Shout Out / Epic Battle Fantasy

For a flash game quintology with two Gaiden Games, Epic Battle Fantasy has a lot of Shout Outs. With the third game's open world exploration that continued on to the 4th, the games started to pick up greatly with more references.

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General

• The design for Matt's Soul Eater sword was originally based on Soul Edge, not to mention its name is from Soul Eater.
  • Matt's signature Heaven's Gate sword was inspired wholesale from the Heaven's Gate two-handed sword in MapleStory.
• Final Fantasy VII: Matt's Legend attack looks a lot like Cloud Strife's Omnislash.
  • As does his Cleaver Limit Break, as slyly noted by Matt himself in the fourth game.
• Natalie assumes a pose from Macross Frontier in her Kyun Limit Break.
• One of Natalie's most basic spells is Lucky Star, which is the stylized star from the anime's intro dealing random damage to an enemy.
• Lance wields a gunblade a la Final Fantasy VIII and his scanner is a scouter from Dragon Ball Z.
  • When using his Oblivion Limit Break when he smashes his Tank on his enemies he screams: "WWWWWRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY!!!"
• The Legend of Zelda: Various Triforces can be found across the games.
• There are a couple of Golden Sun Shout Outs throughout the series: the Heaven's Gate sword bears a striking resemblance to the Titan Blade, Water of Life appears as an item in the first two games, and Seiken is similar to the Ragnarok unleash, not to mention the actual Ragnarok Limit Break from the third game, which takes the same "summon a magic sword to fall on an enemy" idea up to eleven.
• A small clip of DragonForce's Through The Fire and Flames plays when Matt casts "Power Metal".
• Matt's Protect move summons a slightly modified Triforce.

Epic Battle Fantasy 1

• The first game doesn't even bother with Shout Outs, and directly uses foreign material; the Pokémon Pichu, Mareep, Registeel, Regirock, Regice, Duskull, the Golden Sun spell Catastrophe, the FLCL character Lord Canti, and Dragon Ball protagonist Goku are all present.
• When you fight against the first robot, you can read "Mobile Suits" in the sign (it's a Gundam!). It also happens to be named Defender.

Epic Battle Fantasy 2

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Matt shouts out "Pierce the heavens!" when he first uses his Cleaver Limit Break. He later says "Fight da powah!!!"
• The final boss, a neo-Nazi named Lance and his tank, seems to be a blatant Shout-Out to Valkyrie. The tank's pilot even wears an eyepatch like Tom Cruise's character does in the movie. While the tank itself was inspired by Metal Slug, Matt called it the Valkyrie because some friends of his noticed that Lance looked like Tom Cruise's character, which surprised him because he hadn't seen the movie.

