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Lets Play / NicoB

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Previously on... TV Tropes!

NicoB or simply Nico, whose real name has remained private, is an American YouTuber known for his Let's Plays. He is most recognized for playing anime-style games heavy in plot and puzzles, specifically RPGs and Visual Novels, though he has also done a number of series and one-offs that fall outside of that category.

Nearly every NicoB Let’s Play video follows a standard formula:

  • "Previously on… (series name)" followed by a brief clip of a notable scene in the last video.
    • This has occasionally been replaced by a joke animation.
  • "And now back to (joke fitting the series)."
    • For obvious reasons, this and the previous point do not apply to one-offs or the first upload of a new series.
  • His signature introduction: "HELLO! This is NicoB, back with some more (series name). When we last left off, (short recap of last episode)."
    • For a one-off or the first upload of a new series, the introduction is instead "HELLO! This is NicoB, here with a Let’s Play of (game name)."
    • Since getting a Patreon, Nico has taken to displaying LP-related fanart during this segment, as well as featuring a "Comment of the Day" from the previous episode.
    • Whenever this introduction was missing prior to 2019, it was likely that the video was the second half of footage Nico deemed too long to upload undivided. He now performs his usual intro over footage of the previous episode in such cases.
  • Finally, his signature outro: "I hope you all enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave a like and favorite, and subscribe now to become a Picky Penguin aboard the S.S. LP, where the days are always sunny, and the vids are always funny! Until next time, guys, stay classy!"
    • Prior to coining the term "Picky Penguin" to refer to subscribers, the middle line was originally "Subscribe now to hop aboard the S.S. LP."
    • Some videos fade to black without an outro, indicating that Nico has split his original footage in an effort to constrain the length to about an hour.
    • Following the arrival of Nico's dog, Bernie, an additional segment was added after this, though it gradually faded out of use. "And now some final words from Bernie the Dog" involved Nico showing off cute footage of Bernie, occasionally adding a humorous voice-over.

A unique aspect of Nico’s commentary is his tendency to assign voices to different characters in each series, as well as ad-libbing their lines as he sees fit. As time has gone on, several of these voices have gained their own reputations in his videos, taking on the names of the characters they are most associated with. As a result, certain voices carry with them particular personalities, creating inside jokes between Nico and his subscribers that recur in various Let’s Plays. Nico has even created a small series dedicated to them titled The Council of Voices.

Nico currently boasts around 200,000 subscribers, most of whom identify themselves as "Picky Penguins", the chosen name for NicoB fans established since the Persona 4 Golden Let's Play. This name overtook the previous term for the community, "S.S. LP", in popular usage, yet both phrases are still applied. Though the Picky Penguin community is far from the largest on YouTube, it is one of the more tightly knit ones with many familiar commenters. As of 2017, the channel also has a dedicated team of moderators (all Picky Penguins themselves) devoted to keeping Nico's comment section as friendly and inviting as possible. As of February 2022 after much deliberations Nico hires a full time editor, Sai, in order to help him alleviate the amount of work and burder that's been piling up over the course of past two years, finally allowing Nico to keep up with his promise of five LP videos per week.

Games Nico Has Played:

    open/close all folders 

    Core Series 

    Other Series 

    One and Done 
  • 1916: The Unknown War
  • A 24 Badaptation
  • Ahogay
  • Aqua Nebulon
  • Besiege
  • Centuria
  • Conundrum
  • Curse of the Aztecs
  • Destroy the Porn
  • Doki Doki Chihiro Paradise
  • Dreaming Mary
  • Exmortis
  • Exmortis 2
  • Eyes: The Horror Game
  • Fibrillation
  • Final Dragon Legacy
  • Ghoul Forest
  • Hello? Hell...o?
  • Hide
  • Huniepop
  • I See You
  • Iniquity and Vindication
  • Inside
  • Journey
  • Kilobyte
  • Lasting
  • Left in the Dark
  • Maximus Jones
  • NicoB’s Hope-filled Date
  • Nico Nico Ronpa
  • No-one Has To Die
  • OneShot
  • Overpowered
  • Pepsiman
  • Picturesque
  • Pizza Delivery
  • Pokemon Trinity
  • Presentable Liberty
  • Slender: Mansion
  • Slender Space
  • Slendytubbies
  • Slime Rancher
  • Tina of the Stars
  • Vapour
  • Video Game: The Game
  • Watch Your Step
  • White Finger
  • Yanderella

    Twitch Live Plays 

    Miscellaneous 

NicoB has demonstrated instances of:

