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"Sweet Christmas, it's stupid fresh!"

A Fan Sequel to Captain N, and one of the few truly dramatic Sprite Comics out there — though the drama is often not as immediately apparent as the Black Comedy.

Alex Williams was a 22-year-old college dropout, working at the local sub shop and spending way too much time playing emulated video games (hence his grades, and hence the "dropout" part). As he puts it, "trapped by my own fear and apathy, and doomed to become another mindless drone."

That was about the time something went wrong with one of Lucca's inventions in the land of Chrono Trigger, and Alex got sucked into Videoland to become the successor to one of his boyhood idols: Kevin Keene, the eponymous hero of Captain N. The Game Master. However, according to a prophecy he was supposed to be someone pure of heart — instead Alex is a foul-mouthed, self-centered cynic.

Before long, things get complicated, and fast. Interdimensional kidnappings, incarnations of Alex's five chief vices (Arrogance, Hatred, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, and Apathy) trying to save him from a Fate Worse than Death (by killing him, of course), a "Great Change" that occurred years before, a mysterious zombie, nested flashbacks, and repeated hints that one of the most important people involved in the goings-on may, in fact, be Alex's old baby-sitter.

Definitely worth a read, even if you're not familiar with any of the source material. Available through this link.


This webcomic contains examples of:

  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Whoops, it turns out those little sprites we made to entertain our children actually have lives. Some want revenge for their stories putting them through hell.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Though only trapped by his own hubris and a less than full understanding of his team's capabilities, Alex spends quite a long time getting his ass repeatedly handed to him by a guard and two hydras.
    • Kain vs. Schrodinger. Every attack Kain makes is blocked and countered for 1 HP of damage, and since Schrodinger is considered a boss, he can't run. When last shown, Kain had lost over 5,000 HP in this battle.
    • The fate of the sprites that Puzzle Wizard transforms. Fully cognizant and turned into Tetris blocks, his first victims were actually capable of speech. When they wouldn't stop screaming, Puzzle Wizard muted his newer victims and piled them on top of the older ones so he wouldn't hear their cries anymore.
  • And That's Terrible: Lampshaded and discussed by Kefka when he realizes that one of the heroes telling him he's sunk to a new low by holding a little girl hostage is Cyan. He's rather peeved by the idea that his latest action somehow overshadows what he did at Doma.
  • Annoying Video Game Helper:invoked In-universe, Kappa The Imp invokes this on everyone he meets.
  • Anti-Climax: Subverted. Videoland HATES anti-climaxes and will actively alter reality to ensure confrontations end climatically.
    • Played straight when Alex first enters Videoland. Crono and Lucca prepare for his arrival, expecting to fight a Lavos-level entity. Alex falls ands lands face first on the ground.
    • Just when it looked like Green Mega Man and Roll were going to have an epic fight that would decide the fate of the Videoland, they reconciled peacefully. In-universe Vegeta definitely considered this to be anti-climatic.
    • Kefka reappears... and is then killed in one attack. Repeatedly. Ultimately it was subverted though, as he eventually became a credible threat by manipulating a Reality Warper child.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: "What was he like?"
  • Artistic License – Paleontology: Lampshaded in-universe.
    Ryan: But humans haven't been alive for 65 million yea-
    Alex: They were in this world. Now shut up.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Originally, the Super Scope could only take 4 shots. Then Alex found the D Cells. It remains here because despite that, its huge range, damage potential, and area of effect makes it hard to spam without accidentally destroying your allies/innocent bystanders/people you're trying to capture/things you don't want destroyed. Then finally subverted when he finds the Stun setting.
  • Back from the Dead: Although nobody killed with Omega Energy has ever been seen again, Kefka's return indicates "plot" deaths can be undone.
  • Badass Boast: Alex introduced himself this way to Gades and Daos. Sinistrals themselves speak like this on a regular basis.
  • Badass Crew: The team whom was created to replace the N-Team, the N-Forcers, which is composed of some of the biggest badasses in not just the 8-bit era, but video game history. Just look at the members of the team!
    • Even better, they simultaneously play the badasses they are with the 80s cliches they're also supposed to be.
  • Bag of Spilling: Alex discovers where the spilled items go.
  • Batman Gambit: Pulled off by Dr.Light of all people! Dr.Light suggested to Mike Haggar to select Dr.Wily as running mate, knowing that Haggar will make an excellent face for president, and Wily will take every advantage and undermine their opponents. Should Haggar become president, he'd have no idea how to actually run things and screw everything up, forcing Wily to do everything he can to fix his mess, because Proto Man swore to go after him should he suspect anything is amiss. This forces Wily to not only stay out in the open in Nexus and run as efficent a government as he can, he'll also be too busy to plot any schemes. However, all this is just a bonus. The real reason why Light needed Wily to stay in Nexus? Light had been touched by the Sovereign, and needed someone he can trust to help him on the day the Game Master finally arrives, as he can no longer trust his own judgement and knows that its in Wily's best interest to destroy the Sovereign at any cost.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: "Mother Brain was lame as shit, but I'd take ten of her over this angsty skank! Hell, I'd settle for one of her lame-ass henchmen."
    • Just before Locke and Celes' wedding, the rings go missing. Locke freaks out as a result and says, among other things, "I hope Celes is merciful when she kills me." The rings are found and the ceremony itself goes on without a hitch, but 23 strips later... well... She considered it an act of mercy, and figured he would be sent to what was left of the Warp Zone of Oblivion, though to everyone else in the room, it looked like she killed him. As it turns out, he appears to have been sent to the black space room in the Desert of Shattered Dreams.
  • Behind the Black: Alex wonders how he is able to see Palom and Porom in his jail cell.
  • Best Her to Bed Her: Cid's wife, as punishment for her treason, was placed under a geas to marry the man who beats her in combat (considering she is an man-hating Action Girl, this was supposed to be a punishment but it gave her plenty of opportunity to beat up sexist men without repercussion). Cid beat her through trickery.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Spencer/The Bionic Commando didn't try to stop Pre-Great Change Max Force and the Power Team from fighting opponents way out of their league, because it would be better for them to die for their ideals than face the Sovereign of Sorrow. As he puts it:
    Bionic Commando: It's better to burn out than to fade away...
  • Beware the Silly Ones: In spades. In particular, beware anyone with 'Wizard' as part of their name. Eggplant magic and puzzle magic are still magic.
    • Or is named Mario. Even Vegeta knows not to mess with Mario.
    • Monkeyspank is a cutesy and annoying entity. He's also working to end the whole of existence by waking the Sovereign.
    • Kefka gets this all over again. He gets killed in one attack - repeatedly - and it looks like he's not a threat anymore (especially when the naive little Reality Warper starts trying to give him inspiring speeches that obligate him to call upon concepts that are outright antithetical to him as they relate to him). Then he takes the Reality Warper little girl hostage... Worse yet, he turned out to be immune to the Sovereign's touch, and intended to bring the same devastation he brought upon the World of Ruin onto the rest of Videoland. It seems that Celes managed to foil his plans though.
    • Bowser gives Magus a lesson in both the Rule of Funny and why he's the better bad guy - Magus is Genre Savvy enough to know all the rules a villain has to follow in order to avoid Tempting Fate, but as Bowser reminds Magus, a real villain breaks rules.
  • BFG: The Super Scope Mark VI, the B'est F'ing G of all, bar none, at least in the history of Videoland.
  • Big Bad: The Sovereign of Sorrow.
  • Big Damn Heroes: The people that will eventually form the N-Forcers pulls one off in chapter 674, in all its 80's narmy goodness.
  • Big "NO!": Played for laughs here.
