and made available for free on Steam on April 15, 2016 after being proposed on Greenlight.The thriving Mediterranean island of Morgana is home to a community of various monsters and creatures. One day, the isle is attacked and plundered by a pirate crew known as Sea Spiders. The peaceful community that lives there is unable to defend itself from the menace, until a professor activates his latest creation: Chelshia, a synthetic chimera. Not only is she a mix of human, golem, harpy and oni, and other Twitter-stated species / beings like mermaid, thanks to her creator, she can also use the DNA of her defeated foes to gain new abilities.
Khimera takes inspiration from the platformer classics of yesterday and today, such as the Mega Man series and the Shantae series, as well as the 8 and 16-bit gaming era, all coated in a cute and humorous package. The game's page on Steam.
A Spin-Off nonogram puzzle game, Khimera: Puzzle Island, was released on Steam on November 30, 2020.
Here she comes:
- 555: The phone number for the lease of the open plot in Ragazza Town, is 555-555-45A9.
- Aerith and Bob: Most characters have normal girl names, such as Amelia and Mimi, then we have Chelshia and Anchovy (who, to be fair, is a living pizza).
- Alliterative Family: Bernadine (older sister) and Bernadette (younger sister), the mayor (revealed in the Harvest Event) and the police officer of the town.
- All There in the Manual: From the KhimeraFacts on Twitter:
- Chelshia has mermaid DNA already, giving her the ability to breathe underwater. The prof thought of everything!, but her mermaid DNA is also mentioned in the hot springs scene in the Harvest Event.
- after Pacifica it's Anchovy, the captain, Serpantina, Doroko then Amelia. Mimi's measurements are a mystery...
- last one: Chelshia's right horn was busted when the prof dropped her body while trying to move it. What a clumsy guy.
- Chelshia has mermaid DNA already, giving her the ability to breathe underwater. The prof thought of everything!
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can earn some costumes for Chelshia, but only the Berserker costume does anything: it makes her a Glass Cannon and awards you medals for clearing each stage with it.
- Animesque: The art style is influenced by anime, and several anime tropes are used and gently parodied.
- Anti-Climactic Unmasking: When the Pumpkin King is unmasked, Chelshia responds:I have no idea who you are.
Pumpkin King: Well that's not a big surprise! I didn't get back into town until just a few days ago!
I make sure never to miss a Harvest Event! The kids love it!
The name's Bernadine! Mayor of Ragazza Town! - Anti-Frustration Features:
- If you die on a stage, you still keep all the secrets and items you found there. And you will die, because the game takes inspiration from Mega Man not only in style and structure.
- If the Boss Rush is getting too hard, you can go back from the room that leads to the fights to the kitchen, and talk to the pirate there to get a complete refill of your life energy. Works always, even when you're at full health.
- You can skip the death screen immediately and jump right back into the action after you die.
- April Fools: In the v3.0 update released in April 1, 2018, the entire game was flipped upside down. Players can push F5 to revert it back to its original orientation, however this visual gag has since been reverted back to normal the day after. For those that still want play the game upside down after the fact, pressing F5 can still flip the screen.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In the hot springs of the Harvest Event, when Chelshia is listing her abilities, it goes:I have improved durability, super strength, double-jointed fingers... air conditioning...
- Autosave: Every time you reach the main map.
- Baffled by Own Biology: If the optional levels are done in chronological order, a cyclops girl in Windy Way rips out her eye, then at Halloween, she notes how surprised she was that it has grown back.
- Benevolent Boss: The Pirate Captain is this to the other girls. On more than one occasion, the other pirates will defend the captain if anyone speaks ill of the Sea Spiders, going as far as saying they were like family.
- Bombardier Mook: Kiran, a Flying Broomstick-using Cute Witch enemy who lobs potions at Chelshia. In the Monster Compendium of Nyazione's notebooks, she's called "Littering Witch" with a Specialty of "Dropping Things".
- Book Ends: The Trading Up sidequest begins with harassing Mouthface into giving you an item, and ends with returning to Mouthface with a voucher for the Lucky Chax Doll.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: The only way to hurt Mimi the mimic when in box form is to push her against the Spikes of Doom covering the two sides of the room... spikes that she herself summoned.
- Boss Rush: The last level before the final confrontation ends with one of these, with a set of very Dr. Wily-esque doors leading to the boss chambers.
- Camera Abuse: When you defeat the final boss, Chelshia starts pummeling her with Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, and hits her so hard that she flies outside the world map and against the screen, cracking it.
