Film / Press Start (2007)

1 Following

Press Start is an independent spoof comedy film produced by Dark Maze Studios.

It chronicles the adventures of Zack Nimbus, the 'Chosen One', Lin-Ku, an overly violent Ninja, and Sam, a woman warrior in a spacesuit. They set out to find the three ancient relics and battle The Empire ruled by the nefarious Count Nefarious Vile and they spoof more video games than you can count along the way. Featuring special appearances by game actors Daniel and Carlos Pesina (Mortal Kombat) and music by videogame composer Jake Kaufman (Contra 4). Made on a budget described as "spare change placed in a mayo jar," the film was well received by many video game websites. It even spawned an Animated Adaptation series which premiered on Channel Awesome, and a sequel, Press Start 2 Continue was released in March 11 2011.

According to the production notes (available in PDF on the website👁 Image
), the original concept by Ed Glaser was Videogame: The Movie! - like the Scary Movie series, only funny. It was written by Kevin Folliard. The truly great thing is that everyone involved in the movie has either worked on games or is a hardcore fan, so naturally the movie is Troperiffic. Plus, most of them are accomplished martial artists that raised the level of fight scenes in the movie. The incredibly low budget was worked around thanks to the extremely committed and versatile team.

So sit back, relax, and get ready for some cheesy video game laughs. Just Press Start.

Recap here: Recap.Press Start 2007

Has nothing to do with book series of same name, thought it also has to do with video games.

This film provides examples of:

• 1-Dimensional Thinking: A variation. When Zack gets into his first battle with a goblin, the two of them keep moving forward and backward on a single plane, leaving him unable to break through the goblin's shield. He only thinks to sidestep when the damsel he just rescued from the goblin reminds him that he can move in three dimensions.
• Actor Allusion: Masters Sasori and Lei Gong are played by Dan and Carlos Pesina, the martial artists who provided mocap footage for several fighters in the original Mortal Kombat games. The two characters take inspiration from the Pesina brothers' previous roles:
  • Dan Pesina portrayed Scorpion and Johnny Cage. Sasori's name is the Japanese word for Scorpion, and he makes use of Johnny's iconic Nut Punch against Zack.
  • Lei Gong is a white-garbed martial artist with Shock and Awe powers who is named after the Chinese God of Thunder. Carlos Pesina famously portrayed Raiden, a white-garbed martial artist with Shock and Awe powers based on the Japanese God of Thunder.
• Alliterative Name - Princess Passionfruit and Plumber Pete.
• And Show It to You: Lin-Ku defeats Captain Psychodrive/G. Foreman by ripping out his heart.
• Badass Boast: Vile delivers this speech at the beginning of the final boss fight.
  Vile: What did you think would happen when you stormed the citadel of an invulnerable sorcerer!? I crushed the entire Resistance! I personally executed each and every one of them! But you two thought you had the skills to defeat ME!? The war ended months ago, it’s finished! You’re nothing but lukewarm leftovers!
• Beat Still, My Heart: When Lin-Ku rips out G. Foreman's heart, it can faintly be heard beating for a little bit.
• Beware the Silly Ones - Vile. genre-blind buffoon he may be, but he's a very tough final boss.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: After Zack gets a vision of the third relic's location, the team speculates about what sorts of horrors await them in the abandoned laboratory that he saw.
  Zack: There could be anything down there. Like, demons or... zombies... or Nazis. Or zombie Nazis raised by demons!
  Sam: Yes, or even Nazi demons trained by zombies. Either way, that's our next destination.
• Brick Joke: Subverted - Zack's refusal to participate in the the Jackomo card game Side Quest is itself a Running Gag, but when Zack & Lin-Ku reach Vile & promise to defeat him, Vile asks if they have several powerful weapons & pieces of armour. Zack then asks how they could get that stuff, and Vile responds with "You have to do very well...in the Jackamo card tournament."
• Butt-Monkey: Johnson does not have a good time in this movie. First he succumbs to the zombie virus when he and Vile swoop in to stop Sam from claiming the third relic, reducing him to a mindless zombie that Vile treats as a minor annoyance. Then he wanders into the final battle and gets used as a human shield by Lin-Ku, causing him to get hit by one of Vile's spells and undergo a Forced Transformation into a turtle — not a Koopa expy, but a normal turtle.
