Video Game / The Denpa Men

A series of unconventional RPGs for the Nintendo 3DS, made by Genius Sonority. Known in Japan as Denpa Ningen no RPG—roughly, "Radio People RPG." But what is a Denpa Man or Radio Person, and why are they RPG-ing? Ah, there's the rub.

As the story goes, the airwaves in our world are populated with strange little guys called "Denpa Men." Denpa Men come in many different colors, shapes, and sizes, with different skills available to them. Normal people can't see them, but if you so happen to use the "camera" feature on your 3DS, you can spot them and catch them! Denpa Men don't mind being caught. They kinda like meeting new people, actually. If you get enough of them, you can amass a party. And if you get together a strong enough party, you can enter the Tower of Evil to defeat the Evil King!

There may not be much story to speak of, but The Denpa Men focuses more on mechanics than story. It incorporates augmented reality "hunting" mechanics with a streamlined RPG experience, full of party building, dungeon crawling, and battling lots of unique-looking enemies. The game's randomly generated party members mean that there's a truly vast number of ways to go about building your party, and you'll need to balance your skills and abilities to make a team capable of taking down the Evil King!

In late September 2012, a sequel was released in Japan, titled Denpa Ningen no RPG 2. It came to the West on May 30, 2013 as The Denpa Men 2: Beyond the Waves. While the main objective isn't much different than it was before—"save Crystal and your children, Jasper and Amber" instead of just "save Crystal", but many cool new features were added, such as an expansive overworld, all gear being visible, and an interesting take on Player-versus-Player. More on that later.

A third game came to Japan on August 8, 2013, predictably titled Denpa Ningen no RPG 3. It was released in North America and Europe on May 8, 2014 as The Denpa Men 3: The Rise of Digitoll. This game seems to take place before the events of the first and second games, as Digitoll is still bustling, and Crystal is referred to as the hero's "childhood friend" as opposed to his girlfriend or wife.

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This game series contains examples of:

Tropes in General

• Absurdly High Level Cap:
  • Level 99 in the first two games. After the post-game, your Denpa Men will probably only be around Level 60, though getting to a higher level is recommended if you intend to take down every Superboss in both games.
  • The third game takes it up a notch by bringing the level cap up to a whopping 199. However, this is balanced out by making level-ups happen faster and making enemies higher-leveled in the postgame: Master Squelch/Self-made King is Level 100, the three Guardians are around Level 120, Best Malignus is Level 150, and the Havoc Dragon is level 180.
• Action Girl:
  • After you rescue Crystal, she can join your party just like anyone else and go exploring with you.
  • In later games, it's not just limited to Crystal because any Denpa Woman in your party can fulfill this trope if you so wish.
  • A more emphasized example of this appears in the third installment in the form of Crystal's mother Mary, who was known in her adventuring days as the 'Monster Catcher'. This makes sense, due to her Catch antenna. She seems to be quite famous, too, as even the Guardians know who she is. If you bring her to the Guardian Tower for the cutscene introduction to the Guardians, the Queen comments on this, saying that the guardians would really fight with all of their strength in your trial against them because they had heard of Monster Catcher Mary before. Mary proceeds to call them "naïve", noting that their statement indicated that the Guardians wouldn't have fought with all of their strength had she not come along.
• Actually Four Mooks: Due to Pre Existing Encounters being in full effect for all overworld enemies, it's very common to run into a single foe who during battle tends to be accompanied by enemies of the same type or different enemies, both of whom are local to the area.
• All in a Row: Your denpa party travels single file.
• Ambiguously Gay: Some of the Denpa Men will ask you to catch more "attractive" Denpas. The same personality type will also occasionally flirt with the player, regardless of their gender.
• Augmented Reality: Your 3DS camera superimposes the Denpa Men on the area around you, and it also generates them based on local Wi-Fi signals.
• Barrier Change Boss:
  • The fight with True King requires you to strike his weakness in order to counter his elemental aura. Once the aura is dispersed, any attack will hit his weaknesses until he puts up the Unlucky Aura again or he's defeated.
  • The Evil Witch/Demon Queen in Beyond the Waves. When she takes a set amount of damage, she will change color and element, making it harder to pinpoint a single weakness. Thankfully, what element she changes to and when she does it is constant. In the case of Demon Queen, this can be ignored since she all her forms are weak to Light.
• Beat the Curse Out of Him:
  • When you fight the Pawn in the second game, he seems to be mysteriously controlled by a force that remains unnamed throughout the series. Once you defeat him, he returns to normal.
  • Also, in the third game, the Phoenix is being controlled by Avid to cause a volcano to erupt, but this plan is foiled upon his defeat.
• Superboss:
  • The True King is the only secret boss in the 1st game, found in the basement of the Guardian Tower behind a Lv.99 door.
  • In the second game, Master Oink, Divine Pawn, the final bosses from the first game and Octopaladin, these bosses appear after Demon Queen is defeated. The upgraded versions of Pawn can be fought before you beat the game.
  • The third game has Master Squelch/Self-Made King, Pawn, Best Malignus, The Fighting Deities (Rook/Queen/King), and Havoc Dragon.
• Bonus Dungeon:
  • The first game doesn't have a "true" bonus dungeon; with the basement of the Guardian Tower being a small lead up area to the game's Superboss.
  • During the second game, the Inferno is found by going to Hades Island, an island covered in poison panels. The actual dungeon itself is a Brimstone And Fire Hell where all the enemies are ghosts who require special equipment in order to be properly damaged.
  • The third game has Squelch's Home and Guardian Tower. Earth Prison doesn't really count since it's a small lead-up area before Best Malignus.
• Boss Bonanza: The final dungeons in the first two games have a gauntlet of boss encounters before the end.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Some of the enemies are very tough. Hydraplant enemies get multiple attacks each turn and can attack your whole party for merciless damage. Dragons have multiple damaging attacks. Ghosts are invincible to physical attacks. The list goes on...
• Can't Drop the Hero: Your first Denpa Man acts as your de facto hero, and must always stay in your party.