  • Aborted Arc: Nico never finished his LP of Star Stealing Prince. He later stated on-stream that he disliked its reliance on the player doing side-content to keep to pace with its difficulty.
    • He also tried streaming Hatoful Boyfriend for a stream when the community voted for it. It quickly became apparent that he wasn't enjoying it as much as he thought he would and quit playing it after completing Sakuya's route and Dr. Shuu's route to finish Night in the Woods instead.
  • The Ace: Nico is actually really good in his games, to the point many infamous bosses being cakewalks for him, although it's debatable whether it's skill or dumb luck.
    • However, certain games with certain bosses will still make him scream in absolute fury while he fights them, and he won't hesitate in using cheap tactics just to win (And even then, those tend to not work that well either). Case in point: the bonus Vanitas fight in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.
  • AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: Nico’s mispronunciation of various Japanese words and names.
    • The most notable examples are Morishige (Corpse Party), Naegi, Asahina (Danganronpa), and Diana (Zero Escape), which Nico pronounces as Moshurige, Nagi, Ashina, and Diane respectively. Despite learning their proper pronunciations, he has continued saying the names this way out of habit, with the exception of Diana, who he started saying properly about halfway through the series.
    • He pronounces Komaeda's name as "Kuh-May-Duh" instead of the Japanese pronunciation of "Koe-My-Duh" or the official English pronunciation of "Koe-My-Ay-Duh".
    • He also mispronounced the names of most of the Foretellers incorrectly, as he lampshades during his Back Cover reaction.
    • On multiple occasions he has mispronounced the word "waifu" (he tends to pronounce it without the i, making it sound more like "waffle"); he lampshaded this tendency at the start of Part 21 of his Danganronpa 2 LP.
    • He also mispronounces the Gestalt in NieR: Gestalt.
    • He also manages to mispronounce Tsumugi's name, instead pronouncing it as "Tsumigi." He even lampshades this.
    • A jarring example happens when he manages to pronounce Kokichi's last name as O-a-ma instead of Oh-ma 34 examples later in Danganronpa V3.
    • In the Kingdom Hearts series, he calls the Paopu Fruit the "Pow-Pow Fruit".
    • Nico pronounces Kakariko Village as "Korekiyo Village".
    • This tendency often leads to Nico missing the puns in the names of Ace Attorney characters, even when they are glaringly obvious. Examples include Ahlbi Ur'gaid (I'll be your guide), Mr. Reus (mysterious), and Paul Atishon (politician).
  • Achievements in Ignorance:
    • Nico's Ultimate Bullshit powers (read: incredible genre savviness) are only intentional 50% of the time. The other 50% is when he makes a joke about a character doing something that they actually do (like in Danganronpa 2, where he makes a joke about Komaeda blowing up the island) or just makes an off-handed comment about an event that happens later on (such as in Kingdom Hearts II where he says "you're going to need a lot more Heartless if you want to kill me" just before a battle of 1000 Heartless.)
      • Another example of this comes from Yakuza 0, when he makes a joke about promoting a chicken that he won from a bowling competition (don't ask) into a manager for his real estate firm. Cue the Big "WHAT?!" when he finds out that this joke was right on the money.
    • He's even demonstrated the ability to predict future plot twists (i.e. twists which no one knows at the time of the prediction), such as his joke in Danganronpa 3 Episode 2 that Tengan was the mastermind of the whole series (the episode revealing this hadn't aired at the time). Perhaps most impressively is his performance in Kingdom Hearts χ: while watching the story cutscenes in which Ava explains her plan for the Dandelions- gifted young Keyblade wielders to survive the end of the world- he guesses that Terra, Aqua, and Ventus are among this group. Nico Failed a Spot Check here, since it's fairly obvious from the fact that the Keyblade War hasn't happened yet that the game takes place centuries or millennia in the past; many Picky Penguins called him out on this in the comments. The very next day, a trailer for a new Unchained χ expansion called Union χ was released...which showed Ventus apparently interacting personally with Ephemer and Skuld in the aftermath of the Keyblade War.
      • An even more hysterical example is when Nico, in response to his blatantly incorrect guess of Luxu being Xehanort, made a sarcastic joke that the Master of Masters was Xigbar through copious application of Insane Troll Logic. Fast-foward to Kingdom Hearts III, the secrets reports and epilogue drop the massive reveal that Xigbar was Luxu, meaning Nico inadvertently foreshadowed the biggest twist of a game that wouldn't come out for another year and a half.
    • After the Danganronpa 3 example above, he twice more managed to accidentally predict a character being a villain by making an off-hand joke very early in the series. In Persona 5 he jokes that he'll find Igor at the bottom of Mementos, who will be the final boss, which is exactly what happens (except that "Igor" is a fake). In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, he gets annoyed by Tomas blocking the entrance to the library when he first meets him, and jokingly declares "I'm gonna kill you, old man!".
    • Early on in NieR: Automata, he guesses that the enemy robots in the game are actually humans that the Player Character just thinks are machines. NieR, the previous game would like to have a word with you, Nico.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: In episode 43 of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, when imagining a possible battlefield conversation between Sylvain and Lord Gwendal:
    Nico!Gwendal: You're the dastardly deviant who dared to do the dirty with my daughter!
    Nico!Sylvain: Whoa, dude, that's too many D's!
  • Alliterative Name: Picky Penguins.
  • Ambiguous Situation: In Ocarina of Time 3D, Nico commented that he knows Sheik from Super Smash Bros., but it was unclear whether or not he knew that Sheik was Zelda. Subverted when it was revealed that he knew, but didn’t want to say anything.
  • Angrish: In the most stressful situations, Nico has a tendency to begin speaking in growls.
  • Animal Motifs: Penguins!
  • Aroused by Their Voice: The Ace voice is the George Clooney of all Nico's voices.
  • Ascended Extra: Running Morishige in the Persona 4 Golden LP.
  • Ascended Meme: His Hope/Komaeda Bagels joke that he came up with during his Danganronpa 2 LP for the character of Nagito Komaeda has since become an actual meme for the series. Even the creators themselves, Spike Chunsoft, have referenced it a few times in their social media posts when talking about Komaeda. Komaeda's English voice actor, Bryce Papenbrook, is also a fan of the meme and has mentioned it to other fans when he talks about Nagito at conventions.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Often times, Nico will be distracted from what he's doing by something and not continue his main objective until his curiosity is satisfied. This gets lampshaded in the opening for his The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild videos:
    And now back to saving Hy- OOH, what's that over there?
  • Ax-Crazy: The Komaeda voice. Through some "bullshit luck" a good portion of characters given the Komaeda voice turn out to be this to some degree.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Nico gets a phone call from Adachi in the Persona 4 Golden LP and hopes it isn't going to be something like Namatame escaping from prison. He's not pleased when Adachi instead tells him Nanako is dying.
  • Behind the Black: In the Couch Gag for episode 15 of the Lost Judgment LP, Nico is talking to what he thinks is Mr. Kitty in an audio only scene, not realizing he's actually talking to a Xenomorph until the real Mr. Kitty tells him.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Towards Clementine (Walking Dead), Pearl (Phoenix Wright) and Nanako (Persona 4 Golden).
  • Big "NO!": Lets one loose in Ace Attorney Investigations when he finds out Wendy Oldbag is in it. And Larry Butz (with "Psycho" Strings in the background). And then Wendy Oldbag again. And Winnie The Pooh in KHII.
    • Lets out multiple ones when discovering Ryoma's body in Danganronpa V3.
    • Screams a particularly anguished one in Lost Judgment when Kim returns in the Biker Gang story, complete with the visual of Yagami's similar scream from the main story.
  • Bizarro Episode: His LP of Video Game: The Game. It's a fifty-second Let's Play that features him shooting shit, getting lots of coins, and laughing maniacally as the screen fills with big-breasted women before the video crashes as the viewer's computer can't buffer the rest of the video. The LP ends with the video self-destructing. It also features none of his voices beside his own.
  • Black Humor: A lot of it towards Ryoma's death in Danganronpa V3.
    Ryoma: I've still got a ways to go! *while drowning*
  • Blood Knight: Shows shades of this when in a fight with Data!Saix in Kingdom Hearts II, as the real Saix was an Anti-Climax Boss for Nico.
  • Blue Blood: The Togami/Edgeworth voice. Nico himself calls this voice snooty and as a result it is usually given to characters that seem to fit this trope by behavior or appearance.
  • Bowdlerise: Inverted. Nico still swears when pretending to be characters in the games he plays, especially more softer speaking and less violent-acting characters like Chihiro Fujisaki (Danganronpa) as seen in Council of Voices and K (Virtue's Last Reward).
  • Brain Bleach: In the earlier Ace Attorney games, whenever Mia Fey's spirit is channeled by Pearl, Nico needs a moment to handle the situation.
    • In Zero Time Dilemma, Nico becomes disgusted with himself after he predicts that Sigma and Phi are actually father and daughter, which does turn out to be true. Especially since the Virtue's Last Reward LP had been chock full of sexual jokes between the two of them (from each other AND from Nico).
    • In Investigations 2, Nico is a bit unnerved to realize that Justine Courtney, a 26-year old, is the mother of John Marsh, who is 13. He's relieved later when it's revealed John is her biological cousin once removed and adoptive son.
  • Brick Joke:
    • A lot of his "and now back to" segments have their punchlines saved for the final episode of their respective series. For example, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim has him repeatedly attacked by mechs while confused about what's going on. The finale shows him easily taking them out while having a casual conversation after eventually figuring them out.
    • During his Kingdom Hearts III playthrough, he jokes that if Sora, Donald and Goofy's names aren't said in that specific order, the universe would explode. Shortly before the video ends...
  • Brief Accent Imitation: His normal voice often slips into a Southern drawl during comedic moments.
  • Butt-Monkey: The Morishige Voice. Whether the character given the honor of having this voice is good or bad, he’s guaranteed to never catch a break.
    • Also, the Hagakure/Larry voice. Every character who gets this voice is a pathetic wimp who everyone hates.
    • Donald Duck. There's rarely an episode of his Kingdom Hearts Let's Play where Nico doesn't make fun of him, try to kill him, or yell at him to shut up. Even when he's not around, he's still telling him to shut up.
    • Sometimes, Nico himself can be this during his "And now back to...." segments.
  • Call-Back: Nico does this constantly, referencing jokes, characters, and events from previous videos. Certain jokes are brought up so frequently in videos and comments that it may be considered a Running Gag.
  • Catchphrase: "Hellooo! This is NicoB" as his intro, and "Stay classy!" as his outro.
    • Arguably "What the dicks" is also becoming one too.
    • "ULTIMATE DEMON POWER"
    • "Eat [insert weapon/power] Bitch!"
    • "This music is filling my balls with so much hope" or "These beats be bumping" whenever Nico listens to a song that he really enjoys.
    • "Heart Light Dark" and often "Heart Light Dark Heart Bart" in Kingdom Hearts whenever there's something confusing or the characters constantly say one of those three lines. After Kingdom Hearts II, he's prone to saying "The answer is Xion" anytime there is something that doesn't make sense to him.
    • "WAIT A DEMON SECOND"... at least in the Ace Attorney games.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Combined with Chekhov's Skill, while playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, Nico is able to predict that Inga suffered from prosopagnosia because of his experience playing Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors years before.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Especially when playing dating sims, Nico tends to let his dirty thoughts slip out. Despite this, he's usually respectful with his in-game interactions.
    • Nico's not so above making dirty jokes either...It's when the game does it that he gets a bit perplexed, one of the most shining examples is the "lever scene" in Virtue's Last Reward.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Nico has both shown signs of this and lampshaded it.
  • Combat Pragmatist: When Nico's usual strategy of Attack! Attack! Attack! fails, expect him to switch to cheesing his opponent in any way he possibly can.
  • Companion Cube: Bagels the Penguin is a plush penguin that "watches over Nico." He makes an appearance in a number of fanfics as well as fanart made by the community. He has two floor lamps which have also been anthropomorphosised by the community.
  • Crack Fic: Pretty much every NicoB fanfic in existence, which is unsurprising when taking into account the source material.
