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  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The upgrade system in the second game is designed to give you bonuses based on the moves you used the most since the last upgrade, so it's easy to fall into this.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: The Beholder's censored attack. Yes, Kupo actually went there.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • In 3, the Clay enemies. They're each immune to numerous elements, come in large groups which are almost never all vulnerable to the same attacks, and one of the later ones can cast healing spells. They are, however, all vulnerable to Lance's bomb element attacks. Thankfully, 4 toned them down by a lot.
    • In 4, there are quite a few in the factory. The Satellite dishes can cause Syphon on all your party members, locking them from using skills. The Laser turrets charge for one turn, the next turn they fire a big laser that will more often than not kill a character. Fridge turrets will pull a wet-freeze combo, landing status effects irritatingly often, while the rest of the enemies whale on you, and since we're dealing with bruisers with a taste for lightning here, getting hit while frozen or wet will most certainly cut a good chunk of your lifebar. The Drill Golem enemies hurt like no tomorrow. Did we also mention that these three enemies have TONS of health and take a long time to kill? Oh, and the Defender from the first game comes back, and it is a bruiser. Suffice to say this is especially bad during the boss battle.
    • Mage Dogs heal and buff allies, drain your characters' MP and generally come alongside some really tough enemies. They also fully resist Dark and Holy and have no real weaknesses. Thankfully, they are vulnerable to Syphon, which confines them to basic melee. Mage Birds are annoying for many of the same reasons. They have pretty much no offensive abilities, but just like Mage Dogs, they heal and buff allies and steal your mana... and even worse, they also have a 50% resistance to Syphon. Thankfully, like many flyers, the Thunder element makes quick work of them.
      • The Mage Dogs are now given a much-needed Weaksauce Weakness in EBF5 with NoLegs' Dog Sausage weapon, which instantly gives them the berserk status, preventing them from casting spells without needing to inflict Syphon.
    • The Jellies of Bullet Heaven. There's a specific orange type that produces a different type of homing bullet than the purple butterfly-wasps. Said bullet chases you... in staggered steps. It's a pain to dodge, and really hard to fool.
  • Even Better Sequel: Every consecutive sequel. The first is just a plotless battle against wave after wave of enemies. The second is similar, but with more story and improved battle mechanics. The third is a fully-fledged RPG with a world map to explore, and the fourth is similar but with even more secrets and items, better mechanics, an additional character, a non-linear map, and more Worldbuilding. Then there's the fifth game, with updated art, a more polished design, a new weather mechanic, the option to catch foes like pokémon, and NoLegs is finally fighting alongside his comrades. Just goes to show how far the series has come.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Dismissing the Epic Battle Fantasy series as a ripoff of the Final Fantasy series will definitely annoy at best, if not push some buttons on that fandom. While it is an Affectionate Parody of the latter series, the former series deviates by having a self aware nature of its genre, as well as having contrastingly different styles.
  • Fan Nickname: Weapon-Elemental for skills whose elements and status effects depend on the weapon wielded by their users.
  • Game-Breaker: Has its own page.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • The crows. They have high evasion and an accuracy-lowering attack. If all of your party gets their accuracy lowered and has no way to counter it, encounters with crows can take a lot longer to defeat.
    • The robot fishes in the factory in EBF4. They have a move that buffs their evasion, but the most annoying part is that when you kill them, they always release a missile attack that can stagger you. The only way to avoid this is to kill them last/all at once and end the battle (or wave) so the missiles won't land... except that when they return in EBF5, this no longer works, making them even more frustrating.
    • Pretty much every Airborne Mook in the platformer spin-off, Adventure Story, but especially the flies. What makes them especially aggravating to deal with is all the backtracking you'll have to do after they knock you off a platform, or mess up your jump while you're in mid-air.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • The first game, after you finish the slimes (which, unlike the other mooks, you have to get through four waves instead of two) and get to the first (mini?)boss, where it then becomes a challenge. The second game averts going through four rows of the basic enemy by throwing in a red bee.
    • In EBF3, the entire series evolves from a simple Turn-Based Combat-only RPG into a fully-fledged one, with a world map!
  • Heartwarming Moments: If you return to Greenwood Village after enough story events, some of the villagers will give free items to Anna.
  • Mascot Mook: The Slimes (or Slime Bunnies), and the legless cats.
  • Memetic Mutation: Fanart frequently portrays Natalie in her Cow Girl outfit.
  • More Popular Spin-Off: Matt and Goku appeared in a early bunch of Flash animation parodies. Matt himself is an Ensemble Dark Horse being a minor bit character that appears early on in one animation.
  • Paranoia Fuel: In the Factory zone of EBF4, the screens will sometimes say "I see you".