  • Blocking Stops All Damage: Early on Lucca had to deal with a Metool that harmlessly bounced off a shot from the Wondershot with its helmet. In the end, Lucca couldn't beat it, and Alex was left alone to die. Then Alex found the inventory menu and bullied the current antagonists into giving him the helmet.
    • The cat steals the helmet off-panel before jumping to the world of FFIV and leaving the party, and everyone forgets about it. The helmet, that is. Why does the cat leave so abruptly? To go find the Black Belt.
  • Bowdlerise: Invoked with the Nintendo Censorship Angel.
  • Brick Joke and Chekhov's Gun: Remember when Alex got Met's helmet? Or when Schrödinger the cat stole black belt from Yang? Respectively 9 and 8 years later, this happens.
    • And now there's also the manual that was in the Treasure Room of Destiny, previously seen in a comic from 2003.
    • And before that, Alex's Hatred (of Coffee/stupid people) tells Alex he's "just lucky [he] left the donkey at home" here. One could easily pass it off as just one of his ridiculous coffee-related jokes, if not for the result of Bob's transformation almost one hundred strips later after accidentally "Consume"-ing Hatred...
    • Mario asks if Megaman tried jumping on the head of giant radioactive Q-bert. Turns out to be the most effective means of dealing with him.
    • 15 years ago, Bowser challenged Mario to try and rescue Princess Peach from his clutches. And asked him to pick up some milk. 15 years after that initial strip, Mario realized... he forgot the milk.
  • Body Double: In a humorous inversion of the trope's use in Final Fantasy VI, the opera singer Maria winds up (accidentally) serving as one for Celes, when Ultros kidnaps her thinking he's kidnapped "one of the most powerful heroes in [the] whole world".
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: Mentioned here.
  • Brain Bleach: Ryan demands some in this strip, in response to Alex describing how he was in a prison shower with King Hippo and dropped the soap.
  • Butt-Monkey: Alex, to the point that he questions whether Videoland has it in for him, is in league with the Sovereign, etc.
  • Call-Back: Invoked by author's comment on comic 834. The comic itself is probably a Call-Back to comic 360, with both Marle and Alex having to choose between following Spike McFang or other character, and making the same choice.
  • Cap: With so many JRPG worlds to visit, this is a given. One interesting comic has Sorrow-Touched Lucca breaking a damage cap by using base sixteen instead of base ten.
    • D6DB is 55,003 for the curious.
  • Cardboard Prison: Spoofed in #704, and to absolutely no one's surprise, occurs in the very next comic.
  • Cargo Ship: Used In-Universe during A Christmas-themed omake segment which has Alex receive a series of gifts from his "true love" - who turns out to be the Super Scope.
  • Cassandra Truth: Subverted with Terra. She claims the Creepy Child just summoned flowers with magic, but everyone knows there's no such thing as magic... anymore. So she asks the kid to do it again, and she does.
    • Played straight when Daos attempts to mind read Alex to find his worst fear, and finds it's Evil Otto. He however, can't believe that a flashing yellow smiley face could possibly be someone's worse fear and assumes it's some sort of mental defense.
    • Anyone unfamiliar with the Sovereign treats her predictions like this. Anyone familiar with her stays the hell away.
  • Cats Are Mean: Schrodinger. Case in point after outwit and destroy every single (red) robot trying to capture him, he bullies the blue one -the only one who doesn't antagonized him- to let himself be thrown into the sun.
    The Rant: I thought about giving Blue a happy ending, but then I remembered something. Cats are jerks.
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: Happened to Lucca's father and Bikke. Before he got sucked into Videoland, this happened to Alex too.
    • "Caught With His Pants Off" was the description Rock received, regarding the coming of the Second Game Master.
    • Which is a very accurate description, to be fair. Alex has spent a very large amount of the comic running around video-game land sans coat, shoes, and pants. (He still had a T-shirt and boxer shorts, though.)
  • Charm Person / Jedi Mind Trick: Attempted by Senator Vader on the N-Forcers in #312. Doesn't exactly work out the way he planned.
    Vader: You will admit to what you have done!
    Ryu: Hohoho, your Jedi Mind Trick will not affect the mind of a ninja.
    Simon: I bought Iron Will during character creation.
    Snake: I'm using controller port 2.
    Samus: I'm a master of Chozo Mental—What?
    Proto Man: I'm a robot
    Vader: Impressive...most impressive. But I sense that your friend here... Captain Spencer, the Bionic Commando, have no such defense.
    Spencer: Sure I do. I'm carrying a hyper bazooka.
    Vader: How can a bazooka protect your mind from the Force?
    Spencer: Ever try using the Force with a smoldering lump where your head used to be?
    *pause*
    Vader: I've got some paperwork to do.
    Spencer: Thats what I thought, punk.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The Met Hat, though it took so long for it to pay off that it was easy to forget about it, or assume the author had.
  • Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun: Kwirk reasoning that Karnov is the most likely suspect of president Ronnie kidnapping is clever, but Max Force has a better guess. The hand-ladder reads "Property of Karnov, Comrades!".
    Kwirk: Well, if you want to take the obvious approach.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Magus sending the Koopalings to the MC Hammer world.
  • Cosmic Horror Story: From the view point of the people of Videoland at least. Videoland exists because it's a collection of video games that the powers that be created as a form of entertainment. Those touched by the Sovereign are made aware of the truth, and are filled with despair as they realize that their entire existence is completely and utterly meaningless, and will slowly but surely drown in it.
  • Crapsack World: Let's face it, since the Sovereign of Sorrow hit, Videoland has become a corrupt den of selfishness, assholery, and corruption. Having the Sovereign obliterate the place is starting to look less like genocide and more like putting them out of their misery.
    • This is her actual motivation: mercy-killing all that lives.
  • Cue Card Pause: During the Blue Dragon flashback, Cid used an older version of his "Peep" ability, which normally just reveals an enemy's hit points and weaknesses, on Blue Dragon while fighting her in a forced Best Her to Bed Her contest. But said older version also revealed her measurements and "didn't quite analyze the right sort of weaknesses". The text buffer for the latter fell under this trope:
    Peep Data: Weak against Haikus, Honesty, skilled craftsmen, and pussy
    Blue Dragon: Maybe your friend is right. Maybe I have been blinded—
    Cid: Sweet! You're a lesbian! All my dreams have come true!
    Peep Data: cats.
    Cid: Oh wait. Nevermind.
    Blue Dragon: Lesbian!! Oh they're gonna be cleaning your body off the floor with a spatula, Beard Boy!
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Cecil vs. Antlion. Later Kain vs. two of Eblan's most elite ninja and even later Schrödinger vs. shield generator guardian robot.
    • Implied in unarmored Samus vs Eggplant Wizard. "You think Eggplant Wizard isn't a glorified speed bump right now? How adorable!"
    • Both sides of the Ganon battle. Ganon blasts Alex with no trouble, then Alex gets up to speed and fries Ganon with the Super Scope.
    • In #749, #750, and #751, Kefka immediately gets taken out by Locke in a single round — seven times — due to a combination of Villain Forgot to Level Grind (after the first time is a bit forgivable, seeing as how he was dead, and after the second time, he gets killed by Locke... before anyone else has a chance to have a turn) and Alex abusing Relm's sketch bug to obtain duplicates of rare (and one-of-a-kind) equipment.
  • Damsel in Distress: Plenty.
  • Darker and Edgier: Almost inarguably to its benefit- the original Captain N was a little too Never Say "Die" and silly.
  • Deader than Dead: Pretty much anybody killed by Omega Energy is killed permanently, no amount of Extra Lives, Phoenix Downs, or Continues bring them back.
  • Deconstruction: Of more or less every trope and theme in Captain N. On top of deconstructing Captain N: The Game Master, arguably it's at least in part a deconstruction of the whole concept of making simple and light-hearted fantasy worlds Darker and Edgier.
