Video Game / Skullman In: Scooby Doc 4: The Destroyer (Featuring Atsushi Onita)

We are like an inner skull...

Skullman In: Scooby Doc 4: The Destroyer (Featuring Atsushi Onita) is a fangame by RED-FIRE (the creator of Grand Dad Reboot) and Majestic Sales Inc, loosely based off the Mega Man (Classic) series.

The game is technically a sequel to Skullman Kills, RED-FIRE's previous game to star Skullman, who, in this game, has become an "international attacker" through his many violent missions. One day, a "WARGATE" opens, creating a portal to other worlds and creating mass panic for humans and robots alike. Now, it's up to Skullman to enter the wargate, take on a myriad of unusual opponents, and escape the Void.

Scooby Doc 4, much like its predecessor, is a Boss Game, with only four of its 20 levels featuring anything more than a beginning room and a boss fight. Defeating a boss rewards Skullman with currency, which he can use to purchase additional weapons or cosmetic hats. The game is filled with strange references; you could be using the Contra spread gun to battle the Black Mage one moment, and be an airplane shooting down Mr. Big the next.

The game was released on November 15, 2018, and is available for download on Game Jolt.

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This game provides examples of:

• Antagonist Title: The titular Scooby Doc is the primary enemy of the adventure. Atsushi Onita, also featured in the title, takes the role of Climax Boss and the fight just before the Doc.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Light Shock weapon. It deals high damage and goes across the screen, but it has a high cooldown time, and the fact that it follows Skullman's movements makes it difficult to land hits with it.
  • The unlockable Poison Mist weapon. It has a much faster fire rate than the Light Shock weapon, one-shots regular enemies, and deals major damage to certain bosses (most notably Atsushi Onita). However, Skullman can't move while firing it, and its close-range nature makes it difficult to use on bosses such as Redskull, or even Thomas.
• Background Boss: Space Snowman stays in the background for his entire fight. He can only be damaged by hitting the spinning heart in the foreground.
• Big Bad: The titular Scooby Doc.
• Bittersweet Ending: Scooby Doc is defeated and the threat of the wargate has been stopped, but Toadman is killed before the final battle, causing Skullman to question his violent lifestyle.
• Boss Game: Of the Primarily Bosses variety.
• Boss Remix: Several of the boss themes are arranged from non-boss themes from other works. Notable examples include:
  • "Training Grounds", a fast-paced remix of the first Thomas & Friends opening theme.
  • "Hail Hydra", a remix of the Game Over theme from the SNES version of Captain America and the Avengers.
  • "They Misunderestimated Me", a remix of The Star-Spangled Banner, of all things.
  • "Get Your Weapons Ready", a remix of the Mega Man 2 stage select theme.
  • Atsushi Onita's theme, "Kill Her, Marshal", is a remix of "Killer Marshal", originating from the Super Famicom game Onita Atsushi FMW, where it's used as a theme for one of the normal stages.
  • "Passion", a medley combining "I'm Looking for Mary" and "Golden Oldies" from the original Clock Tower, plus the chase theme from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
• Boss Warning Siren:
  • The Albatross' core is preceded by a siren and a voice clip warning you of the upcoming battle.
  • The battle against Final Doc is preceded by a voice clip saying "Emergency!"
• Breath Weapon: The Poison Mist weapon, unlockable by starting a new game from the results screen. It's a melee weapon with a large damage output, able to take out regular enemies and phases of the Stage Select boss in a single hit, and takes out Atsushi Onita in only a few hits.
• Brick Joke: The three Vanity Plates shown upon starting the game are RED-FIRE, Majestic Sales Inc, and Hanna-Barbera. Hanna-Barbera returns as one of the several joke Vanity Plates shown after the end credits (along with the actual vanity plates for RED-FIRE and Majestic Sales).
• Cutscene Boss: Three of the bosses simply kill Skullman without giving him the chance to do anything but scream at the top of his lungs, sending him back to the hub right after:
  • Crank shoots Skullman's head off just as the "FIGHT!" text disappears.
  • Spiderman runs into Skullman and distorts the screen.
  • A Truck slams straight into Skullman.
• Dead Hat Shot: Black Mage vanishes after he's defeated, leaving his hat to float to the ground and then explode.
• Deadly Disc: The Blader, which looks and functions like the Spinning Blade from Mega Man X3.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Every enemy explodes upon defeat except for the Black Mage.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Atsushi Onita can hide in the background by splitting into six silhouettes of himself. He will then reappear from whatever silhouette is a darker color than the rest.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Three guesses as to what A Truck is, and the first two don't count.
• Expy: Crank is pretty much just Wart under a different name. He even uses the same sprites and arena.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Black Mage's three attack spells are Fire, Ice3, and Lit (Lightning).
• Fission Mailed: In one room, Skullman walks through a boss door and drops into a spike pit, after which he is greeted with the Mega Man 2 game over screen. The password option cannot be selected, and the continue option causes the events to play out again. The stage select option, however, will lead Skullman to the next boss: The Mega Man 2 stage select itself.
• Funny Background Event: In the room before the Thomas fight, Toadman can be seen walking back and forth inside the train serving as the arena. Behind him are three other Toadmen, who, from left to right, use sprites from Mega Man's Soccer, Mega Man for the Game Gear, and Mega Man IV.
