Video Game / Epic Battle Fantasy 4

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The fourth game has the new heroine, Anna, tracking down the 3 party members after her village was ransacked of many things, most importantly a jewel kept there. Anna starts the quest looking for the rest of the party to try and get the jewel back, but when it turns out to be missing, she drags the team along to find it.

Buy the full version of the game at Steam here. You can also play the free version on Newgrounds here or Kongregate here.

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• Absurdly High Level Cap: There is no level cap, but medals are only rewarded at 10-level intervals up to level 40. Playing in New Game Plus averts this, as you will reach level 40 within the second playthrough, and likely 50 by the end of the third!
• A-Cup Angst: Anna asks Natz what she eats to get such big breasts. Natz is flustered, Lance is eager to find out, and Matt is intently pretending that he didn't hear a thing.
  • If Natz later dies with Anna in the party, Anna may comment that Natz's 'flab' doesn't cushion attacks after all. In context with the above conversation, she comes across as less mean and more jealous.
• And I Must Scream: At the second village near the optional graveyard area, one of the NPCs will bring up a rumour about how her friend was supposedly turned into a tree. Going into the graveyard area you'll see a lot of living trees, which the main characters show pity towards if you try to interact with. It's stated during the mentioned discussion that this is fairly common.
• And Man Grew Proud: What happened to the once-mighty cat civilization? You find out the truth at the end of EBF4.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The Instant Death status ailment instantly charges your limit break. Not only can this turn the tide, it can make it easier to recharge it before a boss battle.
• Antimatter: In the fourth game, when Lance's Antimatter is used, he says:
  In case you were wondering, my guns are powered by antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulses!
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: With Anna joining the party in the fourth game, the party can only have three members at once. Fortunately, the unused party member can be swapped in at any time during battle without wasting a turn.
• Artistic License – Economics: One of Lance's idle animations is him reading a newspaper. Quoth one of the randomly-picked headlines that may appear:
  ENTIRE WORLD IN DEBT
  BANKS SAY "oops"
• Art Shift: This entry starts the cutscenes that are rendered in a construction-paper like artstyle.
• Ascended Extra: Anna, a quest NPC in the third game, is a playable character in the fourth and considered by the party members to be the main character. She bears an uncanny resemblance to the merchant from the first game — who is essentially the first person you see.
• Backtracking: Chests and secret levels are often blocked by obstacles that the player can't currently bypass. The characters at one point comment on the amount of backtracking in the game.
• Barrier Change Boss: EBF4 has the Crystal Golem, who changes between Fire, Ice, Lightning every time it's hit. This includes individual hits from multi-hit attacks. Like Akron, scanning it once reveals its affinities for the rest of the fight.
• Beach Episode:
  • The above is referenced in the fourth game, when visiting the beach at Goldenbrick Resort.
• Bears Are Bad News: Bears and variants of it are introduced as enemies. They get the Berserk status when they are hit with a strong attack.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: The fourth game is quite meta, and to cap it off, the ending has our protagonists say their opinions on the story, and Matt goes on to claim he negotiated the New Game Plus with the developer.
  • The fifth game has the characters give you explicit tips with the game (and not just in-universe logical stuff like "We should try zapping wet enemies", stuff like "Can anyone use Reflex to remove Shroud?" like the skill says it does) and adds an in-game fanart gallery that the party, naturally, will comment on seeing.
• Big "NO!": Matt's initial reaction to the Block Puzzle in Battle Mountain.
  Matt: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!1 GODCATDAMMIT! WHY?!? I'D RATHER DIE THAN DO THIS CRUD!
• Block Puzzle: Used to guard chests like at:
  • The bottom of Greenwood Village.
  • The Goldbrick Resort area that is the entrance to the Temple of Godcat.
  • A Battle Mountain screen accessible right after Rainbow Rafflesia.
  • Near the entrance to the Crystal Caverns.
  • Another Battle Mountain screen accessible right before the Diamond Golem.