- Catching Some Z's: Chelshia is depicted doing so in her headshot for an empty save file.
- Chain of Deals: You can start one by speaking with the NPCs in Ragazza Town. Completing it will give you an item and a Steam achievement.
- Charged Attack: Chelshia's Saucy Shot is basically your Mega Man charged shot, but it tastes like pizza!
- Collision Damage: If Chelshia bumps into an enemy, she gets damaged, and gets a small amount of Mercy Invincibility.
- Continuity Nod: Most of them are nods to previous games by Suits & Sandals.
- In Chelshia's House, four small figures line the bookshelf. They're the bosses in Mandew vs the Forever Rain
- In the toy store in town, an array of dolls of various characters from S&S games are present, including Mandew, the Vista Quest hero, Cakeboy and even Chelshia herself once you beat the game.
- The red bird NPC in town is Mandew vs the Upside Down Machine's goomba, the Faltzite. It will even give you a red pepper, a powerup from the same series in exchange for a rice ball, yet another enemy from... you get the idea.
- The boss of Icy Path, Chibeara, is the main boss monster of the score-attack game, Ice Demon.
- In Ragazza Plains, you can meet the Dark Witch, the final boss of Vista Quest Pocket, in hiding due to her misdeeds in said game. An NPC in town will also mention that Vista Island, where the events of the Vista Quest series unfold, is in fact a real place in Khimera's universe.
- The professor's bio will mention that he had a lab partner that was turned into a wasp-human hybrid. This is exactly the plot of another Suits & Sandals game
- In Chelshia's House, four small figures line the bookshelf. They're the bosses in Mandew vs the Forever Rain
- Cryptic Conversation: At the very end of the credits a dialogue between two characters only seen in silhouette starts. Their speech is reminiscent of spy films and the only thing that can be understood is that they have plans for Morgana Island. Chelshia's work is not finished.
- Cute Monster Girl: They're all very cute.
- "Day of the Week" Name: The Weekday Witches minibosses, Monday (Fire), Tuesday (Lightning), Wednesday (Ice), Thursday (Wind), and unseen fifth witch, presumably named Friday.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying causes you to lose some of your score, and consequently the A rank and the no-death medal. But that's it. With no lives system and regular checkpoints in place, you can retry as much as needed until you beat each stage.
- Death Ray: Bernadette voiced her assumption that the Professor might have one, in the opening, when went to the Professor for a solution to the pirate problem.
- Dem Bones: The pirate mooks appear to be almost all skeletons, but the Harvest Event extra stage reveals they're just masked people.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Amelia burned companies' facilities to the ground when they rejected her talents.
- Dressed to Plunder: Pacifica's eyepatch is because she wants to look like a pirate. Her eye's fine, underneath.
- Drum Roll, Please: Well, mentioned, but never heard, when the Harvest Event concludes, the candy tally is given, where "##" is the number of candies.You've found a grand total of...
(Drum Roll)
## Candies! - Elemental Hair Composition: Anchovy, a pizza-based slime-type Cute Monster Girl. She's made of pizza, including her hair, and can attack with pizza-based attacks, like throwing pizzas, and pizza sauce Breath Weapon.
- Elite Mooks: Samurai pirates. Skeletal samurai pirates.
- Expy: Ragazza Town's maid at the café is a visual expy of Muffet, from Undertale.
- Eyeless Face: The owner of the toy shop in Ragazza Town is a girl whose only facial feature is a large mouth full of irregular sharp teeth. Despite this, she's incredibly shy and easily frightened.
- Eye Scream: The cyclops girl found in Windy Way, one of the optional locked levels, mentions that she's tired of seeing all kinds of invisible things with her eye, then rips it off and gives it to Chelshia. In-game, the eye's purpose is to highlight breakable walls that hide secrets. She reappears in the Harvest Event DLC, surprised that her eye just grew back on its own.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Ragazza Town (see Monster Town below) is home to several creatures inspired by European and Japanese folklore, as well as talking animals, ghosts, demons and so on. The island also hosts the Fairy Queen and her subordinates.
- Flavor Text: For every object of the Chain of Deals, every power, and every costume. Some examples:
- Powers:
- Chain of Deals items:
- The Lollipop you get from Bernadette: "Candy for kids. You're not a kid."
- Autograph pad from the Video-Game-Playing-Kid: "An Empty Autograph Pad. Get the Fairy Queen to sign it."
- The Fairy Queen's autograph: The Fairy Queen's autograph. You owe it to the game-playing cat.
- Costumes:
- Clearance Outfit: The Professor bought this outfit at a garage sale.
