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openHUD element where a character observes your gameplay Videogame
This is something I most remember from Peggle, Nubby's Number Factory, and I think techincally Pizza Tower. On the screen, there is a character present, whether it be the main character or a different character, who watches you playing the game in some way, sometimes even reacting to certain events like clearing a level, getting rewards, or losing. Maybe it might be loosely Expressive Health Bar, though it's not exclusively tied to health bars and related progress stuff if I'm interpreting my listed examples right.
Edited by N64HylianopenThing in video game can't actually kill you, just hurt you Videogame
What's the trope for when some dangerous thing in a video game hurts you, but once you have only one hit point left it just stops, and it can't actually kill you? Example: in Star Fox 64 on Solar the ambient heat damages you constantly, but it cant outright kill you, although you're obviously a sitting duck once you're at 1 hp, and actually touching the lava can kill you.
openSubtitles mirroring speech patterns/registers of the original language. Videogame
I first noticed this in Yakuza 0. The Chinese underground doctor speaks Japanese with a thick Mandarin accent
, and the subs for his dialogue are written in an Asian Speekee Engrish-adjacent form*.
The Nikkyo Consortium goon in chapter 12 uses a very formal register of Japanese, including keigo. e.g. "聞く耳を持って下さい。これ以上奥へ進もうとすれば、生きて帰すことは出来ません。"
◊ (notice how "kudasai" is written with kanji for added formalness**) gets translated into English as "Please be rational. If you insist on pressing further, I’m afraid we can’t allow you to live."
Scott Strichart and the localization team could have gone with a one-to-one translation, but went the extra mile to match the speech register in the English subtitles.
Characters who speak in the Kansai dialect, like Majima and Shimano, also have their speech transliterated into a southern U.S. twang for the subs. That specifically is Accent Adaptation, thanks to jormis29 for pointing that out.
Would the other examples be Translation Convention?
*-Long Hua's dialogue in 0 gets the same treatment despite a lack of heavy accent because...reasons? And then in the chronological sequel, Lau Ka Long speaks heavily Canto-accented Japanese, but his English subs get no special treatment.
**-Even though it's supposed to be written as ください after the te form of a verb
, but whatever.
openYMMV trope (I presume) for fan reactions to a ship age that ignores a more serious problem Videogame
So TLDR, because there's context in it, but in the Madoka spin-off Magia Record, you have a fairly visible amount of fans in the west that get up in arms over some specific age gap ships.
Yachiyo and Iroha, and Mifuyu and Alina being the main ones.
Now Japanese versus Western age differences and all that's very much off topic, but I am curious if there's a (I presume YMMV) trope for noting that this reaction is focusing on the age and ignoring some context that makes the ship of Mifuyu and Alina have very different problems. Where it's less 'the older character being paired with someone too young' and more the in-game issue of 'the younger character is not only the older one's boss, but several in-game events show her bullying her older subordinate, insulting her if she gains weight, and otherwise comes off as a abusive partner but the western fanbase can only see that said subordinate is older'.
Feel like there's a solid YMMV point to be made there about that, and curious if there's a trope that fits that.
openEarly Access Videogame
Do we have a trope about the phenomena of Early Access, Open Beta, and things like that? I know we have Beta Test, which describes the development process, but I wasn't able to find early access/open beta as a trope. There's also Perpetual Beta, when the developers never really finish the game, but that's (ideally) not the same thing. However, it's a very popular way of launching PC games in the last 5-10 years, has a lot of success stories and controversy and probably deserves description. I'd be willing to take it to the launchpad.
openAPP The most iconic weapon/armor is the weakest Videogame
In Video Games, especially RP Gs, the main characters are usually depicted, in promo material, as using gear from the beginning/early stages of the game. In the game itself, however, you usually stop using said gear relatively quickly, as they’re very weak compared to later options. Is this a trope that exists here?
Examples:
In Skyrim, the Dragonborn is almost shown in promo material to be wearing iron armor, which is a very weak set of armor you won’t use for very long.
In most Persona stuff outside of the games, if they want to show the main characters using a persona, they’ll usually default to their awakening persona, despite it being VERY QUICKLY outclassed.