• Bloodsucking Bats: Blood Bats are introduced whose description in the bestiary starts with: "A bloodsucking enemy".
• Booze-Based Buff: There is an enemy based off of Tanuki, but more realistic. They have a gourd of booze around their necks that they can drink for health and a strength boost.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Heal More is explicitly referred to as the best spell in the game, and with good reason. It's a simple multi-target healing spell. You'll be using it a lot.
  • The Alchemist's Bow and Chainsaw Sword, for Anna and Matt, respectively, are useful for trash mobs. The Alchemist’s Bow has a chance of inflicting every single status in the game, even instant death, on hit, so focusing her rain of arrows on trash mobs, or possibly even bosses if you don't have their elemental weakness or feel like gambling on better statuses like stun or seal showing up (which bosses are often only resistant rather than immune to), can be pretty helpful. The Chainsaw Sword has a much higher chance of instant death, and only instant death, making it useful in dealing with trash mobs, since it can mop up very, very quickly if you get lucky, but bosses are always immune to instant death.
• Boss Banter: In EBF4, the final boss, or rather, each of her halves, elaborates on the banter of EBF3's final boss.
• Boss in Mook Clothing:
  • In the fourth game, Monoliths are somewhat reduced in power. They are still strong, but a simple Syphon (Silence) skill can completely wreck them, since all their attacks are spells. Their best attacks now require them to use a turn to charge, which makes it easier for the player to defend. A new enemy type, Dragons, takes their place as the new Boss in Mook Clothing, and are threatening for generally the same reasons that Monoliths were in the third game. There are also the Defender robots found in the factory — yes, the same Defender that was the penultimate boss in the first game — which have lots of health and deal lots of damage.
  • The fourth game also contains a redux of the penultimate boss from the previous installment that appears as a regular encounter — you have to fight Black, Gold, and Red Dragons all at once that have similar abilities to those that the Pyrohydra had. Thankfully, they are weaker and don't get buffs when you kill other dragons, though they are more than able to buff themselves up.
• Boss Rush: Battle Mountain in the Steam version has four of these. #1 has you fighting the minibosses, #2 has you rushing the main game bosses, #3 is a series of the upgraded versions of those bosses, and #4 is against the dark versions of your party.
• Broken Bridge: The fourth game contains numerous obstacles that are impassable until you get a certain item. These include literal broken bridges that require you to obtain a "ladder" item in order to bridge the gaps. Lance gets annoyed at all the backtracking they have to do because of this, while Matt is annoyed at how stupid some of the obstacles are.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Battle Mountain in the Steam version features beefed up versions of the main bosses, new bosses more powerful than those in the main game, and regular enemy encounters with at least 6 waves of enemies each, with each wave getting progressively harder. Not to mention all enemy encounters there scale to your level.
• Butter Face: In the fourth game, when Lance meets Dark Natalie, he says:
  (Woah! Evil Natalie is even hotter than the real one! Well, maybe if you put a bag over her head...)
• Chainmail Bikini: The Breastplate outfit for females in 4 at least covers up the ladies from the waist down all right, but still rather emphasizes "breast" over "plate".
• Chain of Deals: With some NPCs in Goldenbrick Resort, there's a chain of quests involving things that look like important objects, but really aren't. You start the game with Old Boots, give it to Jan for a shovel, get a pair of spiked boots for it, and finally you get a map to the ancient ruins in the jungle.
• Charged Attack:
  • Laser Turrets have a powerful laser blast that can One-Hit Kill a player on harder difficulties.
  • Stunflowers have an attack where they charge for one turn, then use that energy to make an electric beam attack, attacking the whole active party.
  • Monolith enemies tend to always have a charged attack. The Sky Monoliths are unique in that they also heal and buff themselves while charging, while the other ones do nothing else but charge.
• Commonplace Rare: There is exactly one stepladder in the entire game world. It is sought after by NPCs as if it were the Holy Grail.