• Character Level - Zack seems to be leveling up quite quickly in the beginning of the film. (He's a level 4 Swordsman!) In one of the later web-toons, his bedroom has a certificate mounted on the wall, congratulating him for making it to level 99.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Zack obtains the Virtual Visor during the group's first visit to the item shop. It's a seemingly useless item which does nothing but give Zack eye strain whenever he puts it on, but at the very end of the movie, it allows him to pick out the real Vile from his endlessly respawning doppelgangers.
  • Before Sam goes into the abandoned lab, Zack gives her a mushroom for luck. This turns out to be a 1-up mushroom, which revives her a short while after Vile kills her.
• Comically Missing the Point: At one point, Zack asks Lin-Ku where Sam is going after the latter leaves the shop. Since Zack hasn't figured out that Sam is a girl yet, Lin-Ku's reply goes completely over his head:
  Lin-Ku: Who knows? Maybe it's that time of the month.
  Zack: ...Armor tune-up?
  Lin-Ku: I've never heard it called that before, but, yeah.
  Zack: Oh. (Zack turns away, while Lin-Ku rolls his eyes and shakes his head)
• Commissar Cap: Captain Psychodrive/G. Foreman, being a Captain Ersatz of M. Bison, naturally wears an oversized red commissar's cap to emphasize his villainous nature.
• Creator Cameo - Ed Glaser plays "Justin Bailey", Vile's employee, as well as the voice of the lair's self-destruct mechanism. Writer Kevin Folliard, in addition to voicing Lin-Ku, also has a brief appearance as "Jungle Jerry".
• Critical Annoyance: Zack begins to emit a slow, steady beeping sound after getting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by a trap in Vile's fortress, which Lin-Ku notes is a clear indicator that he's badly hurt. The beeping stops once Zack gets healed.
• Death Glare: At the climax, Zack and Lin-Ku shoot Vile the most murderous Kubrick Stares they can muster after he kills Sam.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Defied. Zack urges Lin-Ku to use the Friendship Finishing Move on a defeated G. Foreman, but Lin-Ku is having none of it and performs a Fatality instead.
• Department of Redundancy Department - Did you know the ancient prophecy was made by an ancient prophet?
• Dope Slap: A variant. Lin-Ku backhands Zack across the face once he realizes that Zack thinks Sam is a guy.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Partway through the final battle, Vile reveals that he can make copies of himself which are just as powerful and deadly as the real thing. Worse, anytime the heroes destroy one of his copies, he can replace it almost immediately. Fortunately, fatally wounding the real Vile makes all his remaining copies disappear.
• Epic Fail: During the Training Montage, Zack attempts to shoot a duck with a lightgun. The duck is literally sitting still on the ground, and he cannot hit it. No wonder the Duck Hunt dog comes out of the bush to laugh at him.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies - The abandoned research facility was hit with a "zombie virus".
• Forced Transformation: In the final battle, Johnson transforms into a turtle due to getting hit by one of Vile's spells.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: After Zack kills Zippy...no one ever mentions him, or the incident. Again. Ever. In any way. Even Sam, who actually liked Zippy, and ends up dating Zack, never brings it up. You'd think you'd care if your significant other killed your pet...
• Final Boss, New Dimension - For the climactic battle, Vile teleports them all to a dark, featureless place because "property damage is only funny if it's someone else's."
• Groin Attack: In the penultimate room of Vile's fortress, one of the two masked martial artists defeats Zack by punching him right in the crotch. Poor Zack spends the rest of the scene hunched over and speaking in falsetto.
• Guide Dang It! - The final battle would have been MUCH easier on the heroes if only they'd done the Jackamo card game sidequest.
• Hand Wave - When Zack tries to bring up the point that killing the current ruler of most of the world (evil or not) might send the world into a socioeconomic turmoil leaving it vulnerable to a dictator of equal or greater power, Sam and Lin-ku pretty much do this.
  "I think they'll be okay."
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath - Lin-Ku's cast page in the animated episode "Speed Run" calls him "ethically challenged".
• Hyperactive Metabolism:
  • Zack eats a turkey leg Lin-ku finds on the floor to regain health. Revisited when he attempts to eat a medkit.
  • Lin-Ku also does this to regain health by eating Captain Psychodrive's heart.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Zack steps on a pressure plate while exploring Vile's fortress and promptly gets a spear shoved through his abdomen. This leaves him critically injured until Lin-Ku heals him by making him eat some Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Lin-Ku's main motivation (beyond sheer bloodlust) is getting revenge on Vile's minion, Captain Psychodrive, for murdering his martial arts teachers.
