Video Game / Sonny

Our Zombies Are Different: The Game.

"Zombies. You've shot them, stabbed them, sliced and diced them. Today I put you in the shoes of a Zombie. Fight for your life in this crazy and twisted world."

A series of Flash games made by KrinLabs and published by Armor Games, Sonny puts the player in the shoes of a recently deceased young man who, through some sort of experiment, was brought back from the dead as a zombie. On top of this, the man has no memory of his life before death. A blind man by the name of Louis finds him aboard a research vessel, and leads the first man (whom Louis named Sonny because the man cannot recall his real name) to lifeboats that will allow Sonny to escape from the vessel.

Things take a turn for the worse when soldiers from a MegaCorp known as Zombie Pest Control Incorporated (ZPCI for short) come aboard the vessel with the apparent intent of destroying the ship and all aboard it. Sonny manages to escape, but now he must figure out why he had been turned into a zombie in the first place (as well as who did it) and survive in a world where he and others like him are hunted as vermin.

The first game can be found here, and the second game is here.

In 2017, a re-imagining was made available for smartphones and PC, featuring upgraded art and some big changes to the story and game mechanics, making it a completely different experience with only the characters really returning. You can find it for iOS and Android.

---

This work contains examples of the following:

General Tropes

• 0% Approval Rating: The citizens of Hew despise Boris Livingstone due to his use of Secret Police and violently cracking down on anything that might be a threat to his power, and it doesn't help that he's allied with the ZPCI, who have been forcing them to pay exorbitant taxes as protection money. When the party kills him, they all celebrate the end of his rule.
• Aerith and Bob: Discounting Sonny himself (as it's a nickname), we have as his companions Louis, Roald, Felicity, Galiant (a bit more out there, but still relatively normal), and... Veradux. Buh?
• A.I. Roulette: Sonny's teammates cannot be directly controlled, but can be given general orders to focus on damage or healing. In general the AI makes fairly predictable moves for the given situation but can occasionally be very... illogical, like Veradux choosing to bayonet an full-health enemy instead of healing a near-dead Sonny when at least one healing ability is off cooldown.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Zombie people can have various skin colors, be it green, purple, blue or pitch black with red stripes.
• Ambiguously Gay: Baron Brixius. Just... Baron Brixius. What else would you expect from a guy who says "Ooh, scratchy bitch" when you hit him... that, or "Owwwww" in an alluring voice? Word of God confirms that his voice was influenced by a certain sweet transvestite. Veradux goes so far as to lampshade the trope in the second game:
  Baron Brixius: My loyal subjects are on their way here. This time, you're mine!
  Veradux: Let's break this bowl of fruit before the guards arrive!
• Ambiguously Human: Captain Hunt, the leader of the Wolfpack Boss of Zone 2. His portrait has an obscure face with glowing eyes and some rather inhuman teeth, and his extremely deep, slightly echoing voice is incomparable to any other in the game, be it zombie, human or power armor-wearing ZPCI mook.
• Anti-Regeneration: The Hydraulic's Vascular Arrest reduces the effectiveness of all healing on the target.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit:
  • Neither Sonny's party nor the enemy group in a battle can be composed of more than three characters. Near the end of the first game, this is lampshaded by Gailant the Paladin, who mistakes Sonny and a fellow zombie named Veradux for two members of a three-person group of soldiers sent to help him, and wonders why the third person is missing. (The answer: Because Sonny and Veradux just finished murdering said group of soldiers, and are now impersonating them... by accident. Veradux continues the lampshading further by telling Sonny to play along. Good idea, because this is your first fight with Baron Brixius, and the only way you're getting his 40,000+ HP down to nothing is with Galiant's help.)
  • This is also combined with Lazy Backup, though thankfully the game averts We Cannot Go On Without You, as if Sonny dies, you can still go on, though your allies can be incredibly dense at times, so you may want to reset anyway if this happens.
• Badass Boast:
  • Sonny does this in the first game, soon after defeating several enemies in the second zone and starting to become powerful.
    ZPCI: There's another, shoot it down!
    Sonny: By all means, try!
  • Sonny gets another one in the second game.
    Cultist: Sacrifice the intruders! Their blood will save us from death!
    Sonny: But nothing will save you from me.
• Badass Normal: Roald is the only non-zombie on your team. He does just fine.
• Bag of Spilling: In Sonny 2, Sonny and Veradux start the game with their respective starting equipment from the first game. Sonny's equipment includes a white T-shirt (which in the first game originally had to be purchased in the first zone's shop), a pair of old sneakers, a pair of jeans, and a length of broken pipe that serves as his starting weapon (the pipe is lampshaded in the weapon's description, which reads "Me and the pipe...we go way back."). Veradux's starting arsenal includes a BFG and a set of Powered Armor that he stole from the ZPCI in the first game.
• BFG: So, so many.
• BFS: Plenty to go around. The first game's Destroyer class favors them.
• The Big Guy: Veradux has shades of this, despite being a medic. He generally seems bigger and burlier than Sonny in the cutscenes, can pack a good punch in combat, and has a husky stereotypical brawler-type voice.
• Blatant Lies: During one encounter in each game, Sonny tells his opponent that he doesn't usually solve problems with violence.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: The ZPCI Sniper Rifle.
  "An excellent gun, though the gold plating seems a bit over the top."
• Bonus Dungeon: The Infinity in the first game, Il Sanctus and the Sho'Tul Shelf in the second game are not part of the story, unlocked by defeating the Final Boss, and home to various Superbosses and shop(s) that sell powerful items.
• Booze-Based Buff: Inverted with the hobos in the train. Over time, alcohol- and homelessness-based debuffs stack on them until they're taking thousands of damage per turn.
• Brick Joke: In the beginning of the second game, Sonny and Veradux are attacked by a female zombie named Felicity, who hurls a knife into Veradux's face, prompting him to cry out, "MY FACE!" Later in the first zone, the pair catch up with Felicity, who after being defeated in battle, hurls a second knife into Veradux's face, to which he responds by yelling "MY FACE! AGAIN!" before pulling the knife out of his face. By the time he does so, Felicity has already escaped. A weapon you get from Felicity in the battle (which she threw into his face a third time, but this time you got to keep it) has the description "Felicity's knife. Keep it away from Veradux." Still later, you meet Felicity a third time, and Sonny says to Veradux something to the effect of "Quick, cover your face." When she joins your party, one of her moves is "Knife To The Face".