• Christmas Mode: If you talk to your Denpa Men on Christmas, they'll acknowledge it and make comments like "I'm surprised Santa hasn't been busted for breaking and entering yet."
• Color-Coded Elements: Nine out of the total 12 Denpa colors are associated with an element (or lack of one): red is Fire, blue is Water, yellow is Electricity, orange is Earth, green is Wind, light blue is Ice, white is Light, purple is Darkness, and black is Non-Elemental.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: A rare example in your favor, where when your party is set to auto-battle, it sometimes "knows" what the enemies are going to do and will act accordingly.
• Damsel in Distress: Crystal.
  • Also Amber and Jasper in Beyond the Waves, although Jasper is male.
• Early Game Hell: You can only carry a party of four Men with you at once, and since you likely won't have been on any real Men hunting sprees yet, you may not even have a healer yet. Even if you have access to a few different skills, there's no room at your party for them.
• Elemental Powers: The colour of a Denpa Man indicates what element it resists/is weak to, while its antenna shows what powers it has. Some Denpa Men wear striped clothes that indicate multiple resistances.
• Evolving Attack: Most antenna skills have two to three levels, which upgrade themselves as you level up.
• Fight Woosh: All games have this before you get into a fight.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The rare Rainbow Mist enemies in the first game, although they're actually Fire, Water, Lightning enemies, are capable of using the breath attacks of the Fire, Water and Thunder Mists but also share their weaknesses. They also return in the second game as enemies in The Inferno.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Denpa clothes fit the Men perfectly — regardless of their size. However, the Denpas' original colors are an aversion — according to Word of God, the colorful "suits" the Denpas wear are, in actuality, soft, thin fur.
• Frictionless Ice: You can actually control your direction somewhat on this ice, though not by an awful lot. Colliding with anything will also make it extremely difficult to correct your path.
• Gameplay Automation: Auto-battle is generally a good way to save time and skip cumbersome stacks of menu boxes in battles. You can even choose to partially enter your commands, and set the rest of your team to auto-attack on a given turn.
• Good Is Dumb: Zigzagged with the Spirits, the noted creators of the world the entire adventure takes place in. ^note Even though the hero said it was in the 3DS. They had three orbs, which they needed to keep out of evil hands, should they not want the world destroyed: the Holy Orb, the Truth Orb, and the Dark Orb. ^note The Dark Orb seems to be the most important of the three, as it has the ability to do things like drown the world in darkness. Let's start out with the Holy Orb. First, they toss it in the middle of the ocean, then it ends up buried underground^note and found by some dwarf who doesn't even recognize it. However, they usually give the Truth Orb to the fairies to protect, which isn't such a bad idea. And then there's the Dark Orb, which they entrust to a Denpa Girl who has a tendency to get kidnapped all the time. Granted, she usually does a pretty good job of hiding it, and she won't tell anyone where it is even if they torture her for the information, but they seriously decided to put the one Orb with the greatest potency to destroy the world in the hands of a young Denpa Girl just to throw the responsibility off of their intangible backs. These guys are really nice to Denpa Men. ^note Not.
• Healer Signs On Early: Your hero Denpa always has the "revive" ability. In the third game, you also receive a guaranteed party member in the form of Crystal's dad, who joins as soon as you defeat Squelch. He's always a healer.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Crystal goes through a lot throughout the three games, being kidnapped twice by people trying to get her to tell them where she hid the Dark Orb, usually by using an Agony Beam on her. This doesn't work, at least when it only involves her. Sleeky Serpent also comments that "she's got guts..." She even seems to be stronger willed than the hero, who gives Aflama the Dark Orb and Idols once he invokes Forced to Watch, which coincidentally also involved her. The second incident, with the Evil Witch, instead has the hero respond by getting kind of angry. Also, the fact that the Dark Orb is given to her to take care of, as opposed to someone else like Squelch/The King of Evil, or other Denpa Men suggests that the kind of thing that happened to Squelch may happen to anyone else who keeps it. This also explains why the hero doesn't hold on to it between the games. Why the hero wouldn't know that his wife hid it in some mysterious place, however, remains a mystery.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Lots and lots of them. Sometimes there can be nearly a dozen crammed into one room!