• Magic Knight: Vile is an Evil Sorcerer first and foremost, but he pulls out a sword once he decides to stop holding back against the heroes during the final battle. He proves to be just as skilled with a blade as he is with magic.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The protagonists react with visible alarm during the final battle as Vile unveils his sword and Self-Duplication powers.
• Mistaken for Gay - Zack, unaware of Sam being female, mistakes her early affection for this. Later, when Zack and Lin-Ku wait outside the third dungeon and Zack shares this, Lin-Ku ends up mistaking Zack as gay.
• Money Spider: Discussed. Sam and Lin-Ku advise Zack to loot every enemy he kills because everything carries money. Sam exploits this fact during their first trip to the item shop: since the party doesn't have enough money to buy the world map, she goes out, kills a dragon, and comes back with a ton of cash.
• Mordor: Vile rules his empire from his fortress in the Valley of Shadows, a desolate land of barren grey mountains beneath a perpetually red sky.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast - Nefarious Vile. Seriously. Also, Captain Psychodrive.
• No Body Left Behind: Vile's goblin Mooks vanish into thin air whenever they die.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: When the party realizes that they don't have enough money to buy the world map from the item shop, Sam excuses herself. She comes back a few minutes later, carrying a sack full to bursting with gold coins. What did she do to get all that money so quickly?
  Sam: (proudly) I killed a dragon.
• Off with His Head!: Sam defeats the zombified shopkeeper by beheading him.
• Pass the Popcorn: Vile snacks on popcorn and a soda while watching Zack and Lin-Ku make their way through the first few rooms of his fortress.
• Plot Coupon: Our heroes spend half the movie gathering the three relics which are needed to pierce the forcefield surrounding Vile's castle.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: Two of the three relics are in dungeons which give specific members of the trio their chance to shine.
  • The second relic is in one of the old mortality bout arenas and guarded by Captain Psychodrive, the man who murdered Lin-Ku's teachers. Naturally, Lin-Ku is the best-suited to take him on as they are both fighting game characters.
  • The third relic is in an abandoned laboratory that was quarantined due to an outbreak of a zombie virus. Sam is the only one who can safely enter the lab due to her spacesuit protecting her from such hazards, so Zack and Lin-Ku have to wait outside while she goes in alone.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Zack declares the following just before he lands the killing blow on Vile:
  Zack Nimbus: Game Over, you son of a bitch.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Everyone believes that Captain Psychodrive murdered the great martial arts masters Sasori and Lei Gong. In reality, they kicked his butt and were then defeated in turn by Count Vile, who chose to imprison rather than kill them. Zack and Lin-Ku run into the two masters just before Vile's throne room.
• Running Gag:
  • Lin-ku's ninja stars, Zack thinking Sam is a boy, the Shopkeeper, and Jackamo cards. Oh boy those Jackamo cards.
  • The Virtual Visor. It causes headaches.
• Samus Is a Girl - Not to the audience, but to Zack Nimbus thinking Sam is a boy. Of course, the movie was specifically trying to parody the Trope Namer with this...
• Skewed Priorities: Vile. Oh, Vile.
  Johnson: (crawls up to Vile, severely injured and bleeding profusely)
  Vile: (sigh) I've gotta go, Vlad. Johnson probably needs me to sign something.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: The protagonists arrive at the abandoned arena where the second relic is located, only to discover that the doors are locked. When Zack suggests that they just smash the glass doors, Lin-Ku shoots that down: "That's ninja glass! You can't break ninja glass!"
• Sudden Name Change: Played for Laughs. When Lin-Ku confronts Captain Psychodrive, the villain reveals that he was recently forced to trade names with another character for legal reasons and now goes by G. Foreman. This confuses Lin-Ku a great deal, especially when he learns that the Captain Pyschodrive name went to a third character and not to the boxer who was originally called G. Foreman.
• The Chosen One - Played straight. Zack Nimbus is chosen by a prophecy from an ancient prophet.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch! - "Game over, you son of a bitch."
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself - Subverted and played straight. Lin-ku pulls this when fighting Captain Psychodri- I mean G. Foreman. However, Zack and Sam have no problem letting the murderous ninja do the fighting for him. Played straight when Zack tries to intervene in the fight, but Sam stops him.
