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Little Big Adventure, known outside Europe as Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure, is a 1994 PC game (later ported to the PlayStation) created by Adeline Software International.

The game is set on a fantasy planet named Twinsun, populated by four intellectual races and a bunch of Intellectual Animals. The Player Character of the game is coincidentally called Twinsen; unknowingly even to himself, he is a descendant of a mysterious family, destined to save his home world. Of course, when an Evil Overlord rises, he is quickly forced to become a hero and start a long, dangerous journey to obtain enough powers to overthrow him — with a little help from other Twinsunians and a local goddess named Sendell.

The game spawned a sequel, Little Big Adventure 2, also known as Twinsen's Odyssey. It had Twinsen dealing with the arrival of aliens from planet Zeelich, who claimed to be friendly but ended up wreaking havoc on behalf of their god, the Dark Monk — who somehow looked strangely familiar...

The team is now working on a remake of the first game. They have also released a mobile version of the first game for phones and tablets.

A third game was planned, but there was hardly any word on its development outside of funding concerns until it was properly announced in September 2021. But in January 2022, it was announced that it would actually be a reboot. The development of the new Little Big Adventure game can be followed on their official Youtube channel.

In January 2022, the franchise was officially renamed Twinsen's Little Big Adventurenote . The two games received an update with new features (New Game Plus, Anti-Frustration Features...) but "retro classic" versions of the two games are still available.

In March 2023, the developers announced that in addition to the reboot, they were working on full remasters of the originals, for the 30th anniversary of the first game.

No connection to LittleBigPlanet.


Both games provide examples of:

  • Ability Required to Proceed: Most items the player comes across is needed to bypass some form of a roadblock later on in the games; some examples being the Red Key Card to open certain doors with the red key-slot in Relentless, or using the Lightning Ring to shatter the ice globe in the sewers of Twinsen's Odyssey.
  • Artistic License – Space: Twinsun is tidally-locked in a binary star system no less, with a huge mountain range running along its equator, that divides the planet in half. Each hemisphere is warmed by a single sun, one hotter than the other. Except for that frigid equator, the planet's climate is otherwise clement. If anything the game's depiction of such a world is completely backwards - with no night both poles would be inhospitable hellish landscapes, and life could only possibly survive at the equator, known as "terminator zone" bathed in constant twilight. But the differential heating would mean storms would be so constant that life could never thrive on such a planet.
  • Ascended Extra: Jérome Baldino. A very minor NPC in the first game, The Lancer in the second game.
  • Badass Long Robe: Twinsen's magic tunic gives off a bit of that vibe.
  • Bigger on the Inside: This is a common issue in both games, with the buildings looking rather small from the outside, but being surprisingly spacious from the inside. In particular, in the second game, the bar on the Citadel Island is a small, one-story building on the outside, but from the inside, it actually has a second floor.
  • Block Puzzle: The Sokoban-like puzzle in the first game. - The second game also had one of those.
  • Camera Centering: Pressing the ENTER key will center the camera on Twinsen. The game-video does not stay on Twinsen when you move about in the environment. Walking off the screen is the lone exception in regards to the camera resetting itself. The sequel takes this further for the new 3D exterior environment: pressing ENTER will center the camera in the direction Twinsen is facing.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: Twinsen's magical tunic stores Mana.
  • Collection Sidequest: The clover boxes are this. In addition to the two boxes you start out with in both games, each additional box you find will increase your total extra-life storage (The extra lives being the Four Leaf Clovers you put inside the boxes).
    • Relentless has three boxes you can collect for a total of five max extra-lives.
      • Citadel Island; sewers
      • Citadel Island; cafe basement
      • Principal Island; Coastal Island
    • Twinsen's Odyssey has seven boxes you can collect (plus a unique eighth case) for a total of nine extra-lives.
      • Desert Island; Turtle Rock
      • Desert Island; above the Protection-Spell cave.
      • Island of the Dome of the Slate
      • Citadel Island; sewers
      • Emerald Moon Base
      • Zeelich Undergas; Wannie mining cave
      • Zeelich Undergas; Island of the Volcano
      • Island CX; hidden elevator tunnel (this clover box only appears if you chose to not grab the Island of the Volcano clover box beforehand).