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The Magic Bolt ability in the first game, while not as flashy as the other magic-based attacks, is very useful; it only takes 10 Focus to use, does 120% of your magic level plus 10 in damage, and gives any follow up attacks a decent damage boost.
  • The Cold Hydraulic build is a Stone Wall with a low damage output, but there are two incredibly useful skills it can use to its advantage. The first skill, Flash Freeze, stuns the enemy for two turns. The second skill, Mind Freeze, prevents the enemy from using skills that require Focus. With these two skills, you can disable a single enemy for an entire battle.
• Can't Drop the Hero: In the second game, Sonny can never be dropped from the party.
• Cavalry Betrayal:
  • The first game opens with one - Sonny and Louis expect the approaching helicopters to be a rescue team, but as it turns out, the ZPCI don't want any witnesses.
  • The first game also closes with one - after working together with Galiant the Paladin to defeat Baron Brixius, Sonny and Veradux turn on him.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Sonny.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: Many of the later enemies inflict statuses on themselves which have a major positive effect as well as a major negative effect, making taking them down an exercise in using this status to your advantage.
• Combat Medic: Veradux's official character class on the inventory screen is actually specifically called "Combat Medic". He's still primarily a healer, but his damage output isn't terrible, so having him on the offensive now and again isn't a bad idea, especially when even that little oomph in damage can help, or when you really want his Electro Bolt to knock off that enemy buff. Sonny can also be like this depending on your build (the Hydraulic class of the second game is most true to this trope, though).
• Company Cross References: The final Super Boss in the first game, Sinjid's Shadow, is a clear homage to Krin's previous two Sinjid games.
• Continuity Reboot: The third game in the series, released for mobile devices, is a reimagining of the original story.
• Crapsack World: The world's in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse, the "heroes" fighting them are an amoral MegaCorp that's implied to be perpetuating the problem so they'll always have business, the government has devolved into a complete totalitarian state, any research into fixing the problem (like Roald's resistance group) is being suppressed, and regular people are forming cults and tribes that kill you on sight if you so much as wander into their territory.
• Critical Hit Class: You can stack a high amount of Piercing (chance to crit and ignore defense) in a particular element to do this, or just stack abilities that straight up increase your crit chance/damage.
• Cult: You run into one in the second game. They sacrifice intruders, thinking it will ward off the undead. Ironically, unbeknownst to them, their leader is himself a zombie, albeit a sentient one: Baron Brixius. Once they realize this, the cult disbands.
• Damage-Sponge Boss:
  • The Rockstar in the first game, who is nothing more than a beefed up Rock Golem, and many bosses (or boss-like enemies) in the second game don't require much strategy than just 'shoot him and have Veradux focus on healing'.
  • The Bomb in Sonny 2 can't even attack. It just has lots and lots of health and has to be destroyed before it detonates.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Psychological, one of the classes in Sonny 2, has a strong focus on Shadow-typed damage over time and debilitating status effects. In fact, the series seems to be built on this trope; Sonny and Veradux are both zombies who are intelligent and don't seem to follow many zombie stereotypes (apart from being undead).
• Dead to Begin With: Sonny (or at least his memories) begins the first game as a zombie.
• Death Is Cheap: Sonny and his allies can hit zero HP and "die" any number of times and still be fine for the next round. The only problem is when all three of your current party members are dead and one enemy still stands.
• Dual Boss:
  • The City Council in Zone 5 and the Twin Guardians in Zone 7 fights each consists of two individual bosses.
  • The Mayor, the Final Boss of the second game, is accompanied by the Guardian Cannon, which is akin to a Mini-Boss.
• Duel Boss: In order to get the Black Magic and Old Ghosts achievements, Clemons the Deceiver and Nostalgia must be fought as one by setting your party to consist only of Sonny for the fight.
• Early Game Hell: Oberusel is brutal to anyone underleveled and will most likely be where you spend the most time in a legend run.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Sonny has more fantastic elements from Krin's earlier RPG's, including the inclusion of a Magic stat as well as fairly standard RPG classes that only differ in starting stats (as opposed to each having separate skill trees). Sonny 2 replaces Magic with Instinct and makes most abilities either technology-based or implied to be the result of zombification mutating Sonny. The three player classes are more unique and represent a particular emphasis of the bodily system corrupted (but enhanced) by being a zombie and each class has their own skill tree with multiple build paths within.
• Elemental Powers: A staple of the game's combat system. Each move is divided into one of several types. The first game has Physical, Magic, Ice, Fire, Electric, Earth, Shadow, and Poison. The second game renames Magic to Cosmic, while the third retools Poison into Nature and removes Cosmic and Earth.
  • In the first game, Sonny has access to every element except Earth and Poison. In the second, he can choose between three classes that give him two elements each: Biological gives him Physical and Poison, Psychological gives him Electric and Shadow, and Hydraulic gives him Physical and Ice. In the third, he starts with Physical and can select two more trees that give him access to Ice, Fire, Electric, Shadow, and Nature.
  • Veradux consistently has access to Electric attacks, and can also use a Poison move in the first game.
  • Roald focuses on Physical and Fire moves.
  • Averted with Felicity; she's all Physical, all the way.
  • In the mobile reboot, Dr. Herregods has an Ice heal and a Nature attack.
  • Kara has access to Fire, Electric, and Shadow moves.
  • Zakk uses Ice and Shadow.
• Elite Zombie: Sonny, Veradux, Baron Brixius, and Felicity are of the Zombie Person type.
• Enemy Mine: Felicity decides to fight alongside Sonny toward the end of Sonny 2 despite having fought him earlier.
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: As mentioned in the below Mind Screw and Mushroom Samba examples, Sonny and his party get stoned in Zone 4 due to a toxic gas. At one point, Veradux begins to sing "You are my Sunshine" before Sonny tells him to stop, and later during a fight with a hippie zombie, after the first time the zombie casts a particular spell, Sonny says, "I'm... freaking out, man...".