  • Death Glare: Crono gives Lucca one of these when she tries to convince him not to go after Marle.
    • When Eggplant Wizard was trying to force information out of Samus in her mindscape, Samus merely gave him one of these in response. Despite his superior magic, Samus got Eggplant Wizard to break.
  • Desolation Shot: Of the world of Tetris in episode 707.
  • Determinator: Golbez after Eggplant Wizard unleashed his anger. His response to the Monkeyspank virus trying to knock him out with a gas? Upon learning that the virus averted the "no backup" part of No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup he simply threatened to destroy all his backups by blowing up the entire moon they were located on, fully aware that it might cost him his own life.
  • Deus ex machina: This. Who would've known that putting on a pair of pants could solve so many problems?
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Alex letting it slip that he blew up the Royal Gate, endangering everyone in Nexus.
  • Discontinuity Nod: The Sovereign of Sorrow acknowledges the events of Chrono Cross as an alternate future that might have been, which won't occur for obvious reasons.
  • Dramatic Thunder: The Thunderous Underlines show up in episodes 776 and 777. Alex, of course, realizes that they have this purpose. Later, in episode 844, it is used four times in a row, and gets lampshaded by Katt. In episode 848 a Black Mage tries to invoke this, but it's somewhat undermined by the fact that he cast the lightning himself.
  • Dramedy: The webcomic uses drama and comedy very effectively.
  • Driven to Suicide: Lisa was going to commit suicide after Alex rejected her. Fortunately, he managed to stop her. It's later revealed that all those Touched by Sorrow will eventually seek to do the same if they don't first die of other causes, like getting chucked out into the Desert or getting killed during their murder rampage.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: How the Elder of Mysidia deals with the realization that, while trying to restore Frog back to his original form, he inadvertently killed Magus 95 times in a row.
  • Drugs Are Bad: Played for laughs in episode 796, where it's revealed that the worst war crime committed by the Videoland's equivalent of Hitler was selling drugs to kids.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect??: Alex can be the poster boy of this trope.
    • Milon is the Elemental Arch-Fiend of Earth, yet he's treated as a joke not only by the heroes, but by the other Elemental Arch-Fiends.
  • Dungeon Bypass: Enacted by Magus
  • Eaten Alive: The ultimate fate of the Fat Chocobo, Zeromus and Puzzle Wizard, who are all eaten by Bob.
  • End of an Age: Mother Brain caused it by drawing Omega energy out of Kevin Keene, and using it to kill Duke. This marked the first time anyone in Videoland had ever died, and the loss of that world's innocence.
  • Enemy Mine: Samus Aran and Golbez, in spite of their initial antagonism, agree to work together against the Monkeyspank virus.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    Kainazzo: That was almost certainly the worst story I've ever heard. It offended even my morals and sensibilities.
    • All villains in Videoland despised and refused to work with Master D because he was selling drugs to kids. After being turned into Cyber D even Master D himself decided that selling drugs crosses the line (but planning to enslave humanity by turning everyone into brainwashed cyborgs apparently doesn't).
    • Upon seeing Max Force brutally massacre a bunch of Mushroom retainers, Magus was surprised to find he had some.
  • External Retcon: All sorts, like how the prissy, jerk Belmont that was helping Captain N was actually Simon Belmont's brother, Simone (silent "e"). An interesting question is whether or not these changes are due to Alex's perception of Videoland altering the reality.
    • It's confirmed true. Alex, Kevin, Ryan, and even the Sovereign are able to alter the past. The first three are able by the criteria of being Game Masters (or at least hopeful Game Masters) while the Sovereign's power can only alter parts of the past that haven't been previously established either by the game world's creators or by one of the Game Masters. None of them are shown as able to actually control this power, though. The only real question is which of them is responsible for what, when there's overlap. (Kevin wasn't explicitly shown to alter the past when he arrived, but it's heavily implied, due to Megaman and Simon/Simone being as different as they were from their video game counterparts, and from what Alex and Ryan have been shown to be capable of.)
  • Evil Gloating: In one case it directly led to the villain's undoing: the Eater of Dreams gloated that he was going to torture and kill heroes for so long that the Virus cast on him earlier made him run out of HP and lose battle before he could actually harm them, which in turn made it possible for Frog to kill him. For those interested, between Lucca's attacks, Palom's Bio, and the Frog Squash, not counting any damage from the ongoing poison damage, he had 54 HP when he enacted this plan.
  • Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Eggplant Wizard invokes this when he tries to make friends with Golbez's Rage. Three problems with this: One: The comic showcases plenty of malevolent beings in conflict with one another. Two: Golbez's Rage is more a force of nature than anything truly evil. Three: Eggplant Wizard is an annoying idiot, so most people want to beat him senseless regardless of alignment.
  • Facepalm: Alex upon realising that the book he got some time ago (of which he only read one page) is the manual that just might answer some of his questions about, among others, the Sovereign of Sorrow. Part of the problem is that he was Wrong Genre Savvy, having found the book in an RPG world, and assumed that the book only had one page. His companions at the time reinforced this notion, finding the notion of a 24-page book astonishing.
    • Protoman gets one himself in #731, when he finally dawned on him that Dr.Wily never discovered Omega Energy, that he was lying and taking credit for it the entire time. Meaning the entire time, none of the heroes actually had any idea who discovered Omega Energy. To be fair, Wily was somewhat responsible for extracting it, but had had no idea what it actually did at first.
  • Fakeout Escape: How Alex finally escapes his prison cell in the flashback.
  • Fatal Family Photo: With Lampshade Hanging
  • Fantastic Racism: RPG sprites aren't well liked in Nexus, to the point where their natural behaviors are considered a psychological disorder. This is also because RPG Sprites have the ability to grow and develop, whereas most other sprites remain static.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: Type 4. For some reason Princess Peach, upon learning that in addition to kidnapping her Bowser is also guiltyof cable theft, treats it as his crossing of Moral Event Horizon.
  • Fence Painting: Alex uses this technique on Palom to get him to wash his pants and jacket after Palom vomits all over them.
  • Filler Strips: Many of them are omakes, however.
  • Fisher King: whatever impressions the Gamemaster held of Videoland's citizens before entering it seem to become true.
    • Not only this, but it's based on his videogames. Meaning, for instance, that if he got a whole bunch of items, the protagonists still have them. Cue "Alex has no life" joke.
      • And it doesn't stop there. A lot of Alex's impressions on Videoland are based off Captain N's adventures, which were a cartoon in his (our) world - and several of the characters in the cartoon are very different from what they are in the actual video games. So it's Alex's impressions of characters, probably based off Kevin's impressions, based on the NES games alone. Green/Blue Megaman and Simon/Simone Belmont are uniquely handled.
  • Flaw Exploitation: Well, at least character exploitation: Edward left paralyzed Cecil trapped on a battlefield with Kappa the Imp to find Kain and bring him back to finish Cecil off, taking advantage of the fact that even if Paralysis will wear off in the meantime, Cecil, as a paladin, can't simply kill innocent Kappa to end battle.
  • Foregone Conclusion: To the first war against the Sovereign of Sorrow anyways. Everyone knows the events that occured during the war and characters frequently make comments about it expecting everyone to know what they're talking about. Everyone but the readers that is.
    • Bob is already dead in the present. We still don't know how or why but this happened long before Alex was captured by Ryan.
  • Foreshadowing: In-universe, and Alex recognizes it.
    Alex: So this thing is made by Dr. Light, huh? Well that's good news, at least. If there's anyone in Videoland I can trust, it's—
    (Ominous Lightning)
    Alex: Maybe I should rethink that...
