Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask is a turn-based RPG for the PlayStation 2 published and developed by Bandainote , based on the Inuyasha anime.
The game centers on Canon Foreigner Kururugi (whose gender is chosen by the player) an Ordinary High-School Student who, while helping their father prepare for a festival, is suddenly whisked away to Feudal Japan. Soon after arriving, s/he learns to harness the power of the Shikigami and falls in with Inuyasha's group, whom s/he teams up with in order to find a way home, which seems to lie with Naraku and his new ally, the mysterious Utsugi...
Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: As is the norm for the franchise's video game adaptions, Shippo is a full-fledged fighter in this game who kick just as much ass as the rest of the team.
- All Webbed Up: The game's first boss is a spider demon, so of course this trope comes into play.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted, every party member who's present will always participate in a fight. This is one of the factors that contributes to how easy the game is. Not that the parts where you're stuck with only one or two characters are actually tough.
- Audience Surrogate: Kururugi, and a rather awesome example, at that. He/she quickly becomes very useful thanks to the Shikigami powers and is integral in solving some of the major problems that come up (for example, one of his/her powers is essential to taking away enemy barriers so attacks will actually damage them). He/she's the "player character". Not to mention that given that Kururugi can "hook up" with one of the members of the group, he/she's also a "fanboy/fangirl surrogate". Although that last part's kind of spoiled during the ending when Kururugi is sent back to the modern era...unless it's Kagome's ending, since of course Kagome lives in the modern era as well, so they can meet up pretty quickly.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Utsugi... and Naraku, of course.
- Cardboard Prison: Early on, due to wanted posters put up by Kagura, Kururugi is arrested and thrown in prison. S/he escapes by using his/her Shikigami powers to blow out a wall.
- Combat Medic: Kagome. She's the one character in the party with innate healing abilities, while her bow and spiritual powers let her fight just as well as everyone else.
- Combination Attack: All party members can perform team moves in battle.
- Crutch Character: Sesshomaru, during his brief stint as a Guest-Star Party Member, takes the place of the entire standard party and is fully capable of slaughtering his way through anything you encounter without breaking a sweat.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Sesshomaru, who Kururugi briefly travels with one of the times he/she's been split up from the others. Assuming you meet some conditions, he'll also join up with the female Kururugi against the final boss.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Thanks to Naraku and Utsugi's manipulations, Kururugi is accosted on two separate occasions by first human villagers and then Koga's pack, leading to Inuyasha and co. helping his/her clear her name.
- Hopeless Boss Fight:
- The party's first battle with Naraku. Thanks to his barrier, he doesn't take any damage at all, and then takes the entire party out in one attack.
- Late in the game, there's a segment where Kururugi has separated him/herself from the rest of the group and attempts to stop a demon that's been menacing some villagers. The first form can be defeated without much trouble, but the boss then reveals its true strength and will automatically finish him/her in one hit. Fortunately, the rest of the gang comes in to save the day, and then the boss fight resumes for real.
- Improbable Use of a Weapon: One of the team attacks in-game is Kagome using Miroku's staff as a makeshift arrow.
- Improbable Weapon User: Shippo can use his toy top as a deadly weapon by growing it to enormous size and smashing it onto an enemy's head.
- It Only Works Once: Kururugi learns a technique that lets them destroy Naraku's barrier. This works the first time, but the second time they fight Naraku after learning the technique, he's got a different barrier that's immune to the technique.
- Level-Up at Intimacy 5: Picking romance options for a specific character will help unlock new Co-op techniques.
- Useless Useful Spell: Sango's Poison Powder. It doesn't work on bosses, it only deals damage on the target's turn, and the damage it inflicts is less than if she'd used one of her other attacks (like her boomerang). Due to how large the party is, most combat won't last for more than a few rounds and it's fairly easy to take down a non-boss enemy in one round of attacks.
- Wimp Fight: At the beginning of the game, before finding his/her Shikigami powers, Kururugi's only option in combat is to attack by running up to an enemy and shoving them with both hands while looking away (Kaname) or punch them (Michiru). This does Scratch Damage, but fortunately Inuyasha shows up almost immediately to keep things from turning into Early Game Hell.