• Flunky Boss: Sinjid's Shadow and the Hydra are accompanied by two Shadow's Shadows and two Fire Claws, respectively.
• For the Evulz: Baron Brixius manipulates humans and zombies alike into instigating pointless conflict for his own amusement.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: When Felicity throws her knife at you in an end-of-battle cutscene, you get to keep it!
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: It's shown in a Sonny 2 cutscene that Veradux shoots his Electro Bolt with his rifle, yet he can still use it in battle if he has no guns equiped. This also applies to Roald who can still use projectile attacks wihout guns even though he's meant to be a normal human with no powers.
• Glass Cannon:
  • The Shadow Psychological, or 'Psychopath' build. Using the "Overdrive" ability doubles your damage and healing over time, but at the cost of 10% of your health each turn. However, a healing-over-time ability such as Terrify can easily offset the loss.
  • A Biological build can quickly turn into this with enough agility, piercing damage, and critical chance... but hope that the fight ends before the damage you take exceeds Veradux's ability to heal you.
  • Felicity, once she finally joins your party in Zone 5 of Sonny 2, mixes this with Fragile Speedster. She moves quickly, hits hard, and has high chances of landing critical hits, but her health and defenses are poor.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Sonny, Veradux, Felicity. The ZPCI helmets too, although if you're focusing on the "doom" part then Baron Brixius takes the cake.
• Guns Are Useless: Played with: Gun bayonets are used for melee and the guns themselves fire magical beam attacks, but nobody is seen actually firing bullets with their firearms.
• Hard Mode Mooks: In the second game, Peace Wardens only appear in training fights in Il Sanctus, which is not accessible on Easy difficulty.
• Hard Mode Perks: Beating the second game in Challenging difficulty unlocks the sixth zone and doing so on Heroic difficulty without using training fights or repeating bosses unlocks the seventh zone.
• Healer Signs On Early: Veradux. In the first game he's the first and only companion to permanently join before the end boss, in the second he starts out as your partner while Roald and Felicity join later, and he is once again the first companion to join in the mobile reboot.
• Healing Boss: Healing abilities are fairly common among bosses (and boss-adjacent enemies), with a few examples that truly merit the player's attention (one in the first game and three in the second):
  • Doctor Herregods, who has one million HP, will fully heal himself as soon as he loses 10000 HP. You need to ensure that he's affected by Subversion when he does so (usually by stunning him just before he drops under 990000 HP and activating Subversion when he wakes up) so he'll kill himself.
  • Gregor can rapidly restore its health with Roach Vitality and Terrify, while Apple Throw and Pity reduce the party's ability to damage it. In order to take it out, you need to mitigate its ability to heal itself.
  • Once Nostalgia's HP drops under 10000, he'll use a big heal very similar to Doctor Herregods' that will restore his HP by 10000. Just like Doctor Herregods, you'll need to use Retrograde or Subversion to make him kill himself.
  • In his 3rd turn and then every 6 turns after, Doctor Klima (who has 2601731 HP, the highest in the second game) heals himself by 20% of his maximum HP. Using Subversion or Retrograde to reverse damage and healing is essential to get through his HP.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: The description for Sonny 2 implies that Sonny is sick of getting kicked around and is adapting to fight back:
  Dear Human, [...] By now you know what it's like to be a Zombie. To be hunted. To be hated. You fought to survive in a world that didn't make any sense. [...] But now you're getting used to it. Your senses have sharpened. You finally begin to understand. Why be the prey ... When you can be the predator?
• An Ice Person: The Cold Hydraulic class of the second game is based around this, used to lock down enemies and make your allies stronger.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Several examples.
  • In the first game, once you reach the Bonus Dungeon, there are armor sets and weapons on sale that are locked to one class, and are tailor-made to play to that class's strengths. Veradux doesn't get anything specifically for him, but the Final Boss Galiant the Paladin drops some powerful armor which gives ludicrous amounts of poison piercing, to the point that the entire set overfills the piercing bar, playing particularly well to Veradux's poison attack.
  • The second game reverses the above, where Veradux is the only character to get a suit of armor specifically for him in the second Bonus Dungeon (Dr. Klima's gear). However, the items dropped by the second-to-last boss Yosuke play very well to Roald's strengths. In addition, you can buy three sets of powerful armor in the last zone that focus on one specific stat each.
• Instant-Win Condition: As long as all the enemies are dead (and it's the last wave on the mobile reboot) then you win the battle, even if your entire party is simultaneously also dead.
• It Can Think: The main difference between the "good guys" and "bad guys" is who actually cares that the protagonists are sentient (and non-evil) zombies. Roald's group is fascinated by the prospect and seem to regard them as people still ("We were a group devoted to finding a cure for your... condition.") and the oppressed citizens of Hew accept the party as they are once they find out that their liberators are undead. The ZPCI and corrupt police, on the other hand, couldn't care less and just see a few more targets to shoot at.
• Jack of All Stats: Roald the Insurgent has decent offensive options (including a potential 2-turn silence and stun) and is fairly tanky/fast, but only has one support ability. His starting equipment is balanced, though you can change this to favor one stat over the others.
• Killer Rabbit:
  • The Bunny fought in the Tunnel Of Illusions, which is small but sports very high attack power. It also weakens itself with a debuff called Holy Hand Grenade every now and then.
  • Gregor looks like an average cockroach, right? WRONG. This bugger has a lot of health for a cockroach (and no trick to deal extra damage to it!), a debuff that reduces 50% of your damage, and also gives itself an uncancellable buff that makes itself heal 20% of its max health each turn!
• Kill One, Others Get Stronger: In the City Council fight in the second game, when one Councillor dies, the other gives himself the State of Emergency buff, which lasts 99 turns, cannot be dispelled, and recovers 700 Focus per turn, allowing him to accumulate the 1800 Focus needed for an attack that deals enough damage to one-shot any character^note in their first turn, both Councillors spend the entirety of their 2000 Focus pool and will be sitting at under-100 Focus without this buff. The Twin Guardians fight works similarly, except that the surviving Guardian does not depend on Focus but can simply one-shot one character every turn. Because of this, in both fights, it is advised to take out both bosses around the same time.