    • Ryan has the ability to hear silent protagonists. It was set up here and paid off here.
  • Four Is Death: Milon Z, the Fiend of Earth, a living corpse that embodies the power of death itself, has to be beaten twice (first alive, then as a much, MUCH tougher undead version) before he's defeated for good. His powerful undead form first appears in comic #444.
  • Fridge Logic: An in-universe example. Characters who are touched may begin to notice some of the inconsistencies of the world they inhabit.
  • From Bad to Worse: This basically describes Alex's entire adventure up until he manages to break out of the Nexus prison. When he arrives in the world of Chrono Trigger, Marle has been lost in a teleportation "accident". Then he's forced to fight Ganon, attacked by Chrono, takes a portal to the world of FFIV and finds Marle just in time for her to get knocked unconscious, him to be flattened by Gato, and then the party to be annihilated by a clearly mind-controlled level 99 Kain. Cecil is being impersonated by a monster, and the monster intends to execute Alex. Alex gets repeatedly destroyed by a random encounter shortly after reaching his first save point because his BFG is out of ammo. And all of this is before he loses all of his allies or learns of the existence of the the five now-living aspects of his personality who are trying to kill him before he gets Touched and destroys all of Videoland. Oh, and even that is before he hears about the real Big Bad of Videoland...
    Alex: The only thing that bothers me right now about her is how I didn't get a heads up about a precognitive reality manipulator that wants to fuck me over emotionally.
    Protoman: You didn't know anything?
    Alex: Hell no.
  • Fun with Acronyms: D.H.O.P.E.S.
  • Genre Savvy: While many woes in the comic come from people being the wrong kind of genre savvy, Edgar tends to get it right more often than not. For instance, when Celes and Locke's wedding rings had gone missing, Edgar quickly and correctly deduces that Locke had accidentally stolen them from ''himself'' because of how nervous he was. Later, during the actual wedding, Edgar as the Master of Ceremonies includes a line in his script where he pulls out his crossbow and "shoots the first person who so much as twitches" after asking if anyone has any reason to object to the wedding. The only reason the crossbow ended up being unnecessary was because the people who PLANNED on crashing the wedding ended up sleeping through the entire thing by accident.
  • Glasses Pull: Braveshroom puts glasses on before making a speech to show that he means business. It even gets an Unsound Effect ("Glassified!").
  • God in Human Form: The Game Masters.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Subverted: they do nothing for you if you don't have them. See...
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: One of the Game Master's artifacts is a pair of goggles that are supposed to protect him from reality changes between worlds, and give him an automatic Libra, i.e. extensively detailed information, on anyone he looks at with them on. Unfortunately for him, the goggles were stolen away before he even knew that they existed.
  • Goldfish Poop Gang: Most of the members of the Daltonian Hyper-Oceanic Piratical Extortion Squad were these in their own games, and while they haven't had a major role yet, Alex's reaction to them indicates that they will become this to him.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Mother Brain wanted to use the Omega Energy to end her constant cycle of defeat at the hands of Captain N. The cycle stopped, alright.
    • Dr. Wily ran as Haggar's running mate to try and take control of Nexus and run things behind the scenes. Unfortunately, after they got elected, Hagar started doing random things like abolishing taxes, appointing wrestlers to governmental positions and getting involved in expensive and pointless wars based off of obviously fraudulent testimony. Wily had to spend four years running things behind the scenes in order to control the damage he himself was not causing. And he couldn't cut and run because Blues would track him down and force him to listen to Garth Brooks.
    • Gone Horribly Wrong: All his attempts at invading people's minds has gotten Eggplant Wizard beaten up.
  • Good Bad Bugs: Used in-universe and deconstructed. Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live through one?
    • Another use of one here: Vanish + X-Zone!.
  • Good Hurts Evil: A naive Reality Warper tries to empower Kefka with various inspiring speeches, but because he's a crazed, sadistic, murderous, genocidal nihilist, the things that the little girl tries to invoke are utterly antithetical to him, meaning the heroes were able to one-shot him every time she revived him (though they could do that before). When she goes so far as to call upon the spirits of everyone who ever loved him, he runs out of HP without the heroes even doing any damage.
  • Good Versus Good: Bowser manages to get the Ninja Turtles to work for him when he tricks them into believing that Mario is a notorious turtle abuser. Mario almost manages to talk them down, but Bowser cuts in and asks which part of New York makes better pizza, Manhattan or Brooklyn. The Turtles choose Manhattan and Mario Brooklyn. This irreconcilable difference pushes them to blows.
  • Groin Attack: Alex delivers a well-deserved one to Boogerman. Later Alex also does it to King Hippo and Puzzle Wizard.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: Poor Alex nearly got stuck in an endless loop between a save point and his first random encounter. Ironically, the only thing keeping him in the loop was his own stubborn pride.
  • Guest Strip
  • The Heartless: Those Touched by the Sovereign.
  • Hell Is That Noise: In-universe Protoman has this reaction to hearing the sound of Duke dying in the ray of Ω energy.
    • He has the reaction again when Gameboy opens a Warp Zone to the world of Wizards and Warriors and hears Lana screaming.
  • Heroic BSoD: The N-Forcers go through one after Mother Brain kills Duke, as they try to comprehend just what happened.
  • Heroic Mime: Anyone who was one in their games, parodied as "Silent Protagonist Syndrome".
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Name-dropped in one of the omakes, where Alex travelled back in time and killed Hitler. This eventually resulted in The Beatles conquering the United States and death of all males except Alex.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Kain VS Schrödinger The Cat. Schrödinger possesses not only Mets Hat which prevents all damage, but also the Black Belt which allows it to counter attack for 1 damage. Despite Kain being at Lv 99, theres virtually nothing he can do, and he's being slowly being taken down via Death of a Thousand Cuts. Kain can't even run away, as Schrödinger is considered a Boss character.
  • How We Got Here: The entire comic is basically one of these, with Alex going through his flashbacks in a jail cell. And sometimes he has flashbacks of other characters having flashbacks. At one point Alex had a flashback of Max Force having a flashback of Simon Belmont having a flashback.
  • Humans Are Cthulhu: The Creators (us) are responsible for the creation of all the worlds of Videoland, and Captain N was a mighty hero, but he also brought Omega energy into Videoland, allowing sprites to be Killed Off for Real for the first time in its history. Also consider the revelation behind Spoony's Start of Darkness in which he realized that the death of the woman he loved happened because the Creators decided to kill her for narrative impact.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Used in episode 496:
    Daos: She [i.e. the Sovereign of Sorrow] ignored me. SHE IGNORED ME! She just lectured on as though I was not there. You cannot know the rage I felt at this.
    Alex: I think I have a rough ide-
    Daos: Don't interrupt.
  • Hypothetical Fight Debate: Two guards assigned to Alex's prison cell in the flashback constantly argue whether U.S.S. Enterprise or Death Star would win in a fight. Simultaneously parodied and sort-of justified in that the guards in question happen to be a Red Shirt and an Imperial Stormtrooper. When Alex finally manages to escape from his cell and trap his guards in it he goes out of his way to settle their argument by taunting them that Tiger's Claw would own them both.
  • I Have Many Names: Drab Lord, Edward, Gilbert, Spoony
  • Idiot Ball: If you're a video game character and you just entered Nexus, odds are you just picked it up big time.
  • Idiot Hero
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Despite being touched by the Sovereign and knowing the truth, Erim just wants to live a normal life as Lufia rather than serve the Sovereign or continue her duties as the Sinistral of Death..
  • Infinite 1-Ups: Nexus's PLIF Building provides life insurance coverage to the residents of Nexus in the form of 1-Ups, whereas government officials like Mega Man are given an infinite stream of 1-Ups. This allows Mega Man to fight an opponent whom is completely out of his league (ie: a physical god like Amon) by getting a few hits in, dying, immediately respawning and continue the battle and hopefully win via Death of a Thousand Cuts. Of course, when the PLIF Building got destroyed and the residents were left with their own personal reserves...
