The wave where it all began.
Epic Battle Fantasy 1, originally known as Epic Battle Fantasy in the title, is the very first entry developed by Matt Roszak. He is credited as "Kupo707", but is now known as "Kupo Games".
The plot for the original Epic Battle Fantasy game is literally non-existent: you play as Matt, a Magic Knight-type character in pirate gear who uses "Bushido" (and a rather impressive collection of specialized swords and other weapons) along with his teammate, a Fanservice-y Red Mage named Natalie (or Natz for short). You fight wave after wave of enemies with the occasional stop at a shop to buy items.
Play Epic Battle Fantasy 1 on Newgrounds here
or Kongregate here..
Tropes specific to Epic Battle Fantasy 1:
- Adorable Evil Minions: Kittens, slimes, and bushes show up throughout the series as mooks. This game has only slimes, tho.
- Affectionate Parody: Of Final Fantasy and JRPGs in general.
- All There in the Manual: Matt and Natalie are only referred to as "P1" and "P2" in gameplay; their names can be seen in the art gallery, along with the names of all the foes.
- Animesque: The art style makes this obvious.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Catastrophe summon in the first game, which most people recommend using once in the entire game, to deal the last blow to the final boss, because it nearly kills Natalie when used.
- Bag of Sharing: Items are put in a single section of the inventory, and either character can access it.
- Captain Ersatz: As with Brawl Royale before it, the game blatantly used characters from other franchises, which had to be redesigned and renamed for the EBF Collection rerelease. Goku just got renamed Roku. Presumably, he was already radically different enough that the name change was all he really needed.
- Charged Attack: The Mecha's Beam Cannon and Goku's Spirit Bomb. Definitely defend against the latter because Goku uses a physical attack immediately after Spirit Bomb lands!
- Continuity Nod: Zombie Goku carries a scar from his previous battle with Matt in Brawl Royale (although the scar is much smaller than you would expect for a guy who got perfectly bisected).
- Crossover Cameo: Natalie's summons are all cameos from other game franchises — namely, Pichu and Registeel from Pokémon, Canti from FLCL and Catastrophe from Golden Sun. Regice and Regirock also appear as a pair of bosses. All of themnote are replaced by Expies in the EBF Collection version of the game.
- Downer Ending: Zombie Goku's death explosion not only nearly kills the heroes, but also severely devastates the world. The second game then has you dealing with the fallout.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Instead of being a traditional RPG adventure, the first two games were "arena"-style, where you fight continuous waves of enemies and bosses. There's no leveling (characters start with max stats), no equipment other than Matt's swords, and a lot less spells (due to the different formula, there was no need for multi-tiered spells), also Limit Breaks, an Enemy Scan, or a save feature.
- While the series is known for being Reference Overdosed, this game took it to another level by directly using characters and music from other works. Starting from the sequel, which was significantly more professional, these characters either disappeared entirely or had their roles replaced (for example, NoLegs replaced Mog as the random healing item spell). Possibly as a result of this, the first game doesn't have much connection to the rest plot-wise, with the only relevant event from it being Zombie Goku's death explosion, which kicks off EBF2's plot (Zombie Goku himself goes unmentioned).
- Summon Magic is in a weird situation: It is basically another form of regular magic for Natz.
- Fake Difficulty: Can become really hard if one party member dies, since you only have one left.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Played straight with Natalie's Black Magic spells.
- Game Over: It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin, as there's no way to save; no checkpoints, no Save Scumming, nothing. The pose Matt is in on the Game Over screen is likely to be shared by you if this happens near the end.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Unless you've checked the art gallery (or have seen Roszak's other works), you will have no idea that Zombie Goku is the final boss of this game.
- Interface Spoiler: You can see entirely what's ahead by looking through the art gallery.
- King Mook: Giant slimes and the Beholder to the slimes and eyeballs.
- Life Meter: The players' are at the bottom of the screen, but enemies' only appear when you hit them, then fade away after a while.
- Magic Potion: Attack and Magic potions boost the eponymous stats when used.
- Mythology Gag: The "Defender and "Mecha" bosses were designed with one of Roszak's earliest games/projects, "Mecha Dress Up".
- Palette Swap: In the first game, there are different colored versions of enemies:
- Crabs: Purple and Red
- What would be called "Eyeballs": Brown◊, Green◊, Purply-Red◊.
- Pinball Points: This game starts with regular attacks doing four figures' worth from the very beginning.
- Random Effect Spell: Mog supplies a random consumable item to be immediately eaten. It may not be useful if it, say, buffs your mage's attack, but in a pinch it becomes the best way to replenish your MP without using expensive or limited magic-replenishing items.
- Randomized Damage Attack: Lucky Star is cheap to cast but deals wildly random damage, ranging from a mere tickle to devastating output for such a skill.
- Retcon: The game ends with a Heroic Sacrifice. The heroes are inexplicably alive and well at the start of the second, although the cutscene text states that they faced "a slow and painful recovery".
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Self-Imposed Challenge: Play as one player, making the run much harder with only one target for the enemies. - Spectral Weapon Copy: Matt's Seiken skill generates a giant sword of light that deals Holy damage.
- Stock RPG Spells: Being a Affectionate Parody of RPGs in general, many examples of this trope and included sub-tropes are present.
- Area of Effect: Both Matt and Natz each have access to attacks that hit the whole enemy party: Matt has Wind Slash, Power Metal (weaker but also heals) and Air Strike (random) and Natalie has Pulsar, which is Non-Elemental in this game.
- Non-Elemental: Natalie's Lucky Star and Pulsar are this, as well as Matt's attacks with select swords.
- Summon Magic: Natalie has four summons available, but they still use MP like any other magic.
- Stock Monsters: Most often played straight, or zig-zagged. The series includes the usual Slimes, poisonous Insects, Mecha-Mooks, The Undead, Golems, Dragons, Things with tentacles and lots of Elementals.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Many enemies, including bosses, explode when killed.
- Sword and Sorcerer: Matt and Natz, the playable characters.
- They Killed Kenny: Goku is the final boss of three different flash animations by Matt Roszak: FF Battle, Brawl Royale, and indeed the first Epic Battle Fantasy. He dies in all three, and is resurrected as an increasingly-deformed zombie in each successive game.
- Vague Hit Points: How much damage an enemy can take can only be determined through manually recording damage numbers and comparing that to the ungradated, temporarily on-screen Life Meter for the enemy.
