History VideoGame / MedalOfHonorPacificAssault

* ArtificialBrilliance: Japanese soldiers are capable of sneaking past and ambushing a player, complete with bayoneting them in the back.

* BayonetYa: One of the favorite tactics of Japanese soldiers is to bayonet you. Conlin himself can do this to them, provided he's using a captured Arisaka rifle or an M1 Garand, as both have permanently attached bayonets.
** The standard Japanese Light Machine Gun of the game, The Type 96, also has an attached bayonet. And Japanese soldiers using it will try to bayonet you with it.

* StormingTheBeaches: Averted in Makin and Guadalcanal, as the Japanese are fought further inland instead, and the landings there go rather smoothly. Played straight on Tarawa, however, as shown in the prologue.
* SuicidalOverconfidence: Oftentimes, the Japanese will simply try to charge and bayonet/melee/slash the player with their Arisakas/Katanas. They even do this when they're outnumbered and outgunned, and it usually spells an end for them, unless they approach you and your squadmates from behind.

* {{BFG}}: Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, despite being a downplayed example of this, still counts. For starters, it can kill an enemy with a well-placed shot in any body part (other than most automatic rifles in that regard), is capable of fending off an enemy banzai charge with carefully-aimed shots, and is possible to take down and destroy enemy aircraft (exemplified in the Marine Raiders' evacuation to ''USS Nautilus''). But even so, due to its rather low magazine capacity when compared to other automatic rifles (only holding 20 rounds), players must be keen and count all of their shots if they were to utilize the weapon to good use.
* BigGuyFatalitySyndrome: Subverted with Minoso. [[spoiler: He gets badly wounded during the ferrying mission from Henderson to Tarawa, but he manages to survive long enough to land on the USS ''Independence'', and is sent back to Hawaii.]]

* ChekhovsSkill: On one level, Conlin is stated to have had informal pilot training thanks to the Marine airmen at Henderson Field. [[spoiler: It comes in handy when he's forced to pilot a Dauntless dive bomber later on.]]

* CoolBoat: Several, notably the World War I-era dreadnought battleships in Pearl Harbor, as well as the Japanese aircraft carrier ''Akagi''.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to the ''Medal Of Honor'' games set in Europe, and even ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorRisingSun'', this one depicts tenser and darker moments, particularly during the Guadalcanal and Tarawa battles, where Japanese soldiers play dead, and Japanese Marines commit suicide with grenades to die trying to charge at American lines.

* ReliablyUnreliableGuns: Again, the Reising SMG in comparison to the other two submachine guns in the game. It has far less magazine capacity and stopping power than both the Type 100 and Thompson, as well as suffers from poor accuracy. In RealLife, it was notorious among the Marines for its tendency to jam.

Conlin starts off during the first day of the Battle of Tarawa and gets seriously wounded just after landing on the island. We then cut back to when he first starts off as a Marine recruit training in boot camp, along with the other members of [[TheSquad his squad]]. From there, he is later assigned to the Marine Detachment of the battleship USS ''Arizona''. As luck would have it, Tommy arrives at Pearl Harbor to join his new unit on December 7th, 1941 and witnesses the Japanese attack firsthand. He almost manages to reach ''Arizona'' before she is destroyed, then boards another battleship, ''West Virginia'', instead, helping with damage control and manning an antiaircraft gun. Following this, he decides to take specialized training and becomes a Marine Raider, an elite fighting force tasked with conducting raids behind enemy lines. It is here that he gets reunited with his old squad from basic training, and from there, they are assigned to raid Makin Atoll, their first combat assignment.

* ActionizedSequel: Compared to previous titles, and especially ''Rising Sun'', all missions are set in the heat of battle or at the frontline, with nary a StealthBasedMission seen.

* AndTheAdventureContinues: Conlin and his squad manage to clear Tarawa, but all of them know that this island is just one stepping stone in the massive Pacific Theater of Operations. The game ends implying that they will deployed again in a few months.

* ArtisticLicenceHistory: Downplayed. The attack on Pearl Harbor sees the USS ''Nevada'' being sunk while trying to escape the attack, unless the player manages to shoot down enough attacking planes. In reality the ''Nevada'' did indeed try and escape, but her crew was forced to deliberately run her aground to avoid her sinking in the channel and blocking the entrance to the harbor. Also when she sinks, the entire ship submerges under the water, which isn't possible because of how shallow Pearl Harbor is.

* {{BFG}}: Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, despite being a downplayed example of this, still counts. For starters, it can kill an enemy with a well-placed shot in any body parts (other than most automatic rifles in that regard), capable of fending off an enemy banzai charge with carefully-aimed shots and it is possible to take down and destroy enemy aircraft (exemplified in the Marine Raiders' evacuation to ''USS Nautilus''). But even so, due to its rather low magazine capacity when compared to other automatic rifles (only holding 20 rounds), players must be keen and count all of their shots if they were to utilize the weapon into a good use.