  • Color-Coded Armies: Played straight with most of FunFrock's clones in Relentless, the Franco guards in Twinsen's Odyssey and a few other occurrences. The Yellow/Green/Red colors of the enemy match the levels of your magic ball so you know who you can kill at your current level of magic.
  • Crate Expectations: Not so much as crates, but anything that you can interact with to get health, mana, cash and clovers from.
  • Cutscene: Both games offer pre-rendered cutscenes for important scenes, or when travelling from one island to the other.
  • Dialog During Gameplay: Not so much as actual conversations, but a few short phrases here and there.
  • Dialogue Tree: Not exactly complex in either game, but there are a few times where you have the option to choose a dialogue path when in conversation.
  • Dungeon Bypass: The baggage place in Citadel Island has you need to go through the lengthy warehouse to get the Proto-Pack, however one can pay a guard there to skip the warehouse segment.
  • Endless Daytime: Implied due to the "twin two suns" nature of Twinsun. Zeelich is also this in-game, but the vacation videos on the shuttle has several nighttime scenes.
  • Everything Fades: More like "Everything Pops And Leaves A Bonus Behind", but whatever.
  • Exposition Break: The dialogue interactions, especially the ones that create a dialogue block that covers the whole screen. Least players have the option to speed through them.
  • Fill It with Flowers: In Relentless, Twinsen must give the magic flute to the old bunny he finds in the desert, so he'll give him guitar. The bunny uses the flute to fulfill his old dream of making flowers bloom on that arid place.
  • Fixed Camera: Both games will sometimes force the player into a fixed camera shot to make certain areas/puzzles easier to maneuver. This is extremely apparent in the sequel game where sometimes the camera will be put ABOVE the player in the 3D exterior environment. Something you wouldn't be able to accomplish by setting the camera with the ENTER key.
  • Forbidden Zone:
    • The northern hemisphere of Twinsun in the first game.
    • Dome of the Slate in the second game. Figuring out how to go to there is one of the first challenge in itself.
    • CX Island in Zeelich, in the second game. Asking about it is enough to draw the attention of the guards.
  • Giant Flyer: The Dino-Fly.
  • Global Airship: A catamaran and Dino-Fly in the first game, Dino-Fly in the second; though they only move you between islands, not everywhere.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: Somehow, the female rabbibunnies are considered very attractive by males of other races.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • In Relentless, the Hamalayi Mountains could end up being somewhat confusing due to map border entrances that are hard to make out as they're not all that obvious that they're supposed to be entrances to adjacent maps. Other maps, like the ones for the islands, usually make it obvious with roads or paths, but in the snowy areas of the Hamalayi Mountains? There's almost nothing to work with.
      • One particular Hamalayi Mountain map entrance that's especially hard to notice at first glance is the one for the southern Hamalayi Harbor map, which has been well known amongst the players to leave people feeling like they're trapped in the Northern Hemisphere. The problem is that after pushing through a bit of the Twinsun's Northern Hemisphere, Backtracking will be required for Twinsen to go back to the planet's Southern Hemisphere to trade a flute for a guitar at Desert Island. However, the one Hamalayi Mountain entrance that connects the two hemisphere sides is just a single entrance along the map border of the mentioned southern Hamalayi Harbor map. In the picture, you see that ice tree that's along the map border on the far left? That small gap to the right between it and the cliff that has a smooth border edge rather than a jagged one happens to be the entrance! This is especially easy to miss if you never explored the area beforehand since Twinsen takes a completely different path to get into the Northern Hemisphere to begin with that will no longer be accessible.
    • In Twinsen's Odyssey, the storage building puzzle that will get Twinsen enough money to pay the worker to send the jet-pack up to the delivery room is not even given a hint as to how its accomplished. As a result, people instead thought the answer to solving this was to get the needed money elsewhere, like the money reward for beating the Desert Island's dart game.
  • Hide Your Children: Aside from the plot-relevant Twinsun schoolchildren who get kidnapped to blackmail Twinsun's wizards to being of use to FunFrock in the second game.
  • Hit Points
  • Infallible Babble: Pay attention to what NPCs are saying regarding your quest. The chances of them giving you false information is absolutely non-existent.
  • Intellectual Animal: Many. Including your personal living aircraft, Dino-Fly.
  • It's Up to You: Nothing is going to happen unless you do it, as usual for games.