• Knight Templar: The Warden in the second game is this, judging by his armor's combined Flavor Text:
  • Shawshank Boots, which have Tenuously Connected Flavor Text:
    "Everyone is guilty of something.
  • Punisher Gloves and the Eye of Justice:
    Everyone deserves to be punished...
    ... But isn't there crime in punishment?"
• The Lancer: Obviously, this distinction goes to Veradux, being Sonny's main companion/support character for the majority of both games, unless he's dropped from the party during Zone 5 of Sonny 2 (which is unlikely, due to his value as a healer).
• La Résistance: Roald's group, and the people in towns oppressed by the ZPCI.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Sonny doesn't remember who he was when he was alive, and his main goal is to find answers regarding his past.
• Leave No Survivors: Captain Hunt goes a step beyond this when it comes to dealing with the rebellion in Oberursel:
  Captain Hunt: Make sure no one leaves this place. Alive or dead. Disintegrate everything.
• Legacy Boss Battle: Baron Brixius appears as a boss in both games.
• Level-Locked Loot: In both games, characters cannot equip items whose level exceeds their own.
• Light Is Not Good: The ZPCI.
• Lightning Bruiser: The Biological, which is made to tear apart the enemy with physical damage.
• Limited Move Arsenal: Sonny can only have up to 8 abilities equipped at a time.
• Locked Out of the Fight: The Biological's Crystallize is effectively this, as it stuns the target in exchange of shielding it from all damage.
• Low-Level Run: Getting the Legend achievement on Heroic difficulty requires you to never replay boss battles or use training fights at all before defeating the Final Boss.invoked
• MacGuffin: A cassette tape given to Sonny by Louis before Sonny escapes the White November research vessel in the first game; its exact purpose is unknown. After completing the first zone in the second game, Sonny learns the contents of the tape (it's the popular children's song "You Are My Sunshine",) but is confused as to how it helps him.
• Mana Burn: Moves that can drain the opponent's Focus include Disruption in the first game; the Biological's Disrupt, the Psychological's Haunt and Traumatize, and the Hydraulic's Regulate in the second game. This is very useful against Sinjid's Shadow in the first game, and Baron Brixius, Gregor, the Hydra and Nostalgia's third phase in the second game.
• Manual Leader, A.I. Party: You always control only the eponymous character, with your other members being AI-controlled. In the first game, there's three settings: Defensive, Tactical, and Aggressive, which can only be changed in between battles. In the second game there are five settings: Phalanx, Defensive, Tactical, Aggressive, and Relentless, which can be changed at the start of every turn.
• Mayor Pain: Boris Livingstone is the Evil kind towards the citizens of Hew, sending Secret Police after them if they oppose him and violently cracking down on anything he considers a threat to his power.
• The Medic: For both games, Veradux acts as the team medic, although Sonny can sometimes fulfill this role in either game depending on which class/abilities he takes.
• MegaCorp: Zombie Pest Control Incorporated, more commonly known as the ZPCI, make money hand over fist by exterminating zombies, and they even have an entire city in their pocket, with the city's taxes being used as protection money. They also try to ruthlessly quash anything with the potential for ending the Zombie Apocalypse, such as the cure for zombification that Roald and his team were working on. Oh, and they also like to kill everybody who was involved in said attempts to end the zombie threat.
• Mighty Glacier: The Cold Hydraulic build in Sonny 2 has a lot of tankiness and strength, but his skills involve controlling the battle with slows, silences, and damage-over-time, not winning quickly.
• Mind Rape: The Psychological class in the second game does this.
• Mind Screw: The fourth zone in Sonny 2 is one big Mind Screw. Justified due to the fact that the sewer is filled with a toxic gas that causes hallucinations in all who inhale it. The weird things found in there include a zombie hippie, a clone of Sonny, and a pink rabbit that periodically gets blown up by blows itself up like a Holy Hand Grenade. No, really, that's what the game calls it.
• Monster Protection Racket: What zombie activity there is played up by the ZPCI in order to stay in business and make a massive profit.
• Mugging the Monster: Well, all zombies are monsters, but many, many times the ZCPI try to exterminate Sonny and Veradux, thinking they're just regular mindless ones. They're not.
• Mushroom Samba: Referenced in the above Mind Screw example; Sonny and friends find themselves in a sewer that is full of a hallucinogenic gas. They're rescued by a group of miners at the very end, but not before fighting some really weird enemies that themselves may have been hallucinations.
• Multiple Life Bars: Galiant the Paladin in the first game invokes this- as soon as his health drops below 40-50% and he has at least a quarter of his focus, he heals himself back to full health. You'll therefore have to stunlock him or damage him to that point at least three times before he becomes unable to use the move anymore.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the cinematic before the first fight with Felicity in the second game, Veradux disables her truck with a well-aimed Electro Bolt. After the fight, Sonny and Veradux use the truck to learn the contents of the Tape, and then drive towards a destination on a map in the glovebox. When you get to zone 2, clicking the truck will bring up a message saying that Vera's shot wrecked the battery, and the dialogue between the pair in the first battle of zone 2 has Sonny complaining about the long walk to their destination.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Although the Bomb can't even attack you, the battle will end automatically in a loss if you can't defeat it after 60 turns.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • Ignition from the first game gives a "Fate" debuff that deals 99999 or so damage to the afflicted on the next turn.
  • The ZPCI Sniper in Zone 2 of the second game. It takes two of his turns to rev himself up, stacking two buffs geared toward making his damage and Physical Piercing sky-high, but once he lets loose his attack (and the bolt is pretty much a sure-fire hit), then the one he hits is guaranteed to die. If he is unable to stack even one of these buffs, then he most likely will not kill you in a single shot, so you either need to interrupt his shot, or knock off at least one of his buffs, or you can kiss a teammate good-bye.
  • The Warden and Metal Warden in Sonny 2 can use a similar debuff (Death Sentence) as a Desperation Attack, except this one is undispellable, deals 9999 or max health in damage (whichever is higher) and lasts 10 turns. The description even states that you're screwed.
    "This unit is going to die. This effect cannot be dispelled. What is going to be your last move?"
