Needs Help: Enemy Roll Call

So, this is my first Repair Shop thread, and I'm not exactly sure how it works besides what I've read in the stickies. But I think there's a bit a problem here that qualifies this trope, Enemy Roll Call, for a Repair Shop thread. It kind of falls under both "Ambiguous Name" and "Misuse", so I just put it under the standard "Needs Help".

You see, the trope's called "Enemy Roll Call", but several entries here include characters that aren't enemies at all; in at least one case, there aren't any enemies in it whatsoever. In the main trope page itself, you can see a few of them as I've outlined here:

• Kirby's Dream Land 3 shows the names of Kirby's friends and a few bosses during the credits via drawings on paper.
• Atomic Runner Chelnov ends with a list of "The Characters," excluding bosses but including Chelnov himself. This was not included in the Sega Genesis version.
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl has Mini-Game Credits at the end of Classic Mode where the player shoots mugshots of all the characters currently unlocked, as well as items, assist trophies, Pokéball Pokémon, and trophies currently owned.
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 5 parodies this trope by listing the names off all the characters during the credits, even the ones with little importance.
• Rhythm Heaven and its sequel, Rhythm Heaven Fever, have a little section in their credits called "Rhythm Heaven Cast", which shows the names of every character from every stage.
• The "True Pacifist" ending of Undertale does this, and also shows what happened to them after the events of the game. (This one's a bit ambiguous because of how the game defines an "enemy".)

Given that the trope isn't so widespread yet, I also went ahead and wick-checked every page listed on the "Related" tab.

• Banjo-Kazooie — roll call includes friendly NPCs and enemies
• Cave Story — roll call includes friendly NPCs and enemies
• Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine — roll call is enemies only
• Donkey Kong Country — roll call is enemies only
• Doom — roll call is enemies only
• Ghosts 'n Goblins — roll call is enemies only
• Kendo Rage — roll call is enemies only
• Kirby's Dream Land — roll call is enemies only
• Kirby's Dream Land 3 — roll call includes friendly NPCs and enemies
• Mega Man (Classic) — the Robot Masters are technically enemies, though reprogrammed friends in the first and ninth game
• Mute Crimson — unsure, but the way it's worded seems to be enemies only
• Pikmin — roll call is enemies only, though several "enemies" fall under Helpful Mook
• Prehistorik — roll call is enemies only
• Punch-Out!! — roll call is enemies only, though Defeat Means Friendship
• Rhythm Heaven — roll call is only friendly NPCs
• Rogue Legacy — roll call is enemies only
• Star Fox — roll call is enemies only
• Street Fighter II — roll call is enemies, but also includes your player character
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People — "all characters are named during the credits, even ones with little importance"
• Super Mario Bros. 2 — roll call includes the player characters, enemies, and friendly NPCs
• Super Mario World — roll call is enemies only
• The Binding of Isaac — roll call is enemies only
• Tropes A to G — it's difficult to classify this under NPC or enemy given how Undertale works
• Tropes E to M — roll call includes the player characters, items, Assist Trophies, etc.
• Vectorman — roll call is enemies only

That adds up to 7/28, or 1/4, where the Enemy Roll Call isn't just enemies; 14/28, or 1/2, where the roll call is just enemies; and another 1/4 that are bit more ambiguous. As you can see, the problem isn't that bad, but it's enough to be noticeable considering that the trope is still growing. Personally, I see three ways that we can deal with this:

• The first method would be just to cut out the entries that don't include enemies; it wouldn't be that helpful for the trope's growth, though, since you're cutting out a good 1/4 of the wicks.
• The second method would be to rename the trope to be more inclusive. I was thinking something like "Endgame Roll Call" or "End Credits Roll Call", so that there won't be much alphabetizing to do.
• The third method would be just to leave it alone, since it's not really that big of a problem, right? It's only 1/4, so it's justifiable if you ignore the issue.

My personal preference is the second method, but I'd like to hear what the community thinks about it. Should we fix this trope up, or just leave it as-is? It's a small problem, given that it's not a huge trope yet, but I feel like it needs the attention. What do you think?

Opening this.

Tropes Are Flexible, and requiring every example to show enemies only makes no sense to me. That said, I think it's important that examples should focus mainly on enemy characters, due to Everything Trying to Kill You tending to limit alternate opportunities for interaction (which Undertale, for one, does provide).

Why does that matter? The trope is "the game shows you a list of its cast of characters", what does "limited interaction" have to do with it?

