So you're minding your own business, mourning your for-some-reason-dead mother with your absurdly-dressed handmaid and your father the king when he gets murdered. You're blamed because your stepmom hates you, and you and your maid run off to a castle that your family owns which just so happens to be inhabited by the Fiend, a poorly-explained demon of some kind. The Fiend gives you the power to set traps and murder everyone that comes into your castle. Congratulations, you're playing Trapt.
Made by Tecmo for the PlayStation 2 in 2005, the oddly named Trapt is the fourth game in the Deception series, and its Japanese title is Kagero II: Dark Illusion, due to some confusion in the series about what the actual title is. The game's premise is mostly the same as the previous entries: you're in a mansion, kill everyone too dumb to stay away. Damaging enemies nets you Warl, which is used to create new traps and open new areas. Damaging enemies also gets you Ark, which does nothing but provide you with another funny word to say while the game loads.
Not to be confused with the band Trapt, known for the song "Headstrong".
This game provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Very prevalent here. For the main characters, we have Allura, Hertzog, Graines, Jais... and Rachel. The enemies of the game are more widespread with their names, but don't be surprised to see names like Duncan and Mona alongside names like Blizzardo and Schtormo.
- An Adventurer Is You: Or rather, the invaders are adventurers. Each game in the series has a different set of classes the invaders can be comprised of, each of whom have different attacks and react to traps in their own ways. In this game, a lot of the invaders came to get the bounty on your head.
- Anti-Villain: Hertzog. While he blatantly schemes with Catalina and has no qualms about killing King Olaf in front of his daughter and gloating over the corpse, he genuinely seems concerned about the state of his country and is disgusted by how Olaf has brought it to ruin. He also offers Allura the choice to flee the country, not wanting to see her killed. Even his character info lists him as "patriotic".
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Allura can unlock costumes that let her dress as Millennia and Reina.
- The Backwards Я: The cover art spells the fourth game's title as TЯAPT. Written as it is, the "R" looks sort of like a backwards P, creating an almost-symmetry.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Rachel; she pretends to be Allura's friend, maid, while planning to offer her up as a sacrifice to the devil.
- Big Damn Heroes: Inverted; these guys (generally) are your enemies.
- Jais might be the exception.
- Charge Meter: Traps in the sequels must recharge between uses, but can otherwise be used indefinitely.
- Combos: Introduced to the series in Kagero to fantastic effect. Chain together more traps and receive more points.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Killing someone with a buzzsaw, a guillotine, or a falling chandelier is cruel. Killing someone with all three is cruel and unusual.
- Damage Discrimination: Averted; you can get caught in your own traps or by environmental objects if you're not paying attention.
- Damsel in Distress: Rachel, who only has a few scenes where she's not injured or put out of commission. It's an act.
- Deader than Dead: You fight a surprising number of ghosts in the castle. They can die from spikes, fire, and angry clock towers like anyone else.
- Deadly Walls: When using wall traps, of course.
- Death Trap: The entire point of the series.
- Distressed Dude: Jais arguably falls into this trope. His heart is in the right place and it's clear he's determined to protect Allura at all costs, but more often than not he ends up being completely useless. Unless you try to abandon your duties as future queen and flee the country, that is.
- Downer Ending: With four different endings, you would think that at least one of them would be happy.
- Dull Surprise: Mayte. Though it's more "I ate a lemon before my botox treatment."
- Electric Torture: Water conducts it very well! Even better, you can unlock a torture room with electric chairs you can slam people into.
- Enemy Scan: Each game lets you check out the statistics of invaders before you enter into combat with them.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Or rather, them.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Every female character has one of these.
- Hide Your Children: Unlike the previous games, there are no kids in Trapt.
- High Collar of Doom: Catalina wears one.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Certain enemies can activate Allura's traps from afar, turning them against her.
- "Home Alone" Antics: A darker version. In fact, a Game Informer review compared this game to a "Demonic Cut" version of Home Alone.Andrew Reiner: "I enjoyed the Deception series on PSone, but this sequel hasn't made any strides forward. Inflicting unspeakable pain on mindless video game drones puts you in the shoes of wily Kevin McCallister, but as you'll soon learn, anything that reminds you of Macaulay Culkin is not good."
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: There's just so many options.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: Not as bad as some of the previous games, but still annoying.
- Malevolent Architecture: Pre-set traps are strewn all about the various locales. Someone even went through the trouble of booby-trapping Olaf's grave.
- Ninja Maid: Rachel.
- Non-Linear Sequel: In Japan, it was released as a sequel to Kagero, but it's closer to being a loose remake of Deception: Invitation to Darkness.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Trapt is the worst offender, but if it wasn't for the numbering in the first three, few people would know they were related at first glance. Of course, it's original name Kagero 2 makes about as much sense, making it the sequel to Kagero: Deception II. Deception III is apparently something else.
- One-Word Title
- Permanently Missable Content: For every main mission, you get to play a corresponding Side Story, which work like bonus sub-scenarios. If you don't play them before starting each main mission, they're gone for good.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Catalina wears a purple dress with lots of decorations, and Allura and her hand maiden wear similar fancy dresses.
- Played for Laughs: Some of the traps cause comedic effects, such as a vase falling on someone's head, or a rotating floor that throws off their balance.
- Princess Protagonist: Our heroine, Princess Allura (although you can change the name).
- Purple Is Powerful: Catalina wears a purple outfit.
- Rasputinian Death: Perhaps the third point of the series: Funny combos to maximize.
- Repeat Cut: Brief instant replays of the moment a trap connects with an invader; they can be switched on or off.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Catalina's dress.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Seriously, peasant? A club? You have reason to believe I'm the Devil Incarnate and you brought a club to my lair? Granted, a heavily damaged opponent will sometimes try to escape. There is nothing as disappointing as watching one of them leave.
- Leads to Badass Normal by the end because hey, even if their attacks are utterly ineffective and quite frankly pitiful, you have to give at least some credit to the peasant woman who joined the penultimate battle squad composed otherwise of zombie-demon-knights and archmages.
- Undignified Death: Practically the only kind there is, considering how extremely sadistic certain combos are.
- Unwitting Pawn: Your dad's alive. And he's an asshole.
- Video Game Caring Potential: Contrasting with the cruelty. Do you really want to kill the people that got into the Castle by accident and really mean no harm to you?
- Virtual Paper Doll: You can dress Allura up in Millennia's and Reina's clothes.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Mayte is left to fight off an ambush near the finale of the game. Her fate is only shown in one of the three possible endings. The remaining two sidestep the character entirely.
- Yandere: Rachel, as part of The Reveal.
- You Bastard!: Every enemy in the game has some sort of backstory to them, and a great many of them are meant to inspire sympathy and conflict over killing them. Your mileage may vary on how well that works.