• One-Winged Angel: Clemons the Deceiver, Vivian Vixen and Versu the Corruptor, all from Sonny 2.
• Oop North: Roald's got a pronounced Irish accent. Bonus points for having his research group forced somewhere that counts as Grim Up North.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Specifically, Sonny, Veradux, Felicity and Baron Brixius, aside from being undead, are nothing like conventional zombies. Averted with any other zombies you happen to run into, with the possible exception that they vary a bit more than average.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Required for the Superbosses of the first game.
  • Ignition will use a Doom-effect spell on a character that kills on the next turn, you must use Heroic Motivation, Subversion or Block to counter it. He will also give himself a 1000 hp per turn regeneration, use Electro Bolt to remove it.
  • Omen has a ludicrous amount of health, and a buff that makes him deal insane damage on his next attack but also causes him to take a lot more damage on that turn. Hit him with Break to make sure he doesn't hit you, then let Veradux or Amber attack him for massive damage.
  • Doctor Herregods has a whopping 1000000 HP, and when he loses 10000 of it, he will heal himself for 1000000 HP. Use Shatter Bolt to freeze him for two turns, get his health lower than 990000 then, and use Subversion on him when he recovers to make him suicide.
  • Sinjid's Shadow will use a lethal attack (Mana Bomb) if his Focus is at 100. Use Disruption to drain his Focus so he can't use it.
  • Baron Brixius in the second game has a huge health pool and some really nasty attacks. Whenever he's brought to low Focus, he'll cast Deep Burning on himself, restoring a lot of Focus but siphoning an equally large amount of heath in turn. Use Mana Burn moves like Disruption on him and he'll quickly kill himself with this ability.
• Perspective Flip: It's a turn-based RPG that takes place in a Zombie Apocalypse... except you're the zombie, albeit a sentient and very sympathetic one.
• Pistol-Whipping: Physical attacks with guns use the bayonet. Instead of bullets, characters use the guns to fire their spells.
• Playing with Fire: Roald and soldier-type enemies tend to specialize in fire attacks, as do the Super Boss Yosuke, who drops items which give incredible bonuses to fire piercing.
• Poisonous Person: The Biological can wear enemies down with a large arsenal of poisons with various damage-over-time effects.
• Powered Armor: The soldiers of the ZPCI wear these in battle. Veradux also starts out with one when Sonny first meets him in the first game, and starts out with it at the beginning of Sonny 2. Veradux's armor is a prototype armor stolen from the ZPCI that was meant for medics to wear in combat zones.
• Pragmatic Hero: Veradux encourages Sonny to turn on Galiant despite him helping them take down Baron Brixius, stating that even if he did help them earlier, he's still a member of the ZPCI, who want to exterminate any zombie they see regardless of their level of sentience. Sonny reluctantly agrees, and the two kill him in battle.
• Protagonist Title: Sonny is the story's hero and main character, and the series shares his name.
• Psycho Electro: The other (and more popular) build for the Psychological class. Electro Bolt is also an extremely useful skill in the first game which returns in the second game as one of Veradux's skills.
• Puppet King: Or Puppet Mayor, in this case; although Boris Livingstone is the mayor of Hew, the ZPCI are really the ones in charge, getting Livingstone to crush rebellions for them and forcing Hew's citizens to pay incredibly high taxes as protection money.
• Puzzle Boss: Several bosses in both games require an Outside-the-Box Tactic to destroy.
• Rainbow Pimp Gear: While there are a few item "sets", with a shared visual theme, similar bonuses, and available around the same level, most of the time the party is going to be wearing a profoundly weird assortment of stuff.
• Recurring Boss Template: Nostalgia, a Super Boss in the second game, is a combination of the four superbosses of the first game. He changes phases for every 25% (or 10000) of his HP lost, each of which has the same distinguishing gimmick as one of the old bosses:
  • In his first phase, like Ignition, he makes use of a delayed One-Hit Kill: if he has the Venomous Intent buff on himself, his Damage-Over-Time ability Fate will kill anyone affected by it instantly. If you don't want to die, be prepared to constantly dispel, just like when you fought Ignition.
  • In his second phase, he has the Earth Titan buff, which causes him to take only 5% damage from all sources (which gives this phase an effective HP of 200000) in order to simulate Omen's HP pool of 320000. And like Omen, he can buff himself with Dark Omen, which causes him to deal and take a lot of additional damage, allowing you and your teammates to bring him down quicker (as long as you ensure that he's stunned when Dark Omen is active).
  • In his third phase, he fights like Sinjid's Shadow, which means throwing mana bombs that scale with his Focus. If you don't want to die, be prepared to drain his Focus.
  • And once his HP drops under 25%, he'll use a big heal very similar to Doctor Herregods' that will restore his HP by 10000. Just like Doctor Herregods, you'll need to stun him to keep his HP under 25%, then use Retrograde or Subversion when he wakes up so he'll kill himself.
• Redemption Demotion: A rare opposite example, Galiant the Paladin deals damage in the thousands during your first fight against Baron Brixius. Afterwards, however, when you backstab Galiant the Paladin he deals much less damage against you and your party.
• Secret Weapon: The Seed, which was referred to towards the end of Sonny 2. Not much is known about this, but it is much more terrifying than nuclear warfare, as indicated by the reaction of the committee in the cinematic.
• Shop Fodder: The Ghost Medallion, Convoy Package and Champion's Trophy in the first game, and the Broken Emerald Shard in the second game have no uses other than being sold for money.
• Shout-Out: As from the official Forums (currently down), there were a number of these
  • The Crowbar in Sonny 2, the "weapon of Free Men".
  • From Starcraft, the 'Night Vision' Headgear (worn by Ghosts)
  • The Rabbit from the sewers inflicts on itself a status ailment known as "Holy Hand Grenade"
  • The White November research vessel references the submarine from The Hunt for Red October.
  • A headgear item purchasable in the sewer shop closely resembles Elvis' trademark hairstyle.
  • Doctors "Leath" and "Hedger" make an appearance in the second game. Guess who they sound like.
  • The Host is a "man" in a white tux in the middle of a zombie invasion. Hmm... And he wears a "Bugo Hoss" suit.
