Warning: Due to its nature as a sequel to Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, all spoilers from that game is unmarked.
"Uhh, was that a turnip... with a gun?"
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is an action Roguelike by Snoozy Kazoo. It is the direct sequel to 2021's Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion.
Two days after defeating Mayor Onion (and one day after the resulting power vacuum sparked a worldwide civil war), Turnip Boy is contacted by Don Dillitini of the Pickle Gang with a job offer: Help the Gang rob the Botanical Bank, the biggest bank in the world. Turnip Boy, ever the morally ambiguous Anti-Hero, readily agrees, but it won't be easy. The Botanical Bank is run by the sleazy garlic bussinessman Stinky, who has an entire private army guarding his bank and the police force on speed dial once the bank's automated alarms go off. To make matters even more complicated, the Bank itself seems to constantly shift and change its layout. Between all this, fully looting the place is going to take more than one attempt, and thus Turnip Boy must work alongside the Pickle Gang and other allies to loot as much money as he can before the police arrive and use that money to finance future robberies.
But as the heist continues, more and more questions start piling up. How exactly did the Botanical Bank become so big? How did Stinky gain his power and fortune? What is the "Mysterious Motherlode" at the heart of the bank that Dillitini is oddly fixated on finding? How does all of this connect to Turnip Boy's late father, a notorious mob boss? And what's the deal with those weird, broken English speaking veggies that seem to be following Turnip Boy as he goes deeper into the Bank?
Unlike Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, which was a Zelda-styled action adventure game, Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is a procedural roguelike. Each time you arrive at the Bank, you have a set amount of time before the alarms sound and an infinite army of cops start spawning, quickly becoming more numerous and deadly the longer you overstay your welcome. The goal of the game is to loot as much money as you can, mainly by shaking down bank customers, blowing safes, and stealing valuable treasures, then hightailing it back to the getaway truck before the cops overwhelm you. In between runs, you can spend the loot you've stolen on various upgrades, tools, and key items to progress further as well scrapping weapons that you've grabbed from the last run for researching more starter weapons in the Pickle Gang's hideout.
Turnip Boy Writes a Trope List Again:
- Abnormal Ammo: In the Motherlode Vault, you can find two guns that use money you've managed to steal as ammo. Other instances include cactus needles, bone boomerangs, and the phrases "Too Short!" "Game Sux!" and "Game Bad!" fired from a red dislike symbol with an angry face.
- Achievements in Ignorance: The Steroids upgrade increases your range attack damage. How? By injecting the bullets with them and this somehow works.
- Actionized Sequel: While the first game had a fair amount of action already, the sequel ramps it up by having a lot more enemies on screen at once and giving Turnip Boy a lot more weapons, primarily guns.
- Alliterative Name: Every room in the game is alliterative, including the Weapons Warehouse, Lackluster Lobby, Fancy Foyer, Cowboy Courtroom, Center Courtyard, Seed Stock, Failed Festival, Dark Dock, Longevity Labs, Cryptic Crypt, Pitiful Pit, Soupy Sewers, Mysterious Motherlode, and even the entire bank (Botanical Bank). This includes the RNG rooms like Ordinary Office, Deflated Den, Vast Vaults, Locker Lane, and Shroominati Shadows. The only exception is The Other Side where you can find Crancran, where she's apparently became the ruler and started a fighting ring titled: "cwancwan o-other side k-kitty cat fighting bonanza!!" note
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Similar to the previous game, there are sidequests which award different hats for Turnip Boy to wear.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- Near the end of the game, you can get a giant anime-esque sword as a drop from Uncle Rigsby which, while it does have a long range for a melee weapon, also has a slightly longer cooldown than other melee weapons. More importantly, it slows your movement when wielding it note .
- Other weapons that fall into this category include flamethrower and chainsaw weapons, due to the need to get close to enemies in a game where most enemies have ranged attacks.
- Also near the end of the game in the Motherlode Vault you'll find a powerful gun and a powerful Gatling gun that deal some of the highest damage in the game...And use your current on hand money as ammo, though by this point you've already gotten almost everything so it's less impractical.
- Back from the Dead: Rafael, one of the IRS agents that sacrificed himself to kill Mayor Onion in the last game, was recovered by Dillitini and the mafia and rebuilt as a cyborg, and helps you out as your trainer for non-weapon or technology things with the power of good-old fashioned steroids. The third boss is Chad, one of the other agents who was, similarly, rebuilt into a cyborg by Stinky, something that annoys Dillitini and seeing it as Stinky stealing his idea.
- Big Damn Heroes: Right as the "blueberry" aliens are ready to fire their Giant Death Laser, Dillitini comes to the rescue in the getaway van (now with flight capabilities) and proceeds to ram the van into the alien ship/mech, destroying it and saving the day.
- Bleak Level: In the fourth boss room of the game (Pitiful Pit) the music is automatically muted, leaving the player alone with their thoughts, the ambiance sounds, and a giant, sandwich-based, Humanoid Abomination. The only other location to do this is in the Mysterious Motherlode, though due to this being the final normal level, it is likely more done to convey seriousness.
