundere: The Vice-Director, big time. The Director, Kanon and Reina also have the "Tsundere Appeal" attack, but none of them precisely fits the trope.
Units Not To Scale: Individual intestinal bacteria act as opponents to 2cm tall heroes, and enchanted mitochondria are about the size of bullfrogs. (Outside of the Womb Level, there's a fairly standard scale in use.)
Useless Useful Spell: Usually averted. Status effects are extremely useful against bosses; in fact, poison is by far the most powerful and reliable weapon you can use against giantesses.
We Can Rule Together: The Big Bad offers the player a position within the Society at one point. If you accept, it's a Non-Standard Game Over. She offers it again near the end after you know the full extent of her plans, but you aren't given the option to accept this time.
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