• Infinity +1 Element:
  • Light type, in the first game. Light-type Denpas have no weaknesses, only a resistance to Dark type (which only enemies use). Very few enemies resist Light, and many are weak to the element.
  • In Beyond the Waves, Light-type Denpas gain a weakness to their own element, but the only enemies to use Light attacks outside of the Coliseum are the Knights (guardians of the Caves of Darkness) and the Evil Witch.
  • The second game introduces silver, gold, and pink Denpas, most of whom can only be found by using paint to change a Denpa's color (though Silver Denpas appear very rarely in the wild). Silver Denpas have a slate of resistances and weaknesses, in addition to huge defensive stats. Gold Denpas resist every element except Fire, and boost the amount of gold you get from enemies. Pink Denpas are weak to all elements, but they naturally charm enemies, making it possible enemies will be "charmed and cannot move" for a whole turn.
• Leaked Experience: Denpa Men who stay behind will gain experience and level up alongside your active party.
• Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap: In the first two games, health potions cost piddling amounts of money and drop from monsters frequently. AP-restoring items drop once in a blue moon and can't be bought at all until very late or post-game, when they cost surprising amounts of money.
• Marathon Level:
  • The Guardian Tower in the original. With 10 floors, painfully difficult bosses every other floor, and no checkpoints until the very top of the tower, it fits this trope to a tee.
  • In the second game, the penultimate dungeon, the Evil Cave is essentially this yet the final area (Palace Tower) is much shorter.
• Metal Slime: The enemies that look like teeth have very little HP, sky-high defense, and tend to run away at the beginning of battles. If you manage to defeat one, you'll be awarded a sizable EXP bonus. The Gold Fangs, however, are a subversion as they take normal damage from attacks.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Oink Rabbit is a rabbit mixed with a pig, the Wolfbear is a wolf mixed with a bear, and the Octopider is an octopus mixed with a spider, to name a few.
• Mon: An unconventional take on this, as you catch the Denpa Men in real life using the 3DS's AR camera around radio waves. Though due to the way the Denpa Men are generated, and the limited storage space, you are not encouraged to — and it is impossible to — catch 'em all.
• Monster Compendium: Starting from Beyond the Waves, the Museum now allows you to see what monsters you have defeated, complete with a list of item drops, location, and a short description of each.
• Morality Chain: The King of Evil does cause quite a bit of trouble, but he is usually trying to do good for Crystal. This includes when he tried to force her to marry him by kidnapping her, though it was quite obvious that she was not very appreciative of this. The only time the King of Evil does anything that isn't selfish is when he's doing something for Crystal. And then there's the time when he doesn't hesitate to try and pummel her in battle.
• Nerf: Two-tone Denpas in the first game had no weaknesses, just a pair of resistances, with the drawback being that they weren't as good as the resistances of pure-colored Denpas. In the sequels, however, they have the associated weaknesses of their two elements — but aren't as weak to them as the pure-colors are.
  • Light was also nerfed from being an Infinity +1 Element to an element weak to itself.
  • Some of the enemies were also made significantly weaker. Hydraplants were practically a death sentence in the first game. In the sequel, they're only slightly stronger than normal mooks, and even a six-person Denpa party at fairly low levels can dispatch with them fairly quickly.
  • Barriers/the Invincible skill. In the original game, they made your entire party fully invincible for several turns. In the sequel, however, Denpas have a slight natural resistance to being "barriered," meaning it may not affect your entire party (or even most of them), and it may not even be the "right" men who become invincible.
