Video Game / Arcuz

Arcuz is a Flash-based web game by indie developer FUNNAUT. The story revolves around an Undefeatable Little Village known as Arcuz, which the hero must protect from monsters. It gained popularity when posted on website Armor Games.

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Arcuz games contain examples of the following tropes:

• Airborne Mook: Hornets. You need to jump and hit them, making them very irritating enemies. Bats fill in this role in the sequel.
• Artificial Stupidity: The Backstab skills will tend to target barrels and pots instead of enemies, making you waste much of the attack. Even worse if it hits an exploding barrel, which cancels the move entirely and stuns you.
• Back Stab: The Backstab skill makes you teleport behind an enemy and hit them In the Back. Combine with the Assassin skill (which increases damage dealt from the back) and this becomes a very painful move. It is not without its flaws, though (See Artificial Stupidity above)
• Beef Gate: If you see the red words "Caution!" at the top of the screen, you need to get out immediately as there's an enemy whose level is MUCH higher than yours and can murder you with great ease. Said enemies usually mean that the player isn't supposed to go there yet.
• Blob Monster: Slimes.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The 2-headed giant in the sequel, who deals CRAZY damage when it hits you and has a TON of health. It scales to your level too. Oh, and you cannot escape if you enter the room it's in, which is a random, tiny room.
  • Every time you kill a certain number of skeletons, the ground will start shaking, and then a Skeleton King pops out. He's fast, has a whirlwind move that can pretty much instakill you, can curse you to lower your stats, and has other painful attacks. Oh, he's always 1 level above you and he stays broken for a very short amount of time.
  • Ogre champions. These deal huge amounts of damage, are Immune to Flinching, and can take an obscene amount of damage. It doesn't help that you need to break them, which also takes a long time to do.
  • Black Knight Champions are even worse, like ogre champions but faster, can cast spells, and summon annoying flying imps.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Pretty much all the bosses, really.
• Death Course: The trap floor on Arcuz II, filled with spike and spear traps, deadly grinders, and fire/ice/poison projectile launchers. Later trap floors require you to take a sidepath to trigger a switch in order to remove a seal blocking the way to the exit.
• Elemental Punch/Flaming Sword: You can imbue elements into your weapons. Likewise, enemies can have elemental abilities. This allows attacks to have a chance of doing double damage and an elemental side effect.
• Giant Mook: Centaurs, Ogres and Black Knights.
• In the Back: In '"Arcuz II'', attacking enemies from behind does more damage. The same applies to mooks attacking you from behind. You can level up the "Assassin" skill to increase this further.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: You can only attack Lizardmen when they're not guarding, otherwise they will take no damage from anything, no matter what direction it came from.
• Mirror Boss: The Skeleton King. He's the only boss that's the same size as the player and shares many of the player's moves, such as a 5-hit combo, a jumping smash, a charge move, a Sword Beam, and even a Spin Attack of his own!
  • An even better example would be the Trial Gate's Shadow, who is an Evil Knockoff of your character. This guy uses many of the player's moves, and a few moves that aren't.
• Our Goblins Are Different: They come in warrior, archer and mage varieties.
• Sdrawkcab Name: The demon Ssyba is Abyss spelled backwards.
• Shielded Core Boss: Pretty much every single boss and champion mook in the sequel. They take very little damage unless you empty their Break Meter by hitting them enough, then they get stunned and cannot attack- this is when you can hit them as they recover their break meter and become near-invincible again.
• Speed Blitz: The Backstab II and Backstab III skill.
• Spread Shot: The Elemental Wave makes you fire 3 elemental waves in a spread.
  • Multishot: Kimura from the sequel. He has Scatter Shot I and II, which lets him fire 3 and 5 arrows at one go, as well as Exploding Arrow II, which is Scatter Shot II but it explodes for huge fire damage on hit.
• Underground Monkey: Several enemies are palette swaps with different stats and elemental abilities.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Onim the Minotaur in the sequel. His level's always above yours^note  which means that he will always have a lot of health and hurt a lot, and needs to be broken in order to be damaged, but he's slow. However, when his health gets to 1/4, he Turns Red, making him MUCH faster, charge around a lot, give him the ability to do a nasty 3-hit combo and allowing him to shoot out very painful fireballs with every attack. But Wait, There's More!: If his health gets to 1/8, he becomes even more vicious with more fireballs per attack!