Almost all art of Cloud has him using his default Buster Sword, the starting weapon for him. I haven’t played the game, but I know he gets at least. A Couple upgrades in it.
openDeuteragonist Foils Videogame
When the first two members of an rpg party are (usually) a guy and a girl that tend to bicker a lot or are otherwise foils to each other. Think Koops and Goombella from TTYD, Hiruko and Takemaru from Hundred Line, Junpei and Yukari from Persona 3, Yosuke and Chie from Persona 4, Ryuji and Ann from Persona 5, Kaiden and Ashley from Mass Effect, or Miranda and Jacob from Mass Effect 2. This could also apply to characters in other media who tend to be focused on first in the story aside from the main character like Jax and Ragatha from Digital Circus, Sayaka and Leon from Danganronpa or Eva and Wolfgang from Eden's Garden. For this trope to take place the characters should NOT be the main character nor should they be explicitly romantic.
openWhen how you are described isn't how you are depicted Videogame
Looking for a trope for the Exedra page where a white tabby kitten is depicted with the basic brown tabby kitten model to have an entry of 'Doyle is described as a white tabby kitten, but his in-game model is that of a brown tabby, reused with other cats not named Amy in the game'.
openMeta Artistry Trope Videogame
Do we have a trope where an artistic element, such as a logo, was designed In-Universe by a member of the cast? If it is multiple tropes that cover this kind of topic, all the better, but they have to be character tropes.
openRevival Macguffin Videogame
I've been able to find Healing Potions and Elixers of Life, but for some reason I can't narrow down a Macguffin that specifically revives a character that previously died in the story. Surely there's a trope for that but I can't find it for the life of me
openRebellious Younger Sibling Videogame
Looking for a trope for a younger brother or sister who acts rebellious against their older sibling. In this case the character in question isn't *usually* rebellious but reached their breaking point due to their elder sibling's constant over protectiveness and babying.
openAll your objectives are in one area Videogame
Is there a name for a trope where all of your objectives in a game just so happen to be in the same area? World of Warcraft and other MM Os specifically come to mind, where you'll get a bunch of quests from different characters, and yet everything you want to accomplish all happens to be bunched together in a small area. Bonus points for Star Wars: The Old Republic, where all of the different class storylines also happen to hit up the same areas in the same order, despite their totally unconnected plots.
openLoading screen map Videogame
When the loading screen for a game shows a map of the area you're in, and where you're going next. For instance, the original 3 episodes of Doom (1993).
openAdaptational More Importance Videogame
In the original version of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Funky is just the guy you use to get between worlds via his plane.
But in the GBA port, he rescues the Kongs from the Flying Krock during the first ending, and in the 102% ending, he drops a bomb on King K. Rool.
openboss checkpoint Videogame
When a really long boss fight has a checkpoint midway through (or even multiple checkpoints.)
Edited by BootlebatopenEvoking a previous ad campaign Videogame
Nintendo put up a new trailer/commercial for Nintendo Switch 2 as seen here
that evokes an old commercial they did for the Super Nintendo
, complete with using the same actor. Not exactly a one-to-one remake. Is it just a Call-Back?
openExpy, but for gameplay style? Videogame
For context, I've found multiple misuse of the Expy trope across various different works, most prominently in Fan Games that emulate the original source in many ways. The examples were about characters/units deliberately serving the same function to another preexisting character from another game (for example, an animatronic from Five Nights At Freddys acting as Foxy, where they have to be constantly checked on the cameras; eg, The Blank), rather than being the same type of character in a... well, character sense.
So is there a trope that better fits what these misuses were going for? Could a trope be created for this?
Edited by GalaxyLight777openAPP Chainlink Limbs / "Vector Piece Animation"? Videogame
For when a character or robot in a Videogame has an appendage or appendages made of a series of small sprites to approximate the appearance of a tentacle/arm/tail/etc. I've seen it in plenty of games, especially Sega Genesis games like Sonic 2 and 3&K, Vectorman (from which the description in quotes comes), Gunstar Heroes, Ristar, etc.

When the options to recover sources like mana or health are much more effective during a battle than outside it, and there's no real time limit to stop people from staying in a fight too long. This could be because regeneration doesn't happen outside a fight, someone has extremely strong lifesteal abilities, or simply because items can't regenerate while whatever resources used to cast a healing spell can.
Block Tales: The Ice Dagger is an party-wide percentage HP and SP recovery tool that is only usable during a battle, and resources used for it reset every battle, meaning you can't slowly build up resources for it over the course of many battles. There is also no way to heal outside of battle excluding items, which you can only carry 10 of. As a result, it is a viable strategy to leave a single enemy alive just to charge up the Ice Dagger to keep everyone's HP and SP full.
Edited by OffAndSphere