  • Knock Back: Possibly due to bad programming, both games take this to a rather frustrating level where Twinsen always gets pushed backwards, no matter from which direction he received the hit. This leads to situations where sometimes, your best bet in trying to run away from enemies is to move backwards while facing them.
  • Life Meter
  • Lilliputians: Everything on the two planets is on a normal size scale in relation to each other, but the second game implies they are tiny compared to humans: There is a room with recognizable, but very large human items such as chess pieces and cotton swabs, which we are told were found floating in space. Comparing these items to everything else would mean Twinsen himself is actually only about two inches tall.
  • Limited Sound Effects: Averted.
  • Locked Door: Many, both common and plot related, in both games.
  • Magic Knight: Twinsen sort of counts. In the first game, his only weapons are the Magic Ball and a sword. In the second, he obtains more weapons, but the ball and the sword stay the most useful ones.
  • Magnet Hands: Climbing a ladder while holding a gun/sword/whatever? Not a problem.
  • Mana Meter
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Twinsen's race is called "Quetch", which means "plum" in German. It describes their plum-shaped heads.
    • The Francos are called "Knarta" in the French version. Knarta is based on "Knacki" and "Herta", popular brands of sausages in France. Presumably, the choice of "Franco" in English similarly stems from franks/frankfurters.
    • Subverted with Dr. FunFrock. He does wear a frock, but "Funfrock" is a real French surname; the most famous one with it is Queen Elizabeth II look-alike impersonator Huguette Funfrock.
  • Mickey Mousing: Switching Twinsen to Discreet mode will cause 'sneaking' notes to play with each step, with a little musical flourish whenever he turns on the spot.
  • Monsters Everywhere: The first game falls hard on this trope with all of FunFrock's clones running about. The sequel slowly goes into this as the Zeelichians become more of a threat.
  • Mooks: Robotic clones in the first game. The Francos soldiers in the second one.
  • Now, Where Was I Going Again?: Talk to any friendly NPC, and your character will ask about his latest objective.
  • Outside-the-Box Tactic: The unique ways you can kill enemies on some occasions like those mentioned in the Video Game Cruelty Potential example below, are definitely not something you'd find out just doing the basics.
  • Power Levels: There are four levels of magic you obtain throughout both games, which will enable you to fight enemies that require a higher level of magic to defeat. Weaker enemies also take a lot more damage from higher level of magic; the second game has added visuals to make this more obvious, and these Power Levels become a problem for balancing the weapons of the second game. The Com Mons trope mentioned below goes into further detail surrounding this.
    • Level 1 = Yellow
      • Levels up to Green in Relentless when you obtain the Book of Bu.
      • Levels up to Green in Twinsen's Odyssey when you complete the School of Magic.
    • Level 2 = Green
      • Levels up to Red in Relentless when you obtain Sendall's Medallion.
      • Levels up to Red in Twinsen's Odyssey when you obtain Sendall's Ball.
    • Level 3 = Red
      • Levels up to Fire in Relentless when you fill the Empty Vial with pure water.
      • Levels up to Fire in Twinsen's Odyssey when you complete Dark Monk's Fragment Key.
    • Level 4 = Fire
  • Respawning Enemies: Annoying, but they do leave bonuses behind when killed, so this can work for you.
  • Respawn Point: If you have extra lives, you respawn right at the spot of death, unless you drowned in water or fell to your death, where the spawn point will be at the edge of the nearest walkable ground instead.
  • Scripted Event: Pretty much all character interactions/cutscenes seen throughout the two games. You at least have the option to speed through it.
  • Sequence Breaking: The player can pull this off in both games using the penguin bombs. LBA 2 also has a few other examples.
    • In LBA 1, you can walk a penguin onto a pressure plate near the start of the Temple of Bu to open the next area's locked door; effectively skipping the entire first level of the dungeon.
    • In LBA 2, the cliff above the entrance to the Tralu's cave is actually not high enough to kill Twinsen if he was to just jump down to the entrance. This allows Twinsen to skip the trek to the Tralu's cave that would have had Twinsen going through a cave tunnel housing a Giant Spider, and traversing along the cliffside path towards the Tralu's cave that has several gapping chasms that Twinsen would have had to jump across.
    • In LBA 2, the ferry is glitched during the prologue part, allowing you to take ferry during rain times to the desert. The rain overlay still appears in the bright desert however, and you can complete up to the Test of the Balsam, but despite you're healing Dino-Fly, he still injured until you help the weather wizard end the rain.