• Took a Shortcut - The Shopkeeper continually shows up wherever the heroes go. Including a secret passage Sam discovers by blowing up a wall. It gets lampshaded.
• Training Montage: Sam and Lin-Ku put Zack through one between the second and third relics. They make him do such things as jogging after Lin-Ku while the latter is riding a bike, practicing martial arts moves and swordplay, learning how to fire a gun by hunting ducks, and... DanceDanceRevolution.
• Warp Zone:
  • Zack and Lin-ku would've had to go through some terrible places to get to Vile's Lair. Instead, they opt out for one of these.
  • Referenced in the Animated Adaptation.
  Vile: Come, Johnson! We'll take the Warp Zone! * SMASH*
  Johnson: Sir, that was your Berry Blast Sports Drink.
• When Trees Attack: The guardian of the Haunted Forest relic is an evil talking tree with prehensile branches.
• "You!" Exclamation: Lin-Ku lets out a hate-filled "YOU!!!" when Captain Psychodrive reveals himself, complete with Giving Someone the Pointer Finger.

The Animated Adaptation provides examples of

• Accidental Misnaming: Vile is unable to keep Scarthcaroth's name straight. After struggling to pronounce the name, he ends up calling him things like Scarborough, Scortiledge and Scatterborg.
• And I Must Scream - The Dark Mages have no mouths. And they certainly won't have mouths once they're 👁 This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.
  frozen into a pillar.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Zippy is a parody of such characters. He gives Sam advice which inevitably comes too late to be useful, doesn't warn her about incoming danger, and has actively derailed her objectives on at least one occasion (when he ate the Glove of Power while Sam and Lauren Ketch were fighting over it). Small wonder that Lin-Ku isn't impressed with the little puffball In-Universe.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking - Vile doesn't mind that you've shot fireballs at him or knocked a statue on top of him. He only cares that you've altered his blueprints.
• Art Evolution - Compare the art and animation in "Poker, Mon" (particularly that of Reptillor) with any current episode. There is a decent amount of improvement which will hopefully continue.
• Bait-and-Switch: In "Food Fight", when Zack, Buzz and Trenton are arguing about who should get to eat the pizza to heal their injuries, Trenton sighs and says that "At times like these, we should turn to the good book." He then pulls out his Bible, zaps Zack and Buzz with a beam of holy light from it, and helps himself to the pizza.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Vile may be a Laughably Evil sorcerer whose buffoonery provides much of the series' comedy, but every now and then the show reminds us that he's a remorseless Evil Overlord underneath all his humorous traits. A flashback sequence in "Mage of Empires" shows him leading a massacre of the Dark Mages, with no humour whatsoever: just maniacal laughter and a lot of dead bodies.
• Big Damn Heroes - The other Resistance members show up to save Zack, Sam and Lin-Ku in "Golden Axed".
• Brick Joke: In "Pac-Mania", Vile throws what he thinks is a Warp Zone potion onto the ground, only for nothing to happen because it was just an energy drink. Several episodes later, Vile drinks what he thinks is an energy drink, only to choke on it because it was a Warp Zone potion.
  Vile: Johnson... we need more distinctive glassware.
  Johnson: I'll make a note of it, sir.
• Broken Record: Whenever someone needs to borrow toner from Rick the accountant, he first makes them sit through a shpiel about how they are The Chosen One who must embark on an epic quest to save the department from the evil wizard Gorlock by reassembling the scattered fragments of the toner. When Johnson finds himself needing to visit Rick twice in one day, he interrupts the second speech with a thrown filing cabinet.
• Butt-Monkey: Trenton Belfast is a buffoon who isn't taken seriously by his allies or his enemies and who often serves as the butt of various jokes.
• Captain Obvious:
  • Belfast.
    Belfast: After twelve seconds we sent out a search party. (Beat) Us.
  • Also, Vile.
    Vile: I can't tell you how much fun I'm having, Vlad! Did you know I get to torment these people forever!
    Vlad: Yeah, that's the general idea.
• Cast of Expies: Most of the cast are clear stand-ins for popular video game characters. To give just a few examples: Plumber Pete is Mario, Buzz Porcupine is Sonic the Hedgehog, Trenton Belfast is Simon Belmont, and Scarthcaroth is Sephiroth.