• Convection, Schmonvection: You can still stand on metal walkways suspended over lava without suffering any ill effects; however, to walk on lava you need special boots, and even then, you'll take damage.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Summons in the fourth game are bosses you defeated in both the third and fourth game. Natz lampshades the trope when she mentions how uncomfortable she is having allies that switch sides so easily.
• Description Cut: Anna first meets Matt with a huge sack full of loot. He internally reasons he can't drop it, so he'll try to run for it and get hit a bit if he has to. Then he's face down in the dirt full of arrows, admitting that didn't go so well.
• Die, Chair, Die!: The Axe and Hammer are key items that let you destroy trees and rocks. Some of them must be cleared to progress the main story, and you get an achievement for the first use of each, but many — even nonessential ones — yield equipment crafting items (of logical type, such as Soft Wood from certain trees), and then there are the ones that block passages leading to shortcuts or treasure chests. All of this makes it generally worthwhile to take out every tree and rock that you can, once you are able to.
• Dual Boss:
  • Godcat plays it straight first, with Creator Godcat and Destroyer Godcat, then both of their One-Winged Angel forms separate. After beating both individually, they attack you together, but they aren't weakened at all and still manage to remain a Flunky Boss on top of that!
  • The Dark Players boss rush does this twice in one battle, meaning 2 Dark Players per wave! Oh, and they can summon their normal helpers when their partners go down. Have fun!
• Easy-Mode Mockery:
  • An NPC telling you about difficulty levels in 4 says you should be ashamed for playing it on the easiest difficulty.
  • Zero mode, as mentioned above. Its name alone is likely this.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Glitch. Unknowable name, unknowable form, resistant to all elements, spawns smaller versions of itself, kills players with a touch that does 0 damage. And the party's reaction to seeing it is a dumbfounded "huh?"
• Expansion Pack: In the free version, unlocking all items as well as the harder difficulty New Game Plus requires a $7.50 donation to Roszak.
• Export Save: The 2.0 update added the ability to export 22KB+ save 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.
• Final Boss Preview: In EBF4, you meet the Final Boss for the first time right as you are about to walk out of the Crystal Caverns; without warning, you are suddenly thrust into a surprise encounter against Godcat, just after a boss fight. There's a second such encounter in the middle of Lankyroot Jungle's lava cave. To win the battle, all you have to do is watch helplessly as she avoids nearly all of your attacks effortlessly and launches single-target spells powerful enough to empty your HP gauge several times over. After a few turns of toying with you, she'll depart and leave behind some mid-level enemies that you can actually fight.
• Flipping Helpless: In the fourth game, when Mighty Oak is defeated, and therefore, tipped over, Anna says:
  And he's down! Don't worry, he's not hurt at all. He just can't get back up from that position.
• Flunky Boss: The fourth game does this with all of its bosses as well (except the Zombie Hydra as of the Battle Mountain update). The final battle with Godcat is not only this in waves 2 and 4, but pulls off both this and Dual Boss in wave 6.
• Frictionless Ice: Ice blocks never stop sliding until they hit an object.
• Game Over: The fourth game has the same Game Over theme, but the background is completely dark. Same with the fifth.
• Gender-Restricted Ability: In the fourth game, some of the Special Skills, which can only be used by a single character, are restricted to either Matt and Lance, the males, or Natalie and Anna, the females:
  • Male Only:
    • Giga Drill
    • Power Metal
    • Death Metal
    • Ion Cannon
  • Female Only:
    • Revive
    • Gaia [X]: Gaia Seed, Gaia Bloom, and Gaia Blossom
    • Toxic
    • Absolute Zero
• Ghost Pirate: In the fourth game, since undead pirates are part of the trope, the medal for defeating Dark Matt on Epic difficulty is:
  Defeat an undead pirate on Epic Difficulty.