• Noob Cave: The Digitoll Cave in the first two games.
• One Size Fits All: Denpa Men come in all shapes and sizes, but any sort of clothing you find will be a perfect, snug fit for any one of them.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. It's quite possible to obtain more than one Denpa Man with the same name.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. Though the dwarves do like digging and are proud of their facial hair (mustaches, not beards), they're quiet, lovable, and actually rather small.
• Our Fairies Are Different: They have no wings or legs, are about the same size as your Denpa Men, and hover to move around.
• Palette Swap: Most of the enemies in the later dungeons. However, enemies with similar bases tend to have similar strategies, so you can know what you're in for by looking at their "species."
• Player Versus Player: An interesting take in the form of the Coliseum in the sequels. Introduced in Beyond the Waves, it registers players and their teams on a database, assigns them a ranking based on how many medals they have, and gives them a choice of three similarly-ranked players to fight should they wish. No player directly faces off against another, and you can take as long as you like in each match without worrying about anything.
• Pre Existing Encounters: Though you don't see everything involved until battle starts.
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: The sequels not only features visible accessories, it features way more accessory slots, leading to lots of ridiculous get-ups. Even the official art shows it off!◊
• Stealth Pun: The Metal Slime enemies are animate teeth with big round eyes and lacy wings. They're tooth fairies.
• Squishy Wizard: Denpa Men with skills have lower physical stats than those without skills.
• Supporting Protagonist: Due to her being the only recurring playable character in the series, Crystal is seemingly considered the games' main character. This despite spending most of each game kidnapped.
• Status Effects: Poison, Paralysis, Burns, and Blindness, to name a few.
• Takes One to Kill One: In the sequels, Light (white) Denpas are weak to their own element.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: The English version title notably calls them "Denpa Men," instead of "Radio People." Presumably because "Denpa Men" sounds cooler if you speak English.
• The Dragon:
  • The Holy Dragon who stands in your way before you fight the Evil Witch. He oddly serves little significance aside from that of the penultimate boss before the first ending. He however is noted as being very fast, though mostly acts as a passive guard.
  • Alflama himself turns out to be one for Malignus, having crafted plans to gather all the idols to free his master from his seal.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: In the first game, enemies were the only users of the Dark type and the Reflect status attribute (which not only nullifies magic attacks, but reflects them back). In the second game, Dark Denpas (both in terms of color and in terms of having dark-type skills) became available, and the Reflect status attribute became its own skill.
• Useless Useful Spell: Averted, thanks to the random encounters being very tough. Anything to take the edge off the fights is useful, and status spells have the benefit of being cheaper and being lower maintenance.
  • Among the most notable examples is the skill Breath Plug in the second game. It prevents enemies from using breath-based attacks. At first, that sounds extremely situational... until you realize that most breath attacks are a Total Party Kill, and nearly every Demonic Spider in the game uses at least one if not more. It then sounds like an extremely powerful silencing ability that can save you a lot of hassle and unnecessary deaths.
• White Mage: Your leader's girlfriend will always have the ability to heal the entire party. But since your hero Denpa is a healer too (a reviver), they actually make a set of healers together.
• Yandere: The King Of Evil. He is very interested in Crystal, and goes so far as kidnapping her to take her for himself. Even after the Hero marries her, his interest for her does not cease. After you've saved him from the Inferno in the second game, if you go to the Guardian Tower with Crystal in the party, he gives her quite a few items to wear, and is almost without words when he sees her in them.