• Chainsaw Good: In "Familiar Faces", Johnson whips out a Gears of War-style chainsaw gun and uses it to eviscerate a monster.
  Johnson: What? I may be a turtle with glasses and a tie, but I'm still evil.
• Chain of Deals: In "Side Quest", Zack Nimbus goes on an absurdly long chain of side quests with the end goal of getting a letter of recommendation from an old man behind a waterfall so the local shopkeeper will let him buy a sports drink. Even when he finally gets the letter, the shopkeeper doesn't think it's legit, so she charges him double.
• Charged Attack: Like her inspiration Samus Aran, Sam can charge up her blaster to fire a more powerful shot.
• Chess with Death: In "Symphony of the Trite", Trenton Belfast tells Vlad that he got past Death by challenging him to a game of Pong.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment - Vile decides to occupy Hell's residents with macaroni projects. Vlad lampshades this trope.
• Creator Cameo - Aside from the fact that writer Kevin Folliard plays the voice of Lin-Ku, director Ed Glaser appears as an employee of the Vile corporation, and later as the ultimate game designer, God.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Vlad treats being killed as a minor inconvenience on account of his Resurrective Immortality. In "Symphony of the Trite" Trenton manages to slay Vlad while he's on a phone call with Vile. He comes back to life fifteen minutes later and resumes the call like nothing happened.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: In "Food Fight", the Rock Monster that Zack and Trenton were fighting undergoes a Post-Defeat Explosion Chain upon being defeated. Zack promptly lampshades this:
  Zack Nimbus: (bewildered) Was there dynamite in there?
• Dissimile - "In a world much like our own... except with monsters and robots and anthropomorphic animals..."
• Draw Sword, Draw Blood: Sam’s blaster is a variation. She has no way to cancel a Charged Attack; once her shot has been charged up, she must fire it at something. This poses problems in the episode "Megabusted" when she attempts to intimidate a bartender while deep behind enemy lines and can't simply fire the shot into the air without giving away her position.
• Early-Bird Cameo - Princess Xanna of Press Start 2 appears on a newspaper in the first episode of season three.
• Elaborate Underground Base - Locations are captioned. One such location? "The Underground Lair of Count Nefarious Vile". Strangely enough, it looks more like a Death Mountain.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In "Statue of Limitations", Count Vile mistakes Buzz Porcupine and Plumber Pete for industrial smoothers come to make corrections to his giant statue of himself, and he remains convinced of this even as they make blatant (albeit ineffectual) attempts to kill him.
  Buzz Porcupine: So yeah, if you just lie still while I massage your face with my razor-sharp quills, I'll be able to... uh... better... figure out... the sculpt.
  Vile: Ah, I see! Like a blind person... (sounding confused) building a statue.
• Entropy and Chaos Magic: The Dark Mages are practitioners of chaos magic, though the only application of it we get to see is when they pelt Trenton Belfast with energy blasts.
• Evil Knockoff: Like his inspiration, Buzz Porcupine has an evil robotic doppelganger called Robo-Buzz.
• Explosive Breeder: In one episode, Vile and Johnson learn that a Mrs. PAC-MAN has infiltrated the maze where the male PAC-MAN was being contained. The two creatures proceeded to go at it "like homicidal rabbits", and now there are hundreds if not thousands of PAC-MEN running amok in the maze.
• Forced Tutorial - The gang gets stuck listening to one when trying to acquire dragobos. Instead, they use its convoluted nature as a Logic Bomb against attacking robots.
• Giver of Lame Names: Johnson isn't impressed with the names that Vile came up with for the Pac-Man Ghosts, feeling that they would be more effective at their jobs if their names were something more aggressive than Handy, Dandy, Candy and Ruth.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom - Vlad is probably the most notable, since his eyes make a significant color change and spark with electricity when he decides to call lightning from the sky, but Vile and Lin-Ku have them in the animation as well.
• Hamster-Wheel Power: In one episode, Buzz loses big time at the casino and is forced to Work Off the Debt by running in a giant hamster wheel at supersonic speeds to help power the Casino Zone.
• The Heavy: While Vile is the Big Bad of the series, it's Vlad who does all the legwork to bring about the former's return in seasons 2 and 3. He's the one corralling all the villains into distracting the heroes so he can carry out the plan to unleash Hell on Earth undisturbed, and it's him who gets the climactic showdown with the resistance in the third season's penultimate episode.