  • Gregor the cockroach is named after the protagonist of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, who finds himself turned into a cockroach. It inflicts the "Apple Throw" debuff, described as having an apple stuck in your back (which happens to Gregor Samsa in the story).
  • The BFS "Burk's Precision" is a Shout-Out to Krin's other game, Tainted Kingdom.
  • A number of enemies are named after users from the Forums such as "Shunny" (the Sonny clone) and "Flower Zombie" (the hippie zombie)
  • See You Meddling Kids below.
  • And many more.
• Status Buff: Even Krin himself has commented on the fact that there were far too many of these.
• Status-Buff Dispel: The Electro Bolt skill will dispel 1 status buff per level in addition to doing damage. It's an extremely useful skill.
• Stone Wall: The damage output of a Cold Hydraulic isn't terribly great, but it can soak damage like a champ.
• Super Mode: The second game has several abilities that all visually change Sonny's appearance in addition to providing buffs. The Biological splat has Predator and Toxicant forms, the Psychological has the Psychopath and Wraith forms, and the Hydraulic has the Avenger and Guardian forms.
• Super-Empowering: Doctor Leath in Zone 1 of the second game will use a mutant injection to transform his two accompanying Prison Guards into monsters once his health gets low enough.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: In the first game, Galiant the Paladin assumes that Veradux and Sonny are his reinforcements he requested to fight Baron Brixius... except that they just slew the real reinforcements the battle previous. Veradux whispers, "Just shut up and nod, Sonny. Shut up and nod."
• Tactical Suicide Boss: If a boss has thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of health, it will also do something that makes it much easier to deplete its HP.
  • Omen gives himself a buff that makes him deal 2000 more damage than usual but take 7000 more damage than usual when it's active. Stun him when he does so, so he can't attack and kill you.
  • Doctor Herregods, who has a million HP, will use a move that heals his max health in damage once he loses 10,000 HP. Stun him, and get his health below 990,000, then when the stun wears off use Subversion to make him kill himself.
  • In the second game, when Baron Brixius runs out of Focus, he'll inflict the Deep Burning buff on himself to recover it, taking 5% of his max HP as damage every turn. Once his health gets lower than 50%, he will occasionally use the skill Holy Scars, which causes all damage dealt to him to be multiplied by 10. Without these skills, you aren't going to get through his HP pool.
  • Every four turns, the Bunny will use the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, which deals damage to itself and causes it to take take 400% more damage for two turns.
  • Mokoshotar has an attack that turns a character into a werewolf, allowing the afflicted character to deal 6000 extra damage to him, which is necessary to plough through his very high HP.
  • The Police Colonel will cast a buff on himself that boosts his damage output by 400%, but always gets a debuff that boosts the damage he takes by 400% after it expires.
  • The king of this is Dr. Klima, who has 2,600,000 HP and heals himself for 500,000 every 6 turns; the player has to use Retrograde or Subversion to reverse damage and healing just before he does this.
• Technical Pacifist: The Pacifist achievement invokes this by forcing you to kill the Hydra without dealing more than 2000 damage throughout the whole fight. Basically, it can be summed up as acting as a support character and leaving the damage to Roald and Veradux.
• True Final Boss: Versu the Corruptor in Sonny 2, whose entire zone is only accessible after obtaining the Legend achievement.
• [Verb] This!: When Baron Brixius is revealed to be controlling the zombies in the 3rd stage of Sonny.
  Zombie Ambassador: He is your new master. You shall obey.
  Sonny: Obey this, you twat!
• Violence is the Only Option:
  • There's rarely an encounter that ends without fighting. At one point the group beats up a hobo because they have no reason not to.
    The Real Hobo: Spare some change?
    Veradux: (after a few rounds of combat) Hey, wait a minute, this guy's not a zombie!
    Sonny: Well, I couldn't just let him have my well-earned cash now could I?
  • Subverted with the fight against Roald and his buddy. After a couple of rounds, they realize there's more to Sonny and Veradux than meets the eye, and agree to stand down. Roald then joins your team.
• Voluntary Shape Shifting: The Beast Form ability.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The Shaman Tribe in Gadi'Kala serve as an almost literal example. They don't affect the plot, serve as enemies for the sake of being enemies, and act as filler before the combat starts involving relevant characters again. But only after you've eradicated the whole lot of them.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Thankfully averted, especially if your build prioritizes dealing a lot of damage quickly over survivability. However, unless the fight's nearly finished, you may want to restart anyways instead of watching the AI bumble around...
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Virtually every living being who meets Sonny and Veradux wants to exterminate them and don't care that they can talk. Averted with Roald's group, which is fascinated by their intelligence and seem to regard still-sentient zombies as curable people with a disease.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Sonny gives Veradux a serious one in the first game before the fight with the Final Boss:
    Veradux: The Baron's dead. Let's kill this whoopy superhero and leave!
    Sonny: But why? He helped us.
    Veradux: Listen Sonny. To them, we're monsters. Now we can either be alive monsters, or dead ones. You choose.
  • Sonny and Veradux beating up a homeless man because they don't want to give them their change.
    Veradux: Hang on, that wasn't a zombie!
    Sonny: Well, I couldn't let him have our hard-earned cash, now could I?
• Who Is Driving?: In Sonny 2, the third stage involves making your way to the back of the train to get more coal so you can outrun the ZPCI. The very next stage the train has crashed... and an NPC yells at you for not making sure anyone was driving the damn thing.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Actually, "Sonny" was a nickname given to the protagonist by Louis; he can't remember his real one.
• Why Won't You Die?: In-game example, as many enemies on low health will often use healing spells on themselves or others to bring them back to full life. This happens multiple times a battle until the enemy runs out of focus, since, by the time you bring their health back down, the healing spell will be ready for use.
• Wolfpack Boss: Several:
  • The ZPCI Captain - ZPCI Assault - ZPCI Medic squad at the end of the first zone of Sonny, and their more powerful versions, the ZPCI Elite - ZPCI Sniper - Elite Medic in zone 3 of the same game, and the Captain Hunt - ZPCI Sniper - ZPCI Medic at the end of the second zone in Sonny 2.
  • The Shaman Council (Dokebi the Striker, Vendetta the Breaker and Argalla the Mender) in Sonny.