- Boss Rush: Near the end of the game Turnip Boy has to kill all four of the previous bosses again in one run to plant the rocket boosters to steal the bank, then having to fight the final boss.
- Boring, but Practical: Some the unlocked real life guns like the shotgun, AK-47 and rocket launcher you can get from the Twins aren't very flashy compared to things like shooting homing fireflies out of a frog or wielding a plastic toothpick sword like a BFS, but they do their jobs so respectably and have infinite ammo so you may choose to keep them unless something real insane shows up. Don Turnipchino's revolver that you unlock in the endgame is especially a big case of this, as it shoots so fast and does so much damage that very few of the sillier guns will outperform it.
- Brick Joke: In the tax tips video
for the previous game, Turnip Boy says his real voice can drive the souls out of men. Sure enough, Crancran, the only one TB says anything to, is dead due to her soul exploding after 24 hours. - Brown Note: Remember when Turnip Boy, in the only instance of him speaking actual words, told Crancran to "stop" in response to her constant cutesy talk in the previous game? It turns out she died the next day from having heard Turnip Boy's voice due to his true nature.
- The Chosen One: The mushroom cult believes that Turnip Boy is this for their cult due to his "special aura" around him. or rather, because he's still nuclearly irradiated from the last game.
- Crossover: One of the doors that can spawn late in the game takes you to Lab Labs where you meet with Dr. Dogna, she hands out a sidequest to fight a Super Fox from her home game as an Optional Boss, which comes along with one of the songs used in their home game as its boss music.
- Double-Meaning Title: The game's title itself is not only referring to Turnip Boy's next shenanigans of robbing a bank, but it also refers to the climax of the game where Dillitini suggests him to literally steal the bank building itself out of spite to Stinky after learning the truth of Don's death.
- Enemy Mine: The Pickle Gang are initially wary of working with Turnip Boy, since they and his father were once bitter rivals. They do soften up on him as the time goes however, with Dillitini in particular start to treat him like a son he never had.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Dillitini may be a mafia boss who's an arch-rival to Don Turnipchino and mentioned on how he willing to kill him without a fair fight, but even he is repulsed to learn that Stinky assassinated Don on orders from Mayor Onion without giving him a chance to fight back, stating that he "broke the mafia code."
- Evil Living Flames: DJ Sizzle is a sentient Dark Souls bonfire, which really stands out even in this world of living veggies. And of course, they're not exactly squeaky-clean, though instead of burning things personally, they politely ask Turnip Boy to reap souls for them in exchange for rewards.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Veggiefolk don't seem to be very long-lived, and so their life events move extremely quickly. It's been only two days since Tax Evasion and there was a World War after Mayor Onion was killed that was resolved in within a single day (and yet somehow shell-shocked and killed thousands and left Veggieville uninhabitable), the elderly Old Lady Lime mention she's 7 days old, and Blueberry and Strawberry are courting each other and ready to propose after less than a day of dating. Oddly though, none of the characters from the first game who were already elderly actually died (except Cran Cran, but that was for non-age related reasons), none of the returning characters have visibly aged at all, and Stonkle mentions it's been months since he saw his dad (granted he doesn't know what a "month" is so he may be an Unreliable Narrator), so it's possible there's just some disproportionate aging in play with certain veggies.
- Future Imperfect: A statue of a nuclear mushroom cloud is interpreted as some kind of divine broccoli, which humorously causes another broccoli to believe he is God's descendant and found a cult.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Before Dillitini rams the getaway van at the mothership, he gives Turnip Boy a proper name, naming him him Don Turnipchino The Second. After starting the game again, Turnip Boy acquires name change documents that change his name in the dialogue to Don Turnipchino II.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Final Boss battle suddenly brings in an alien invasion. Don Dillitini isn't even surprised anymore after all the insanity the heist has had up to this point.
- Great Offscreen War: A war began immediately after the end of the previous game, and concluded by the time of beginning sequence of the game... two days later.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In the ending, Dilitini sacrifices himself by kamikazing the alien mothership with the getaway truck.
- Humanoid Abomination: Uncle Rigsby, the original owner of the Bank before the bombs dropped, manages to be even more nightmarishly mutated than his niece Liz was. On top of the same green goo his niece had, he's absolutely massive, has tentacular arms that can pursue you around the room, and worst of all, the nuclear explosion somehow replaced his entire head with the sandwich he was eating, making for an unexpectedly freaky look.
- Immediate Sequel: The game starts a mere two days after the events of the previous game.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: Throughout the game the player can collect special weapons, including soul weapons from an unknown DJ entity (that you can use to collect the souls of your enemies to buy music or random weapon drops), brimstone weaponry from arena fights in the Other Side (like fire-spitting cats and skull rocket launchers), weapons that literally fire money, and if you max out research, a gun that literally shots out atoms to atomize enemies.
- Interface Screw: One of the bosses (Mecha-Chad) blocks your vision when he Turns Red. He does this by placing an ASMR slime video (and later, an ASMR soap video) onto your screen, simultaneously reducing how much you can see while also being really distracting.
