History VideoGame / EpicBattleFantasy5

* CreepyDoll: Voodoo Dolls. Damaging it damages the counterpart in your party, even if they are in backup.

The fifth game in the ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' series released for UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} on November 30, 2018. It resets Matt in his room, playing video games. When a meteor hits nearby, it results in a power outage, so he leaves on a journey to fix it. He has a re-encounter with [=NoLegs=] who was scavenging his trash, and after battling it, [=NoLegs=] joins his party, this time proper, and from there, they travel the world, to investigate the meteor.

* ArborealAbode: All the buildings in Greenwood Village are hollowed-out trees.

* {{Cooldown}}: There is no more ManaPoints. Instead, stronger abilities are restricted by giving them a cooldown, in number of turns, until it can be used again. Some food can be used to have players' cooldowns be reduced, and making use of the Haste effect (allowing those with it to take an immediate additional action) does not count toward cooldowns — they only pass by after an entire side's turn. Some enemies can inflict a status called Disable, which immediately places character's cooldown skills (and sometimes skills ''without'' cooldowns) into, well, cooldown.

The [[http://kupogames.com/public-beta/ free version]] is online, and the expanded version can be purchased on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

* DefeatMeansFriendship: All the party members (minus Matt) are recruited into the party after a boss fight in ''5''.

* GameGourmet: There's the regular Food consumables, and then there's the RareCandy named Steroids.
** Food: Pumpkin, Pineapple, Watermelon, Dragon Fruit, Raspberries, Blueberries, Cloudberries, Garlic, Banana, Pretzel, Apple, Cupcake, Beer, Cola, Iron Brew, Energy Drink, Coffee, Espresso, Chili Pepper, Orange Juice, Crisps, Chips, Hamburger, Pizza
** Steroids: Crispy Bacon, Raw Beef, Chicken Leg, Fried Egg, Poptart, Donut, Cake, Lollipop, Bread, Potato, Red Pill, Mushroom, Turnip, Grapes, Mint Leaf, Hard Nut, Sushi, Riceball, Yoghurt, Chocolate Milk

* SurpriseCreepy: You'll find dark underground chambers guarded by masked [=NPCs=] who speak in creepy growls, animals that sometimes turn red and make an equally creepy growl when touched, glitched areas that temporarily mess up part of the game, [[spoiler:culminating in a ''horrifying'' area where the party scream at you to stop moving them while messages like "DIE" and "ROT" flash up on the screen]], a boss who [[spoiler:uses your party members as a mouthpiece to directly tell the player to stop playing the game]] (while likely confusing them so they act without your input), and an EldritchAbomination final boss that [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou knows you exist, threatens to invade your reality]], and [[spoiler:''deletes the protagonists' planet on a whim'']].

* ContinuityReboot: Matt mentions [[http://kupogames.com/2018/02/07/ebf5-writing-feedback-plz/ here]] that ''Epic Battle Fantasy 5'' is going to be this, where the characters meet up for the first time and have homes. There's some sense to it; [[spoiler:how can the heroes ''gaining the respect of their very god'' be topped? Simple: Obliterate a horror from beyond the veil that is tampering with their reality from behind the scenes! Ultimately though, this is subverted, as the events of previous games actually still happened. The Devourer just wiped everyone's memories off them.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ebf5_1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:...And the gang's all here!]]

* BatmanCanBreatheInSpace: [[spoiler:Our heroes have no problem walking around and fighting in space without oxygen sources in the fifth game. Not even the extra damage they take after their home planet's deleted explains it — that's just them trying to resist being deleted, too.]]

** The fifth game has ''an upgrade'' to Defenders as well as the Dragons. There is also the [[spoiler:Chibi Knight fights]], which give zero indication on the overworld map that they are any different.

* ContinuityReboot: Matt mentions [[http://kupogames.com/2018/02/07/ebf5-writing-feedback-plz/ here]] that ''Epic Battle Fantasy 5'' is going to be this, where the characters meet up for the first time and have homes. There's some sense to it; [[spoiler:how can the heroes ''gaining the respect of their very god'' be topped? Simple: obliterate a horror from beyond the veil that is tampering with their reality from behind the scenes!]]

* {{Cooldown}}: In the fifth game, there is no more ManaPoints. Instead, stronger abilities are restricted by giving them a cooldown, in number of turns, until it can be used again. Some food can be used to have players' cooldowns be reduced, and making use of the Haste effect (allowing those with it to take an immediate additional action) does not count toward cooldowns — they only pass by after an entire side's turn. Some enemies can inflict a status called Disable, which immediately places character's cooldown skills (and sometimes skills ''without'' cooldowns) into, well, cooldown.