Epic Battle Fantasy 3

• Among the idle animations are Natz playing Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, or Pokémon on a Nintendo DS, as well as an old grey-brick Game Boy.
• There's an NPC early on wearing Kamina Shades. Later, the man himself appears, alongside Simon and Yoko, who all give you quests. Kamina will even teach your characters the "Tera Drill".
  • Using Tera Drill the first time will prompt the user to say "Pierce the heavens with your drill!" The old flying robots with drills seen in the second game are now described with something like "They'll pierce your heavens.", and when they use a drill attack the first time, a character will remark that it's a good thing they don't have the spirit for a Giga Drill Breaker. Yup, lots of Gurren Lagann Shout Outs...
  • Yoko's quest nets you the Flame Skirt, armor for Natalie that is almost exactly the same as Yoko's outfit, and has high fire resistance.
  • Yoko's hairpin can be found in the secret area of Kitten Ruins, which increases accuracy. Simon's quest also nets you a pair of drill hairclips, which increase defense.
• The third area has snow sculptures of Kirby and the Pokémon Pichu and Pikachu. The fourth area has a sand statue of Meowth.
  • Also in the third area: a snow sculpture of a castle and the Castle Crashers, and another snow sculpture of a White Mage, a Black Mage, a Fighter, and a Ninja using the character designs of Final Fantasy. The heroes feel a sense of deja vu when both of these sculptures are approached, but can't quite put their finger on it.
• Some of the electric slimes in the fourth area have Pikachu-style tails.
• One of the attacks Leaf Eaters use involves sending razor sharp leaves at the players (a la the attack Razor Leaf from Pokémon). The Leaf Eaters themselves bear an uncanny resemblance to Torterra.
  • One of the attacks the black crows use lowers accuracy. When this happens, Natz says "Pidgey used Sand Attack! Accuracy fell!".
• DragonForce: The Diamond item is described as "The hardest metal known to man.".
• The Game Over screens for the third game always have a quote with some kind of Shout-Out:
  • 300 - "Tonight we dine in hell"
  • Fate/stay night - "People die when they are killed."
  • "You are out of usable Pokémon... You blacked out!"
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"
  • Zero Wing - "Someone set you up the bomb."
  • Looney Tunes - "That's all, folks!"
  • Metal Gear Solid - "Fission Mailed."
  • Queen - "Another one bites the dust."
  • And Then There Were None
  • One of Borderlands's Mordecai's idle lines - "How much longer are you gonna admire that dirt?"
• Konata from Lucky Star is a NPC who gives you a quest, and if you complete it, she rewards you with chocolate cornets. Also, one of Natalie's spells is called "Lucky Star", though that may be just a coincidence.
• Rurouni Kenshin: The NPC for the first minigame is a red-haired samurai with an odd manner of speaking named Sir Ken.
  • And the NPC for the final minigame is Curly from Cave Story. When you speak to her the first time, her first sentence is actually "Did you know the witch woman Jenka had... oh, wrong person." She also describes the minigame as "Looks like your cat wants to speedrun this stage", which could be a reference to how many players speedrun the bonus level in Cave Story.
  • The Annihilate Limit Break flashes the Kanji characters "aku soku zan" (swift death the evil). This is a reference to Saito Haijime and the Shinsengumi code.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Natalie's Genesis Limit Break creates a huge cross-shaped explosion. She also quotes The Animatrix, saying "May God have mercy on man and machine for their sins."
  • In 5 she may instead say to "pick a god and pray."
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Lance's Oblivion Limit Break consists of dropping a tank on the enemy. Complete with "WRYYYYYYYYY".
• The Final Boss, Akron, has an attack that turns the screen black with eyes and jagged smiles, which is reminiscent of Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist or Alucard's (Hellsing) transformations.
  • That, and its design is eerily similar to Anima from Final Fantasy X.
    • There's also some semblance to Asura from Soul Eater.
  • Akron's name comes from the Big Bad of the Rhapsody of Fire songs, believe it or not.
• When a character gets hit, sometimes they have the "shoop da whoop" face.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Fighting a Trojan Horse enemy in the first area and witnessing it use its buff ability will cause the player characters to shout, "It's the Horn of Gondor! It boosts their morale!"
• The Cosmic Monolith is an obvious reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Dune: When you fight the Sand Worm miniboss in the ruins, one of them will say "Walk without rhythm to confuse the worm!"
• More Dragon Ball Z references: When the Ancient Monolith in the fourth area unleashes its beam attack, Matt will say "I once knew a guy with golden hair who shot beams like that. Was nasty."
  • Lance also implies in an early conversation that he stole his scouter from Vegeta.
  Bill: That's an interesting device you've got there, my son.
  Lance: I'm not your son, and it's called a scouter. I stole it from a guy with a rough attitude and a tail. It seems to gauge an opponent's power level.
• When fighting a Fire Elemental for the first time, Lance may comment about how it must think it's a Mobile Suit, with the beam sword and all.
• When you revive Lance, he may quote Fight Club:
  Lance: Tomorrow my breakfast will taste better than any meal I have ever had.
  or this: I am Jack's crippling morning headache.
• There's a crafting item called a Metal Gear.
• Wild ARMs 2: There's a battle robot named Jack, and Lance's Heavy Claw weapon looks like the weapon wielded by Ptolomea.
• An NPC that offers a quest for mushrooms references The Legend Of Zelda C Di Games: "Mah boi!"
• The victory fanfare bears a strong resemblance to that from the Final Fantasy series.

Bullet Heaven

• The use of the '3.3' rather than something like 3.5 or 'gaiden' is probably a Shout-Out to Touhou Project, which has Hisoutensoku as 12.3^note This turned out pretty well, since there ended up being two other spinoffs that took 12.5 and 12.8, but it looked damn odd when it was the only one.
• The Final Boss's Yin-Yang Bomb tendencies is an extended Ikaruga Shout-Out.
• The bonus version of the third boss is essentially Utsuho, complete with a near-replica of her Mega Flare spellcard.
  • The second Optional Boss cribs off of Flandre, specifically her "Cranberry Trap" and her "And Then There Will Be None?" cards, as well as ganking Yukari's "Border of Wave and Particle".
  • Lance's bomb is his giant laser attack, which works remarkably like a Master Spark here.
    • Except that he still moves at full speed when using it.
• One of the medals is I Like Swords (8-Bit Theater Fighter's Catchphrase).
  • This may also be a minor reference to the developer's Newgrounds account: Matt-Likes-Swords.
• The Kongregate achievements are Can't Outsmart Bullet (Team Fortress 2), Ten Desires (Touhou Project), All Cats Go to Bullet Heaven (All Dogs Go to Heaven), and Imperishable Player (Touhou Project again).
• The first bonus stage, Razor Leaf Storm, is named for two Pokémon moves.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

Following the third game, this game also has many, many, many shout-outs.