• Giant Mook: Some waves contain regular enemies that have larger sprites in addition to higher levels and stats. Of note is the giant Cat Soldier in Battle Mountain's foe rush, who is 15 levels higher than the party's average level. The good news is that their elemental and status resistances are unchanged.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: While the game doesn't always make sense, it's frequently acknowledged or lampshaded when it happens, which makes the robot pumpkin boss in the jungle in EBF4 all the stranger since it's not even commented on despite being massively out of place.
• Glitch Entity: The Glitch is a take on this trope. More normally, Pumpkin Slimes can't normally be seen in the game except as a glimpse from The Glitch.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Not only did Godcat create Akron, she's actually less affable to the party than him. She can also fulfill this trope by herself due to having a light and a dark aspect, which represent creation and destruction respectively.
• Go into the Light: In the fourth game, one of Matt's phrases, when he's revived, is:
  Oi! (I was just about to find out what that light at the end of the tunnel was...)
• Gotta Catch Them All: The antagonists are doing this in the fourth game. You don't get any of them, and don't even get close to catching them until the last one.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Destroyer Godcat states in Epic Battle Fantasy 4 that Akron, the previous game's Big Bad Sealed Evil in a Can Final Boss, was her creation.
• Healer Signs On Early: In the fourth game, the player starts off playing as Anna, who has a healing spell that she can use if it's unlocked.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Lots of pets/summons in the fourth game can count as this, since most of them are enemies from either this game or previous ones. For instance, you can get a Red Dragon summon after beating a group of red dragons in the lava caves, and a Beholder summon after beating the Beholder miniboss. Once the Praetorian (the third boss) is defeated, Lance reprograms it to work for the party, and it also becomes a summon. The Guardian boss from the third game is also a powerful summon in the fourth... and so is the Cosmic Monolith.
  • After the party defeats Godcat, she realizes humans have grown strong enough to earn the planet she had originally created for cats, and leaves without fulfilling her promise of destruction. She also assists the party in the fifth game, with her Creator and Destroyer forms serving as NoLegs' Limit Breaks.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In Epic Battle Fantasy 4, the player is not supposed to be able to defeat Godcat in her cat form; rather; they are merely supposed to survive her attacks for a set number of rounds. Someone on YouTube did use a hack to defeat Godcat, which promptly caused the game to crash.
• Humans Are Flawed: Throughout the final battle of EBF4, Godcat rants at length about how humans "stole" the world from the cats and how they've brought nothing but pain and war to the world. Once the party defeats her, she quickly changes her tune.
• I Broke a Nail: One of Natalie's lines said upon taking little damage is "I hurt my fingernail!"
• Inescapable Ambush: Played straight in the fourth game, which has Godcat's separate forms and the Glitch appear as ambushes, triggered similarly to those in EBF3. However, these ambushes disable the "Flee" command, meaning that you really have to be prepared. Fortunately, Godcat's forms only get two attacks each whenever they appear, and in these cases summon crystals for you to take down. The Glitch will probably send you back to the auto-save the first time, though.
• Infinity +1 Element: In the fourth game, lightning and ice are this due to the wet status effect. Hitting your foes with an attack that wets them (Geyser, aqua arrow, etc.) and then an ice attack can hit as hard as if you had used the element they're weak to as long as they're not resistant. And Godcat help them if they're weak to either.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Equilibrium in EBF4. After beating all four boss rushes on Battle Mountain's summit, you get this non-elemental sword, which alone can double both of Matt's offenses, syphon enemies with certain attacks, counter attacks with Legend, and randomly gives auto-life status. While it does have small Accuracy and Evade penalties, those are negligible in almost every scenario.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: There are four different types of key (copper, silver, gold, and coral). Each key can open any lock of the same type and is consumed when doing so.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • EBF4's achievement screen gives away the names of the final boss and the bonus boss (and all the other bosses, for that matter), and the fact that you get an award for beating the bonus boss at any difficulty while the others require epic difficulty is a clear giveaway that it is a Super Boss.
  • Averted with the Evil Versions of the main characters in Battle Mountain. The medals don't give away who they are, instead stating vague descriptions.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Lance's racism against cats in 4 is justified since most of them try to attack the player (even though they're pretty poor at it). Also, they are attempting to raise old gods to kill all humans.
• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: Lampshaded with a group of protesters who are fighting against the unfair economy of shopkeepers who buy things from players at 1/4th of the price and have a monopoly on goods.
• Karma Houdini: Godcat as well. She destroyed the cat civilization and took away the survivors' legs and arms. When the party defeats her, she just flies away and starts a new world. Justified because, well, there's not much you can do to The Maker.
• Kill One, Others Get Stronger: During the Dark Player boss rush, the boss pairs are unable to summon minions until their partner dies. Tip: kill Dark Lance first in the first half, since evil worms, evil tails, and undead bears tend to hurt less than a freaking defender!!
• Kilroy Was Here: A gravestone in Graybone Cemetery reads "Nibblez wuz here" at the bottom, accompanied by a drawing of a meowing cat.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: In the fourth game, after saving the world several times, the heroes believe they have the right to the world's loot, and so start stealing whatever catches their interest. This is what gets them roped into the game's plot.
  • Matt using his Ragnarok Limit Break for the first time will have him say "Check out my sword collection! All unique. All stolen."
• Last Chance Hit Point: The Morale status leaves the character at 1 hit point if they were hit by an otherwise-lethal attack when above half their maximum health. This even works against the Glitch's otherwise One-Hit Kill attack.
• Legacy Boss Battle: EBF4 has the Woolly Mammoth, the Beholder, the Sandworm, Jack, and the Protector from EBF3, as well as the Zombie Hydra from EBF2, as mini-bosses. And on Battle Mountain, the Cosmic Monolith can be found.
• Level Scaling: The enemy encounters and superbosses from Battle Mountain in EBF4 do this.
• Life Meter:
  • The party's is shown outside of battle, in the Party section of the screen in the bottom left corner, along with Mana Meter, Experience Meter, the Summon Points Meter, and how much money the party has.
  • The enemies' are in the bottom right of the battle screen.
  • The party's is shown in the menus, and in the bottom left of the battle screen.
• Light Is Not Good: Creator Godcat is just as willing to destroy humanity and catkind as Destroyer Godcat.
• Lightning Bruiser: GODCAT in her main light and dark forms. RIDICULOUS HP, attack power that can kill you several times over until you're close in level, and evasion so DAMN high that you have no chance in hell of reliably hitting her! In fact, the game crashes if you kill Godcat by hacking!
• Man-Eating Plant: Although Rafflesia (the Jungle boss in the fourth game) does not eat the characters, it has a huge maw full of sharp teeth that looks very carnivorous.
• Marathon Boss: Godcat to some extent. She is basically two bosses in one battle — first you fight one, then the other, and then both at once, with breather waves to heal up and buff up. The battle takes a while, so you might want to clear an hour or two from your schedule before trying.
• Marathon Level: Encounters in Battle Mountain (other than boss fights) feature at least 6 waves of enemies each (elsewhere in the game, encounters have at most 4 waves), culminating in a 38-wave Foe Rush.
• Maximum HP Reduction: One of the debuffs in 4 onward, and a more devastating one at that. Thankfully, this debuff is pretty rare, as only certain attacks wielded by stronger foes (bosses included) can inflict it. The other plus is that it weakens by 5% each turn, like all the other debuffs.
• Meaningful Name: Cactussa of the fourth game has a quest to gather five cacti and a Jungle Flower, saying:
  Do you have some cacti for me?!
  I'm a bit obsessed with them!
• Mirror Boss: The Dark Players on Battle Mountain. Watch out, as they also come equipped with Matt, Natalie, Lance, and Anna's Limit Breaks.
• Missing Secret: Parodied in the fourth game. Supposedly, you can get the Lance of Creation and Blade of Destruction as drops from Godcat's standard forms, in a game where equipment is always gotten from quests and chests. "Supposedly" because their drop rates are 0%, and said enemies are invincible anyway. It's just a tease from Roszak.