    • In LBA 2, you normally have to win a duck shooting mini-game in order to be carried up by a few balloons that drop Twinsen into the money reward room of Temple Park. However, it's possible to skip the duck shooting game as it turns out that there's a high enough ground elevation to be able to jump up to the hole for the money reward room.
    • In LBA 2, you can skip having to go the long way around at sneaking into the Mosquebee Queen's prison with the same penguin trick. Within the prison area, there's a laser-trip entryway that instantly locks the Queen's prison door beyond it when you trip the laser. Exiting back out of the laser-trip entryway would then re-open the Queen's prison door. However, you can flip the sequence by walking a penguin through the laser-trip entryway to close the Queen's prison door. You would then walk through the laser-trip entryway to re-open the Queen's prison door; leaving you on the prison side with the locked door now wide open.
    • It's obvious that the path LBA 2 wants you to follow after grabbing the Mosquebee Key Fragment is to go to the Island of the Volcano to learn the location of the bee's captured Queen, and then head over to the Island of the Wannies to free her. However, the game doesn't technically force you to complete the Island of the Volcano step.
    • Also from LBA 2, it's possible to get the Incandescence Pearl without the Proto-Pack by abusing the knockback mechanic that has you pushed backwards whenever you're taking damage. You just have to stand backwards at the spike-pit blocking the way to the Incandescence Pearl, walk backwards, and the backwards knockback will move you across the spike-pit to the other side. After picking up the Incandescence Pearl, you then do the exact same backwards knockback exploit to get back.
    • Another for LBA 2 is the search for the Francos Key Fragment. The search is set up as a mystery where you have to figure out the location on the island that the recently deceased Franco, Roger de la Fontaine, buried the fragment. The mystery has the player needing to find a special key to a locked cupboard within Roger's home, which the cupboard then provides a note with directions on it that leads the player towards the spot of land that the Francos Key Fragment remains buried in the dirt. Once the player finds the spot, they dig up the fragment using the Pick Axe purchased from the Franco island shop. On later playthroughs of the game, there's no need to follow along with the mystery. After purchasing the Pick Axe, you can just go straight to the spot of the buried Francos Key Fragment, and dig it up.
  • Sidetrack Bonus: You don't need to go look for clover boxes, but having extra lives is handy. The second game has the optional Protection-Spell cave that you can skip entirely.
  • Shifting Sand Land: To some extent, the Desert Island.
  • Spread Shot: FunFrock's basic clones in Relentless have this. In the sequel, the Sup guards are seen using guns with this function. The Tralu and the Protection-Spell cave boss also have a spread type attack.
  • Sprite/Polygon Mix: In the original game, the characters are 3D models moving in 2D maps. In the sequel, the outside world is in 3D, but the interior places are still 2D maps.
  • Stance System: Twinsen's four "moods".
  • Sound of No Damage: Connected with Video Game Cruelty Potential, your hard-sounding attacks on any NPC do no actual damage (with a few exceptions). Also applies to enemies that are higher rank if you don't have the right level of magic to kill them.
  • Super Drowning Skills: Probably one of the most annoying things about Twinsen.
  • Talk to Everyone: Gathering new information is the essential part of the gameplay.
  • Temple of Doom: The Temple of Bù in the first game. And the second. Though the source of the "doom" is different.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can beat up any NPC you (don't) like, although most of the friendly civilians can't be hurt and some of them will actually fight back. Francos can be killed in a variety of ways, such as electrocution or Explosive Decompression
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Attacking children will result in Twinsen getting beaten up by their big brothers. Attacking Joe the elf in his maze will make him angry and result in him taking back your elf badge.
  • The War Sequence: Occurs in both games.
    • In Relentless, the Rebel forces ship-docking on the icy Hamalayi coastline to battle FunFrock's clones in the area.
    • In Twinsen's Odyssey, The Franco soldiers of Island CX invading Mosquebee Island. Throughout the invasion, you watch as Mosquebees and Francos duke it out and witness Francos parachuting in from above the gas cloud sky.
  • World Shapes: Twinsun is spherical, but is positioned between two suns, with tropical poles and an icy "ring" around the equator.

Examples from the first game:

  • A God Am I: FunFrock's goal.
