Video Game / Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

aka: Henry Hatsworth

"Good show!"

A 2009 Puzzle Platformer/Action-Adventure game developed by EA Tiburon. Otherwise known as The Most English Game In The World.

The protagonist, Henry Hatsworth, #1 member of the Pompous Adventurers' Club, is on a mission to obtain the legendary Golden Suit created by the Gentleman, who could control the Puzzle Realm with it in order to obtain that world's treasure. He discovers the first piece, the Golden Hat, resulting in the re-opening of the Puzzle Realm. With the aid of his assistant, Cole, he must travel all over the world in order to collect every piece of the suit and seal the Puzzle Realm once and for all. However, he's not the only one seeking the pieces; his Arch-Enemy, Leopold Charles Anthony Weasleby the Third, has the same goal. And he won't let Hatsworth succeed so easily...

The game brilliantly combines puzzle games (think Panel de Pon) and platformers into one. Compare Puzzle Quest, which did the same with RPGs. Has a Spiritual Successor, Monster Tale.

Has a developing Character sheet here.

This game provides examples of:

• Action Bomb: A variation of the game's goomba, but coloured red. It dies in one hit (even from the weakest projectile), and will die harmlessly if you can kill it before it notices you. Once it does however, it will set itself on fire and sprint full-tilt towards you. Its explosion also hurts any enemies around it, and if you can get out of the (admittedly large) explosion radius, they can be Helpful Mooks. Otherwise, they're Goddamn Bats.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: The giant fish in 3-1. Used again a few times in the fifth world.
• Adventurer's Club: The Pompous Adventurers' Club.
• A God Am I: Weasleby claims he's a God after he obtains the Master Piece.
• All There in the Manual: A number of the more advanced moves (such as "charging up" a projectile attack by shooting it and then making a chain of Match Threes in the Puzzle Realm before it hits its target) are only discussed in the manual. Lord help you if you buy the game used and without a manual. It doesn't even count as Guide Dang It!, because the GameFAQs community doesn't seem to think the game worthy of providing a proper level-by-level walkthrough.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The "lyrics" to Lance Banson's theme are random Italian musical terms (such as allegro, strozzo, and fortissimo) mixed with some Italian-sounding gibberish.
• Autobots, Rock Out!:
  • Whenever Hatsworth enjoys his Tea Time.
  • The Final Boss theme counts as well
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Some of the secret levels use this.
• Berserk Button: Lady D doesn't like being rejected. Also, don't try taking the Captain's shoes.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The second half of Mysteria moves on from the Jungle Japes setting and into a spooky swamp, and eventually a graveyard.
• Black Widow: Lady D. A twisted mixture of a wedding bride and a funeral goer all in one. She hangs around a cemetery in the middle of a swamp, and shoots skulls at any unfortunate joe who comes across her.
• Blofeld Ploy: A meta example, the game itself pulls this on the player. At the start of the first secret level of World 5, you'll hear a familiar "wrong" buzzer when you first step on a particular floor tile, activating a Smashing Hallway Trap of Doom... that crushes a nearby Mook. This sequence is there to show you what trapped floor tiles look like and what they do, because the next time they show up, the game won't be so kind...
• Bonus Stage: Within a few levels are portals that take you to these stages. They're really good for getting loads of currency (which will serve the player well if they want all upgrades).
• Boss Remix: Weasleby's battle theme, Dirty Tricks, is a sped up, clockwork remix of his Leitmotif, Conversational Unpleasantries.
• Bottomless Pits: As to be expected, the game uses them every so often. It's also one of the reasons why you'll hate Tealand.
• Brits Love Tea: Henry Hatsworth is fond of his tea. It even allows him to summon a mecha to destroy everything in sight.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The secret levels in this game make the normal levels seem easy. You'll need a lot of patience during the Puzzle Realm and Tealand's secret levels.
• Bullet Hell: Tealand introduces these small capsule enemies that fire a spreadshot. The final boss also has an attack that does this as well.
• Catchphrase: "Good show!"
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase
• Clothes Make the Superman: The Golden Suit gives you a wide variety of abilities, such as a Wall Jump or Super Not-Drowning Skills.
• Cool Gate: They pop up occasionally, taking the player to a bonus segment with lots of gems.
• Creepy Cemetery: Level 1-5 in Mysteria. Also Lady D's favorite hangout.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: A to Attack, B to Jump, Y for Special Attack, X for puzzle mode. You get used to it fairly quickly, but the first few minutes are a pain when you want to jump and attack instead.
• Defeat Equals Friendship: Lance Banson shows up as the shopkeeper after Cole is kidnapped in order to pay off debts, though Henry fails to actually recognize him.
• Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: The pipe is also enchanted and lets Henry breathe underwater.
• Double Unlock: In order to use any item (up to and including 1-ups), you have to collect the item on the top screen which then turns into a block on the bottom, then match-three that same block in the Puzzle Realm when you want to activate it. It's not as annoying as most examples of this trope though, because the second step in the double-unlock is rather easy.
• Down the Drain: Good luck on 5-1, the sewer level. You're gonna need it.
• Dual Boss: The second half of 4-6 becomes this once Weaselby summons a green clone of himself to assist him.
• Dungeon Bypass: 5-2 is a difficult level, thankfully you can wall-jump up a nearby wall at the start of the level. This allows you to skip the first enemy ambush, one of the hardest in the game.
• Elevator Action Sequence: The last map in Chapter 5-3 has you riding an elevator up to the treasure at the end of the level. In practice, they're essentially four Inescapable Ambushes in a row.
• Floating Continent: World 2, Skysland
• Forced Level-Grinding: You will have to do this in order to purchase the melee and ranged attack powerups and other upgrades. Unless...
• Foreshadowing: It's subtle but there are several hints that Cole is actually Weasleby. In the beginning of the game during Weasleby's first appearance, Cole is jokingly referred to as a weasel, Weasleby's laugh is Cole's pitched down, Weasleby is absent during World 5 except for the final boss fight and both he and Cole are the main protagonist's Evil Counterpart.