  • Infinity +1 Sword: The Masamune is a sword passed down from generation after generation of heroes and radiates in the power of Hope, which is the opposing power of the power of Sorrow and the only known counter of the Sovereign of Sorrow's power. The Masamune may be multi-versal, as its implied Frog and Edge's Masamune's are one and the same.
  • Invocation: Every time someone of sufficient power casts magic, the spell is accompanied by an impressive invocation. Unless the caster has SPS, of course.
  • Ironic Echo: "Heroes let people down."
    • And now we have Ryan telling Alex he "can't say."
  • Irony: Alex mentions that if he can't get people to transcend their natures, then everything he's done is for naught. One of his goals is to do something that the Sovereign does as a matter of course.
    • "There is nothing you can say that can change my mind." Crono says nothing and changes her mind.
  • Jossed: In-universe example: Alex's guesses that Golbez is the Drab Lord and is plotting evil were both incorrect.
  • Kick the Dog: Done literally (and lethally) to Captain N's dog, Duke, by Mother Brain in a flashback.
    • Amon is ordered to unleash chaos and destruction into Nexus City (in order to attract Megaman) and Gades suggest that literal puppykicking has to be enforced along because that's what Evil does.
  • Killed Off for Real: Sprites killed via Omega Energy are Deader than Dead regardless of their game world mechanics.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Among his many What The Hell moments, Alex is quite willing to take, as well as do, anything to win.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: Despite how after the Great Change, the residents of Videoland became much more cynical, Frog remained just as idealistic as to be expected from this trope. Not surprising considering the weapon he wields.
    • Cecil can't be Touched by the Soveriegn and acts the noble paladin, even in the grimmest circumstances.
  • Knight Templar: Ryan has shades of this. Max Force is this trope.
  • Kryptonite Is Everywhere: No seriously everywhere. The ice cream guy has it in two flavors.
  • Kudzu Plot: Invoked. The story we see is actually being told to Ryan by Alex, and, to spite Ryan, Alex is being as annoying about plot threads and what he mentions at a given time as he possibly can.
    • Alex later outright says that much of the reason he's being so vague is to exploit a key feature of Videoland. The longer and more complete his story is, the longer it will be before his exposition ends, and Videoland forces the two of them to kill each other. It isn't a fate either of them want, but Alex considers it inevitable, now that they're officially enemies. Especially with what's at stake.
  • Lame Pun Reaction
    • In an Omake arc, Alex learned to be a lawyer by "hitting the books", which meant attacking them RPG style, learning skills like "You learned 'Subpoena'." One of the characters in that particular strip thought it was quite lame, to say nothing of Alex being far too literal-minded in this case.
    • Eggplant Wizard has a non-stop barrage of puns. Alex constantly wants to beat him senseless for this.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Constantly.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: Certain scenes in the comic are this for anyone who hasn't played/beaten Final Fantasy IV, Chrono Trigger, and/or Final Fantasy VI in particular.
  • Look Behind You: Hatred falls for this over and over.
    • [spoiler:Lisa falls for it twice.]]
  • Love Makes You Crazy: After witnessing Celes using the Vanish/X-Zone combo on Locke, even Kefka joins the Mass "Oh, Crap!".
    Kefka: Did... Did she just out-crazy me?!? Love is fucked up.
  • Malcolm Xerox: Despite the name and coloration, Braveshroom has several elements of this, to the extend of using modified versions of Malcolm X's speeches to rouse the Goombas and Toads to fight back against koopa and mammal oppression.
  • Mega Crossover: In addition to the whole of Nintendo's properties (par for the course as a Captain N sequel), it also takes The Power Team as canon.
  • Messianic Archetype: To many people in Videoland, the Game Master (like Captain N) is seen as one, being summoned forth by The Creator via the Ultimate Warp Zone to save Videoland in its darkest hour. Alex on the other hand... the big question isn't whether or not he's a messiah, its to whom he's a messiah for.
  • Mind Hug: The return of Mega Man's Captain N persona caused a wave of pure hope that overrode Roll's wave of Sorrow. In addition, Narrator!Alex says that Hope is one of the two great corrupting forces, alongside Sorrow.
  • Mind Probe: Eggplant Wizard attempts one on Samus Aran. Subverted hillariously due to a tiny kink in Eggplant Wizard's plans, as instead, Samus broke Eggplant Wizard, by merely silently staring at him:
    Alex: When trying to extract information using mental effects, make sure you have the stronger will.
  • Mind Rape: People touched by the Sovereign of Sorrow are changed, some broken, some empowered and turned into her followers. Spoony even comments prolonged exposure to the Sovereign's power can leave one feeling "a bit loopy."
    • While Magus is not quite capable of Mind Rapes of her magnitude, he does ream Max Force's mind right before meeting the Sovereign.
    • Whatever Daos did to Sailor Mercury doesn't look very pleasant.
    • Golbez does one to Eggplant Wizard in #687. Note that Eggplant Wizard was in the middle of his own Mind Probe on Golbez.
  • Mind Screw: These two comics. You are seriously advised to take the Captain's advice in the last panel of the second one.
    • Magus manages to Mind Screw Mario at one point. Basically, Magus keeps lampshading the surrealism, and then when they get to the end of the castle, with an axe next to the bridge over lava, Mario asks Magus why he hasn't mentioned how this doesn't make any sense. Then Magus says it makes perfect sense. It turns out Magus isn't lying (though he is screwing with him). Later he brings up The Villain's First Rule: "Always have a weakness, or Fate will make one for you" to Bowser for his seeming flaunting of them. From that perspective, it does make perfect sense.
  • Mood Whiplash: The N-Team's and N-Forcers' final fight with Mother Brain and her allies largely invokes the style of the original Captain N and the 80's cartoons in general until Mother Brain kills Duke.
  • Munchkin: Puzzle Wizard; specifically, he is the Cheater. As the man himself admits, he acts this way even when he's playing solitaire or solving a Rubik's Cube. And he's proud of it.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: After the author declares that "tomorrow will be a big event," Protoman graces Alex with the gift of... Pants!
    Alex: Holy sh— uh... cow! That's amazing! I can get my pants back! And my controller! And my pants! Hear that, assfuck? I'm getting my pants back!
    Daos: Your pants hold no fear for me, Gamemaster.
    • Episode 874 reveals that Alex's pants are in fact one of his items of power.
  • Mundane Utility:
    • Summoned monsters are good for combat, plot purposes... and, according to "Tale of Two Rydias", carrying Christmas gifts.
    • The secret technique of Niht Repap is undeniably useful for sneaking around, getting information, and generally avoiding conflict. It includes the ability to spontaneously change your clothes to fit any disguise, and summon appropriate props out of hammerspace. The first thing Alex does with it is use it to change back into his more iconic and familiar outfit.
  • Must Not Die a Virgin: Inverted, when the only other option appears to be prison, dropped soap, and King Hippo.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Magus makes friends with Vegeta. Both characters are antihero princes of fallen kingdoms designed by Akira Toriyama.
    • Bowser looking up Peach's skirt to determine if she's a redhead is a reference to her NES-era sprite design.
  • Never Say "Die": In-universe example: Lana decides to keep the existence of FinalDeath a secret.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Alex's BFG-ing of the Gate
  • Nightmare Fuel: "Row Row Row Your Boat" is this in-universe. In Real Life, a cheery little tune sung by children. But to the inhabitants of Videoland, it's a nightmarish dirge about the unreality and futility of their existence.