  • Backtracking: You meet an old rabibunny early in the game. After going a good portion into the Northern Hemisphere much later on, the story will then force you to go all the way back to the old man in the Southern Hemisphere to... trade a flute for his guitar.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: You can ask a pirate historian if he knows any pirate-themed recipes; he responds that the creators of the game are French, and don't believe that culinary secrets should be shared so lightly.
  • Cardboard Prison: Nearly every prison in the game. Escaping usually requires waiting for a guard to enter the cell and beating him up.
  • Checkpoint Starvation: The first game has no save system, so the only way to save your game was to force an autosave by changing to a new environment. You had to complete entire puzzles/areas without the option of being able to save the game part-way through sometimes, so you could spend hours trying to solve a puzzle and quit out of frustration, only to realize that when you decide to come back, you have to start from the beginning of the puzzle again.
  • Clone Army: How FunFrock maintains control of the planet.
  • Deadly Walls: First game only; see Run, Don't Walk entry below.
  • Empty Room Psych: The main Desert Island layout. No doubt it leaves people wondering what the point of the large environment is when it's only got a lone rabibunny sitting next to the entrance of the Temple of Bu.
  • For the Evulz: The game turns surprisingly dark before the final battle. FunFrock explains to Twinsen just how he's going pay for all his meddling and interference. When the tyrant ascends to godhood, he'll kill and resurrect Twinsen over and over again, forever.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: The locked front door to get into FunFrock's fortress on Principal Island will sometimes not open even after placing the key in it. However, there ARE ways to fix this.
  • Large and in Charge: FunFrock is clearly taller than the average quetch, and twice as wide.
  • No-Gear Level: Whenever you are imprisoned in the first game.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: The architect who lives next door to Twinsen is named Mies van der Rooh.
  • Pressure Plate: A few throughout the first game where you gotta place statues on top of them to keep doors you need to go through open.
  • Prison Level:
    • Twinsen begins the first game as a political prisoner committed to an asylum, and breaking out of the asylum and returning home is the first objective of the game. There are various other asylums scattered through the game, and being knocked unconscious by one of the white Groboclone enemies will see him stripped of his gear and shipped off to the nearest one.
    • In order to cross the Hamalayi mountain range, Twinsen teams up with a group of anti-government rebels and helps them storm a prison in the mountains where their colonel is being held.
  • Run, Don't Walk: In the first game, you get hurt if you run into something. Thankfully, this was removed in the sequel (and can also be removed in the first game with a patch).
  • Save Point: Moving between map environments autosaves the game, leading to the problem regarding Checkpoint Starvation above.
  • Savethe Princess: In addition to defeating FunFrock, he also happens to be holding Twinsen's girlfriend Zoe captive.
  • Shout-Out: FunFrock's teleportation center is located on Brundle Island.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Twinsen gains the power to speak to animals once he gets the Book of Bu. It also allows him to hear flowers cry in pain if he steps on them.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: One of FunFrock's tools used for taking over the planet.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: The infamous Script Breaking/Sequence Breaking Red Key Card bug in the first game. To the extent that the game manual actually warned the player about it. Due to the game's autosave function that always records your HP and MP totals, there many other ways to render the game unwinnable, such as being trapped in the lower sections of the Temple of Bu without any magic left (thus preventing you from defeating the enemies that hold the keys to escape), or dropping into the Astronomer's house with only 1HP and no clovers left.
  • Villains Out Shopping: You can visit a tavern where FunFrock's soldiers go to relax when they're off-duty. None of the soldiers attack you, even though you're a wanted criminal.

Examples from the second game:

  • Already Undone for You: A backwards example in regards to the NPC being the one that follows you instead. You do have to wonder how a heavily pregnant Zoe was able to greet you at the entrance of the Tralu cave, when it's pretty clear that she would have had to jump a couple of gaping chasms on the path leading up to the cave beforehand.
  • A God Am I/Godhood Seeker: FunFrock has elements of this in the second game: "Soon, I will be a god in form, as well as name!"
  • Back from the Dead: Justified by FunFrock's development of cloning technology.
  • Babies Ever After: Twinsen and Zoe's baby is born right at the end of the second game.
  • Bag of Spilling:
    • Twinsen doesn't have any of the items he collects throughout the first game. We can see the artifacts that brought new magic levels in the museum in Citadel Island. The question is why Twinsen does not take those with his tunic and medal.