• The cutscenes are done in same artwork style of Phantom Hourglass' story cutscenes.
• Cave Story: The puppy cap is available as a hat.
  • There is a snowman of Balrog in the game. The differently toned eye lines are hard to see but there.
• Banjo-Kazooie: You can use a honeycomb to increase your max life.
• There is a character who looks like Ash Ketchum holding a stick in the beginning battle areas.
• In the beginning town of Greenwood, there are boulders that can be moved by the player. Moving them awards you the achievement "Used Strength".
  • You also get medals for using the axe, candle, and hammer for the first time, respectively named "Used Cut", "Used Flash", and "Used Rock Smash".
• There is a man with a large sword called "Gust" with spiky light blond hair.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: In the beginning town, there is a man named Alphonse with metal arms who identifies himself as an alchemist.
• More than one Minecraft reference is made during the game. The party meets a miner who advises them to "never dig straight up or down", which makes Lance reminisce of a mining trip that was ruined by spiders and exploding monsters. Examine the snow sculpture of a Creeper in Whitefall with Lance in the first slot, and he has a Heroic BSoD. Bullet Heaven 2 reveals that this is because his father was blown up by a creeper, leaving only his shovel, some wood, and a single chunk of coal.
• Golden Sun:
  • A mage named Mia who's used to the snow shows up in Whitefall.
  • Along with the numerous other snowmen, there are two Djinn outside a shop in the same village, a Mercury and Jupiter with the wrong color gems for eyes.
• Returning snowmen include the Final Fantasy character classes and Kirby.
• Upon a weak attack early in the game, Matt quips the below line, but he will do it more with other attacks and monsters as well.
  Generic bird monster uses wing attack. It's not very effective.
  • There's also the Hyper Beam attack, what seems to be a dead Pikachu in Greenwood, and plants who can use Solar Beam, as noted by Natalie.
  • In the Waste Disposal Plant, at a door requiring 3 batteries to open, Matt says that he's confused. Natalie tells him not to hit himself in his confusion.
• There is an old man with a long beard and white hair named Humblebore (a Captain Ersatz of Dumbledore from Harry Potter).
• Soul Eater: A witch NPC named Blair offers a quest and gives you cat ears for completing it.
• The Blair Witch Project: A movie about a witch in a forest. There's a witch NPC named Blair, who says, when talked to after completing her quest:
  Witches get a bad reputation for some reason.
  Maybe it's all that voodoo stuff they leave in forests.
• The Portal Gun is in the final equip shop, sitting next to the Cave Story weapon Polar Star.
• Firefly: "No power in the 'verse can stop me!"
• In the Graveyard is a marker that reads: "Here lies Son Goku. His body couldn't take it."
  • Another DBZ reference: the skill Flare (which debuffs opponents' accuracy) is renamed to Solar Flare, evidently a reference to the attack from Dragon Ball Z that temporarily blinds people.
• "Your fortitude is an obscenity" is spoken in the exact same situation as in DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu, namely by the Big Bad leading into the final boss battle.
• The Swords merchant in Greenwood is Himura Kenshin.
• During the battle with the Praetorian, Lance may reference Neon Genesis Evangelion: "An AT Field?! That's impossible!"
• Several shoutouts in the equipment:
  • Misato's cross and a Freezie are available as flair.
• A magnificently-mustached gentleman in Whitefalls eating breakfast, named Ron...
• When wearing certain hair accessories, Natalie has Toyosatomimi no Miko's signature animal-ears hairstyle.

Bullet Heaven 2

• After you kill the boss of Jaderoot Jungle (a giant wasp), Lance remarks that it was no Hibachi, while Matt laments that he can't even get to Hibachi.
• The boss of world six is Ballos. He didn't even try to make it subtle.
  Lance: Is that Ballos? It looks like him.
• One of the levels is described as a place "where excess electrical power is stored and randomly discharged in the form of electric slime", and yes, the slimes are yellow with pointy ears and red blush stickers, and shoot bolts of lightning at you. This is lampshaded at the end of the level:
  Lance: Those slimes kind of reminded me of something...
  NoLegs: Pikameow?
• The introduction to the first level of the space section has two:
  Matt: We're in space! This is awesome! And we can breathe too!
  Natalie: My Godcat, it's full of stars!