* CreepyDoll: Voodoo Dolls. Damaging it damages the counterpart in your party, even if (s)he is in backup.

* DestructiveTeleportation: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in the fifth game by Lance and Natalie, after they go through a series of teleport pads.

* FireForgedFriends: The fifth game, as our protagonists are in a ContinuityReboot and none of them have any prior history at all anymore (although they do have a strange sense of having been through this before).

** Some attacks cause a stone fist to rise from the ground; this is one of the configurations it can take.

* FlunkyBoss: So ubiquitous is this trope in ''EBF'' that when the party fight [[spoiler:the Cosmic Gigalith]] at the end of the fifth game, Anna specifically notes that it's fighting alone, without any backup, and how unusual that is. Sure enough, [[spoiler:it's not the FinalBoss. The ''real'' FinalBoss, the Devourer, has respawning eyeballs and tentacles that fight alongside it.]]

* GameGourmet: There's the regular Food consumables, and then there's the RareCandy named Steroids:\\
Food: Pumpkin, Pineapple, Watermelon, Dragon Fruit, Raspberries, Blueberries, Cloudberries, Garlic, Banana, Pretzel, Apple, Cupcake, Beer, Cola, Iron Brew, Energy Drink, Coffee, Espresso, Chili Pepper, Orange Juice, Crisps, Chips, Hamburger, Pizza\\
Steroids: Crispy Bacon, Raw Beef, Chicken Leg, Fried Egg, Poptart, Donut, Cake, Lollipop, Bread, Potato, Red Pill, Mushroom, Turnip, Grapes, Mint Leaf, Hard Nut, Sushi, Riceball, Yoghurt, Chocolate Milk

* GrandFinale: With the most epic scope as of all the games (especially thanks to v.2.0), an ending that wraps everything up neatly, and a grave that states ''[=EBF6=]'' is dead along with all who ask for it, this is truly the final installment.

* HotterAndSexier: The second through fourth games had a LimitBreak for Natalie, called Kyun, where she did a pose winking towards the screen. ''5'' renamed this 7th Heaven and changed it to an illusion of a full-body shot where she dresses down in to a more revealing version of the costume she was wearing at the time, with a rare EasterEgg alternate version where she's completely naked aside from a pair of small censor bars.
* HPToOne: Second version of the game changes Anna's bow whack to a variation of this - if the attack would kill an enemy, it leaves them with one HP instead. You'll appreciate it when capturing weak foes, such as small slimes.
* InfinityPlusOneElement: Like Poison (the element) before ''[=EBF4=]'', Bio becomes this. This is mainly due to the introduction of TheVirus status, which does the same thing as Poison (the status), except it ''spreads and renews'' by itself, meaning you have to infect someone once and you don't have to bother with it again. To top it off, it ''stacks'' with Poison, so you can put maximum stacks of both on something and it drops quickly even with some resistance. The only disadvantage is that Virus can spread on you from the enemies, but usually the weapons inflicting the Virus also provide some resistance to Bio-aligned damage; specifically Lance's maxed-out Biohazard Blaster comes with the Virus as a status and whopping 150% resistance to Poison (while inflicting Poison on Lance, basically giving a weaker HealingFactor).

** Found after beating God in [=V1=], one of [=NoLegs=]' weapons is the Buster Sword, "the strongest sword of them all!". According to the description. It's actually a much smaller replica made entirely out of "100% recycled cardboard" and duct tape. It's as useless as it sounds. [=V2=] buffed it to increase stats and made it more easily accessable, pulling it out of this trope.
** The Electric Bat summon is literally worse than useless - it will confuse the entire party, causing them to act randomly without your input...and that's it. There is no purpose to it aside from maybe you thought it'd be funny to watch the party automatically fight the battle. At least the Water Slime summon can be used for CherryTapping enemies down to a capturable state when you don't have Anna!
* KarmaHoudini: Lance again in the fifth game. Not only does he plan to take advantage of a global catastrophe to unite the world under a fascist regime, as he does in ''[=EBF2=]'', he also kidnaps several women (including Natalie) to act as [[BreedingSlave "breeding stock"]] for said regime. Once again, his only punishment upon defeat is to join the party. This time it's justified, as they're only recruiting him for his knowledge of the monoliths and they don't particularly like or trust him (especially Natalie). It's also downplayed: aside from the party's own distrust, several [=NPCs=] are astonished or appalled to see Lance just casually walking around with you. Even Lance himself is surprised that he got off so lightly.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: [[spoiler:The ending for ''[=EBF5=]'' reveals the game's technically not so much a ContinuityReboot as it our heroes having their minds wiped and shoved into an alternate scenario by the Devourer. Its demise gives them their memories back.]]