Tropes in The Denpa Men: They Came By Wave

• And Now You Must Marry Me: The King Of Evil would have forced Crystal to marry him had the hero not come to save the day.
• Anti-Villain: The King of Evil only wants to be with Crystal, possibly because she was friendly towards him during her childhood, but he goes to the extent of kidnapping her to achieve his goals.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the first game, the Grand King directly asks the player if they want to betray their party and join him. This turns out to be a trap. If you accept his offer, your party will be wiped out and you will lose all of the Denpa Men in your party.
• Demo Bonus: The demo for the first game lets you carry over your completion of the first dungeon, Digitoll Cave, as well as all the Denpa Men and items you acquired, into the full game.
• Disc-One Final Boss: The King of Evil and the Grand King. (The credits actually roll after the Grand King, but you're still not done.)
• Disconnected Side Area: Traditionally, the first dungeon of every game contains one of these that can only be accessed later.
• Dub Name Change: In regards to the first game, there is Beelzebub to King of Evil, Tower of Satan to Tower of Evil just to name a few.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower of Evil and the Guardian Tower in the first game.
• The Ghost: The Funny Forest is supposedly home to a powerful wizard, but he is never seen.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: As Crystal and the Hero get married, the Hero says that he'd be the happiest Denpa Man in the world. He soon repeals his statement, saying that he'd be the second happiest Denpa Man in the world, as Crystal would fill the first spot. If his statement is to be considered true, he'd still be the happiest Denpa Man in the world. Crystal's a Denpa Girl!
• Informed Equipment: Done bizarrely in the first game^note This is averted in the sequels. — your Denpas' "accessory-type" equipment is invisible, but their "clothing-type" equipment isn't. So while you could equip them with a pair of Roller Skates and Bubble-pattern clothing, only the clothing will be visible.
• Our Goblins Are Different: They are Palette Swaps of the Oink Rabbits. They also have Ice powers.
• Puzzle Boss: The True King is actually really easy if you know which elements to use to bring down his Unlucky Aura, otherwise your party is going to be facing Total Party Kill after total party kill.
• The Smurfette Principle: Your party in the first game is made up entirely of Denpa Men: the only female Denpa is the Damsel in Distress. Averted in later games, though.
• Took a Level in Badass: The King Of Evil is this if the pre-battle dialogue with the True King is any indication.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: When you beat the King of Evil the first time in the first game, he escapes with your girl, and after you beat him again, your Hero wants to marry the girl and has to find the three Oaths to do so.

Tropes in The Denpa Men: Beyond the Waves

• Animate Inanimate Object: The Corn Critter is a walking ear of corn.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You start the game with four party slots. Expands to six, then eight later on.
• Babies Ever After: In the second game, you meet the children of the hero and Crystal. They're also on the 3DS' game boot screen.
• Bonus Level of Hell: The Inferno in the second game.
• Degraded Boss: A few of the first game's bosses became regular enemies in the sequel, in particular the Hydramelon, Ice Fly, and Aqua Mammoth (now Eleflow). Worth noting that while the Ice Fly remains rather difficult, the Hydramelon and the Eleflow were made significantly easier to deal with.
• Destroyed Hometown: In the second game, Digitoll is destroyed by the Evil Organisation, forcing the hero, Crystal, and their children (if they were born yet) to move to Digitown.
• Family Theme Naming: By way of Rock Theme Naming: The hero's family in the second game are all named after precious stones: Wife Crystal, son Jasper, and daughter Amber.
• Fantastic Racism: In the second game, the dwarves that eat grass (in Horti Kalcha) hate the dwarves that eat fish (in Port Town).
• Friendly Enemy: The King of Evil in the second game. Not only did he not kidnap your wife, he actually spends most of the game giving you hints on how to beat the true Big Bad. Just before the final battle, the true Big Bad sends him to the Inferno, and the bonus dungeon consists of rescuing him. Even Crystal says he's become something of a family friend, bizarre as it sounds.
• Friend to All Children: General Squid, according to Amber, was always nice to her and kept her safe, despite the fact that she was technically his prisoner.
• Hidden Elf Village: Hidden Fairy Village: There is one at the end of the Road to Oasis during the second game.
• I Was Just Passing Through: After you save Crystal in the Denpa Men 2, she asks her husband, the hero, to go into The Inferno to save the King Of Evil, since he tried to help her when she was kidnapped by the Evil Witch, but was sent to the Inferno in the process. After the task is said and done, the hero admits that he only helped the King of Evil because Crystal asked him to.
• Kaizo Trap: It's very possible to go into one of the Caves of Darkness in the second game, defeat the boss, and then get screwed out of your prize because running out of time causes you to get booted of the dungeon, ensuring that you have to defeat the boss again to get the prize.
• Knight Templar: The Squid Knight in the second game. He's working for the bad guys, but only because he believes you to be evil, and wants to use the powers granted to him by the society to bring about world peace.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Ghosts and Mists in the sequels almost literally so — they're invulnerable to physical attacks, unless your attacking Denpa has the "Ghostbuster" skill or is under the effects of Holy Water.
• Mook Maker: The "Ham" enemies in the second game summon monsters from the local area to fight alongside them in battle.
• Mook Promotion: The Demon was an (admittedly high-level) ordinary encounter in the first game found in a late game dungeon. During the second game, it's one of the late-game bosses fought in the Evil Cave.
• Nostalgia Level: Many of the levels from the first game reappear in the second: Digitoll Cave, Tower of Evil, Scorch Volcano, Ice Island, and Guardian Tower. Of those five, only Digitoll Cave and the Tower of Evil are remotely the same; the other three are completely different.
• Not Me This Time: Your fight with the King of Evil in the second game. He agrees to fight you, since he'll never turn down an opportunity to rough you up, but once you reveal that you're looking for Crystal, he has absolutely no idea who kidnapped her. He spends most of the rest of the game hanging out in his downstairs library and giving you advice about your quest, and the real villains you face.
• Old Save Bonus: Your hero and buddies from the first game carry over into the second. If you managed to get 100% Completion in the first game, it also gives you early access to a secret shop selling rare goodies.
• Planet Heck: The Inferno in the sequel.
• Rock Theme Naming: Used for Family Theme Naming: The hero's family are all named after precious stones: Wife Crystal, son Jasper, and daughter Amber.
• Teaser Equipment: Even before the Noob Cave in the second game, there's a shop that sells some rare goods, including the valuable Mushroom Basket. It closes up as soon as you beat the first dungeon, and much of its equipment won't be available until much later. However, it would take extreme patience in order to actually acquire said goods when the game shows them off.