  • Couch Gag: Both Downplayed (In the sense that the varying openings are usually on an LP to LP basis, with no variation on an episode to episode basis) and played straight (Some LPs (such as Fire Emblem: Three Houses or Lost Judgment) do have the change per episode expected from the trope)
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: When he finds himself dealing too much damage to the bosses of endings C and D of NieR: Automata, he says that he's "melting" them.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Nico loves cute animals and characters, and he will frequently coo voice while addressing them. Examples include Nanako (Persona 4 Golden), Pearl (Phoenix Wright), Mayuri (Steins;Gate), Missile (Ghost Trick), and Pea (Ni no Kuni)
  • Deadpan Snarker: A lot of his commentary is not about explaining the game's mechanics (as he plays these games blind), but actually talking to and making sarcastic comments at the game's characters and story.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Despite being prepared for it, Danganronpa 3 pushes him over the edge with Chiaki's death. By the end, he's outright crying and begging for it to stop.
  • Determinator:
    • His struggle with Danganronpa 2's Rebuttal Showdown with Fuyuhiko in Chapter 2 went on for well over forty minutes.
    • And let's not forget his repeated efforts to get all gold in every stage in Catherine. Also, see Sanity Slippage and Tears of Joy below.
    • Nico's determination to finish Corpse Party: Blood Drive lead him to post a two hour and 18 minute long video, the second longest video he's ever posted. He even states that the actual play time was even longer due to the loading screens and generally navigating around the school. He wanted it done that badly.
    • Similarly, the final episode of Ace Attorney Investigations is 2 hours and 7 minutes in length, due to Nico refusing to back down against that game's Big Bad, who himself is a Determinator of the highest caliber.
    • Nico struggled heavily trying to defeat the optional bosses in Kingdom Hearts II. He almost got Sephiroth down about midway through his attempts but then began to backslide on progress. He kept fighting on however and, according to his death counter, he defeated Sephiroth on his 43rd straight try. The Lingering Will took him even longer to overcome with a grand total of 50 straight deaths before he defeated it.
    • Nico in Episode 16 of Devil Survivor: Overclock, his longest video of 2 hours and 35 minutes. He even lampshades mid video how long the cutscenes and Required Battles in the game takes, but refuses to cut the video there because he wants to finish the route after spending 3 videos on this Ending. He also remains determined despite having to do both a 40+ minute Defend Mission twice AND having to do the Final Boss twice due to losing a first time. And then having to beat the Final Boss A THIRD TIME because he accidentally skipped the credits sequence, which locked him out of the option to save with Clear Save Data and not net him the score rating and ability to start a New Game Plus. Determinator indeed.
    • In Birth by Sleep, Nico spent at least 6 hours to clear the entire Mirage Arena with Aqua. Not to mention he had to beat all the Command Boards offscreen.
    • The only time Nico has come close to being defeated was by the bonus boss in Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-, which he found so difficult he gave up and did his outro, planning on ending the LP there. Even then, not wanting to end the game on such a sour note, he came back a few days later and finished the boss fight anyway.
    • In Yakuza 0, after dozens and dozens of failures and reconfigurations, Nico finally manages to win the Pocket Circuit's King of Speed Cup, and largely through sheer luck.
    • In his Yakuza Kiwami 2 LP Nico encountered several crashes throughout earlier episodes, which at the end turned out to be his corrupted save file. Nico, not wanting the LP to be cancelled, replayed the entirety of the game up to the middle of Chapter 5, while also doing all of the bouncer missions, finding all the keys and finishing all the sidequests he did on his old save file, all for the sake of his fans. This shows a lot about his care for Picky Penguins.
  • Did Not See That Coming: As Genre Savvy Nico is, he has been known to be caught off guard completely, even by unintentional predictions.
    • In his Steins;Gate playthrough, his speech was reduced to Engrish after seeing Tennouji Yuugo being affiliated with SERN.
    Nico: "WHAT WHOA WHAT'S GOING ON, WHOA! ......What, in the fucking shit is thaaaaaaaaat you doing there!?"
    Nico in the video's comment section: And what happened, then? Well, in Khura'in they say
    That Nico's mind was fucked thirty times that day
    • In a less serious example, he didn't expect the returning character for the DLC case to be Larry.
    • In Yakuza Kiwami, the back-to-back deaths of both Reina and Shinji is enough to make Nico exit the game at the end of episode 15.
    • In Xenoblade Chronicles 1, he didn't expect Fiora to be killed off very early in the game. In the same vein, he didn't expect her to come back as an enemy either.
    • While he predicted pretty much every other twist in Mother 3 in advance, there was one that threw him for a loop: Fassad turning out to be the traitorous Magypsy, Locria.
    • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Blue Lions route), he was completely floored from the heavy implication of Edelgard being the Flame Emperor in the beginning of Chapter 10 (which is confirmed at the end of Chapter 11). This is especially because Nico didn't expect any of the main trio (Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude) to possibly be Evil All Along.
    • In the same Let's Play a few episodes later, he was also completely taken off guard by the five-year time skip that happens midway through the game, which was heavily spoiled in pre-release material. Amusingly, he actually had watched the trailer that spoiled this previously, but since he had no interest in the game at the time, merely glossed over it without a second thought.
    • In his Final Fantasy VII Remake LP, to say that Nico was completely stunned by the ending is a vast understatement.
    • Suffice to say, Nico did not expect for Pucci, Melami, Aphex, and Zange to all become the murder victims of Chapter 0, to the point of being in denial of their deaths by the end of Episode 2.
    • While Nico quickly figured out almost every plot twist in PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, he was ironically surprised by possibly the easiest plot twist in the story, namely, the fact that Ayame Tono is Tsutsumi's daughter, mentioned in one of the first scenes.
  • Engrish:
    • As mentioned above in Did Not See That Coming, this happened briefly to his speech in Steins;Gate during a particular scene.
    • He also stumbles over his words hard when he unknowingly begins the platinum match in Kingdom Hearts and comes face to face with Sephiroth as his opponent.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • In his early Let's Plays (as in his very early Let's Plays), he did not do individual voices for the characters of the games he played.