  • No Endor Holocaust: Sort of. While the Sovereign of Sorrow did ruin the world of Tetris, nobody (except mayor Squaresly's wife) actually died thanks to the intervention of the cast of Star Trek.
    • Similarly, when Magus blows up the seventh castle, Bowser swears revenge for everyone who was lost in the castle, only to find out it was pretty much abandoned for various reasons. The only remaining occupant was supposedly Elwin the Boo janitor, who was already dead and cannot be harmed by most forms of attack anyway It is never explained what happened to the Mushroom retainer, though given Larry's attitude toward the family business, he probably just set him free when he left.
  • Noodle Implements: Dramatic variant, if you can believe that. Apparently, if Alex gets a deck of cards at this point, he'll be unstoppable. Why a deck of cards? Who knows?
  • No OSHA Compliance: Lucca doesn't let anything get in the way of her curiosity, be it fear, caution, or safety regulations.
  • No Holding Back Speech: "When there is no hope...there's nothing to lose by trying."
  • No-Sell: The only person so far to be exposed to the power of the Sovereign of Sorrow and not affected is Kefka... because he already believes that all life is meaningless and existence is pointless.
  • Not Actually the Ultimate Question: "What are you doing here?"
  • Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: Parodied mercilessly
  • Not Hyperbole: When Cecil tells Spoony that he can't kill him, Spoony gives an indignant speech about he underestimates how far he's willing to go, only to repeatedly miss his attacks on Cecil due to their level and equipment disparity.
  • Noticing the Fourth Wall: Those touched by the Sovereign of Sorrow become aware of the real world, and of their status as characters in a video game. They tend to react poorly.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Originally just an annoying goof, Eggplant Wizard has developed some nasty abilities since the original show. He's still an annoying goof.
  • Not So Invincible After All: Never, ever, EVER utter the words "I", "am", and "invincible" consecutively under ANY circumstances if you are a character in this comic. Don't even correct someone else mangling the phrase. Don't repeat that someone else said it. Just don't say it. Bad things will happen. More specifically, if you're in the world of Final Fantasy IV, the bad thing will be a treasure box from the Treasure Room of Destiny falling on your head.
    • Or Gato.
    • Bowser deliberately says the phrase because he actually wants something dangerous to fall on his head - so that he can use it as a weapon after he gets back up.
  • Oh, Crap!: Chapter 465, when Alex and Mega Man encounters the Sinistrals and realises just how utterly screwed the situation had become.
    • Also, Chapter 160:
      *You found a note and 99 Packages!*
      Alex: What the hell?
      Note: Haiku, I am the Drab Lord. You have five seconds to live, so we'll never meet. Goodbye. PS: B is for BOOM.
      Alex: B is for boom? What? And what the hell are these packages... They seem familiar...
      Alex: FUCK! EVERYBODY RUN! EVERYBODY—-
      Bob: WARK!
    • The Mysidian Elder gets one himself in Chapter 444 when he realises that Milon resurrects into his more powerful second form once he's killed the first time.
    • Eggplant Wizard gets five of these in a row (the fourth one shared with the Monkeyspank virus) after releasing Fusoya's seal in Golbez's mind and unleashing Golbez's anger.
  • Off Screen Momentof Awesome: During one of the Christmas arcs, we heard a MacGuffin that could allow a villain to take over the world. Daos goes to take it, and then Dracula shows up to take, then Kefka, then Ganon, than M. Bison, and then Bowser with a bunch of minions. An annoyed Daos proclaims "There's only way to decided who gets to destroy the world, FIGHT IT OUT!" Then it turns out Alex was watching this on DVD and we don't get to see the fight. A caption a bottom says "If you were to make a flash of this, you would be my personal hero."
    • For an in-universe example, Mario somehow stalling the Sovereign of Sorrow during her rampage. No one knows what he did.
  • Old Shame: In-universe, Alex's "colorful, zesty" Final Fantasy V fanfic. The only thing Alex could say in its defence was that the game really had a character named Butz.
  • One-Steve Limit: Invoked in #704 when Alex learns that Kevin Keen and Princess Lana had a daughter named Hope, as Hope Keene was the name of his babysitter when he was a kid. And parodied in the same strip when Protoman points out that Hope is as common a name for girls as Alex is for boys, and that he isn't connected to every Alex in existence. However, it should be noted Alex often named his characters after himself and his friends. So, it may not be as big a coincidence as it seems at first.
    • There are at least 2 Mother Brains out there. The one from the show was MB 017, the one Samus fought at Zebes was MB 028.
  • Only Six Faces: In-universe: Akira Toriyama's works frequently fall into this trope, and he is the author of both Dragon Ball and Go! Go! Ackman, which results in Alex mistaking Ackman for Trunks.
  • Ontological Mystery: Slowly accumulating. The most concrete thing we know for certain is that the Game Master influences Videoland unconsciously, as first shown by the 99 Excaliburs.
    • Our second clue is that the whole Videoland universe seems to be sentient on some level; and malevolent, at least towards the Game Master.
      • Not Videoland so much as the Sovereign and her Touched. The Game Master unconsciously alters Videoland almost without limit to fit their impressions. The Sovereign can't come close to that - but she games the system by being an oracle powerful enough to know all possible futures. Unless a particular future involves that damn cat.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: Haggar is President Action, while Ronnie was, at one point at least, President Target. Dr. Wily planned to be Vice-President Evil, but the combination of Haggar's stupidity and Blues's threats stopped that as soon as he became Haggar's VP.
  • Out-of-Character Alert: When Proto Man is explaining the backstory to the whole setting to Alex, one particular detail briefly causes the flashback to be derailed by an argument between them. The detail in particular being Captain N's behaviour directly after both Lana and the Dark King are killed at the direct hands of the Sovereign - he's strangely calm about the whole situation despite Lana dying. By all rights, Alex argues, he should've been utterly distraught that his wife and the love of his live had just perished, but Proto Man thinks the only strange thing was that Kevin Keene came face-to-face with the Sovereign and was still sane. This left Alex wondering what the hell happened to Kevin over the years.
  • Overly Long Scream: Alex's Atomic F-Bomb.
  • Overly Narrow Superlative: In episode 770:
    Dalton: So, may I presume that I am speaking to this world's greatest villain?
    Ultros: Definitely. I'm the baddest thing on eight tentacles, buddy.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: King Hippo pretending to be Abraham Lincoln. To Alex's horror, two guards he encounters are fooled anyway. To his even greater horror, the supposed smartest person in all of Videoland is fooled as well.
  • Party in My Pocket: Invoked.
  • Pity the Kidnapper: Samus implants a chip in Eggplant Wizard to keep him from acting against her or making veggie puns. He still manages to be incredibly annoying, due to being too stupid to learn from the repeated shocks from the chip.
    Golbez: All the pity I have to give is yours.
  • Plot Threads: At this point it's hard to tell exactly how many concurrent plotlines there are in this comic. Lampshaded in "The Ass Episode," and even this isn't an exhaustive list of the series' plot threads.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Bob mentions Lisa having been beaten, bound, gagged and Touched. Based on his word choice, Marle immediately assumes that Alex is some sort of dangerous pervert who violently kidnapped and molested a girl, and promptly aims a crossbow in his face (the girl was a dangerously violent psychopath whose mind had been corrupted by the Big Bad).
  • The Power of Love: Inverted (the weakness of a lack of love). A naive Reality Warper tries to give a pep talk to a clown in order to help him beat the people curbstomping him, telling him to call upon things like his pure and loving heart or the spirits of everyone who ever loved him. This clown happens to be Kefka, so not only do these inspirational speeches fail, but thanks to the Reality Warper girl's power causing him to call upon these concepts as they apply to him, they actually make him weaker. The last one causes him run out of HP on his own.