- Flying Broomstick: When Chelshia starts and ends a level with the Witch Costume, she's floating in the air and sitting on the broomstick.
- Full Health Bonus: The Demon Fire upgrade:When at full health, you can shoot fire with your strong punch!
- Game Within a Game: At the professor's house Chelshia can play a NES-like console that opens up a mini game called Cakeboy, inspired by Mario's earlier titles. Playing it enough is needed to net a Steam achievement, at Level 10 and also to obtain one of the missing notebooks at Level 15, if pre-2.9 and 12 and higher, if 3.0.
- Ghost Pirate: The Zombie Pirate subtype: The Zambots, who are noted as "Undead Pirate" in the logbooks.
- Gratuitous Italian: Ragazza Town. Ragazza is Italian for "girl", and the town's occupants are mainly female.
- Hailfire Peaks: Mount Afrokupa is a perfect example. It starts as a normal snow-capped mountain, then a fissure opens and Chelshia falls in a volcanic cave.
- Half-Human Hybrid: The crab girl that Chelshia rescues in one of the optional levels; her father is a regular hermit crab. A regular, giant, talking hermit crab.
- Harping on About Harpies: Amelia the harpy.
- Heart Container: The Gourmet Gal appears in secret areas of the 4 main stages cheerfully giving out free samples of food that increase you max health.
- Heart of Happiness: When some characters are really happy, a Heart Symbol appears in the corner of their character portrait. Such as at the end of Harvest Event, when the mayor talks about not needing an insurance policy anymore.
- Hearts Are Health: Chelshia's Life Meter is represented by pink hearts, at the left of the screen, depleting from bottom to top.
- Heel–Face Turn: The more stages you clear, the more Sea Spider Mooks defect and take up residence in Ragazza. Eventually all the main bosses except for Serpantina and the pirate captain follow suit.
- Hidden Depths: As revealed in the Harvest Event Logbooks, Mimi can play the piano.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Chelshia's head doesn't count register damage when struck by cannonballs.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: There's an achievement for defeating Mimi with the Treasure Box, the technique you get from beating her.
- Improbably Female Cast: It's called "Destroy all Monster Girls" for a reason. The professor is the only important male character of note.
- Interface Screw: As an April Fool's joke, the developer made the game played with an upside down orientation, though players can push F5 to set it back to normal and can still play the game upside down after the fact.
- Invulnerable Attack: DJ Doroko's spin attack when she twirls across the room.
- The Treasure Box attack also renders Chelshia immune to most damage, similarly to Kirby's stone power.
- Kid Hero: Chelshia is a well-aged 0 days old when she beats up her first pirate.
- Lightning Bruiser: Chelshia. She is fast and she hits things very, very hard.
- A Lizard Named "Liz": Mimi the mimic.
- Mad Scientist: The unnamed professor who created Chelshia fits the stereotype, and is explicitly referred to as one by Bernadette in the opening, but he denies the idea.
- Magnetic Weapons: Bernadette wanted to upgrade Chelshia with a "rail gun" after the professor added the Golem Arm, but The Professor doesn't have anything else to make Chelshia more combat ready.
- Massively Numbered Siblings:
- Pacifica is "the youngest of a wealthy billionaire's five daughters".
- Amelia, as revealed in the Harvest Event Notebooks, "is a middle child of 13 children. Her parents can't remember if she's the 6th or the 8th."
- Mega Manning: Since Chelshia is biological in nature, her creator splices the DNA of the monster girls she defeated into hers, to let her gain new abilities and special moves.
- Mercy Invincibility: Not just for the hero, but the bosses as well.
- Mini-Game Credits: Behind the end credits you see Chelshia and enemies as white silhouettes on the black background. You can still move Chelshia and punch the baddies around, and there's even a counter that shows how many of them you defeated.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Chelshia of course, but also the Chibeara, a humanoid shark-bear hybrid that settled in one of the optional stages and is an Optional Boss.
- Monster Compendium: Most of the enemies (and even some friends) have an entry in Nyazione's encyclopedia. You'll fill it by collecting the red notebooks scattered throughout the game.
- Monster Mash: The Sea Spiders crew is led by an arachne captain and features a naga, a harpy, a mimic, a mermaid, a slime... and that's just the bad guys!
- Monster Town: Ragazza, the hub where the adventure starts.
- Musical Assassin: DJ Doroko, a Cyborg.
- My Name Is ???: Locked sounds for the Sound Test are given a name of ??????.