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The battle theme of EBF4's Final Boss has a very similar melody to Lugia's song from Pokémon 2000. Of course, this could simply be another in the long list of Pokémon references in the series.
  • That One Achievement:
    • Some of the minigame-based medals in the original EBF3 are very difficult to obtain, to the point where the Steam update lowered the score requirements for each minigame.
    • One of the medals in EBF4 requires you to deal 30 million damage in one hit. No need to tell the obscene amount of grinding it takes, as you'll need to be well past level 50 to get it (more than three replays, which are needed to get other medals by the way), and even then it'll need a specific combo to get.
  • That One Attack: Cosmic Monoliths have one: every 3 rounds, they use an attack named Doomsday. It is a much stronger version of what the party can do by using Dark Runes, and it starts off with a weak beam trailed through the ground, dealing low damage to the party — THEN the actual attack kicks in, dealing MASSIVE damage to the party, capable of taking out anyone with no dark resistance, even at level 30. To top it off, Doomsday hits the entire field AND COSMIC MONOLITHS ABSORB DARK!? And it goes From Bad to Worse in the final medal area, where one of the battles is with all 3 monoliths. Combined, they're harder to kill than Akron himself. It is better to leave Cosmic for last in this case, as the other 2 monoliths do NOT absorb dark, and will be damaged by Doomsday — but since all 3 monoliths are incredibly powerful, it is so much more likely to kill you.
    • On top of all the instant death attacks in EBF3, Doomsday counts too, and is a definite That One Attack; if you don't have sufficient dark resistance, you will die.
    • In EBF2, it's possible (on higher difficulties, mind you) for the Valkyrie Tank to summon two nukes when one is already enough to wipe out an unguarded party.
    • In EBF4, mage dogs, mage birds, and clay idols can use an attack that does no damage but drains most of a character's MP, leaving them with enough mp to use maybe three moves. This becomes less annoying at New Game Plus levels, where the remaining MP is usually enough to finish the battle. If the attack happens to be used once, when the enemies with this move tend to show up in groups!
    • The defender has a single-target physical attack that hits twice, but one hit can easily hit for most of the target's health, even with maxed buffs!
    • Doomsday makes its return in EBF4. It got weaker in some ways, such as requiring a turn to charge, not healing the monolith, and not being preceded by Flare. However, it's now only 75% Dark elemental, which means 100% Dark resistance isn't enough to nullify it.
    • Rainbow Rafflesia has a healing skill that removes status ailments and stat debuffs, buffs its M. ATK and M. DEF, and applies maxed Bless status. This means the player can't Dispel its buffs and must instead gamble on Magic Attack/Defense debuffs to get rid of them (just as a reminder, most bosses in this game have 50% resistance to all stat debuffs, and this resistance hinders the success chance of debuff effects). Especially if the boss uses this skill again before Bless expires.
      • The same boss also has a Non-Elemental rainbow attack that hits one player for absolutely ludicrous damage, enough to One-Hit Kill several times over on higher difficulties. To make matters worse, it also stuns the target if they manage to survive it (specifically, with auto revive or morale)!
    • Haunt, a rare attack used by a select few mobs. It's a multi-hit attack where each hit has a high chance to debuff a random stat. While it wasn't too troubling when introduced in EBF2 due to being used by only one boss (who also has a much more dangerous attack), it became really horrid in the next game: the debuffs were increased to 300%, enough to drop a fully-buffed stat to rock bottom; a single use of this attack will usually render a character useless for several turns at the very least. And just to add insult to injury, it can now inflict Doom as well. Thankfully no longer the case in the fourth game, due to the attack being reworked to only hit once with a chance to inflict Curse.
    • The Reaper (or Grim Reaper, prior to 5) is about as simple as dangerous attacks get: if it hits, the target dies. Later games gave methods of avoiding instant death to neuter the threat of The Reaper instantly deleting your party member, although it's still something you always have to watch out for against opponents capable of using it. It's particularly nasty on Epic difficulty in the second and third games, which give it a major accuracy boost, turning it from a coinflip into "when the game wants you dead, you will die" (especially in the second game, where the Zombie Hydra is fully capable of casting Grim Reaper with both heads at once).
  • That One Boss: So many, that it has its own page now.
  • That One Level:
    • Kitten Ruins in the third game. Frustrating switch puzzle, confusing layout, and one pain of a boss.
    • The Waste Disposal Plant in the fourth game. Similar to the Kitten Ruins, it has confusing puzzles involving batteries, a large amount of troublesome enemies, and ends with a very tough boss fight.
  • Unpopular Popular Character: Lance, especially going by his depiction in EBF4. While the main characters hate him, he's one of the fanbase's most popular party members. Some fan fiction works phase out most of his negative aspects entirely.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Mostly due to his long hair, Matt is sometimes mistaken for a female.

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