  • Primal Scene: When Terra tells Celes and Relm that her father showed her the moment of her conception,note  it completely Squicks them out. Terra, for her part, doesn't understand what the big deal is.
  • Psychic Static: Subverted, and combined with Cassandra Truth. Daos, Sinistral of Terror, tries to read Alex's mind to find out what his worst fear is. When all Daos can find is "a giant pink smiley face that blinked in and out of existence", Daos concludes that it's some kind of mental shield, refusing to believe that Alex's worst fear would be something that ridiculous. (See also Cassandra Truth, above.)
  • Puff of Logic: Alex tries and fails to invoke this against Hatred.
    • Some monsters do it to themselves when they realize that they are looking forward to existance despite being born of the Sovereign of Sorrow's power.
    • It does succeed against a lawyer of a non-existent corporation in one of the omakes, though.
    • In an omake, the mere act of granting Alex pants defeats the Sovereign in a Puff of Logic. Apparently, she is the embodiment of the sorrow of Alex's lack of pants.
  • Rainbow Speak: Different color texts appear when a character is using the various forces. Most spells are tinged purple, as are the words of the Touched. Those channelling rage are red, and those with hope are green.
  • Reality Warper: Alex's Cynicism can alter reality to make events more ironic, the Sovereign can do this on a massive scale, and anyone who says 'I am Invincible' gets smacked for their hubris, even if they are correcting someone or just reciting a story where that happens. That last one is believed to be directed by some sort of consciousness.
    • The consciousness of the world itself, no less.
    • Anyone who is Sorrow-Touched seems to be capable of this to some degree or another, including Lucca and the Little Girl in the FFVI world.
    • The Game Masters themselves. They don't have any conscious control over it, but Videoland's timeline and characters will alter so as to fit the canon that the Game Masters know and have experienced while playing the games in question. For characters who had radically different canon from game to game, or from how they were portrayed in the Captain N cartoon (Captain SNES canon indicating that this is because Kevin Keene's perception altered them in the first place), Alex's perception causes them to have convoluted backstories involving multiple personalities, multiple different selves, and relatives with the same names.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Golbez's eyes turn red immediately after he turns evil.
  • Redemption Earns Life: A slightly more pragmatic version of this trope is discussed here:
    Cecil Harvey: I cannot stress how imperative it is that you renounce your current path. Now. [...] Because your repentance is the only thing that will keep me from ending you.
  • Red Shirt: Parodied
  • Relax-o-Vision: The Nintendo Censorship Angel
  • Rhetorical Question Blunder: Samus has a habit of answering magic-based questions with science-based answers.
  • RPG Mechanics 'Verse: At least two so far
    • In #337 Lucca provides Crono one of her inventions, the Reality Stabilization Belt, which allows the user to carry over their world's gameplay mechanics to another game world. In the world of Final Fantasy IV, this gave him the ability to fight on the overworld. To the people of that game world, Crono's actions are the equivilent of a cutscene, as normal combat takes place in another dimension as a random encounter screen. This makes Crono a killing god, as very few people in that world are capable of defending themselves on the overworld.
    • Shown with the protagonists at the butt of it in FFVI. Kefka kidnaps the Reality Warper and begins making his escape - and the FFVI heroes stand there numbly because "it's a cutscene". Except for the Omega Runic-charged Celes...
  • Running Gag: Getting slammed in the face by a treasure chest/Gato for saying "I am invincible"note .
    • Only ninja can defeat ninja (an explicit superpower is the power of "badness" which, among other things, allows one to defeat ninja without being a ninja).
    • Alex distracting people by telling them there's a three-headed monkey behind them.
  • Sarcastic Confession: Alex and Bass both do this. "The best lie is the truth", indeed...
  • Save Point: Both played straight and subverted; Alex has to have his game controller to be able to reload the game back at a given save point. If he doesn't have it, and he dies...
  • Schrödinger's Gun: Invoked in this strip. Later strips indicate that the Sovereign of Sorrow's ability to alter the past is dependant on this trope; it seems that she can't alter the established events from the past, but she can fill in the blanks.
  • Scooby-Dooby Doors: Used in this strip where Schrödinger the cat escapes the robots.
    • Of course, those stupid robots totally ruined the routine.
  • Sdrawkcab Name: Done so subtly that you won't even notice. "Drab" is "Bard" spelled backwards.
    • A little less subtle with the "Niht Repap" technique.
  • Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Fusoya sealed Golbez's anger deep inside Golbez's mind. Then Eggplant Wizard entered Golbez's mind and unleashed it out of stupidity.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Prior to the Great Change, Videoland was very idealistic, where The Power of Friendship will always triumph over evil. Post-Great Change, Videoland have become much more cynical, the previous idealism disappearing. A great example of this is Mega Man, with his blue and green halves of his personalities representing cynicism and idealism.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: The Shadow King. He barely shows up even in the flashbacks and his role in Proto Man's flashbacks basically encompass only ten pages, give or take. He's also Killed Off for Real, according to Kevin, so the likelihood of him turning up again is next to zero barring a sudden twist. His notability is so small that he's barely mentioned on any of this comic's pages on this very site. Nobody even knows what he looks like. He's also the guy who was the direct catalyst for everything after Mother Brain's demise, including his actions bringing the Sovereign to Videoland, and her killing him caused her to go on a rampage, destroyed many game worlds, and eventually killed Kevin and Hope in the final battle before Videoland changed into its current form.
  • Smoke Shield: Parodied: in episode 517 a cloud of smoke appears after Alex drops a string of Cluster F-Bombs as a part of his plan. Also lampshaded, as in the very next episode noticing the smoke makes Alex realize that his swearing didn't have the intended effect.
  • Space Pirates: Not the ones you might be expecting, however.
  • Spanner in the Works: Alex's plan to make Sailor Scouts go away so he could use his Super Scope to kill Sinistrals was ruined by Boogerman's stupidity.
    • Also, Spoony and Rydia's massive Gambit Roulette is crashing and burning all around them so badly the entire tools section of Home Depot might have well imploded on itself.
    • In chapter 823 Golbez ruins Samus Aran's plan to interrogate and neutralize whoever was possessing the body of the Eggplant Wizard. He makes up for it by antagonizing the Eggplant Wizard - and then casting Warp, ensuring the Eggplant Wizard will fixate on him, distracting him from his objectives, and that the Wizard will keep Fu So Ya alive for the next time they meet. Samus points out that this doesn't quite make up for interrupting her before she could permanently neutralize the Wizard, but it's something.
  • Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: As seen here, Ultros plans to interrupt Locke and Celes's wedding at this point, claiming "they'll never expect that!" Edgar, meanwhile, plans to grab his Auto-Crossbow to perforate anyone who dares interrupt the ceremony right after saying the phrase. Fortunately for all involved, Ultros sleeps through the line.
  • Spoof Aesop: Offered up by Alex and Cid's daughter.
  • Sprite Comic
  • Super Zeroes: The Power Team, which is a group composed of b-list heroes from games made by Acclaim. The team is based upon an animated segemnt in the early 90s TV series Video Power.
  • Switching To GEICO: Or Spriteco. Doubles as a Shout-Out.
  • Take That!: After imprisoning Alex, Palom and Porom the Drab Lord subjects them to live reading of the Chick Tracts. Alex considers this to be the most foul torture he's ever seen.
  • Take That, Audience!:
    Alex: You think Eggplant Wizard isn't a glorified speed bump right now? You're adorable!
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Averted in a turn-based battle!.
    • Also done in #103
    • Magus forgets this doesn't apply in a platformer world, and gets fireballed by Bowser mid-speech.
  • Talk To The Knee: Evil!Golbez, in bombastic villain-speak, simultaneously calls Samus a Damsel in Distress and tells her to Stay in the Kitchen. Samus reacts as anyone would.