  • The Antagonist, Phantom, Beast trio in zone 3 of Sonny 2.
• World of Snark: So, so many interactions within the party and with enemies.
  Sonny: So... how long do you plan on sticking around?
  Veradux: Um, 'till death do we part'?
  Sonny: You're hilarious...
• You Meddling Kids: Baron Brixius calls the heroes this when you're about to kill him in Sonny 2, in a line that seems to be blatantly ripped off from an episode of Scooby-Doo:
  Baron Brixius: No... not again... and I would have gotten away with it... if it weren't for you meddling kids!
• Zero-Effort Boss: The Real Hobo in the second game. You can literally just wait out all of your turns; his attacks deal little damage to you but inflict several debuffs on himself which will inevitably kill him.

Mobile Reboot Tropes

• Achilles' Heel:
  • The War Lizard has an unstable fusion reactor at its core that burns it over time, draining its health. Taking advantage of this weakness is all but required to defeat it, as it has high health and durable armor that make it almost impossible to kill without doing so.
  • Terminators have a rather damaging attack that powers them up with each use, but it has a very long cooldown period, and during this period, they can't move at all due to it being their only attack, leaving them vulnerable to attack.
• Action Initiative: Instead of functioning as a Mana Meter, a unit's Focus bar fills up during a fight and lets them attack when full. Buffs/debuffs to speed affect how quickly Focus refills, which directly affects turn order during combat.
• Affably Evil: Grosk is pretty friendly despite destroying Dr. Herregods' laboratory, killing civilians and transforming them into super zombies, and trying to kill the party for interfering with his plans.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Each one of the Elemental Strains changes Sonny's appearance to that element.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Sonny is a lot more ripped in the mobile port, whereas he looks like a skinny teenager in the flash games-though he still gets called "pretty boy" a few times.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • Downplayed, Sonny is still a snarky everyman in the reboot, but he's generally less angsty and more well-adjusted to becoming a zombie.
  • Baron Brixius goes through this as well, going from a sadistic zombie overlord who instigates pointless conflict for his own amusement to a tragic figure who unintentionally causes the zombie apocalypse with his attempts to bring back his deceased wife.
• Anti-Frustration Features: As long as all waves are cleared and the enemies are dead, it doesn't matter if your characters are too.
• Anti-Villain: Baron Brixius becomes this in the mobile remake. In the original game and its sequel, Brixius is a sadistic, god-like zombie overlord who manipulates zombies and humans alike in order to instigate pointless conflict for his own amusement. In the mobile remake, he instead goes mad after losing his wife and unintentionally causes the zombie apocalypse with his attempts to bring back her back, and deeply regrets the harm he caused in the end.
• Artistic License – Biology: An in-universe example occurs with the ZPCI Praetor: when Dr. Herregods tells him that Dr. Klima isn't managing the SEED's development, but is only hanging around their base so he can capture Sonny and use him to further study the super zombie strains he created, he protests that the ZPCI isn't involved in the creation of zombies, and complains about zombie sympathizers breeding with zombies and making new types. Sonny responds by telling him that's not how zombies are made.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Dr. Herregods goes from a nondescript Super Boss in Sonny 1 to a fully-fledged party member in the mobile reboot. He also changes from a medic-type doctor to a PhD in zombie biology.
  • Dr. Klima, who was a Super Boss in Sonny 2, is promoted to The Dragon in the mobile reboot, aiding Carbon in his plans to turn all of humanity into super zombies.
• Badass Longcoat: Vendara wears one.
• Badass Pacifist: The Watch the World Burn achievement invokes this by forcing you to kill the War Lizard without using a single attack. Basically, it can be summed up as acting as a support character and leaving the damage to your teammates and the boss's unstable fusion reactor, which gradually drains its HP with each turn.
• Boring, but Practical: The Physical strain moves are less flashy than the elemental strains, but their low cooldowns compared to their strength and their versatility make them useful throughout the game. Not to mention some are essential for beating bosses if your particular strain lacks a better move for that role.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Arcanis brainwashes those within the Hidden Forest into worshiping an evil spirit known as the Frozen God and orders them to attack outsiders to the forest. As Zakk learns to his horror, Arcanis brainwashed his entire tribe and forced them to sacrifice themselves to the spirit, which gives him a greater drive to kill the cult leader.
• Co-Dragons: Grosk, Celestia, and Dr. Klima are this to Carbon, assisting him in the creation of super zombies.
• Critical Hit Class: The Fire strain has several abilities related to critical hits, giving you more crit chance (Heat Distortion and Blaza Aura), healing after crits (Phoenix Soul), and extra damage upon crits (Blast).
• Cult: Arcanis leads a cult that worships an evil spirit called the Frozen God, claiming that the spirit is benevolent when it was actually sealed away for its wrath. The cultists are notable for charging the animals they control with powerful spells and gaining power through drinking the blood of fellow cultists, requiring the party to kill them as soon as they can to prevent them from getting too powerful.
• Cuteness Proximity: Kara thinks the Frost Wolves found in the Hidden Forest are incredibly adorable, and feels bad about having to kill them so the party can advance.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Zakk initially starts out antagonistic, but joins the party after they defeat him in order to bring down Arcanis, who has been brainwashing his tribe and forcing them to sacrifice themselves to the Frozen God.
• The Dreaded: Vileclaw is so feared that the ZPCI flees the scene when he arrives, and both Sonny and Veradux are unnerved by him despite staying behind to finish him off.
• Dual Boss:
  • Baron Brixius is supported in battle by Baroness Marie, his reanimated wife.
  • A pair of heavily armored super zombies named Apollo and Artemis serve as mini-bosses in the Red Pillars.
• Duel Boss: In order to get the Spellbreaker achievement, Leon the Inquisitor must be fought as one by setting your party to consist only of Sonny for the fight.
• Elite Zombie: Sonny, Vileclaw, Corruptor, Grosk, Celestia, Dr. Klima, and Carbon are of the Zombie Person type, and the latter four intend to kill off humanity and turn them all into these, claiming that they're simply "making humanity great again." Like the original game and its sequel, various other types can be found as you advance through the game.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Why Kara joins up with you after defecting from the ZPCI; the ZPCI Praetor gave her and other ZPCI soldiers orders to kill innocent civilians under the guise that they were about to be infected in order to cover up the organization's crimes, and she turned on them for it.