I'd say expand the definition and rename it something appropriate for the more general version. Video Game Roll Call? Game Cast Roll Call?

I don't want to make this too general a trope. That would make it overlap with Video Credits, where the emphasis and presentation is vastly different.

As the trope is, it doesn't have to be exclusively the enemies. It's just about a role call of the enemies, without consideration for who else is role called.

Personally (if I were to redefine it) I think the important part is that it's a role call of lesser characters who're not protagonists or player characters. I'm not sure boss characters should be included (if it's only the boss characters and not lesser enemies), or other major story characters. It's about the little people, the mooks and the bit characters, not the stars.

Either way, I don't think it should be an exclusive list where it doesn't count if it includes the heroes or other non-qualified characters.

Why arbitrarily restrict it like that? The trope is about video games treating its characters (whether player characters, major antagonists, minor enemies, or some combination thereof) as Animated Actors and giving them a Video Credits style casting call. There doesn't seem to be any logic to distinguishing between player characters/bosses/minor enemies, except that it's more common with minor enemies so that's what the trope was initially about. So just broaden the trope to match the usage.

Then it's just Video Credits, but for video games.

Except that unlike Video Credits, they're not actually crediting an actor playing a role, because there is not actor, just the "character". If it was crediting the voice actor ("David Hayter as Solid Snake" with a picture of Snake popping up, for instance) then it wouldn't be this trope, it would just be Video Credits.

The current name seems misleading to me, because the trope is specifically about video games but the name doesn't make me think of video games. When I saw the name "Enemy Roll Call", my first thought was of the common scene early in a work where the Big Bad has assembled his Quirky Miniboss Squad and addresses them one by one, typically with some reference to their defining traits, to introduce them to the audience.

For a name more in keeping with the trope description, how about Video Game Curtain Call?

Fair point, but your proposed change would make it into a different trope than what it is. That's YKTTW material.

I like Video Game Curtain Call. It seems to give a better idea of what the trope is about than the current name. I'm also agreeing with NativeJordan; the trope could be broadened a bit to just refer to having a "credits roll" for the characters. Although that'd require a bit of work and a YKTTW thread...

edited 5th Mar '16 5:40:04 PM by NoUsername

I'm not so sure about that suggestion. Super Mario Bros. 3 ends with a literal Curtain Call, but it names the worlds, not the characters.

I don't really think we'd need to re-YKTTW the trope. All we're really doing is removing "enemies only" from the description in order to match the way the trope is already being used.

That sounds about right, I'd say. If that's the case, then a rename is also in order. Maybe NPC Credits or Character Credits? Something like that? Maybe we need a more unified opinion first...

I suggest including the characters and maps/areas. It's still different from a traditional credits trope because it's making a list of things that would usually be listed only in the instruction manual or an official website. As for a name suggestion, I propose Ending Roll Call or Closing Signature Wall (OK, the second one is silly, so feel free to ignore it).

edited 12th Mar '16 4:10:44 PM by MyFinalEdits

Maps/Areas are kind of irrelevant to this, but I agree that the trope should be expanded to be more inclusive and given a new name to reflect that.

Ending Roll Call would work, I think. It would exclude the ancient Arcade Game practice of displaying a table of enemies in the Attract Mode (e.g. Space Invaders, Mappy).

Yes, I agree that Ending Roll Call works, although I'd still prefer Endgame Roll Call to make it more clear that this is exclusive to video games. Either one would work as long as the new title allows the trope to be more inclusive as a whole.

I personally was thinking more of making this into the more general video game character credit roll call. Because some games will do this for their regular characters. Like say Persona 4 credits, its a credits sequence so spoilers.

Also its mostly a Japanese thing since their credits always gotta stay moving, with animation, pictures and such with Running Sequences and stuff. There are exactly 4 western examples on the current page.

edited 13th Mar '16 1:56:29 AM by Memers

The main difference here is that this is when the credits specifically name the various characters you'll see throughout the game, which you otherwise wouldn't be able to see without looking it up. Persona 4 isn't an example, since the names are readily available in gameplay and don't show up in the credits. Something like, say, Rhythm Heaven Fever is, since you generally won't be able to see the characters' names otherwise. Basically, a credits sequence for the NPCs. (And yeah, it's mostly a Japanese thing.)

edited 13th Mar '16 3:35:16 AM by NoUsername

"Endgame" typically refers to the final stage of play in a game, not the ending.

Clock expired; closing.