• Hell on Earth: After Vile defeats the Devil and gains control over Hell, he and Vlad spend the remainder of the series working on a long-term scheme to open a hellgate so Vile can take over the world with the demonic legions that are now under his command. It doesn't quite pan out for them. Vile and a handful of other deceased villains make it back to the land of the living, but most of their forces were devoured by the PAC-MEN, and Vile himself has lost all his magic powers, leaving him Brought Down to Normal.
• Hypocritical Humor - Sam, to Lauren Ketch in "Tomb Traitor":
  Sam: I've been violating ancient ruins longer than you, Lauren!
• Imperfect Ritual: In "A Clone in the Dark", Vlad and Morgan le Slaye conduct a black magic ritual to create an evil clone of Jack Nimbus. One of the ingredients needed for this ritual was the blood of a silver Chocobird, but Morgan was unable to breed one, so she substituted the blood of a grey Chocobird instead. This results in the evil Zack being a Stupid Evil Card-Carrying Villain who refuses to impersonate his good counterpart, because how will people know he's evil if he doesn't dress in black?
• Killed Offscreen: Scarthcaroth, who was last seen charging into battle against the Resistance in "Endgame (Part 2)", is revealed to have perished during the battle in "F-Xerox". His lifeless corpse is shown pinned to the floor by his own sword, with none of his enemies anywhere to be seen.
• Laughably Evil: Vile may be the Big Bad and a Sorcerous Overlord out to Take Over the World, but he's such an utter buffoon that you can't help but laugh at his antics.
• Limited Wardrobe - Played straight for most of the cast, but sort of averted with Lin-Ku, whose outfit is always the same but whose color often changes. Of course, this is a relatively subtle shout-out to the palette-swap ninjas in Mortal Kombat, as Lin-Ku is sort of based on the idea of an MK style ninja, rather than any one in particular.
• The Men in Black - The Department of Metaphysical Affairs, which seems to combine a traditional Men In Black "supernatural investigators" vibe with the 👁 This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.
  US Department of Motor Vehicles.
• Metaphorgotten - Vile in "F-Xerox".
  Vile: As sure as an out-of-control airplane bombing a swarm of acrobatic jellyfish!
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Buzz Porcupine's nemesis, Dr. Botski, has a certificate from "the Villain's Administration" which gives him license to "commit unbridled mechanical mayhem and destruction without prolonged consequence".
• Murder Is the Best Solution:
  • Lin-Ku's standard approach to problems. For example:
    Lin-Ku: You know, I almost wish I hadn't broken our grappling hook disemboweling that troll.
    Zack: That was a forum troll!
    Lin-Ku: I said "almost".
  • And in the movie:
    Lin-Ku: Wait! I know these guys! Don't kill them!
    Zack: Did you say don't kill them?
    Lin-Ku (visibly uncomfortable): Yeah, I know. It felt weird.
• Neck Snap: In "Nightmare in Scheme Land", Lin-Ku kills Emperor Penguin by snapping the latter’s neck.
• No-Sell:
  • In "Statue of Limitations", Plumber Pete and Buzz Porcupine attempt to assassinate Count Vile, who shrugs off their attacks so effortlessly that he doesn't even realize they're trying to kill him.
  • In "Endgame (Part 2)", Scarthcaroth unleashes his Meteor-Summoning Attack on the resistance. In response, Princess Passionfruit manifests a gigantic Fighting Spirit which easily catches and crushes the meteor before it can do any harm.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In "Statue of Limitations", Plumber Pete and Buzz Porcupine both let out horrified gasps when they realize that dropping part of a giant statue on Vile didn't hurt him at all.
  • The entire Resistance in "Endgame (Part 2)", when they look out the window to see Vile's entire army assembled outside.
    Belfast: That's going to be a problem.
  • In the same episode, Scarthcaroth briefly goes wide-eyed in alarm when he sees Princess Passionfruit No-Sell his Meteor-Summoning Attack.
• Only Sane Man - Oddly enough, Vlad.
  Vlad: Does anyone lock the door around here?
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vlad is clearly based on Castlevania's Dracula, has an apparent affinity to bats, and flat-out states that his moat is meant to keep out vampire hunters. But he has blue hair, lacks a mouth (maybe he talks telepathically?), refers to himself as a "dark lord of chaos" rather than a vampire, and can conjure lightning bolts out of nowhere. At this point, he seems more like a lich or a demon than a vamp.