- Nerd Glasses: Amelia the harpy is forced to wear these after you defeat her and punch the goggles off her face.
- Nightmare Face: The aptly named Mouthface, who's entire face is one gigantic maw with lots of sharp teeth. Surprisingly, she's actually very shy and nervous, to the point that just staring at her is enough to get her to sweat.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Zombie girls! Averted with the skeleton pirates, who according to the devs are just people wearing masks.
- Nonstandard Game Over: When you face the final boss, the arachne pirate captain, she asks Chelshia if she wants to become a part of her crew. If you answer yes, the distant ending shows that Chelshia becomes the new captain and completely plunders every remaining resource on Morgana, depopulating it. The other crew mates couldn't believe that it was so easy to convince her to become a pirate.
- Off with Her Head!: Bernadette catches Serpantina the naga in the act of stealing riches and gets her head chopped off for her troubles. However, she's a dullahan, so that doesn't harm her in the slightest.
- One-Hit Kill: Always, when hitting the ordinary Floof Pirates. And with Berserk mode, other enemies are also killed in one hit, due to the tripled damage.
- One-Word Title:
- The name of the Game Within a Game, "Cakeboy", about the titular character.
- Songs:
- "Prologue", which plays during the opening sequence that explains the story.
- "Harvestvania", which plays in all Harvest Event screens except the start and boss rooms.
- "Cakeboy", heard when playing the titular Game Within a Game.
- "Open!" Says Me: Brenadette kicks the door to the Professor's lab, out of its frame in the opening.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Anchovy — have you ever seen a pizza slime?
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: It happens multiple times, if the right events happen, and every time its used, its a picture of Chelshia is sweating a lot, with swirly Wingding Eyes:
- In the headshot for the second save file that's just completed the first stage.
- Opening Bernadette's desk.
- Receiving the Witch Costume, when Chelshia discovers that it smells of fertilizer.
- "Wait, What?" after the Crab-girl says she'll climb on your back, in Brine Cave.
- Personal Space Invader: Pacifica in the endgame, as regarded by the girl sitting on the well where Pacifica is located:...
This... Mermaid...
She's really invading my personal space right now... - Pining After Protagonist's Parent: Bernadette to Chelshia's creator, The Professor, and it's implied that she scared off the Cute Ghost Girl from the Tower of Power who's looking for a boyfriend.
- The Place: The songs for most levels are named after them:
- Ragazza Plains
- Sky Fortress
- Mt Afrokupa
- Pumpkin Valley
- The Oil Rig
- The Black Widow
- Plunger Detonator: Four of them are hidden in the regular stages and, if pressed, destroy the boulders that block the entrances of the optional stages on the world map.
- Pooled Funds: Chelshia's goal is to take back all the treasures stolen by the pirates. All the retrieved money and gems are put into a huge vault inside Ragazza Town's bank, and at one point a shark creature is seen swimming in the riches.
- Pop Quiz: The circus tent on the map is home to a strange character who'll ask Chelshia ten questions about her own game, you have to beat it to recover a notebook for completing the Monster Compendium.
- Power-Up Magnet: The Lucky Chax Doll reward of the Chain of Deals, which "will pull treasure towards you!"
- Protagonist Title:
- The Game Within a Game, called Cakeboy, where you control Cakeboy.
- Songs:
- The Fairy Queen: The song played when the Fairy Queen appears.
- The Pirate Captain: The song played when the Pirate Captain is fought.
- Punny Name: The mermaid is named Pacifica Oceana. Also the Chibeara, a half-bear, half-shark chimera. And Minnie Max, the mayor's assistant who keeps track of the game's stats.
- Really 700 Years Old: Mimi, who is 300 years old as revealed in the Harvest Event Logbooks.
- Rise to the Challenge: Some of the stages have sections like that:
- Optional stage Tower of Power, you have to climb it while a bed of spikes is slowly rising from below. There's a Cute Ghost Girl at the top that gives you a bonus.
- A room in "Mechanical Mayhem"
- Some of the rooms in the Harvest Event.
- Save-Game Limits: 3 save slots, all stored in one file.
- Say It with Hearts: When some characters are really happy, a Heart Symbol appears in the corner of their character portrait. Such as when the mayor talks about not needing an insurance policy anymore.
- Scoring Points: All the treasure you find amounts to this. Something of a running gag is that while you send it back to town and fill a deep pit with gold quicker than Scrooge McDuck, none of it belongs to you and so you can't buy anything from anyone in town including the increasingly annoyed Gourmet Gal.