** Before the 1.5 patch, in all optional areas. When you level up, so do enemies, but they get more stats per level. It makes it harder, the higher level you are, to account for the RareCandy items that are acquired throughout the game. Stat growth is exponential, so you're punished the more you level up. However, you can do some MoneyGrinding instead and buy stat raising items that modify the stat growth ratio, so with enough patience and level exploring, you can have them enough to overcome the enemy stat growth. But, such items' price doubles with each buy. ... After the 1.5 patches, it changes things so after level 36, it does get easier, even without stat boosting RareCandy.

** The {{Superboss}} [[spoiler:Neon Valhalla]], because 1) It has high HP and defense, 2) it has [[spoiler:permanent, ''unremovable'']] ''Regen'', and most importantly, 3) it periodically summons ''three'' parts, [[spoiler:the Bombs]], that if not handled in a few, [[spoiler:3]] turns, can wipe out your party with ridiculous damage, so for most of the fight, you'll end up destroying those while the main boss is healing itself. Curse is basically mandatory.
** [[spoiler:The Cosmic Gigalith and The Devourer]] have, on Normal Difficulty, a total HP of over ''6 million''. [[spoiler:The Devourer also]] has four auxiliary parts that can potentially heal it, and absorbs Virus and Poison that its some of its parts, [[spoiler:the tentacles]], can spread when wounded. Needless to say, you'll be there for a while.

* MonsterArena: The Data Bunker has the Battle Arena. In it, a single character without the ability to summon monsters must defeat 10 sets of foes with one wave each, plus some exclusive enemies for one of them. All of them have to be beaten without leaving, but dying doesn't reset anything.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Matt's first sword is a hockey stick he grabbed on a whim. It's called the Ultra Pro 9000 X.

* NoOntologicalInertia: [[spoiler:Defeating the Devourer at the end of ''[=EBF5=]'' is apparently enough to undelete the planet after its deletion a few moments before. It also undoes, among other things, the LaserGuidedAmnesia the Devourer had hit the party with, causing them to believe they'd never met before.]]

* PinkMeansFeminine: Natalie's Steroids are all pink colored, Poptart, Donut, Cake, Lollipop.

** Each future party member has to be fought (barring Matt) and almost all of them have alternative means of defeat (which are quite logical if you are aware of the game's lore). There is even an achievement for defeating them all this way.

* RetGone: [[spoiler:The Devourer]] tries to do this to [[spoiler:Godcat]] between ''4'' and ''5''. It isn't quite perfect, since [[spoiler:[=NoLegs=] can still summon her as his limit breaks. Also, her religion remains intact, causing everyone to see the new God as a cat. Natalie also recognizes Godcat if [=NoLegs=] summons her while Natalie is in the front line.]]
* RevivingEnemy: The Mammoths have a high chance to revive when killed, unless afflicted with certain status effects. The game also sees the return of the hydra boss in 3 elemental variants, all of which have the ability to revive the other heads unless you kill them all on the same turn.
* ShipTease: To go along with [[spoiler:the RelationshipUpgrade when they've fought enough before the end of the game]], Matt and Natalie are a tad more embarrassed when talking to each other while they've just met. And [=NoLegs=] [[ShipperOnDeck doesn't stop teasing it either]].

* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: In the fifth game, Matt has an attack where he throws his currently equipped sword at the enemy wave, where it spins around several times and damages all foes with each spin. Appropriately enough, it's called "Slicing Cyclone".

* UselessItem: Lampshaded by the flavor text of The Rubber Boots in [=EBF5=], which states that they 'allow you to walk on acidic tiles, but there aren't any in the game at the moment'.

* RedFilterOfDoom: Losing the last living party member(s) results in the background turning red for a moment before the GameOver screen... Even '''Auto Revive''' doesn't prevent the red "flash", though it does otherwise work as normal.

!!Tropes specific to Epic Battle Fantasy 5:

* BraggingRightsReward: There's a last room in Grand Gallery that needs ''all medals'' to be accessed. The reward? A few items that boost your stats, which is completely useless at that point of the game, considering you have to beat the Boss Rush of [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] on [[HarderThanHard Epic]] difficulty, and some exclusive cheats that completely break the game (though medals are disabled if you have cheats on anyway). To be fair, the guards blocking the path will warn you about this should you talk to them beforehand.

** [[spoiler:Devourer has a charged attack that splits the planet in half before they reconnect, and it is used at you on ''point-blank range''. You'd better defend before then, otherwise it is a front-party-wide OneHitKill.]]