• Pay Evil unto Evil - Pretty much every good character, since being a video game hero usually entails killing the bad guys. In particular, Trenton Belfast refuses to consider making peace with evildoers, and Lin-Ku is downright bloodthirsty.
• Religious Bruiser: Trenton Belfast is a devoutly Christian vampire hunter and monster slayer. When God summons His most devout follower to take charge of Hell since Vile won’t do his job properly, Trenton is the person who materializes, to God's immense disappointment.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Lauren Ketch is loaded, and she makes generous contributions to the Resistance's coffers to get out of active duty.
  Lauren Ketch: Yes, let's cut to the chase, here. (holds up a credit card) How much do you need this time? Seventy, eighty million?
  Princess Passionfruit: Your services will be required in the line of duty.
  Lauren Ketch: ...How about ninety million?
  Princess Passionfruit: Yes, that'll be fine.
• Serial Adulterer: In "Kingdom Hurts", Princess Passionfruit discovers that Plumber Pete has been two-timing her with both Princess Lemondrop and Paulina the police officer. She's furious about this, telling Pete that she's a "one-plumber princess who needs a one-princess plumber", though they manage to reconcile by the end of the episode.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: The Dark Mages, being expies of Final Fantasy Black Mages like Vivi, have no discernible facial features apart from their glowing yellow eyes.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • In "Pit-Fallout", Sam and Lin-Ku are escorting some rescued diplomats through the jungle to safety when they run into an obstacle: three Pitfall alligators. After some debate on how to get past the alligators, Lin-Ku gets fed up with the diplomats' whining and "solves" the problem by feeding the diplomats to the alligators, leading Sam to chew him out.
  • In "Tomb Traitor", Sam and Lauren Ketch's fierce battle over possession of the Glove of Power is rendered moot once Zippy eats the damn thing.
• Shaped Like Itself - Count Nefarious Vile is indeed nefarious and vile. His actor, Peter Davis, is fond of speaking like this👁 Image
  .
• Silent Antagonist: Scarthcaroth does not speak in any of his appearances.
• Similar Item Confusion: Vile's berry blast sports drink is stored in the same type of flask as the Warp Zone potion and has the same color to boot, leading him to mix the two up on two separate occasions.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: In "Pit-Fallout", Lin-Ku asks Sam why she doesn't just shoot the alligators blocking their path with her blaster. She retorts that this would vaporize the alligators, leaving them with no platforms to cross the lake with. "And then what would we do? Swim?"
• Skewed Priorities: In "Tomb Traitor", Sam comes into conflict with Lauren Ketch over possession of the Glove of Power. Sam states that the Resistance needs the Glove more because they can use it against Vile. While Lauren admits that Vile is a problem, she also feels that the Glove would look smashing on her mantelpiece, and therefore she deserves it more.
• Sore Loser: In "Poker, Mon", Vile loses to Reptillor at a game of Jackomo. He responds by dropping a Thwomp on Reptillor and crushing him.
• The Speechless: The Dark Mages are unable to talk because they physically lack mouths. Vile can't seem to wrap his head around this fact while interrogating them:
  Johnson: I keep telling you sir, they don't have mouths.
  Vile: Correction, Johnson: they won't have mouths once they're dead!
  Johnson: ...Nnnnno, I suppose they still won't.
• Stylistic Suck: Count Vile writes all his evil empire's official documentation personally, whether it be blueprints for a statue, a job posting for a new general, or the empire's mission statement. And by "writes", we mean he makes childish stick figure drawings which Johnson and his other minions must then interpret to the best of their ability.
• Super Drowning Skills - Very subtly lampshaded in "Pit Fallout" (it's a quick comment that's quite easy to miss if you're not paying attention).
  Sam: Besides, the blaster would incinerate the crocodile's mouths and then what would we do? Swim?
  Lin-Ku: Good point.
• Super-Reflexes: In one episode, Buzz Porcupine groans that "seconds pass like hours for [him]", implying that his Super-Speed comes with an altered perception of time that makes any conversation feel torturously long.
• Take That!: Trenton's copy of the movie Wishmaster, which reads "You'll wish you'd rented Leprechaun instead."