Tropes in The Denpa Men: Rise of Digitoll

• An Interior Designer Is You: In the third game, every single one of your Denpa Men has their own house, which you can decorate as you wish.
• Artifact of Doom: Implied with the Dark Orb. Squelch is turned into the King Of Evil when he used it, and it can be the catalyst of possibly world-ending events such as drowning the world in darkness and releasing the Sealed Evil in a Can.
• Childhood Friend Romance: The third game reveals that the hero and Crystal have this. If you talk to the hero in his house, he will prove this by saying that Crystal is getting cuter, and asking if you think she likes him. This seems to be one sided in the third installment, since Crystal never makes any mention of a relationship with the hero, aside from the platonic one that came into being due to the fact that he saves her from Aflama. It is also a rather humorous note that if you enter the hero's house with Crystal in your party and talk to him, he still asks the question of whether you think that Crystal likes him or not, along with insisting that you not tell her about it. Well, I won't say a thing, but she's standing right behind you.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Crystal is friendly towards Squelch, a Mud Monster. He kidnaps her. And that's cruel. Crystal even says so. This is explained in-universe by the fact that he was ordered to do so by the minions of Aflama, but it only reduces his credibility to Just Following Orders.
• Kid from the Future: It's possible to summon Amber and Jasper from The Denpa Men 2 into the third game, which is a prequel taking place when the hero and Crystal are still kids. The summoning process does explicitly reach across space-time.
• Shout-Out: The Throne item which can be gotten as furniture in the third game has a description which says "Don't play games on this. They don't tend to end well."
• Smug Snake: The Sleeky Serpent/Serpent Neo in the third game manipulates the hero into obtaining the idols, then tries to trick him into handing them over to him with an illusion of Crystal. Once you use the Holy Orb to break this illusion, he can't believe that his illusion failed to trick you, and tries to take down the hero himself. Even after he is defeated, he still has confidence in Aflama's plans.
• Stalker with a Crush: Squelch in the third game really likes Crystal, and is willing to follow her everywhere.
• Start of Darkness: In the third game, after he uses the Dark Orb to augment his power, Squelch starts metamorphosing into the familiar form of the King of Evil.
• The Beastmaster: Denpa Men with the 'Catch' antenna during the third game can capture monsters, then use them to either attack enemies, or cast other effects on the battle, depending on the caught monster.

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