* ChestMonster: Be ''very'' wary of obvious, unguarded chests left out in the open, as they may lead you into surprise battles instead of giving treasure! [[spoiler:If you stand close enough to such a trap for long enough, you can see the chest jump every so often.]]

* EleventhHourSuperpower: For the last bonus boss in the Temple of Trials. After four bosses in a row with unremovable crippling status effects, the last one is the reverse: All your stats are buffed by 20% each turn, to a max of 95%. Of course, the boss's stats are so high that you need those buffs just to survive his attacks.

* ExportSave: This game has at least 1KB files in the odd .meow extension. They're downloaded from the game and loaded from the file explorer. A program like Notepad++ can easily open them, though, since the.meow file extentsion is really a renamed .txt file. You will need a base64 decryptor first if you want to edit your file before re-encrpyting it via the same format.
* {{Expy}}: Invoked during ''[=EBF5=]''[='=]s development. Fans claimed that the Flame Sprite enemies in ''[=EBF4=]'' looked like [[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime Flame Princess]], so for ''[=EBF5=]'', Matt turned the resemblance from coincidental to blatantly deliberate.

** The BonusBoss [[spoiler:Neon Valhalla]], because 1) It has high HP and defense, 2) it has [[spoiler:permanent, ''unremovable'']] ''Regen'', and most importantly, 3) it periodically summons ''three'' parts, [[spoiler:the Bombs]], that if not handled in a few, [[spoiler:3]] turns, can wipe out your party with ridiculous damage, so for most of the fight, you'll end up destroying those while the main boss is healing itself. Curse is basically mandatory.

* RedFilterOfDoom: Losing the last living party member(s) results in the background turning red for a moment before the GameOver screen... [[spoiler:Even '''Auto Revive''' doesn't prevent the red "flash", though it does otherwise work as normal.]]

* UnnaturallyLoopingLocation: The glitch worlds loop with left leading to the right, and up leading to the bottom of the screen, and vice versa. Except [[spoiler:for the final Redpine one, where going up leads to a BonusBoss, but all the other sides work the same]].

*** The Shroud status effect hides literally all information on-screen on the character it's been applied to. Health, buffs, status, everything.
*** The glitched field effect in certain areas does an InterfaceScrew to everyone on the field. Only HP is visible, and even that is an uncertainty. One area is so bad that it corrupts even the graphics for equipment and skills.

* AdjustableCensorship: This is the first game in the series that features a set of "NSFW" toggles[[note]]''2'' had a similar option, but it only controlled whether or not blood would appear during some attacks[[/note]], which will remove elements like [[NoSwastikas Lance's Nazi/SS logos]], Natz' [[{{Stripperiffic}} stripperiffic outfits]] and infamous {{Gainaxing}}, and the bears' new DungFu attacks, among other things. Enemies' death animations are also more cartoonish, disappearing in a puff of smoke rather than the blood effect of the previous games. This is to widen the game's appeal without censoring it completely, something Matt is quite averse to doing.

* EpicRocking: The soundtrack version of "M3CHANICAL CON-D4MNATION", Lance's boss theme, clocks in at 6:37.

* FragileSpeedster: Nolegs has much lower health than the other party members, but a very high evade stat. If you lean into this with his equipment he'll often dodge several turns worth of boss attacks in a row only to be one-shot when his luck runs out.

* GladHesOnOurSide: In ''[=EBF5=]'', Matt remarks this of Anna after seeing her LimitBreak for the first time, and of Lance the first time he uses Neon Valkyrie's Machine Guns after his HeelFaceTurn.

The [[http://kupogames.com/public-beta/ free version]] is online, and the expanded version can be purchased on eUsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

The [[http://kupogames.com/public-beta/ free version]] is online, and the expanded version can be purchased on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}.

* ExportSave: This game has at least 1KB files in the odd .meow extension. They're downloaded from the game and loaded from the file explorer. A program like Notepad++ can easily open them, though.

* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler:Taken UpToEleven when the Devourer reveals that not only are Akron and Godcat ''his'' creations, but ''all five games'' were just simulations run by him. You can't get much greater scope than that.]]

* BraggingRightsReward: There's a last room in Grand Gallery that needs ''all medals'' to be accessed. The reward? A few items that boost your stats, which is completely useless at that point of the game, considering you have to beat the Boss Rush of [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] on [[HarderThanHard Epic]] difficulty. To be fair, the guards blocking the path will warn you about this should you talk to them beforehand.

* TeleFrag: The [[BossInMooksClothing Monoliths]] resort to this when they're syphoned in this game.

* SuperstitionEpisode: This is the only game in the series that makes luck into a mechanic, even as just names for specific statuses. Good Luck is a StatusBuff, while Bad Luck is a StatusAilment.