  • Captain Vendara assists the party in defeating Carbon after he learns that he is actually a super zombie who intends to use the SEED he provided the ZPCI with for purposes they didn't expect.
• Evolution Powerup: Sonny's strain of The Virus can evolve on-the-fly to randomly modify his attacks with a myriad of effects.
• Fragile Speedster: Kara has pretty high chances of dodging attacks, but low survivability.
• For Science!: Dr. Herregods is a zombie researcher and constantly looking to tinker with Sonny's mutations.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Celestia is the creator of the SEED that the ZPCI wishes to use to eradicate zombies but actually serves as a tool for Carbon to use in his goal of turning all of humanity into super zombies, as well as the robots and cyborgs that attack the player in the Thunder Labs.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Zakk explains that the followers of Arcanis's Frozen God cult can drink the blood of other followers to empower themselves. They have an ability that sacrifices one of their allies to give them a whopping 300% boost to all stats for their next 5 actions.
• Glass Cannon: Kara has very high damage output, but isn't very durable.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Carbon, the head of Infectaid, provides the ZPCI with the SEED they wish to use to destroy all the zombies with in order to hide his true intentions of exterminating the human race with it and transforming them all into super zombies like him, as no one would expect that a weapon used by a zombie-hunting group would be used for mass zombification instead. The revelation of this plan is when the party goes from fighting the ZPCI to preventing Carbon and his super zombies from claiming the entire human race with the weapon. He is also responsible for the creation of the various super zombies the party must fend off prior to encountering him, such as Vileclaw and Corruptor.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Louis when explaining how Focus and attacking works in this version; Dr. Herregods when explaining how Sonny gets to evolve his attacks mid-battle.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: You have no chance against Vendara when you encounter him in Chapter 1; fortunately he has to withdraw after two rounds of combat with you.
• HP to One: Arcanis's main boss fight gimmick, coupled with Suppress to severely reduce healing.
• Improbable Weapon User: Zakk wields a Shaolin/Monk's Spade, which originated as a modified farming tool but is perfectly serviceable as a polearm.
• Lampshade Hanging: Sonny lampshades how weird (and convenient) it is that a sinking research vessel has a item vendor aboard more interested in hawking his wares than, you know, escaping. He vanishes after this and we never see who's selling us equipment in each zone again.
• Leave No Witnesses: The ZPCI is perfectly willing to kill people involved with curing/stopping the zombie apocalypse and other civilian witnesses, using the flimsy excuse that they were "about to be infected".
• Lone Wolf Boss: Templar Arcanis is the only major boss who isn't involved in the spread of the zombie apocalypse, the ZPCI's attacks on civilian witnesses, or Carbon's plan to turn all of humanity into super zombies, instead being a cult leader who brainwashed many people, including Zakk's tribe, into blindly worshipping and sacrificing themselves for the Frozen God, a malevolent spirit sealed away for its wrath, and slaughtering any zombies in their path, believing that the spirit will bless him and his cult for it.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Baron Brixius goes mad with grief after Baroness Marie, his wife, dies prior to the game's events, and becomes desperate to revive her, not caring about the zombie apocalypse he causes with his attempts to bring her back. When he's finally defeated, he states that while he regrets the harm he caused, nothing is more important to him than being with the one he loves.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Once again, you go through an icy zone and fight someone who joins you after their defeat in order to defeat an evil cult.
  • Also once again, you have to utilize the assistance of a ZPCI member far more powerful than your characters to be able to fight the final boss.
• Named by the Adaptation: In the original game, the ZPCI captain who orders Louis's murder and tries to kill Sonny was simply known as the ZPCI Captain. Here, he's known as Sgt. Meiers, though this isn't revealed until after Sonny kills him, with him being referred to as the ZPCI Elite until then.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Many of the zombies encountered later in the game are cyborgs, with the most notable example being Celestia, a top InfectAid engineer who willingly became a roboticized zombie samurai with an angel motif and electric powers.
• One-Hit Kill: Treants and Corruptor give a "Deadly Wrap" debuff that instantly kills the afflicted if they use an attack, forcing them to play defensively to negate it.
• Power Armor: The new art style changes Veradux's armor plates into a completely-encasing Space Marine-esque body suit.
• Puzzle Boss: Most area bosses have at least one major gimmick that forces you to change up your strategy (or just be grossly over-leveled), often forcing you to use previously-ignored skills.
• Rule of Cool: Dr. Klima's reasoning for making the various super zombies the party faces the way they are runs on this.
  Dr. Klima: What's the point in a super zombie if they aren't enormous, part mech or just plain wicked AWESOME?
• Science Hero: Dr. Herregods is actually pretty useful in combat with his science-related support abilities.
• Shoot the Medic First:
  • Essential for dealing with medic and caster-type enemies.
  • Discussed and played with for Arcanis. Sonny has the idea of killing the healing orbs first, but the simplicity of this makes Zakk suspicious. You actually don't want to kill them immediately, since they fully heal your party upon death, and this is essential later in the fight.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Celestia's Overdrive attack gives a character the Berserk status, allowing the afflicted character to deal thousands of damage to her over the course of three turns, which is necessary to plough through her very high HP.
• Take That!: Carbon's boasting about his money, frequent mockery of his opponents, dismissive attitude towards veterans, doctors, women, and foreigners, intentions for the SEED, and claims of wanting to "make humanity great again" were all meant as jabs toward Donald Trump for his controversial behaviour and policies.
• Taking You with Me: In the final zone, there is one mini-boss that has a passive effect that instantly kills whoever kills it.
• Villainous Valor: Farsight continues to fight the party despite her injuries along with Captain Vendara urging her to flee so she can recover. She doesn't make it through.
• Voice Grunting: The reboot uses short voiced phrases to accompany character's written dialogue. However, it also has more dialogue in general than the flash games.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Kara is against killing civilians, and the ZPCI Praetor ordering her to kill innocent construction workers under the guise that they were about to be infected so the ZPCI can cover up their crimes is what causes her to leave them and join the party.

---