    • His early videos were also much shorter, usually topping out at 30 minutes. Starting with his LP of 999, his videos' runtimes started climbing to 50 minutes, with the finale of that LP being a whopping 1 hour and 40 minutes long. These days, 50 minutes what Nico considers the minimum length for his videos.
    • In his early days, he mostly played RPG Maker games before branching out to a bit of everything ranging from fan games to horror games. When he had a invoked Breakthrough Hit with his 999 and Danganronpa Let's Plays, he began focusing on Visual Novels and RPGs made outside of RPG Maker.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: In-Universe. Nico loves 'Running Morishige' (a nameless student often late for school in Persona 4) and his successor, Running Mo-She-Rige (Yumeko Mogami, a Stalker with a Crush female student who is also usually late to school and is a minor target in Persona 5), neither of whom have any real role in their games.
  • Failed a Spot Check:
    • Nico complained that all of the clothing patterns in Kingdom Hearts 0.2 were white, despite there being a clear-as-day "Color" option.
    • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses...
      • Nico theorized about the Church of Seiros being secretly evil when accepting a quest from Seteth, based on when since a lot of religions in video games end up like that. All while Seteth talked about the Western Church acting suspicious in a dialogue box to the side of the screen, without Nico even reading it.
      • Averted when Nico managed to beat the Death Knight in the first encounter. When he teleports away, Nico pretends to think he died, and acts confused when the characters mention him escaping. When he kept sticking to the joke in the following episodes, however, viewers started thinking that Nico was being completely serious. It got to the point that Nico himself had to clarify that, yes, he knew that the Death Knight was still alive.
      • Nico was left confused as to why, after retrieving the Lance of Ruin, he got the lance when saying "no" to Rhea (which he took as telling her off) but did not when he said "yes" to her. He failed to realize that the question he was answering in the first place was basically "Will you give me the Lance of Ruin so I can return it to its owners?"
    • Nico's first meeting with a Joy in Bayonetta.
  • Fangirl: In his Kingdom Hearts videos, seeing Final Fantasy characters like Cloud (in Kingdom Hearts), Zack (in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep) and especially Auron (in Kingdom Hearts II), leaves him giggling and laughing like a school girl.
  • Flanderization: Nico’s renditions of game characters tend to be highly exaggerated, often to the point of creating entirely different personalities during the course of a series.
  • Flat "What": Instead of his usual over-the-top surprised reaction to absurd things, he reacts to Norma DePlume's musical number in the "Turnabout Reclaimed" case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies with a flat "What in the fuck is going on?"
  • Forgotten First Meeting: In Danganronpa V3, he claims that he's never heard Kyoko Kirigiri and Yasuhiro Hagakure's voices from the English dub of the first game at the near of the start and near the end of the game's playthrough (not including the bonus content), respectively. This is despite Kirigiri showing up in the ending of Danganronpa 2, which had the English dub, and Hagakure getting his own spin-off story in Ultra Despair Girls. This is probably justified though, since it was a while since Nico played either of those games.
  • Foreshadowing: The Picky Penguins tend to warn Nico about That One Boss in some games by using a quote they're known by (which usually means nothing to Nico before reaching them, due to him usually doing blind playthroughs), such as "Lead me into everlasting darkness!" or "You'll pay for your insolence!"
  • Genre Savvy: Time and time again, Nico has proven himself to be very savvy no matter the game. He will frequently predict major elements or plot twists, something made even more amusing by the fact that he often does so unintentionally, to the point where the Picky Penguins call frequently call him the "Ultimate Plot Guesser."
    • A notable example would be his playthrough of Gemini Rue, where he guesses pretty much every major twist almost immediately.
    • This does not apply to Unsettling Gender Reveals, which always trip him up.
    • In Kingdom Hearts χ, Nico suspects that Terra, Ven, and Aqua became part of the Dandelions, despite the game taking place at least 100 years before Birth by Sleep. The very next day after he makes this claim, the trailer for Union χ revealed that Ven was around 100 years ago, AND became one of the Dandelions.
    • In case 5 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, he correctly guesses that Bobby Fulbright was the Phantom all along and therefore the killer during the investigation, long before it was actually revealed.
    • He successfully guesses Kaede being the first murderer in Danganronpa V3, before the investigation even starts, based off her suspicious early behavior and the game drawing attention to otherwise insignificant details like her rearranging books. Although.....
    • At the very beginning of PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, he had already successfully guessed that Yoko, the cute Damsel in Distress who Shogo spends the first part of the story trying to resurrect, was the one who tried - and eventually succeeded - to kill him with a curse, with her "murder" being caused by said curse rebounding on her. It also didn't take long for him to figure out most of the game's plot twists, such as Michiyo possessing Yakko, Namigaki being the person responsible for the hit-and-run accident that killed Michiyo, Mayu being the mysterious fifth protagonist, and Yoko being the mastermind behind the Feast of Shadows and the battle between the curse bearers for the Rite of Resurrection.
  • Graceful Loser: In early 2015, a copyright strike was placed on Nico's account. Though he initially considered contesting it, Nico ultimately chose to accept it and move on.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: In his Yakuza 0 intro, Nico speaks Japanese while trying to sound like a Hot-Blooded Yakuza.
  • Heroes Love Dogs: When he needs a mood lift, looking at pictures of puppies specifically fills Nico with determination.
    • He even has his own puppy, Bernie.
    • Dio immediately drew Nico's ire with his literal Kick the Dog moment upon arriving at the Joestar estate. Not to mention him burning Danny alive. As Nico got more experience with the anime, Oh, Crap! moments at the sight of dogs would become increasingly common.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    Nico's brain temporarily stops working
    • After Dimitri goes berserk in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Nico's voice becomes utterly broken for a long while when not being silent or saying only a single word. Edelgard's speech is what gets him back into his groove.