* ChekhovsSkill: In one level, Conlin is stated to have had informal pilot training thanks to the Marine airmen at Henderson Field. [[spoiler: It comes in handy when he's forced to pilot a Dauntless dive bomber later on.]]
** During the Makin Island raid, Sullivan is shown to be a BadassDriver when behind the wheel. These driving skills come in handy again on Tarawa, when Conlin's unit needs to rendezvous with their reinforcements on the other side of the island.
* CombatMedic: Your squad's corpsman, Sullivan, as well as other corpsmen, are forced to wield handguns while also healing Marines, due to the fact that the Japanese will kill any American they encounter, regardless of them being a medic or not.

* CrewOfOne: Conlin can man American pack howitzers, Japanese artillery, and most medium caliber anti-aircraft guns singlehandedly.

* EliteMooks: The IJN Special Landing Forces, or Japanese Marines, especially the garrison based on Tarawa. Also counts as an EvilCounterpart. Unlike the IJA, they're much better shots, and are shown to have a bigger variety of weapons.

* EveryoneLives: Conlin and the rest of his squad manage to go through hell and back. Even [[spoiler: Minoso]] survives, albeit thanks to his injuries, is forced to miss out the FinalBattle.
* EvilCounterpart: The IJN Special Landing Forces, or Japanese Marines, to the US Marines. Like their American counterparts, they're elite troops specializing in amphibious operations, and are just as gung-ho and tenacious.
* EvolvingTitleScreen: The weather and radio broadcasts in the main menu change with the progression of each level. In the latter case, the radio broadcasts in question change to the time period of the next campaign. The passage of time is also evident by the Marines' gear and weapons, as well as the tent flaps being torn and later repaired.
* FakeDifficulty: Some sections like Tarawa have a large amount of instant-death triggers that often make little sense. (For instance, trying to go onto the pier near where you crashed will result instantly dying for no apparent reason.)

* GameBreakingBug: Since the game mostly auto-configs it's graphical settings, most of the higher end graphics settings are essentially permanently disabled nowadays as the game won't properly recognize most modern [=PCs=] nor are there in-game settings to manually enable them unless you manually go into the game files. (And even then, it's not well-known how to enable all of them manually.)

-->'''Drill Instructor:''' ''What in the name of sweet Jesus Christ are you doing?'' Clearly you have forgotten ''everything'' I have taught you, because you are ''ONE DEAD MARINE!!!'' Now, let’s try this again, maggot!

* HowWeGotHere: Conlin gets knocked out by enemy fire in the ActionPrologue, and every level from then on details on his previous experiences, from boot camp all the way to Guadalcanal.
* HungryJungle: Guadalcanal. It comes to a point that Conlin isn't sure whether the Japanese or the jungle will get to him and the others first.

* IslandBase: Practically all of the major locations where Conlin fights on are this, with the most notable being Guadalcanal and Tarawa, home to major American and Japanese airbases.

* JustifiedTutorial: Because it's boot camp for Marine recruits, where they go through obstacle courses, firearms training, squad tactics, and corpsman training.
* JustPlaneWrong: In "Guadalcanal: Flyboys", the SBD Dauntless is depicted as carrying a Mark 13 torpedo, when in reality it could only carry bombs. Interestingly, its the SBD's successor, the [=SB2C=] Helldiver, that can carry a torpedo in place of its usual bombs.
* LampshadeHanging: The Historical Facts when enabled acknowledge that M1 Garands, Type 100 SMGs and other rare weapons weren't as common in the Pacific as depicted in-game.
* LastStand: Two of them. The first on Guadalcanal, where the remaining IJA forces are driven to the coastline and are defending from fixed positions, and on Tarawa, where the last few IJN troops hold out in a damaged bunker, low on ammunition.

* PlayingPossum: One of the favorite tactics of Imperial Japanese soldiers, particularly during the second part of "Bloody Ridge", where a Japanese patrol lays dead, intending on catching Minoso, Conlin, and other US Marines off guard.
* PutOnABus: Minoso [[spoiler: while serving as a rear gunner on an SBD Dauntless during their ferrying mission from Henderson to the USS ''Independence'', is badly wounded and loses consciousness. Because of this, he is forced to miss out Tarawa, but not before handing his [[{{BFG}} Browning Automatic Rifle]] to Conlin and [[YouAreInCommandNow giving him total command of the squad]] ]].