    • In Relentless you level up your Magic-Ball all the way up to the fourth level of magic, Fireball, but it's back to a level 1 Yellow-Ball at the start of Twinsen's Odyssey and has to be leveled up to Fireball again.
    • However, there was at least one skill that Twinsen retained in the sequel. Twinsen learns how to speak to animals after learning the second level of magic from the Book-of-Bu. Despite the Magic Ball getting reverted back to square one, you can still talk to animals from the very beginning of the sequel.
  • Betting Mini-Game: The Zeelichian bar and casino provide these.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Baldino saving the kids at the end of the second game. Just a bit later the Wizards and Esmers explode the Moon Reactor helping Twinsen save the entire Twinsun since Sendell's power wasn't enough to fight it back.
  • Blow Gun: Twinsen uses one that later gets upgraded into a stronger version.
  • Bonus Dungeon:
    • Connected to Permanently Missable Content, the island cave you get the Protection Spell from pretty much is this.
    • Strangely, the Island of the Volcano in the Zeelich Undergas can be considered this, because you're not forced to go to this island to follow the main storyline. The story only points you to head here to learn the location of the captured Mosquebee queen from a few Mosquebee civilians hiding out in a cave here. The thing is, if you already know where the queen is, then there's no reason to learn the location, because it's possible to find the queen without even having to talk to them. This is extremely apparent if you are going through a second playthrough of the game.
  • The Cameo: You can encounter and battle, Stanley Opar, the player character from Time Commando in the Emperor's Palace.
  • Character Portrait: Occurs with Baldino and Zoe during conversations over the Portable Radio.
  • Cloning Gambit: Implied to be how FunFrock is still alive.
  • Colony Drop: This is what you get if you fail to defeat the Big Bad, or if you keep paddling around Zeelich too long when the reactor is activated, you'll be treated to a lovely cutscene of this happen to Twinsun.
  • Color-Coded Item Tiers: A mixed case; the game has 4 item tiers in total: yellow, green, red and fiery. Each tier is more powerful than the last. Some enemies wear armor that utilizes these same tiers, which makes them invulnerable to any lower tier. Therefore, you need to a weapon of at least the matching tier to deal any damage at all. However, only green and red are the colors consistently used for various items in the game; yellow and fiery are only utilized by Twinsen's Magic Ball, which functions as a thrown weapon. It's the only item that can go through all 4 tiers, via upgrades.
  • Com Mons: Twinsen's blowgun and laser pistol become these once FunFrock reveals himself to be Dark Monk. Both weapons made for good alternatives compared to always having to fight with just the magicball; the blowgun for faster attack but weaker damage, and laser pistol for farther range but slower attack. Neither weapon however, upgrades like the magicball (and Lightning Spell) does after completing the Fragment Key, meaning they end up becoming completely useless during the final stage when Twinsen goes inside the Dark Monk's statue.
    • The blowgun overall goes through an odd power-level discrepancy throughout the game. From the earliest moment you can receive the blowgun, it acts as an overall upgrade before completing the School of Magic objective due to shooting level-2 Green pellets even though you'd still be fighting with a level-1 Yellow Magicball during this time. After getting level-2 Green Magicball for completing the school, the two weapons remain on even terms until you get Sendall's Ball which will level up your Magicball to Red level-3. Your blowgun however, remains at Green level-2; meaning that you'll be using the red Magicball for almost all encounters until the Mosquebee test far into the game finally upgrades your blowgun into blowtron to start shooting level-3 Red pellets. The power is now finally on even terms again until the Dark Monk statue stage mentioned above.
    • The Emperor's Sword turns all your weapons, even your Red Magicball, into Com Mons for a portion of the game due to the sword being your only weapon that can damage the Sup officers on Island CX and the Otringal palace before completing the Fragment Key.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • If you somehow manage to lose the car, which is mandatory to finish one plotline quest, you can get it back from the Racer in the racing track of Desert Island. He does charge a hefty price of 50 Kashes for the rescue, though.
    • Don't want to go to the Island of the Volcano despite the island having a clover box? That's ok. There's a spare that can be found on Island CX that only appears if the Island of the Volcano clover box wasn't picked up beforehand.
    • Due to cash coins now being able to refresh in the world objects compared to the first game, the makers knew that it would be too easy to just leave the area, and come back to the refreshed object to get as many coins as you want. So a limit was added where after reaching a specific high-amount of money, only health and mana bonuses will spawn from the world object until the money you currently have is spent to the point of being below the limit again.