- Jump Scare: Interacting with a photo spot in the hidden backroom in the sewers or vandalizing Crancran's painting triggers one, leading to an instant death.
- One Last Song: Implied. The song titled "The Bandit" has an intro where the radio host of Snoozy Radio talks about how "we've really done it now" and this "one last song" is "to go with you on this long road ahead" for anyone listening during the original nuclear apocalypse, as well as "anyone out there who makes it off this doomed little rock." One can even hear the Emergency Alert System and air raid sirens blasting during the intro, as well as air raid sirens, an explosion, wind, and static in the end.
- Police Pig: Played With: the police aren't literal pigs, but that they're sentient strips of bacon communicates the same idea.
- Production Throwback: There's a wall-mounted bass that, when hit, plays distorted audio from the credits song of the previous game.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: At the end of the game, Turnip Boy finds his dad's old revolver and can use it as a starting weapon. It does shockingly high damage and has a solid rate of fire, outdoing almost any weapon besides the ones dropped by bosses..
- Ribcage Ridge: In the opening sequence, God Onion's rotting corpse can be seen in the background.
- Running Gagged: After the entire mess that came from him ripping up everything last game, everyone now laminates any documents they give to Turnip Boy to prevent him from tearing it up, much to his frustration.
- Schmuck Bait:
- The Dark Web computer has a second tab open that alternates between various memes, if you tab up and click it, it floods the computer with pop-ups and then make it bluescreen, locking you out of it until you come back from a run.
- In the Soupy Sewers there's a secret room that's an obvious expy of The Backrooms, even with it looking like a glitch and omnionous aura, And even a convenient Photo Op spot...Ignoring the obvious signs leads to a photo that shows Gregory, who runs the Dark Web Website you buy stuff from, coming at you at high speeds with the caption of RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN before you die horribly after going back in game.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: The track "Mycelium" includes a portion of backwards speech that reads: “Like the precursors, they walk, talk, and dream. Like the precursors, they got close, and fell in love. Like the precursors, they waged war, and died.”
- Shout-Out:
- Quite a few, including ones to Among Us and Minecraft.
- In the Cryptic Crypt level there's a room with a conspicuous piano, which, when approached, becomes hostile and attacks the player.
- Smart Bomb: The Canadian Milk Bag acts as one, going off whenever Turnip Boy takes damage and dealing heavy damage to all enemies on the screen. Upgrading it reduces the cooldown before it comes back. It may also count as Taking You with Me since the milk bag is destroyed in the process.
- Stock "Yuck!": One of the bosses, Uncle Rigsby, a surviving mutated human who was merged with the sandwich he was eating when the nukes dropped, appears to be picking the pickles out of his food to avoid eating them.
- Timed Mission: Practically the entire game, minus boss fights. While the player can buy power-ups to increase the time, the maximum is still 6 minutes before waves of fuzz arrive. However, fighting off the fuzz for a time makes Stinky gas the bank note which does periodic damage - meaning that each run is timed, even if the time is longer than the countdown initially shown.
- Token Good Teammate: Annie the avocado scientist joins in on the heist not for the money like everyone else outside of funding her research, but to study the Botanical Bank and how it connects to the greater mysteries of the world.
- Tomato Surprise: When Turnip Boy encounters Crangela, Cran Cran's descendant, it's revealed that Turnip Boy is an eldritch creature, as his true voice will rip the soul out of anyone unfortunate enough to hear it. Described by Crangela as "causing [Cran Cran's] soul to explode 24 hours after hearing it."
- Too Dumb to Live: While she is trying to speak normal after the last time, Cran Cran still can't contain her owo accent and once again reaches the breaking point where Turnip Boy tells her to stop again, much to her horror.
- Tropey, Come Home: Inverted; despite experiencing a Cessation of Existence at the end of the last game, the player can find Tangerine Dog on the Dark Web, thus allowing them to add Tangerine Dog to the Weapons Warehouse, and even interact with it - which creates a heart effect and has it follow you on a heist. Though it's simply there for moral support, and can neither be attacked nor attack. note
- The Unfought: Stinky takes advantage of Turnip Boy being stunned by The Reveal of his father's death and flees while his back is turned. He manages to escape unscathed and never returns to the bank, which infuriates Dillitini to the point he just decides to steal the entire bank to spite him, since his money-hungry sociopathy would make stealing his money worse than simply being killed.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Rafael, one of Mayor Onion's IRS agents, is revealed to have survived blowing himself up to help Turnip Boy defeat Mayor Onion's God form, having been converted into a cyborg and now working for the Pickle Gang. Similarly, Chad also turned into cyborg by Stinky as he working for him, serving as one of the game's bosses.
Well, we've really done it now, huh? I hope you've all enjoyed tuning in all these years. We got one last song for you here at Snoozy Radio to go with you on this long road ahead. If there's anyone out there who makes it off this doomed little rock, this one's for you. It's called "The Bandit".
