Recap / Adventure Time S 2 E 16 Guardians Of Sunshine

Fed up with constantly losing to a boss in a video game, Finn and Jake enter the game to take care of him themselves.

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Tropes

• Art Shift: While Finn and Jake are inside the "Guardians of Sunshine" game, the animation switches to low-poly 3D computer graphics.
• Big "NO!": Jake lets one out when Finn is defeated by Bouncy Bee in the game world.
• Chekhov's Gun: The combo move from "Guardians of Sunshine". Finn fails it at the beginning of the episode trying to beat Sleepy Sam. By the end of the episode, Finn uses the combo move to defeat the now materialized Sleepy Sam.
• Cyber Green: The titular video game has a fairly limited color palette consisting mostly of shades of green. Even the enemies that follow Finn and Jake out of the game retain a palette strictly of shades of green once in the real world.
• Gainax Ending: The episode ends with a "Game Over" screen interrupting BMO's attempt to use the "combo move" against Finn and Jake. Note that Finn and Jake had already escaped the video game by that point.
• Inside A Talking Video Game System: Finn and Jake are sucked into Beemo's video game Guardians of Sunshine
• Medium Awareness: Jake stretches up to the top of the screen to try to grab the "bomba", which sends the game into an error state and kicks them back into the real world.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Finn and Jake when they realise that they have hurt BMO, and then when the game bosses escape into the real world.
• Refugee from TV Land: The bosses follow Finn and Jake out of the game to menace BMO and the rest of Ooo.
• Ret-Gone: What BMO does to Sleepy Sam and was about to do so to Finn and Jake.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Finn is singing inside the game, his eyes and mouth turn into a Pong display.
  • The game uses several distinctive sound effects from Mega Man (Classic).
• Smart Bomb: Within the game, the "bomba".
• Title Drop: Guardians of Sunshine, which is also the title of the video game.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: A non-videogame example. Finn and Jake find that the game is even harder and more frightening than when seen from inside, especially since they can't select weapons from inside it.
  • Also, most video game point systems have items worth only one point. When translated to the real world, that means you would only acquire a measly one penny, as Jake founds out.
• Worse with Context:
  Jake: Aw man, don't kill us! We don't have extra lives!
  Sleepy Sam: Oh wait. Hold up, guys. Check it out! Sunshine!
  Sleepy Sam: Oh boy, that feels good!
  Hunny Bunny: Alright! See ya later, Sam! [Hunny Bunny and Bouncy Bee exit.]
  Finn: [towards Sleepy Sam] You mean, that's it? You're not gonna kill us?
  Sleepy Sam: [chuckles] Of course not. The game's over; we won! All we wanted was the sunshine. And to kill that computer that's been imprisoning us for so many years.
  Finn: ...what?
  [Scene switches to treehouse, where Hunny Bunny and Bouncy Bee have BMO in their clutches.]
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Finn and Jake assume that they will die for real if they run out of lives in the game, although fortunately this is never tested.