• Gentleman Adventurer: The titular character provides the trope image. Weasleby is also one and therefore, Cole. And they both belong to a club specifically for gentlemen adventurers. Suffice to say, this game breathes this trope.
• The Goomba: Little wall-eyed blue monsters who move very slowly. So pathetic, you really have to try to get hit by these guys. There is also a red-colored variation... that set themselves on fire and ''explode''.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Golden Suit pieces. While most of them are obtained from defeating the game's bosses, some can only be found in secret levels.
• Guide Dang It!: Finding the secret areas. One of Alantis's secret exits requires you to go through lava.
• Hailfire Peaks: Skysland (Floating Continent and Gangplank Galleon) and Atlantis Atlantia (Lethal Lava Land, Underground Level, and Under the Sea). To a lesser extent, Mysteria (Jungle Japes, Bubblegloop Swamp, and Big Boo's Haunt).
• Harder Than Hard: If you though the game was hard, Gentleman's Mode makes the game even harder. Enemies hit harder and take more punishment while you have less time in Puzzle Mode due to a faster Puzzle Meter. You'll need every last upgrade...
• Hard Mode Perks: In Gentleman's Mode, the puzzle meter drains much faster and the puzzle itself raises much quicker, which potentially makes enemy blocks appear more easier. This would be a total disadvantage, but considering you can easily build puzzle meter energy back through a very quick and easy melee combo on an enemy, you can chain together combos much faster and build up the Super Meter really fast. Which means easier use of special weapons and potentially even more Tea Time.
• Hearts Are Health: Your Life Meter is measured by these and in two seperate types. Silver Hearts make Hatsworth younger, but if he loses his silver hearts and falls into the red hearts, Hatsworth loses his youth and turns back into his normal, older form. Hatsworth also loses a good chunk of his Super Meter. Filling the Super Meter back to the yellow restores Hatsworth's youth and puts the Silver Hearts back into the life meter.
• Heart Container: You can buy these in the shop. Extra Red hearts extend the standard life meter, while Extra Silver Hearts let Hatsworth stay younger longer.
• Helpful Mook: At times: a number of enemies have abilities that cause the puzzle screen to fill with blocks. The idea is to push enemies to the top, and put Hatsworth in danger. The bonus? If there aren't any other enemies, they'll fill the screen with perfectly harmless blocks, which the player can then use to fill his super-meter bizarrely fast. It's really more like "Continue Harming Me" than "Stop Helping Me".
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The New Game Plus difficulty mode is called "Gentleman's Mode".
• Inescapable Ambush: All the time. Oftentimes the game will use the ambush to introduce a new enemy type: first to give you a one-on-one fight against it, and then adding it to another group of enemies you've fought before.
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!: Hatsworth's Robot Suit. The final boss is also a giant mech.
• Interface Screw: What separates the bosses from the mini-bosses is that the former can interfere with the puzzle world itself. For example, Lance Banson and Weasleby can summon an anchor that will pull the pieces up if you don't do anything about it.
• Jungle Japes: Mysteria, the first world.
• Lampshade Hanging: Done on several occasions.
• Last Lousy Point: On your first playthrough, you can only complete the game 98 percent. To earn 100% Completion, you must complete the story and all 10 bonus levels again on Gentleman's Mode.
• MacGuffin: The Golden Suit. Later on, the Master Piece.
• Magical Land: The Puzzle Realm
• Marathon Level: World 5-4.
• Match-Three Game
• Money Spider: The monsters drop gems upon defeat. You can shake more out of them by juggling them after you've killed them.
• Mook Maker: There are two enemies that do this. One will create enemy blocks in the puzzle, then turn itself into a block, and push the puzzle upwards so the enemy blocks can escape more easily. Another enemy spits bubbles containing tiny enemies that are difficult to hit, and when you kill it, it's own enemy block will turn nearby normal blocks into enemy blocks.
• Mundane Made Awesome: TEA TIME!
• New Game Plus: Gentleman's Mode, a rare example of New Game Plus actually making the game harder. You have less time to spend in Puzzle Mode and the puzzle raises itself at a much faster rate. Have fun dealing with the enemies returning as Demonic Spiders!