    • When you are trying to find the wizard school on Desert Island, you can try to hunt around the one person on the whole island who will tell you about it... Or you can take the ferry back to Citadel Island and ask the Weather Wizard.
    • It's possible to keep the stolen Sphero's umbrella if you never returned it during the weather storm prologue. It may seem pointless to do at first, but once you've made the second journey to Zeelich, you can actually sell the umbrella at the Otringal souvenir shop for Zlitos.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: Twinsen has a museum dedicated to him in the second game, but the ticket vendor doesn't recognize him and charges him for entry. It's lampshaded if you talk to the curator.
    • Not to mention you need to past three tests to become a wizard despite having tunic-based magic and the wizard even lampshades it saying that despite you saved the world, you need to past tests like the other.
  • Easing into the Adventure: At the start of the second game, you can potter around the island for as long as you like before completing the task given to you by the Weather Wizard. It's only once you've done that the Zeelichians land and the plot begins.
  • Flower from the Mountaintop: The Balsam in the second game, needed to get Twinsen a wizard's diploma.
  • Flying Carpet: Ridden by a wizard in the White Leaf Desert. For extra fun, you can knock him over.
  • For the Evulz: In the second game, FunFrock initially kidnaps the children of Twinsun so he has some leverage over the wizards; when Twinsen confronts him he decides to drop them into a volcano simply so he can cause Twinsen despair. Baldino saves them, thankfully.
  • Global Currency Exception: The second game: Zeelichians use their own coins, "Zlitos", so your Twinsunian "Kashes" will have to be exchanged for them, and the ferryman from the underground world of Zeelich will ask for gems.
  • Happily Married: Twinsen and Zoe.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: FunFrock turns out to have survived, and he has been manipulating events on Zeelich.
  • If It Swims, It Flies: The "seals" of Zeelich fly as smoothly in the air as they swim in water.
  • Jerkass: The Rabbibunny in the cargo building basement sure acts like one; telling you to Get lost! simply for bothering him. Thankfully, Video Game Cruelty Potential kicks in and you can acually push him onto a nearby conveyor belt and watch from afar as he helplessly tries to get off it before disappearing.
  • Lethal Lava Land: The Under-Gas in the second game.
  • Lighter and Softer: The sequel to the original. Gone are the militaristic dystopia feel, replaced with sense of neighborhood, adventures, and understanding of cultures.
  • Loading Screen: In the sequel, it shows Twinsen and Zoe standing on a CD. It only appears at the first time the game is launched though.
  • Minigame Zone: Zeelichian bar and casino has slot machines and betting places with animal races for you to get sole Zlitos.
  • Mobile Shrubbery: Walking cacti and trash cans in the second game. And they shoot at you.
  • Money for Nothing: You hit the jackpot by stealing 150 Zlitos from the Mining Company in the Undergas (you can even repeatedly steal 150 Zlitos from it)... Only to realize that at this point, you don't need the Zeelichian cash anymore to finish the game except for one plot-fowarding boat ride between Otringal and Celebration Island. Choose the cheaper transportation and that's just FIVE total Zlitos needed.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed:
    • The Emperor of Zeelich is Napoléon Bonaparte with the Serial Numbers Filed Off.
    • Inventor Jérôme Baldino's name is a Significant Anagram of French TV personality Jérôme Bonaldi, who embarrassed himself several times by not being able to make some gadgets work (despite them working in rehearsals), blaming it on Finagle's Law.
    • FunFrock is apparently loosely based on infamous right-wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: When going to meet the captured Mosquibee Queen you must hitch a ride into a crate to get to the warehouse neighbouring the prison she is. However if you enter the crate before the employee closes it he'll put the lid with Twinsen inside resulting in an instant game over regardless of how many lives you have left.
  • Only Idiots May Pass:
    • A subversion and quite possibly a case of Developer's Foresight as an answer to why The Island of the Volcano is completely optional. If you already know where the Mosquebee queen is being held, the game doesn't force you to go learn the location before actually having to find the captured queen.
    • Another subversion is the search for the lost Francos Key Fragment. If you already know where the Key Fragment is buried in the ground, you don't have to follow along with Roger de la Fontaine's mystery to learn of the Key Fragment's location. After purchasing a Pick Axe from the Franco Island store, you can just head on over to the Fragment Key's ground location to dig it up.