    • The reveal that the Keihin Gang is coming back as the Neo Keihin Gang in the school stories in Lost Judgment practically gives Nico PTSD flashbacks to their Demonic Spiders role in the first game.
  • Honor Before Reason: In games where Nico is given the option to save NPCs, he will almost always choose to rescue them even if doing so has repercussions and no benefit to him.
  • Hot for Student: In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Nico becomes a professor (through Bizzlead) and develops a huge crush on Dimitri, and always gets sad when he remembers that Dimitri isn't a Gay Option. This is also true for other characters like Annette and Flayn (who are romanceable themselves). After the Time Skip, Ashe seemed to get added to that list as well.
  • Hulk Speak: When voicing certain characters, like the Beast and Terra, he speaks very crudely and in third person, even if those characters are perfectly capable of normal speech in-game.
  • Implausible Deniability: Parodied in Yakuza Kiwami, episode 15. Nico claims that Kiryu has never killed anyone...right after Kiryu used someone as a Human Shield for an enemy's attack.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: In his Yakuza Kiwami LP, episode 15 put him in this mood.
    Nico in the comment section: I need a drink after this one...
  • Insane Troll Logic: Nico's Ultimate Bullshit powers (read: high level of genre savviness, both intentionally and unintentionally) started to fail him in some ways in the The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve playthrough, particularly around the third case, leading to Nico confidently arriving at wildly incorrect conclusions and being stumped by fairly straightforward elements. This seemed to be a confluence of a number of factors, including A. the long gap between his playthroughs of the two GAA games, whose narratives were pretty tightly woven together (unusual for the Ace Attorney series), causing him to forget a lot of important details, B. the fact that he played the fan translation of the first game but the official release of the second, leading to some difficulty in keeping the differences (and similarities) of the two translations straight, C. the third case in particular being large and complex, even by Ace Attorney standards, and D. Nico trying a bit too hard to get ahead of the curve, overlooking and ignoring key details in order to arrive at a suitably momentous answer to the current mystery. Probably the most ridiculous example was when he mistook a hand-drawn sketch based on a witness account for a photograph because it was signed (because photographers usually sign their photographs, apparently), leading him to conclude that the two involved parties were the same person - despite one of them being the victim of the case and the other having just completed a lengthy cross-examination. It was not lost on viewers how eerily similar this was to Sherlock Holmes' own brand of Insane Troll Logic in the game's Logic and Reasoning Spectacular segments.
  • Interface Spoiler:
    • The initial thumbnail used for Nico's 23rd episode of Ace Attorney Investigations 2 showed a sprite of Sebastian Debeste breaking down in tears, which did not appear in the actual game until a later episode. Nico had confused this sprite with one of Sebastian's earlier ones, and the mistake was corrected soon after. Also could be considered a case of You Shouldn't Know This Already.
    • In a similar case, Nico had to take down a NEO: The World Ends with You video because of a joke where Nico sings a parody of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, replacing the titular character with Neku, who appears on screen during the bit. However, like with Sebastian, the sprite used (Neku's NEO sprite) was problematic as up to this point of the series, the protagonists had only just met Beat, who was mistaken for Neku In-Universe.
  • Large Ham: While Nico's voice acting can be pretty good, both his usual voice and some of the voices he gives to characters have quite a large amount of ham.
    Nico: "ULTIMATE DEMON POWEEEER!"
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: If Nico has played several games in a series when playing sequels, he'll often spoil games from previous games in the series. Heck, sometimes he even does this when playing other games.
  • Man of a Thousand Voices: In every video series, Nico attempts to give each character a different voice. Over time, certain voices have become recognizable among subscribers and are reused for different games, though Nico has continued coming up with new voices as he sees fit.
    • For details on these voices, see the Characters page. Then realize that that is only a small FRACTION of his voices, albeit his most notable ones.
  • Mythology Gag: In every mainline Danganronpa Let's Play the thumbnail of the first episode is always a front shot of the new mascot of the game, (Monokuma for Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Monomi/Usami for Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair and Monotaro for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony) The episode 29 thumbnail of DRV3 has a front shot of Monokuma in a bow and a flower to mimic Monomi. The episode is also called 'Hopeful Paradise?', similar to the title of the first episode of Danganronpa 2. This is because in both episodes, the casts of each game enter a Virtual World, though in V3 it's stated from the start.
  • Mr. Imagination: Nico has a habit of making up and inserting wacky scenarios to any given scene he's playing through. It's to the point where he's basically saying his own Fantasy Sequences out loud.
    • The Gundham voice is used for hammy Chuunibyou characters.
  • No Indoor Voice: The Ishimaru/Phoenix voice. Like the characters this voice was inspired by, it is loud, aggressive, and intense.
  • Oh, Crap!: Basically his reactions in his Kingdom Hearts playthrough, mixed with Fangirl, when he meets and fights Final Fantasy characters like Leon (Squall), Cloud, and Sephiroth.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Nico admits that he has a hard time letting go of first impressions. If a character's earliest actions rubs him the wrong way, then he will never warm up the character no matter how kind or harmless they are in the end.
  • Overly Long Gag: He spends half an hour trolling Dr. Cortex over his crystals.
  • Precision F-Strike: Any heated or surprising moment of a game is bound to prompt an F-bomb from Nico.
  • Prepare to Die: When he's all set to fight a boss, he often says "You're going to die today!"
  • Previously on…: Part of his signature intro, although it's rarely done seriously.
  • Quit Your Whining: Delivers a sympathetic but firm version of this trope to Dimitri in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, following Chapter 11's reveal of the Flame Emperor being Edelgard, who Dimitri thinks was responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur.