  • Tempting Fate: If you say a certain Stock Phrase, a treasure chest, or some other item of even greater mass, will fall from the sky and land on your head.
    • "What could hurt more than killing someone you love?" A treasure chest to the face, that's what.
    • Setzer wondered what could happen with Relm sketching an Intagnir. The breaking of reality, that's what.
    • Subverted: Alex wants to know why the Queen is so interested in Alex's pants, to the point where he wants an explanation before putting them on. When pointing out that his pants can wait and that nothing would happen in between him getting an explanation and putting on his pants, Protoman promptly shoves his blaster in Alex's face to keep him from finishing that sentence. Protoman knows how this works (from personal experience.)
    • This strip includes several examples, as Alex realizes too late that he just said something he shouldn't have, while a Star Trek Red Shirt lectures an Imperial Stormtrooper on the trope, saying that it's directly responsible for the high mortality rate among red shirt-wearing crew members: the shirts had fate-tempting messages built into them.
  • Thank the Maker: The Creators
  • This Explains So Much: Mario's reaction when he finds out that over the course of Max Force's adventures, he'd been hit by hallucinogenic drug needles about a thousand times. Alex tells Ryan that that's just the tip of the iceberg to his insanity.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Zeromus makes stupid coffee puns all the damn time. He also falls for the "look behind you" trick no less than 3 times. He only survived the plasma cannon to his back by being invulnerable. However, his stupidity is justifed, because he is the embodiment of Alex's hatred, specifically, what he hates the most. This happens to be stupid people.
    • Molly has shades of this, reflecting her status as a Perpetual Victim in the Sailor Moon show. When Alex passes her a note with instruction, she not only doesn't read it, she's even unaware that she's holding it. When she has an opportunity to flee, she wants to properly thank Alex first. Then there are the Sailor Scouts who show up to challenge the Sinistrals just as Alex managed to talk them into leaving, position themselves smack dab in his line of fire, and get belligerent when he tries repeatedly to get them away from there. And Boogerman manages to blow an almost successful attempt to bluff the Sinistrals, by loudly explaining the whole gambit.
      • In fairness, it's appearing as if this version of the "Scouts" and Molly are the DiC dub versions, crossed with their Another Story versions. So the vast majority of stupidity likely comes from their dub versions.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Eggplant Wizard: In the original cartoon, he was a constant failure, but in this, he's gained a large amount of magical power that allowed him to survive death by killing trapped sprites and even sucker punch Samus Aran. He still gets his ass handed to him a lot. And then he gets Touched by the Sovereign.
    • Puzzle Wizard was a second-rate villain that Alex didn't even remember from the cartoon. He's since been turning innocent sprites into Tetris blocks and made an entire building out of them.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: Kefka, unlike the rest of the cast of Final Fantasy VI, is immune to the Sovereign of Sorrow's power (Due to being a nihilist whose worldview has just been proven absolutely right). Everyone else is utterly bewildered at this.
    • Only two other characters showcase this ability, Green Mega Man (who's got the Warp Zone of Life flowing through him), and Cecil (a paladin of impeccable nobility).
    • Both active Game Masters have shown an apparent immunity to the Sovereign's Despair effects. However, Kevin's lack of despair at the time is in itself unusual, considering the circumstances... and Alex comments on it, rather insistently.
  • Touched by Vorlons: Those who come into contact with the Sovereign have their abilities augmented considerably and are even referred to as Touched. Given the side effects, it's a pretty bad touch.
  • Training Montage: Used (and lampshaded by Alex) in episode 787.
  • Tranquil Fury: Protoman shows us how it's done.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Alex is somewhat dismissive of Daos threatening to Mind Probe him for his worst fear. The only saving grace in that situation is that after punching through his mental barriers like they weren't there, Daos can't believe his worst fear was a blinking smiley face.
  • Un Evil Laugh: The Drab Lord's got this all over him. Just look at the damn page quote for the trope.
    Drab Lord: WARK WARK WARK!
  • Villainous Breakdown: Mother Brain after failing to kill Lana during her final battle with the N-Team. This makes her fall into Stupid Evil territory when - already defeated and surrounded by heroes - she kills Duke. Needless to say, it backfired on her.
  • Villainesses Want Heroes: Valvalis is completely smitten with Crono when he fails to fall to her wiles.
  • Visual Pun: Alex is trying to ask Bob some questions that only he can answer. Problem is, Bob can understand him just fine, but is physically compelled to speak only in Spanish. As an alternative, Bob tries speaking through his donkey instead. Thing is, nothing comes out of his mouth except for a string of increasingly ludicrous and obvious lies, until Alex picks up on the issue.
    Alex: ...Bob.
    Bob: Si?
    Bob: Si.
  • Wanting Is Better Than Having: Edgar is pissed that Locke keeps taking down Kefka, so Locke agrees to wait and let him take his turn. Edgar takes Kefka down in one hit, and is soundly disappointed. After the second time he does this, he gets bored and goes off to check on the civilians, telling Locke to call him if he gets tired.
  • Webcomic Time: In-universe only a couple of hours passed between the explosion that separated Alex from Gato, Palom and Porom and the defeat of the Eater of Dreams. It sure felt more like a decade, though.
    • As of Comic #598, only about a day had passed since the start of the flashback.
  • We Have the Keys: Alex had the key to the door to Nexus, but instead blasted down the door with his Super Scope because he didn't realize it. The person who dropped the lampshade (Ryan) actually did so in the future via flashback power, but before seeing that Alex had blasted the door down.
  • Welcome to Corneria
  • Wham Episode:
  • Wham Line:
    Sovereign of Sorrow: He is the champion of Videoland. He is my champion.
  • What If?: Captain Atari. It's not a good idea to wear a joystick on your belt.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Alex certainly gets his share.
    • Celes gets a big one from her companions as well, after trying to protect Locke from The End of the World as We Know It by using the Vanish/X-Zone trick to cast him into the void, which is actually connected to other parts of Videoland. She knew that this would give him an opportunity to survive because she's Touched but to everyone else, it looked like she murdered him for no reason.
  • What Year Is This?: Done in a very interesting way to show the disconnect between Alex and his captor. Starts here and goes on for about 6 strips.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: Anything remotely having to do with Schrödinger. Even Game Masters fear him.
    • Not to mention how much of Darth Vader's life from the movies is canon.
  • Winds of Destiny, Change!: Alanis Morisette can manipulate events to make them more "ironic"
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Alex was confident that even if he was killed by the Zone Ender in the Desert of Broken Dreams, he could just restore his save point. Bob points out that only works when he's in the same world as the save point. Alex is unsurprisingly freaked out by this.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Samus Aran's plan to trick the Touched one who inhabited Eggplant Wizard's body into revealing something important and then neutralize him or her fails because of Golbez's impatience and anger and their opponent starts to use the Sovereign's powers on them... so Samus enrages Golbez and, he, when he realizes what she's doing, turns around and blasts Eggplant Wizard. Then, when Golbez realizes the Wizard's defensive spells are too strong, he taunts the Wizard to get him enraged and fixated on him, grabs Samus, and teleports out.
  • Yandere: Lisa
  • You Are A Credit To Your Gender: Ryu has less than enlightened views on women. Which is potentially lethal when hanging around Samus Aran. He even begins to say the line verbatim before Samus shuts him up.
  • Zen Slap: A Running Gag in the segments featuring Mario and Magus involves Mario hitting Magus on the head with a Hammer of Zen whenever the latter starts acting or does something villainous. Though the first two times, Mario claimed he was trying to squish a bug.

...and includes characters from:


Alternative Title(s): Captain SNES The Game Masta

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