• Mook Medic: The Friend Dogs, Heasies, White Clays, and more from EBF4. Shoot the Medic First.
• My Name Is ???:
  • During the Final Boss Previews, the bosses' names are just "???".
  • The skull-mask wearing person in Lankyroot Jungle has only "???" for their name.
• Mythology Gag: Among the rapidly-cycling images in The Glitch's idle animation is an image of Lazarus, a character who previously appeared in One More Final Battle and Brawl Royale.
• New Game Plus: The fourth game has one only available on Kongregate or Steam, and must be bought with real money. This version offers two additional playthroughs in which all of your levels, skills, and equips transfer automatically, but the enemies are higher in level than the previous playthrough. This is even lampshaded in the ending cutscene!
• North Is Cold, South Is Hot: Inverted in the fourth game. The snow village is on the south edge of the map, while the beach village is on the north edge.
• Not Me This Time: Our heroes may be kleptomaniacs, but they're not the ones behind the Greenwood jewel heist in EBF4.
• Notice This: In the fourth game, important locations have a sparkle effect to indicate they can be interacted with.
• Oh, My Gods!: In the fourth game, "Oh My Godcat" is used occasionally.
• One-Hit Kill: Each time The Glitch or its flunkies attack, it KOs a party member by dealing 0 DAMAGE.
  Any surviving party member when this happens: How?!
  Any surviving party member when this happens again: Why?!
• Only the Pure of Heart: In the fourth game, as Kate of Greenwood Village says:
  Slime Bunnies are magical creatures who reveal themselves to those with pure hearts.
  • She's probably wrong considering our "heroes" can use them just fine.
• Optional Boss: The Glitch can be ignored entirely. The Beholder was also upgraded to this; having a high amount of health, being more of a Flunky Boss, and even having the boss fight theme playing when you fight him.
• Patchwork Map: It's hidden, but look at a completed map. There is a desert right next to snow-covered plains separated only by a small set of mountains. It's not a wasteland desert like the game before, but it is still sandy plains that don't have a touch of snow.
• Percent-Based Values: For equipment's effect on stats, and after the Battle Mountain update, some healing items' effects. For example, this piece of equipment: Flower Pot: At level 1, it boosts physical and magic defenses by 5%, and stops 10% of Thunder and Earth, damage.
  • Healing items:
    • Crisps: Heals all living party members for 25% of their max HP.
    • Chips: Heals all living party members for 50% of their max HP.
• The Pin Is Mightier Than the Sword: In the fourth installment, with useful badges and other types of flair.
• Plant Mooks: While the Bushes and Trees technically qualify, there are actual flower foes in EBF4, which are elemental flowers:
  • Heasy
  • Frose
  • Stunflower
  • Florn
  • Rainbloom.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • An Optional Boss in EBF4 works like this — their scan shows that they absorb every element and are immune to every status effect. However, scans say nothing about non-elemental attacks, and the boss is vulnerable to those.
  • The Armored Oak and Diamond Golem on EBF4's Battle Mountain have a status effect weakness that is vital to taking them out (Poison for the Oak, Curse for the Golem).
  • Rainbow Rafflesia will abuse the Bless buff to maintain its Magic Attack and Magic Defense buff for the rest of the battle. This makes the boss much more resilient, but also makes it vulnerable to Giga Drill because of how the MDEF buff never goes away.
• Raising the Steaks: The fourth game has Undead Bears.
• Rare Candy: Some food items such as Sushi, Ham, and Candycanes are used to boost character stats.
• Refuge in the West: The first town, and where the game starts, is at the middle of the west edge of the map, and the endgame is at the north-easternmost. Monsters only appear outside towns and there's a Portal Network to always return.
• Reviving Enemy:
  • From the fourth game, Spirits come into battle with Auto-Revive. If they are killed without dispelling it first, they come back to life.
  • Zombie Hydra heads will regenerate themselves if the other head(s) are left alive for too long.