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Hatsworth searches for the Golden Suit pieces in hopes of finding treasure. Upon picking up the Golden Hat, he breaks the seal on the Puzzle Realm, causing an imbalance between the two worlds. Oops.
• Nintendo Hard: If the Puzzle Realm doesn't anger you then Tealand certainly will. The game can (and will) make you suffer through every last bit of it. Do NOT attempt the secret levels unless you have a lot of health, upgrades, and are very good at maintaining your temper.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Weasleby's a fair bit younger than Henry. Cole definitely is.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: The Puzzle Realm monsters that attack Hatsworth are definitely weird. We have skull-capped imps, monsters wearing pink hair bows and ballet tutus, orange-colored creatures that carry smaller enemies in their dome heads...
• Power Armor: Under your control. During Henry's Super Mode. Summoned by tea.
• Quicksand Sucks: Some levels in Mysteria have this. If you are completely submerged in it, you will actually take damage over time, presumably due to drowning. If you have the Golden Pipe, on the other hand, you won't take damage.
• Quintessential British Gentleman: You don't get more British than Henry himself. Although in his case, he is also British in that they invented heavy metal.
• Recurring Boss: Weasleby takes a very Robotnik-styled approach and is fought no less than five times throughout the game as a mini-boss. He's even the boss of the Puzzle Realm and again in Tealand.
• Remixed Level: Used in 5-5, the last regular level in the game. You have to go through a short segment based on a previous level, which always ends in a arena gauntlet.
• Robotic Reveal: Weasleby in 5-6. He twitches a bit, then his head falls off and Cole jumps out of his body - he was just a robot controlled by Cole.
• Rule of Cool: TEA TIME!
• Scenery Porn: Lots of well-detailed and colourful background artwork and spritework abounds.
• Shout-Out:
  • This game felt a bit like a homage to Scrooge McDuck and DuckTales with original "human" (cartoonish) characters in place of the Ducks. Henry Hatsworth is a rich elderly adventurer with more skill than men a third his age who goes around the world searching for valuable treasures, much like Scrooge (the only difference being that he's British). The main antagonist (until the "twist" comes along) is Weasleby, a foppish and arrogant dandy with glasses who probably inherited all his money, much like Scrooge villain John D. Rockerduck (also known as Robax). It's interesting that Scrooge always wears a top hat and Rockerduck a bowler hat, while for Hatsworth and Weasleby their headgear is reversed. Surely coincidence, but there's a similarity there.
  • To Eddie Izzard, in the soundtrack ("Cake or Death?"), no less.
  • "Weaseljuice" is also one to Beetlejuice.
• Speaking Simlish: But very clearly British-accented Simlish, of course.
• Spikes of Doom: All over the place.
• Stock British Phrases:
  • Henry's Simlish has "eh wots" and such in it, and his catchphrase is "Good Show!" And when he dies he says "Poppycock!"
  • Cole gets into the act too, with "Righto!", "Jiminy!" and "Guvnor."
• Super Mode: Your Robot Suit, which can only be used if your Super Meter is completely full.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: The Golden Pipe allows you to breathe underwater. It also works in the quicksand in earlier parts of the game.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: One type of the Puzzle Monsters wears a skirt and a ribbon.
• Transforming Mecha: Hatsworth's Mecha was originally supposed to transform from Big Ben.
• Under the Sea / Lethal Lava Land: World 3 alters between these two.
• Villain Song: Banson's Aria, with an impressive mish-mash of Italian and faux-Italian lyrics. Some of the lyrics are even musical terms.
• Wham Line: Cole: "Your rival all along has been... ME!"
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After defeating the final boss, the credits show what happened after Henry completed the Gentleman's Suit.
  • The Puzzle Realm was safely sealed away.
  • Henry returned the Golden Hat to where he found it.
  • Lance Banson was still revered by the ladies despite his baldness.
  • Lady D ended up marrying Weasleby's robotic suit (maybe the real Weasleby?).
  • The Captain and his Nurse went off to the Himalayas.
  • Cole survived the final battle and stole the Golden Hat for himself. However, him already being a child... let's just say he Didn't Think This Through.

---