Currently released titles: Attack of Darkforce, Star Resistance, Giant Fist
Lucky Lamp Magazine number 1
EXTRAPOWER is a series of freeware doujin games developed by Lucky Lamp Project. The series takes inspiration from anime and manga, tokusatsu, video games, celebrating all things cool and heroic. The central plot of the series concerns the Dark Force army's conquest of the universe and their ambitions for the Earth, uniting together a host of heroes from Earth and beyond.
Three games have been releases in the series so far:
- EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce (2008) First game of the series. Encompasses the main Dark Force invasion story, beginning with the conquest of the Shakun Star and follows Sharkungo's escape to Earth to warn of the invasion and collect heroes to fight back worldwide. A tactical RPG with a large cast.
- EXTRAPOWER: Star Resistance (2012) Horizontal SHMUP prequel focusing on the invasion of the Shakun Star and the efforts of the player characters to defend it. Playable character count is focused on 4 default and 3 unlockable characters.
- EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist (2018) A side-scrolling beat'em up taking place before Attack of Darkforce, but with an unrelated story. Main plot expands on the backstory of hero Zophy, with 4 unlockable characters with their own stories and play styles.
Outside the games EXTRAPOWER is represented in print through the Lucky Lamp Magazine and doujins released during Comiket that tell additional stories from the EXTRAPOWER universe.
The series is available for download here
, and is playable with an RPG Maker VX Run Time Package and after switching the administrative language to Japanese for English computers.
EXTRAPOWER provides examples of:
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Professor Ace, allegedly a professor of archaeology but spends his time as the Lovable Coward following Zophy around. It's certainly a good source of adventure, and sometimes riches. Like the time in Giant Fist when he steals a large jewel from Blackberry's pyramid, prompting Ogonmushi to brain them robbers and attack. Though always the first to run from a fight, he nonetheless follows Zophy into the heart of danger, and surprises everyone when his archaeological expertise means he actually has insight in the adventure at hand. He's even got the hat.
- All There in the Manual: Attack of Darkforce and Star Resistance come with documents in the download files containing information on player characters and enemies, sometimes with info that is not included in the game, as well as tips on how to play in SR and the specifics of 100% Completion in AoD. In Giant Fist, the manual is a series of tutorials by Professor Ace on how to play each character.
- Arch-Nemesis: Dark Force tends to be this, especially to Sharkungo. Zophy and Blackberry are this to each other.
- Art Evolution: The art becomes cleaner with each game, owing to improvement in talent and freedom from the technical limitations of Sim RPG Maker 95. Compare Zophy's character portrait in Attack of Darkforce◊ and in Giant Fist◊ 8 years later.
- Bioweapon Beast: The bioroid units under Mensouma, such as the Spy Flies, Building Monkeys or Sinner Shaper.
- Build Like an Egyptian: Blackberry resides in the ancient pyramid of Diamond Mine, so games involving her will feature her pyramid.
- Bug War: Against Mensouma's bioroid units. His most common unit is the Spy Fly, giant bipedal dragonflies with hardened, knife-like tails, that Zerg Rush at every stage of the invasion to the very end.
- The Cameo: The series is fond of sneaking cameo appearances usually from other EXTRAPOWER games and from Happy Challenger Yamada:
- EXTRAPOWER: Star Resistance: Maintaining a high kill count in Stage 1 and halfway through Stage 2 and Yamada himself from Happy Challenger Yamada drives up on his delivery motorcycle to throw the player a pizza.
- EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: Nimon, Shiira and Juno from Attack of Darkforce appear at the end of the Mille City, Industrial Zone stage before the stage boss. Keep an eye on the water between shark and men in black attacks and you can see them launch out of the water and then wade for the remainder of the screen. In the first Mille City stage, the Pizza Happy mascot from Happy Challenger Yamada can appear as an Easter Egg.
- Captain Space, Defender of Earth!: Galaxy Star is a sincere portrayal of this trope. Captain of the Galaxy's team, he's the charismatic and handsome American given jurisdiction to protect both Earth and Space, and does so without sinister intent. Both Zophy and Sharkungo consider him their good friend, and is eager to provide them with as much support as he can.