Epic Battle Fantasy 5

• The Flame Sprite's redesign is an expy of Flame Princess, due to many players thinking the original design had an uncanny resemblance to her.
• The new Squid variants were given bright colors as a reference to Splatoon, and some of the characters' comments even paraphrase the "Kid or Squid" meme.
• Among the new accessories are a Boom Fly^note a swarm of which is also an attack used by one of the bosses, a Scouter, the One-Star Dragon Ball, and a Navi-like fairy.
  • There was also a heart locket and a knife that Natalie could use as a weapon. When they were first made, it was a complete coincidence, but with a little nudge from the fans, they now serve as a reference to Undertale.
• There's two NPCs which are a parody of Brock and Nurse Joy in the game. The Brock-parody is regarded as significantly creepier than who he's based on.
  • Other NPCs in the game include parodies of Link, Maka Albarn, Kamina, and Son Goku.
• NoLegs' cat toys include the Power Glove and NES Zapper and a Koopa shell.
  • And half of the shelled creep enemies sport various koopa shells, and even attack according to the one they have. All of them attack by spinning around from inside their shells, like koopas are known to do. The green one can jump on you (for some reason), the red winged one is reminiscent of Mario's lazy shell, and the spiky blue one has a powerful self-destruct move.
• God, the "evil" version of NoLegs, not only has bright yellow fur that is pulsing with power, but can also fire a kamehameha wave and launch spirit bombs. He even has Goku's iconic getup!
  • While not as obvious or even intentional, his choice of weapon and exaggerated affiliation with stars may be a reference to the Kirby series' overpowered hammer ability.
• The Frozen Valley contains a snow sculpture of Napstablook and of a Boo.
• One of NoLegs' attacks is called Sushi Cat, which summons the cat from the game of the same name to hit 3 random enemies and heal the two active players with the lowest health. At higher levels, it also gives good luck!
• One of the bonus bosses, Snowflake, is a giant Undertale shout-out. From its monochrome, pixelated battle sprite, down to its "dialogue" doing its best to imitate Undertale's in-between turn messages.
  • The name of the medal for beating Snowflake on Epic difficulty is even called Determination.
  Snowflake: *Snowflake thinks you're taking this play date too seriously.
  • In the game's source code, Snowflake's stat file is called Underlegs.
• The headstones in the graves at Redpine Town refer to many, many things:
  • One of them says ERAU QSSI DLRO WEHT, referencing Daryl's Grave.
  • One of them asks players to "Press F to pay respects", a reference to the famous meme from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
  • One of them namedrops Fez 2, which was terminated mid-development.
• One set of three sidequest items reference the Power/Wisdom/Courage pendants that Link has needed to earn in order to prove his worth to wield the Master Sword.
• While fighting the boss of the final glitched area, Lance at one point lets out a long string of binary. Translated, it says, "Monika did this".
• One of the new slimes reference Dedenne, to go with the Pikachu-styled Slime.
• Anna may say "Justice rains from above!" when using Blessed Barrage.
• When using Natalie's Genesis, she may tell the enemies to "Pick a god and pray!"
• There are statues of Tricky the Clown and two zombies from Madness Combat in the Mystic Woods.
• Equipping the Earth's Whisper or Heaven's Voice bow/harp may result in Anna calling herself a spoony bard. Fridge Brilliance follows, since the character she's referring to was in love with a girl named Anna.
• There's a house in Redpine Town that contains many references to real-world cults and conspiracies.
• Certain enemies have an attack which summons a TV that flashes the symbol from the Black Mirror episode "White Bear".
• Sliding Block Puzzle's are blocked off by lines of pebbles, much like the Golden Sun series.
• A bunch to Pokémon:
  • The enemy capturing mechanic works much like Pokémon's, requiring the enemy to be near death and with a status effect increasing the odds of success (no word on whether pressing A helps), with the crate holding the foe shaking as the foe struggles to get free (and a character sometimes screaming in frustration as it escapes). If you equip more than 6 summons, (but no more than 18,) you get a medal named "Not Pok*mon".
  • Matt tries to explain himself after battling Natalie, and NoLegs chimes in with "Meowth! (That's Right!)"
  • An achievement for capturing 151 foes is named "Gotta Catch 'Em All" after the first generation of Pokémon's number of Pokemon, with the text being unsubtle: "Capture 151 different foes. This game won't make you capture all of them, but there was a time when 151 was considered impressive".
  • Monster cards are collectible mechanic that grants bonuses. With their appearances and layout, it is definitely a tip of the hat to the Pokémon trading card game.
• In the v2.0 update, one of the lines when starting the GUOYE encounter is,"You feel your sins crawling on your back."
• In the Battle Arena added by the v2.0 update, when talking to the NPC that explains the rules, Lance asks if the first rule is you do not talk about the Battle Arena.
• If Nolegs uses the Art Attack Limit Break, he turns into a female humanized version of himself while wearing the Super Crown from New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which also references the "Bowsette" meme originating from that game.
• The icon for the "Screamer" attack is based on Ghostface, the main antagonist of the Scream series.

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