• The Gods Must Be Lazy - God spends his time hanging out in Heaven playing games and ordering taking out. He only intervenes when Vile's actions in Hell start messing with the cosmic balance.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Upon meeting Scarthcaroth in "Endgame Part 1", Vile asks him to demonstrate his power by attacking a low-level enemy. Scarthcaroth responds with a Meteor-Summoning Attack that obliterates the enemy and most of the battlefield, leaving Vile in Stunned Silence from the sheer overkill for a moment.
• Too Kinky to Torture - Trenton gets blasted by chaos magic repeatedly during a raid to retrieve an oracle. He claims it "started to feel good after a while."
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Lin-Ku's ninja outfit is a different color in every episode, reflecting his nature as a stand-in for the Palette Swap ninjas of the Mortal Kombat franchise.
• Vice City - The City of Freedomsville which is visited for one episode. Lin-ku falls in love with the free-for-all nature that rules the place and chooses to stay behind to begin a life as a crime-boss. Until next day where he, to his disappointment, finds out that that killing off the other crime-bosses have caused the citizens to reclaim their city and turned it into a peaceful Utopia.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • In the episode "Poker, Mon", Vile and several of his villainous friends gather for a game of poker... which ends up turning into a game of Jackomo thanks to Captain Psychodrive accidentally bringing the wrong deck of cards.
  • "Shoplifter" has a more literal example of this trope, with Vlad and Schizoid Cricket trying to do some shopping at Occult Mart only to run afoul of the self-checkout system.
• What the Hell, Hero? - Sam calls Lin-Ku out on his Anti-Hero tendencies before kicking him off the team.
  Lin-Ku: Hey, I didn't mean for Zack to...
  Sam: Save it, you're out.
  Lin-Ku: What?, I botch just one mission and I...
  Sam: It's more then just that, everyday you tread the line between hero and thug. I just don't know what side you'll end up on anymore.
  Lin-Ku: Listen we won the day like we always do...
  Sam: We got lucky Lin-Ku but you weren't there when we needed you.
  Lin-Ku: So I got a little carried away, next time...
  Sam: There is no "next time" Lin-Ku, you have to learn to trust your partners. The bloodiest path isn't always the best one. Next time someone needs your help, don't turn your back on them. Take that advice.
• Xanatos Gambit - Vlad creates an Evil Knockoff of Zack to go and try and kill him. Seems a pretty straightforward and easily foiled plot, right? After a brief (and stupid) Spot the Impostor moment, Zack kills his double and that's that, right? Wrong. Remember one of the rituals to unlock one of the gates of Hell? "The hero that killed Vile must spill his own blood on the altar". Evil!Zack is still Zack, so no matter what the outcome was (Zack killing evil!Zack or Evil!Zack killing Zack), the ritual would be fulfilled.
• Yandere: Vicky Violets, the Amy Rose expy, is Buzz Porcupine's demented Stalker with a Crush. As she cheerfully explains to Sam and Princess Passionfruit, her plan to woo Buzz involves catching him off-guard and breaking his legs with a giant hammer so he can't run away. She also implies that she murdered her therapist.

Press Start 2 provides examples of

• Actor Allusion: Vlad (Voiced by David S. Humphry, the original voice of Shadow the Hedgehog) asking Vile if his latest master plan is "another Ultimate Lifeform"
• Brick Joke: Again, involving the Jackomo card game. However, the set-up to the joke comes with the Brick Joke in the first film.
• Brought Down to Badass - Count Vile loses his sorcery after coming Back from the Dead, but thanks to his Omnicrystal-powered Veemote, he's still able to give the heroes a hard fight.
• Highly Visible Ninja: Princess Xanna lampshades it when she complains about how she couldn't have gotten a stealthy ninja.
  Lin-Ku: Well, excuuuuuuse me, princess!
• 👁 This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.
  No Export for You: Parodied - The film's tagline states that Press Start 2 is "Press Start 4 in Japan".
• Punny Name: Press Start 2 Continue
• Sequel Hook: Vile is transformed into a Jackomo card, and promptly takes over the world of the Jackomo, declaring his intent to use his new army to take over his own world... As soon as he finds a way to get back there.
• 👁 This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.
  The Other Darrin: Sam's original actress, Lauren Chambers has been replaced by Jennifer Zahn. They get around this by having Sam keep the helmet on.
• 👁 This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.
  You Look Familiar: The new shopkeeper is the brother of the shopkeeper from first film. Lin-Ku lampshades this.