    Dimitri, man, you... you've got to become a king at some point. You've got to keep your shit together. Got to keep your cool.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons:
    • Another form of Nico's Ultimate Bullshit powers, where he correctly deduces what a twist will be in a way that makes little actual sense. For instance, in Ace Attorney Investigations 2, he guesses that Simon Keyes is the mastermind based on the assumption that he is Isaac Dover's son because of his memory of their hair color. In actuality, Simon's hair is red while Dover's is brown, and Simon turns out to be Dane Gustavia's son instead, but Nico was right about him being the mastermind.
    • In Kingdom Hearts χ, Nico guesses that Terra, Aqua, and Ventus are among the Dandelions, the young Keyblade wielders chosen to survive the end of the world. As many Picky Penguins pointed out in the comments, this would be completely impossible, since χ takes place hundreds of years before Birth by Sleep. The next day, the debut trailer for Union χ revealed that Ventus was a Dandelion after all. The fanbase still isn't sure how that's possible, but the lesson is clear: never doubt Nico's Ultimate Bullshit powers.
    • He also predicts in Danganronpa V3 that because of Miu's plan to kill someone, Gonta tried to make sure that didn't happen, but in doing so, Gonta accidentally killed her. In actuality, Gonta found out the apparent state of the outside world, and he thought it was best to Mercy Kill everybody because of how awful it was.
    • In AI: The Somnium Files, Nico guesses that the main character, Kaname Date, was the original Cyclops Killer, based on all of the "obvious" hints dropped throughout the game (like jokes about Date being the killer, or those off-hand comments about Aiba administering medicine to Date, which Nico correctly interpreted to keep his violent tendencies in check), which led to his theory that he was captured, had his mind wiped, and was hired onto ABIS. It turns out that Date himself wasn't the Cyclops Killer after all, but is revealed to be inhabiting the body of the real killer, Saito Sejima, this whole time after Saito used the psync machine to swap bodies with Date, whose true identity is Prisoner #89, and go on a second killing spree. That medicine Aiba was constantly administering to Date? It was to counter Saito's brain disorder, which causes him to feel pleasure when killing people.
  • Sanity Slippage: Nico’s gradual descent into raging madness….otherwise known as his Dark Souls 2 LP.
    • As a highlight, Nico is reduced to a broken shell when he faces Darklurker, one of the optional bosses in DS 2.
  • Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Nico mimicking explosions and other sound effects is especially common.
  • Screaming at Squick: When Pearl channeled Mia Fey for the first time, Nico was understandably grossed out, enough for his screaming to cut to his screaming.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In his Danganronpa V3 LP, he left his own room upon seeing Kokichi's new Nightmare Face out of pure terror.
  • Shout-Out: In Episode 12 of the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 LP, Nico talks about the infamous voice clips of the Ardanian Soldiers, specifically "singing" along with the in-game battle music to the tune of "The Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Battle Theme But You Won't Forget It".
  • Simpleton Voice: The "Hagakure voice" is designated exclusively to idiotic, or otherwise incompetent/wimpy characters.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: Cusses in regular intervals, often making mention of "horse shit."
  • Smash Cut: Often done following some of his more ridiculous or nonsensical tangents and edits, interrupting the video with a black screen and test tone before returning to the game.
  • The Snack Is More Interesting: During the No More Heroes livestreams, he acts completely indifferent during the explanation of Jeanne's Dark and Troubled Past, focusing more on his food, something both himself and his chat Lampshade afterwards.
  • Squee:
    • Nico is prone to doing this in his Kingdom Hearts LPs when he meets characters from Final Fantasy as allies or enemies. He is especially thrilled when he finds out Auron, by far his favorite character out of the whole franchise, temporarily joins his party in Kingdom Hearts II. He also freaks out when he does the special match in the Colosseum for the first time in Kingdom Hearts and discovers it's a one-on-one against none other than Sephiroth.
    • In Danganronpa V3 Nico gets positively giddy when he gets to the post-game and does the love hotel event with Kaede in Salmon Mode especially on the implication that Kaede's ideal perception of Shuichi was just him as himself and that they had sex afterwards. He goes so far as to call it "the best thing to ever happen in this let's play", as he is a big supporter of that shipping and was bummed that he didn't get to see it happen in the main game.
    • Over the course of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, he develops an absolute crush on Dimitri, and reacts with utter glee at his dorky moments. Understandably, this tapers down a bit once Dimitri begins to unravel.
  • Stunned Silence: During the "Loathing" cutscene in Fire Emblem: Three Houses (AKA the one where Dimitri goes berserk upon seeing who's under the Flame Emperor mask), it takes Nico until about halfway through before he manages to offer any commentary on what's happening. Even then, it takes a while before he moves from "oh god" and "holy shit" to something coherent.
    • After Riona says "I just can't see myself dating a black guy!"
  • Super Gullible: With so many series recommendations to go through, Nico often has to trust what picky penguins tell him about games and shows. At times, this means Nico may take a joke or sarcastic comment as fact, creating misconceptions that range from hilarious to cringe-worthy. Examples of this include (but are not limited to):
    • Nico thinking the infamous horror anime Higurashi is a hentai.
    • Nico thinking Disgaea has little to no story.
    • His stream commenters exploit this in VA-11 HALL-A, saying "X character is a guy" when they aren't, just to fuck around with him (since they know that Nico is always tripped up by such reveals).
    • That there are only three party members in Ni no Kuni.
    • Nico thinking that Kid Icarus: Uprising is a first-person shooter.
    • Nico being convinced that you can get some cool cooking ingredients by attacking the Cuccos in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
    • Nico thinking the entirety of Tales Series is generic based only on the first two hours of Tales of Vesperia.
    • Fans told Nico how to avoid "spoilers" for the DLC case of Spirit of Justice. He complied, only to find that the surprise character was Larry Butz (a character Nico isn't particularly fond of).
    • He was fooled completely by Miriam's "Paris" excuse Explanation, despite being several hours in the game and should already know what Shardbinders are by this point.
    • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Nico recruits Caspar in his Blue Lions route playthrough due to commenters saying that he's a very good unit. While this may be true to some extent, the real reason for some to have suggested Caspar to be recruited is the fact that Caspar and Mercedes have a paralogue post-Time Skip, which brings the Death Knight plot thread to its conclusion (especially in the Blue Lions route), and it can't be unlocked if Caspar is not recruited. Saying that he's a good unit may have been used as a way to get Nico to recruit him without spoiling him on future content.
  • The Stinger: In the past, some of his videos ended with "And now some final words from Bernie the Dog", as Bernie plays around on-camera and Nico ad-libs as her.
  • Tears of Joy: Nico had shed manly tears after he defeats Darklurker, an optional boss in Dark Souls 2.
    • To put in context: Nico had already been turned into a broken shell during a very bad losing streak against the Darklurker. Once he finally lands the death blow against the boss he cries out in victory.
    • His reaction to discovering Sora is the final DLC character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Tempting Fate: Whether it earns him a butt-kicking from the opponent or a jump scare by some horrifying creature, Nico has a habit of doing this from time to time.
    • The Cavern of Remembrance in episode 15 of Kingdom Hearts II. He admits to this in editing that he should have cut his losses much earlier.
    • In episode 2 of his Slender Let’s Play, he starts singing and says "See? It’s not as scary this way, is it?" This doesn’t last long.
    • He starts thinking he's overleveled in Persona 5 and raises the difficulty for the boss. Cue a Total Party Kill by a full-powered "March of the Piggy".
    • Throughout the entirety of Spirit of Justice LP Nico jokes about Larry being gallery member, cause he got downgraded to the point of not being allowed to star in cases themselves. Guess what happens in DLC case.
  • Thing-O-Meter: Starting with Chain of Memories, each Kingdom Hearts game has at least one:
    • Chain of Memories had a counter for every time Donald says "Wak!"
    • Kingdom Hearts II had a death counter and a counter for every time the names "Sora, Donald, and Goofy" are mentioned in that order.
    • 358/2 Days had a counter for every time Axel says any variation of "Got it memorized?"
    • The death counter returns in Birth by Sleep, now made out of blood.
    • Also for Birth by Sleep, we now get the "Ven Counter" for every time in Ventus's story that he introduces himself by saying, "Call me Ven!"
    • In Dream Drop Distance, we get the "SoraxRiku" counter, for every Ho Yay moment between the two.invoked
    • In Breath of the Wild, we got the return of the classic death counter.
    • The majority of Nico's livestreams have a death counter as well, if the game he's playing is particularly hard, at least.
    • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has a counter for every time he accidentally steps into the water.
    • The Great Ace Attorney Adventures has two counters. One counter involves Naruhodo stating "Asougi.." and the other one is the characters asking "What Do You Mean?" as well as any variation of that question.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: P.F. Chang's.
  • Undying Loyalty: Several Picky Penguins towards Nico. Nico also returns the favor in kind, often making mention and paying tribute to his loyal fans for sticking with him, such as his "Comment of the Day" and "Fan Art of the Day" segments.
  • Unfazed Everyman: Nico when adapting to weirdness in the games he plays, but more notably when accepting the insanity of roleplays and bizarre conversations in his comment sections.
  • Unusual Euphemism: According to Nico, Komaeda's penis is exclusively referred to as his throbbing "hope."
    • He refers to having sex as "making babies"; not so unusual, but he has once referred to kissing as "making mouth babies".
    • Describing one pornstar's work as "an outdoor barbecue" with "tacos, hot dogs, and sprinklers"
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Nico has failed multiple times to notice game characters disguised as the opposite gender until moments before the reveal. Scratching the surface includes Lukako (Steins;Gate), Chihiro (Danganronpa), and Naoto (Persona 4 Golden). He has lampshaded this several times over the course of his videos.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Falls victim to this a couple times in the early parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, accusing Jonathan of Honor Before Reason by asking Dio to swear on his father's honor and Dio of Complexity Addiction by planning to kill Jonathan with the Stone Mask instead of a knife, only for the two to immediately reveal they have logical reasons for these actionsnote .
  • Yandere: In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Nico often has Byleth/Bizzlead murder anyone who dares to criticize his greatest crush, Dimitri, or any of the other Blue Lions like Dedue or Annette. It also starts going the other way once Dimitri's dark side begins to show, with Nico's ad-libs having Dimitri do increasingly violent things to (be with) Bizzlead.
    Dimitri: "I will slit your throat and fuck your remains."
    Bizzlead: "Ooh, kinky~"
  • You Monster!: When a villain does something incredibly heinous, Nico tends to call them a "demon" or "demon lord."
    • If it's a female character that does this, like Dahlia Hawthorne, he tends to call them "Demon McBitchtits."
    • Also tends to use the phrase for extremely powerful things, evil or not. Gets a little bit strange in the Steins;Gate LP, after Lukako performs an exorcism on Okabe.
      Okabe: Oh my god, I feel sweet demon power flowing through my veins! I mean, wait, no, not flowing through my veins. Because it's gone now.
  • Your Head Asplode: In Danganronpa V3, this happens to Nico after Kokichi shows off his final and most horrifying nightmare face yet.
    Nico (ad-libbing as Kokichi): "MEEE—"
    Nico (in his regular voice): OOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH— *SPLAT*.....*THUMP*

"Until next time, guys, stay classy."

 
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Video Example(s):

Xion's Light Beams

Keep an eye on Sora's HP when Xion's blue beams hit him. Each one reduces its maximum capicity when they land. Nico only notices a little ways in. He doesn't take it well.

Example of:
Maximum HP Reduction

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Xion's Light Beams

Keep an eye on Sora's HP when Xion's blue beams hit him. Each one reduces its maximum capicity when they land. Nico only notices a little ways in. He doesn't take it well.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (5 votes)

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Main / MaximumHPReduction

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