• Guest Fighter: Two of the bosses are from other Mega Man fangames. Bushie is from Cut Man’s Bad Scizzors Day, and the Killer Tank is from Protoman’s Return.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Toadman is sliced in half trying to attack Final Doc.
• High-Speed Battle: Skullman fights Shadow on a motorcycle. Scooby Doc's first form is fought in a similar fashion.
• Homing Projectile: The Seeker Missile weapon, which homes in on wherever the target was when it was fired (meaning that it can still miss if the target is fast enough), but has cooldown time and deals little damage.
• Jump Scare: All three Cutscene Bosses hit the player with a sudden loud scream when they kill Skullman. A Truck deserves special mention, as unlike Crank and Spiderman it appears without any warning whatsoever.
• King Mook: Giga Joe, a gigantic version of the recurring Sniper Joe enemy.
• Last Ditch Move: The Albatross' core will fire a giant laser shortly after its health is depleted, which can kill Skullman before the core is completely defeated.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: As Space Snowman's health gets lower, his theme progressively decreases in speed- and the background turns into a PlayStation 2 disc reading error message.
• Make My Monster Grow:
  • Redskull turns into a gigantic mechanical version of himself for his boss fight.
  • The same happens to Scooby Doc when he transforms into Final Doc.
• Mini-Mecha: The Killer Tank, which is piloted by the three Mega Man Killers (plus Quint).
• Monstrous Humanoid: If the name of "Non-Human" is to believed. It's a giant, disembodied humanoid head with glasses that attacks Skullman by spitting projectiles.
• Mook-Themed Level: Giga Joe has an entire level full of Joes.
• Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Technically a sequel to a previous set of games by Red Fire, Skull Man Kills 1 & 2. The change in title indicates this game's incredibly weird referential humor.
• One-Winged Angel: Scooby Doc's Final Doc form.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • Preceding the fight with Atsushi Onita is a long ride on a raft accompanied by a montage of Onita preparing himself, set to the original Godzilla theme. Fortunately, jumping off the raft respawns Skullman right at the boss door, letting him skip the sequence if he wants.
  • The end credits feature an incredibly long Special Thanks section, which, among other things, lists "My Uncle" several times. As if that weren't enough, the credits are followed by several Vanity Plates for companies that didn't even work for the game (including Hanna-Barbera, which was also present among the opening Vanity Plates).
• Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: Redskull, Non-Human, Albatross, Killer Tank, Atsushi Onita, and Final Doc all blow up repeatedly when defeated.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Skullman gives one to Final Doc right before the final battle:
  Skullman: After everything that's happened on my journey here, I think I've learned something very important. And now, at this point in time, I know it to be true. I'm REALLY gonna enjoy killing you.
• Reference Overdosed: Practically everything in this game is a reference to something.
• Sailor Fuku: A Sniper Joe variant in Giga Joe's stage wears one of these.
• Spell My Name With An S: Parodied with the Dustman lookalike from the opening, whose name may randomly change between "Dast Man", "Dest Man", "Dost Man", and "Dist Man" for each line of dialogue. Furthermore, he's the only Robot Master in the game to have a space in his name.
• Spread Shot: The Spreader weapon, which is based on the spread gun from Contra.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The narration accompanying the opening cutscene and intermision cutscenes is filled with typos and grammatical errors.
  • Certain bosses and locations also have intentionally bad designs. Special mention goes to Bushie, who looks like a bad doodle in his first form and like a poorly-edited photo in his second.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: Used by Skullman, Toadman, and the Dustman lookalike. Toadman uses BonziBuddy and the Dustman lookalike uses Dr. Sbaitso. Averted for Atsushi Onita, who uses voice clips of Peter Griffin, and Scooby Doc, who has proper voice acting.
• Turns Red: Thomas gains a more frantic attack pattern at low health, accompanied by the sky getting darker and his face literally turning red.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Downplayed with the room before the Black Mage fight, which briefly changes the gameplay style to the top-down RPG style of Final Fantasy I before returning to normal for the battle itself.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The ninth and fifteenth levels are this. The former is preceded by Skullman transforming into an airplane, complete with the iconic transformation sound from Transformers.
• Vehicular Assault:
  • The second boss, Taurus, is a sentient Ford Taurus sedan that launches roadcone spikes and clouds of CO2, as well as ramming across the screen.
  • A Truck, the last of the three Cutscene Bosses, kills Skullman simply by ramming into him from behind.
• Warm-Up Boss: Thomas. His pattern is very simple to get down, and none of his attacks come close to being as dangerous as the other bosses.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The Light Shock weapon, which deals high damage and covers a large distance, but has a long cooldown period.
• Womb Level: Westboro Body is one of these, with the end of the level being the mouth.
• Zero-Effort Boss: The final obstacle of Westboro Body is a large tooth that gets clean as Skullman shoots it, and doesn't retaliate in any way.