* ReliablyUnreliableGuns: Again, the Reising SMG in comparison to the other two submachine guns in the game. It has far less magazine capacity and stopping power than both the Type 100 and Thompson, as well as suffering from poor accuracy. In RealLife, it was notorious among the Marines for its tendency to jam.

** The Mk. 2 grenades used in the game are appropriate for the Mid-war period, as they were painted yellow until the end of 1942, before manufacturers switched to the iconic olive color.
** The developers definitely took their time with doing their homework when coming up and making the trivia sections for each level, as they manage to describe in detail things ranging from firearms from the time period, to events around the time period the level is set in, etc, even lampshading how certain firearms weren't actually available yet/as common historically as they are in-game.

* SpitefulAI: Japanese soldiers and Marines will prioritize in incapacitating the PlayerCharacter, i.e. Conlin, over their own wellbeing, or for that matter, going after the rest of your squad, achieving this mostly by trying to [[BayonetYa bayonet you]] or gun you down. And if and when they do actually incapacitate you, they'll even do the CoupDeGrace by bayonetting you, slashing you, or just shooting you in the head.

* SupportingLeader: Minoso. While he's the highest ranking soldier in Conlin's squad, he leaves the actual commanding to Conlin, preferring to shoot at the Japanese more.

* TanksForNothing: The Japanese Type 95 "Ha-Go" and Type 97 "Chi-Ha" tanks just outside Henderson Field are destroyed by Conlin and his squad before they can even make it to the tarmac. TruthInTelevision, as both types of tank were notoriously thin-skinned and barely deserved the name.

* TropicalIslandAdventure: Makin, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa. All are South and Central Pacific islands far from the continental US and even Hawaii, and have Conlin and his squad stationed there from days to months at a time, all while enduring supply shortages, the Japanese, and the risk of getting lost in the jungle.

* RareGuns: Compared to other titles set in the Pacific, this game features a few more than usual, notably the Reising M55.
** As with a lot of other games set in the same period, the Japanese get the Type 100 submachine gun and Type 92 heavy machine gun.
** For those with the Director's Edition of the game, there's also the M1941 Johnson Light Machine gun, of which only 9,500 were built.

** Taken UpToEleven with the Battle of Bloody Ridge, where the Japanese forces en masse keep rushing the Marine positions relentlessly, forcing Conlin and Minoso to retreat to the more heavily fortified positions in their line. It takes artillery and air attacks to finally stop the attack for good.

* RealLife/CoolPlane: Notable examples in this game include the deadly [=A6M2=] Zero and the famous SBD Dauntless, [[spoiler: the latter of which you get to pilot in one level.]]

* GameBreakingBug: Since the game mostly auto-configs it's graphical settings, most of the higher end graphics settings are essentially permanently disabled nowadays as the game won't properly recognize most modern PCs nor are there in-game settings to manually enable them unless you manually go into the game files. (And even then, it's not well-known how to enable all of them manually.)

* GameBreakingBug: Since the game mostly auto-configs it's graphical settings, most of the higher end graphics settings are essentially permanently disabled nowadays as the game won't properly recognize most modern PCs nor are there in-game settings to manually enable them.

* ImproperlyPlacedFirearms: DownplayedTrope here, as all the equipment shown was more-or-less accurate for the time period the game is set in, but the Marines on Guadalcanal are shown using [=M1=] Garands, [=M1=] Carbines, and [=M1919=] Browning machine guns, weapons that would have been issued to the US Army during the time, but not so much for the Marines, as they were mostly relying on older weapons like the Springfield and [=M1917=] Browning machine gun, due to the Army getting priority over them. Though this could be [[HandWave hand-waved]] that the Marines received surplus from the Army, or stole the weapons from them, as was common during the campaign. They do start out the campaign with [=M1903=] Springfield rifles.

* RagdollPhysics: Present, but sometimes it will need to be toggled on in the game files as it sometimes won't be on by default.
* RareGuns: Compared to other titles set in the Pacific, this game features a few more than usual, notably the Reising M55.

** Exaggerated in the FlyBoys, where the Japanese planes and your allied planes will stop firing on each other past a certain point, with the Japanese planes exclusively focusing on your while your friendly planes do nothing to help you.

* {{Eagleland}}: Definite Type 1 flavor, as with the other titles in the series.

** The developers definitely took their time with doing their homework when coming up and making the trivia sections for each level, as they manage to describe in detail things ranging from firearms from the time period, to events around the time period the level is set in, etc.

* DrillSergeantNasty: One appears during boot camp, and is, of course, based heavily on Creator/RLeeErmey down to the voice and mannerisms, albeit with less profanity.

* EliteMooks: The IJN Special Landing Forces, or Japanese Marines. Also counts as an EvilCounterpart. Unlike the IJA, they're much better shots, and are shown to have a bigger variety of weapons.