  • Optional Boss: Part of the Bonus Dungeon and Permanently Missable Content examples, the optional Protection-Spell cave ends with a unique boss seen nowhere else in the game.
  • Permanently Missable Content: The Protection Spell in the second game, if you don't pick it up before the trip to the Emerald Moon. Thankfully, it's not required to complete the game.
  • Playing Tennis with the Boss: How the boss guarding the Mosquibee fragment is defeated.
  • Plotline Death: An NPC dissident in the second game, during a cutscene.
  • Point of No Return: At several points in the game.
    • Killing the Tralu to end the opening weather storm.
    • Impersonating a Wizard to initiate the first Zeelich trip.
    • Stealing a shuttle to return to Twinsun.
    • Stealing another shuttle to head to Emerald Moon.
    • Rescuing Baldino on Emerald Moon to return to Zeelich.
    • The Zeelichians are no longer friendly to Twinsen when the guards on Celebration Island realize who he is.
  • Prophetic Fallacy: The prophecy you can read inside the temple of Celebration Island. In the final screen of the game, you can find a missing part explicitly stating that it'll actually become true when a stranger will unite the four keys and fight the Dark Monk. Guess who this stranger is...
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The crocodile-like Gloums on Zeelich are not nice guys. If you participate in their casino games, they will attack you and try to rob you.
  • Robe and Wizard Hat: Twinsen gets to wear one if he succeeds at applying for the School of Magic. It comes with a fake beard.
  • Saving the World: The plot becomes this once the dying Emperor activates the moon reactor to collide with Twinsun. He indirectly saves Zeelich along the way as well.
  • Significant Anagram: The Dark Monk's original name was Kard N'Kom.
  • Skippable Boss: You don't need to defeat the boss in the Protection Spell cave to complete the game.
  • Smooch of Victory: Given by a female Quetch wizard when you free her and the other wizards inside Dark Monk's statue.
  • Space Jews: The races are inspired by regional French stereotypes:
    • The village of Francos shows them acting like simple country folk, from the terroir.
    • The Sups are meant to be like Parisians, infamous for being snooty city people.
    • The Wannies are inspired by the French of the Nord, aka the "Ch'tis", stereotyped as dreary miners.
  • Speaking Simlish: Particularly what happens when you try to talk to some of the folk from Zeelich before obtaining the Translator.
  • Starter Villain: The Tralu serves as this for the opening rain storm prologue before the Zeelichians arrive on Twinsun.
  • Story-Driven Invulnerability: Even though it's possible to be right up next to the guy, you can't finish off the Emperor before he activates the moon reactor.
  • Sword of Plot Advancement: The Lightning Spell is this. You can't forward the plot without using it at a certain location in the Citadel Island sewers.
  • Take Your Time: A conjunction of this and You Can't Thwart Stage One means that the villain's plot to send the Emerald Moon crashing into Twinsun will never happen, no matter how long you spend faffing about with the car on the second island or the casinos on Zeelich, or whatever catches your attention. But once you reach and defeat him, he just needs to pull a lever with his dying breath to set it in motion. And after that, the impending apocalypse will never happen unless you get killed.
  • The Three Trials: The three School of Magic tests.
  • Thrown Out the Airlock: You can kill a Franco guard this way in the second game, while on the Emerald Moon.
  • Universal Translator: You pick up on of these in the second game. Without it, you can't communicate with the Zeelichians.
  • Video Game 3D Leap: The exterior environments upgrades from top-down to 3rd-person view. The interiors stayed the same as the first game.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Beating random people up tends to result in swift punishment in one way or another. For example, hitting the kids at a school in the second game results in threats that their big brothers will beat you up - and then the game locks you into a cutscene upon leaving where they do that very thing so you can't avoid punishment or fight back.
  • The Voice: When you obtain the Wannie fragment, you hear a mysterious voice. Said voice "appears" only at that moment and no explanation is given on who or what it is. A common fan theory supposes it's the REAL Dark Monk.
  • We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: The Esmers claim to come in peace, but, suspiciously, some of them sneak about disguised as trash cans and plants and shoot at you for getting too close.
  • Wizard Beard: A fake one is a part of Twinsen's wizard costume in the second game.
  • X-Ray Sparks: Whenever someone gets electrocuted.

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