Frantic is a series of Adobe Flash video games by Polymerrabbit. The games all involve a ship shooting down hundreds of other ships. These games feature a high degree of customisability in terms of ship builds and increasing amounts of content in each one.
Frantic came out in 2008. It has 10 levels. It introduced the gameplay for the series to follow, with upgrades relying on up to four cards owned at once and bullet-dodging.
Frantic 2 came out in 2009. It has 15 levels, divided into 3 episodes with 5 levels each. It introduced the scraping mechanic, where if you stay next to a bullet for a while, the score multiplier goes up. Many cards were merged to fit the upgrade better, but each ship now had customisable weapons and five card slots. There are also many more features, like a survival mode and a boss rush mode.
Frantic 3 came out in 2013. It has 30 levels, divided into 5 areas with 3 levels and 3 bonus levels each. It ditched the card system for more standard weapons and accessories, with the amount of slots determined by ship selected.
These games provide examples of:
- Achievement Mockery: The Oops achievements in the third game are for dying up to 20 times. There are also Idiot achievements which sound like they'd fit thanks to that name, but considering that you have to beat stages without using weapons, it's not truly a mockery.
- Achievement System:
- The second game has feats, which are earned by reaching multiplier, clearing stages etc. and each one also unlocks upgrades, ships, and modes.
- The third game has 30 achievements to earn, for clearing areas, clearing them without taking damage, clearing them without weapons, and other requirements.
- Boss Rush: A bonus mode in the second game lets you face all 30 bosses without breaks.
- Boss Warning Siren: There's always "WARNING" in the center and "MASSIVE ENTITY DETECTED" flashing underneath/scrolling above and below it before a boss shows up.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Each area in the third game has an additional three bonus levels which are unlocked by beating a certain number of stages without taking damage. They basically crank up the gameplay to overdrive with tougher enemies and bosses.
- Bullet Hell: Absolutely. The amount of colorful bullets on screen starts high and goes into absurd amounts later on.
- Close-Contact Danger Benefit: The games lets you scrape bullets and fill the Tension Gauge with it. Once it's full, your point multiplier goes up.
- Easter Egg: You have one hidden weapon and accessory slot in the third game, accessible by clicking on it.
- Flawless Victory: Every time you beat a stage with no damage in the third game, the game marks it as "Unharmed!" and gives a 1000 coin bonus.
- Fragile Speedster: From the second game onwards, there's at least one ship with a high Speed rating but a low Shields rating.
- Harder Than Hard:
- Frantic mode in the second game, which is above Intense mode which is an example itself. As the game says, it is simply NOT recommended to play it.
- Combine Kamikaze with Iron Mode/Frenzy in the third game, which multiplies enemy HP/makes everything slightly faster on top of you being a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
- Hard Mode Perks: Playing on harder difficulties in the second game or giving yourself difficult modifiers in the third game increases points earned.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Your hitbox is actually a small circle in the center of the ship and not the ship itself. You can turn on an option to see it in the second and third game.
- Limit Break: You steadily charge up a gigantic beam attack and can unleash it with one click. It deals massive damage and clears bullets away.
- Marathon Level: The final stage of the first game. It's about three times as long as any of the previous stages.
- Mercy Invincibility: Your ship is invincible for a couple of seconds after getting hit by a bullet.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Kamikaze modifier in the third game enforces this by making you only have one HP, but also increasing points earned by .5x.
- Pinball Scoring: The games are reasonable with scoring at first, but all the multipliers quickly lead to you receiving thousands of points for shooting down foes. You can end an episode/area with over 100,000,000 if you're skilled enough.
- Power Nullifier: Certain boss parts in the second game can disable your wingmen.
- Power-Up Magnet: The Magnet card/accessory attracts coins to the ship from far away.
- Recursive Ammo: Big or blinking bullets in the third game may quickly split into lots of small ones.
- Recycled Soundtrack: Two pieces of music in the third game are ripped from the first - the title screen theme is the same as the original and the area 2 theme is the same as the main gameplay theme of the original.
- Regenerating Health: One card lets you restore health slowly every few seconds.
- Score Screen: After each level, there's a screen that counts how many points you've earned based on enemies killed, a multiplier, and coins.
- Score Multiplier: Your score is multiplied by 1 every time the Tension gauge is filled, but you lose half of it upon being hit.
- Sequential Boss: Each boss in the third game has three phases, each one with different attacks, as shown by their health bar.
- Superboss: The bonus levels in the third game have at least 10 exclusive bosses. They are potentially the hardest in the Frantic series, with the last one in particular spewing enough bullets to cover more than half the screen and possessing a copious chunk of health.
- Super-Persistent Missile: Ring projectiles in the third game are a downplayed example. They go after your ship and stick around much longer than normal bullets, but disappear eventually.
- Time-Limit Boss: Each boss in the third game has a short time limit, to prevent stalling and let you beat them without weapons.
- Video-Game Lives: The first game starts you off with three lives, the second determines the amount based on difficulty (from 4 on Easy to 1 on Frantic).
- Weak, but Skilled: The Tactician ship in the third game. It's weak with its 4 weapon slots and 3 hit shield, plus its speed is average. However, it has 12 accessory slots allowing for the most customisability and a high energy bar with recharge rate.