• Self-Deprecation: When the party reflects on the events of the story at the end of the fourth game. Matt enjoys that the majority of the plot was about cats. Lance found the character in their journey bland and underdeveloped. Natz is disappointed that there wasn't any romance and worries she doesn't trust that to be left to the fans.
• Sequence Breaking: 4 has a glitch that allows you to warp to the other side of the map tile you were just on, allowing you to reach virtually any area of the map in minutes while completely avoiding combat! Here's a speedrun that exploits the glitch.
• Skill Point Reset: The 2.0 update added the ability to reset all rare food given to the players, allowing re-allocation of stat additions from them.
• Succubi and Incubi: In the fourth game, the medal for defeating Dark Natalie on Epic difficulty is:
  Defeat a busty succubus on Epic Difficulty.
• Superboss: The Steam version added beefed-up alternate versions of the normal bosses, the Zombie Hydra, undead versions of the party, and a boss-level Cosmic Monolith... not that it needed much more power to be considered boss-level.
• Take Our Word for It: in the fourth game, the party gets frightened by something on the ceiling of a sacrificial tomb. Since the game takes place from an overhead perspective, though, we don't get to see it.
• Taking You with Me:
  • The Copper Fish, Silver Fish, and Gold Fish robots will launch a missile attack at a character when destroyed. The only way to prevent this is to destroy all the enemies in the wave in one attack.
  • One of the plant enemies in EBF4 will launch a suicide attack when low on HP, damaging a random party member in the process.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Matt takes one look at the Cosmic Monolith in the Battle Mountain and knows the party's in for a bad time. If you actually fight it, he whimpers out "Oh no..."
• Took a Level in Badass: In 4, both small and large slimes can temporarily turn characters into powerless slimes via physical attacks. This makes them far more threatening than in previous games where they were cannon fodder.
• Turned Against Their Masters: The Factory has security robots that refuse to take orders from humans anymore. However, they don't go so far as to kill humans, though the fact that they lock all the doors in the factory means that they're trapped. Furthermore, only security robots turned evil, and worker robots are still benign.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: On the top left tile, you need to go through the rooms in the correct sequence to find the exit (and requires you to find the item showing the way even on a New Game Plus).
• Useless Item: The Old Boots, which you start the game with and "allow you to go outside." At one point, you trade them away, but it doesn't prevent you from going outside. You trade it for a shovel, which "was going to do something, but doesn't anymore.". Then, you trade the Shovel for the Spiked Boots, which still do nothing except serve as a trade for the actually useful Blue Scroll. Amusingly, another set of Old Boots can be obtained in Battle Mountain.
• Updated Re-release: A little while after release, the web version of EBF4 received an update that acted like this. It added new enemies, Legacy Boss Battles from previous games (including ones made to guard summons of them that were already implemented), and several stat overhauls. The full changelog is here.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • The Praetorian, the Giant Mecha in the fourth. He deals MASSIVE damage, and forces you to start planning beyond a Barrier Change Boss with buffs and heals in advance. Namely, if you don't dispel him properly, or smack him with the right debuffs, he'll probably one-shot your entire party.
  • The Rafflesia is a big one if you've just been powering through and ignoring status buffs. Prepare for a nasty, poisonous, stunning, critical-hitting surprise. Not as terrible if the Praetorian managed to teach you the lesson, but it'll make sure you remember it.
• Weaponized Teleportation: In 4, Cosmic Monoliths can perform physical attacks by teleporting above a target and landing on them.
• Worldbuilding: EBF4 adds backstory and mythology to what was previously a mostly plotless RPG game.
• Wrap Around: One part of Lankyroot Jungle has this happen if you exit through any side except the bottom, which leads you back to the lava cave entrance. If you have the blue scroll and take the indicated paths, you will find the Lost Ruins, with chests guarded by high-level monsters.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Of the Glitch's attacks, or even its name.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: You will not be able to retrieve the three crystals before they are stolen by the cats or stop Godcat's resurrection.

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