- Sequel Hook: In the Stinger. See Cryptic Conversation above, as it hints at more events happening, after the game is over.
- Shout-Out:
- The title reminds of Destroy All Monsters.
- After you get the berserk mode outfit, the fairy queen will comment on its sheer power, saying "they'll have to start calling you the one-punch chimera", a reference to One-Punch Man.
- A couple to the Metal Gear series:
- The Stinger is very reminiscent of the phone conversations that take place at the end of the credits in several Metal Gear Solid games.
- The boss of the offshore oil platform level is Pacifica Oceana.
- A Scissor Blade hangs on the wall of the weapon shop in Ragazza.
- One NPC in the town is Captain Punch, a cross between Captain Falcon and... Cap'n Crunch.
- In the Pirate Explorer's bio, it mentions that their favorite video game is Ice Climber.
- Some zombie girls move in a way reminiscent of the dancing zombies from the Thriller video. Humorously, their bio states that they resent the fact that zombies are supposed to move like in "Thriller".
- The Flavor Text of the Golem Hand mentions "Summon up the power of the Golem Hand!".
- When starting a stage, one of the possible sentences the game displays reads "The pirates stole the precious thing". This is a reference to the fanmade Touhou Project music video, Marisa Stole the Precious Thing.
- In the town's shopping district, you can find a Lyn, complete with Hongmoon uniform.
- The fast food restaurant sells chicken and winnigish.
- In one of the underwater sections of Pacifica's stage where Estylia is waiting, talking to her will yield a small conversation where she asks how does Chelshia manage to jump so high despite having a golem arm weighing her down. Chelshia answer? "Never skip Leg Day."
- In the Harvest Event DLC, Amelia is dressed like Jotaro Kujo.
- Snake People: Serpentina the Naga, and Nagas are different from the Gorgons, who have snake hair, but no snake tails.
- So Proud of You: Bernadette, who is more than willing to play the role of mother to Chelshia, tells her as much after beating the main game.
- Sound Test: Added in Version 3.0, under the Options in the main menu.
- Super-Strength: Mentioned as one of the abilities that Chelshia has, in the hot springs of the Harvest Event.
- Talking Animal: In Ragazza Town, the red bird, and Nyazione the talking cat.
- Talk Like a Pirate: Just before the chamber that leads to the Boss Rush there is the ship's kitchen and canteen. Chelshia can talk to the cook and fool him by speaking in a ridiculous pirate slang, thus gaining a meal that will restore all of her lifebar.
- Title Drop: "Destroy All Monster Girls" is one of the many sentences that appear on screen whenever a stage or a new life starts.
- Tricked into Signing: How Chelshia gets the Fairy Queen's Autograph:Fairy Queen: O-oh! What's that pad for?
Chelshia: I need you to sign it.
Fairy Queen: Oh? How come?
Chelshia: Delivery. Uh... Magic... [pause] Fairy... [pause] Dust... Delivery.
Fairy Queen: I was wondering when that would arrive! Just leave it by the door. - Visible Silence: After Bernadette and Chelshia leave to fight pirates in the opening, The Professor goes:...
Great, now I've got to build another one... - Weaksauce Weakness: The Misboros, who are invincible, except for "Their one weakness, pizza sauce.", as revealed in the logbook and if hit by a Saucy Shot.
- We Can Rule Together: The Captain offers a place for Chelshia in her crew at the end, and the idea of becoming a pirate does attract the heroine. Accepting this results in a bad ending where Chelshia eventually becomes the new captain and leads a successful life with her friends... at the cost of Morgana Island being led to ruin and the Professor disappearing from out of shame.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The ending shows what happened to the pirate girls after Chelshia beat the captain up. They settle in Ragazza and put their talents to good use. Well, except for one who continued sailing the seas.
- Wingding Eyes:
- Chelshia's got a swirly variant that's used multiple times, always in conjunction with Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat:
- In the headshot for the second save file that's just completed the first stage.
- Opening Bernadette's desk.
- Receiving the Witch Costume, when Chelshia discovers that it smells of fertilizer.
- "Wait, What?" after the Crab-girl says she'll climb on your back, in Brine Cave.
- The X-eyes for death, appears on the pumpkin head for of the Pumpkin King, after he's defeated.
- Chelshia's got a swirly variant that's used multiple times, always in conjunction with Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat:
- Winged Humanoid: Multiple:
- Chelshia has wings that appear when she double jumps.
- The regular fairies have wings, but the royal fairies don't.
- The harpies.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: "Khimera".
- Zombie Gait: The zombies move slower than you can walk.