- Casual Interstellar Travel: Space travel is casual enough for characters based on Earth or on distant alien planets to be good friends who sometimes have coordinated adventures. At the start of Attack of Darkforce, Sharkungo's concern isn't that the distance between the Earth and the Shakun Star is massive, it's that he couldn't fly to the Earth faster than the Dark Force fleet can. Thankfully, the resident Space Master helps cut his trip down to hours. Days or weeks into the story, Forcestar joins him on Earth, having just flown on his own power.
- Challenge Run: Encouraged in all games, be it specific heroic actions to take in Attack of Darkforce or One Credit Clears in Star Resistance and Giant Fist.
- Cornered Rattlesnake: The EXTRAPOWER mechanic can turn the player into this in Star Resistance and Giant Fist. When player health is critical, they can perform a special button combination that launches a special Desperation Attack, sometimes powerful enough to turn the entire tide of battle in the player's favour. Major bosses are also capable of pulling this off, with EXTRAPOWER attacks unique to them. It's common to see heated exchanges of EXTRAPOWER as the player and boss alike slip into more desperate conditions.
- Doujinshi: The game is distributed as freeware on platforms like Freem! by a team of indie developers who want to share their world of heroes.
- Dreadful Dragonfly: Spy Flies, dragonflies the size of grown adult humans with a hardened, knife-edged tail, are the main troop type in Mensouma's bioroid army.
- Earthy Barefoot Character: Zophy, who lives in the wilds and adventures with a talking lion, wears little more than a golden thong and some jewelry. Shoes don't make the cut.
- Emergency Weapon: Transcendental Power, especially for the two action games. In the Attack of Darkforce it is synonymous to magic or special attacks typical to the genre. In Star Resistance and Giant Fist, you must either be on your last health or low enough health to activate a powerful desperation attack.
- Extra-Dimensional Shortcut: Astral Gate offers this to Sharkungo in the game's intro, giving him a shortcut from the Shakun Star to the Earth. He can make that distance flying under his own power, but Astral Gate's shortcut through the Ghost Gate dimension makes the trip a measure of minutes instead of days.
- Galactic Conqueror: Series Big Bad Dark Force has this ambition. In backstory, he has already conquered numerous planets. The Shakun Star falls during the course of Star Resistance, and his eyes are set for Earth next in Attack of Darkforce.
- Genre Roulette: Each game in the series is a different genre, so far releasing as a Tactical RPG, Horizontal SHMUP and Beat'em Up.
- Human Outside, Alien Inside: Some of the alien characters look indistinguishable from humans, apart from maybe the green skin of the Shakun people. Typically the biological differences never come up, but it becomes a dramatic point in Attack of Darkforce when Daitoku Igor needs to have a mind control device surgically removed from his head. With the medical staff that the SPICA mercenary group has on hand, it'd be easy enough if he were human. But as a human-looking alien, they don't know enough about his biology to be able to safely begin operating.
- Insectoid Aliens: The Spy Fly troop type under Mensouma's bioroid units. Bipedal dragonflies the size of an average human adult with a hardened, knife-sharp tail, they're one of the most common troop types for Dark Force's conquest of the universe.
- Living MacGuffin: A few characters end up being this. Emerald, sought after by the Dark Force Army for her immense magical power. V, who is frequently targeted by demons who want his Upgrade Artifact heart.
- Masked Luchador: Sharkungo, the Star Lore Superstar who is always seen in his red mask with a star over the face.
- Orbital Bombardment: The series Big Bad Dark Force's preferred method of softening up planets.
- Rule of Cool: Practically the series philosophy!
- Robot War: Against Undata's robot army. His most common unit is the Clay Kid, assault robots resembling Jomon-era dogu, which Zerg Rush throughout any game featuring a Dark Force invasion. Apart from Clay Kids, he fields numerous Elite Mook robots such as Stone Mack, Fire Boo, or Plasma Boss.
- Summon Magic: Blackberry's primary mode of attack in Attack of Darkforce and Giant Fist is to summon various demons to attack for her. In Star Resistance, Rem uses similar summons during her boss fight.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Expect to see wrestling-inspired techniques among the muscle-bound fighters. Sharkungo, Dark Force and Toyama are explicitly involved in wrestling, although in Sharkungo's case Earth's wrestling resembles the Star Lore of his people.
