Centuries ago, aliens invaded Earth and nearly destroyed humanity, but a weapon known as the "Phoenix" was developed in their final hour and completely wiped out the invaders. Unfortunately, they were too late to save Earth; some moved to underground shelters to await its natural restoration, while others left the planet for dead and searched for a new home in space. Today, Earth has recovered, and the descendants of the former group of humans live in quasi-medieval kingdoms on the surface. Gale, a young villager in one such kingdom named Castland, goes to the woods to bring the children home for dinner... narrowly escaping aliens abducting the entire village. Being the oldest one left behind, Gale is tasked with finding aid in both looking after the kids and rescuing the adults.
It can be played for free here.
A remake, Phoenotopia: Awakening, was released for the Nintendo Switch on August 20, 2020 and for the Play Station 4 on July 1, 2021.
This game provides examples of:
- Action Bomb:
- One of the Kobolds' weapons is a flying bomb droid that will chase you when you get close until its timer expires, it hits you, or it's caught in an explosion, and then... well, explode.
- A different version appears in the Dread Lands: this one pops out of the ground when you get too close, and it starts rolling in whatever direction you're in until it hits something. They can be weaponized against the local golems - in fact, accidentally leading a few bombs into a golem is the most common way players find out the golems aren't invincible.
- The cave bugs in Mul Caverns. When killed, some of them explode and others spray acid.
- Action Girl: Gale, the protagonist. Her friend Aella also counts in-universe, since she was a soldier.
- Advanced Ancient Acropolis: Ancient Earth is seen as one of these by modern humans; the planet recovered, but technology did not.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Unit 66.
- After the End/Crapsack World: Subverted; the ancient humans who went to space expected Earth to be stuck like this, but it got better. Played straight with the Dread Lands, however, which never recovered.
- Airborne Mook: Bats in the Bandits' Hideout and any cave except Mul Caverns, Phantom Prawns in Misty Gorge, and harpies in the Forgotten Forest.
- A.I. Roulette: Many enemies and a few bosses have one of these, although the only ones really affected by it are harpies (whose bomb attack is used at random) and the Big Robot (whose laser attacks make the fight somewhat of a Luck-Based Mission). Fortunately, all of them that can't be hit reliably, if at all, without doing a certain attack first will always do that attack at regular intervals.
- Alien Abduction: Happens to the adults of your village. In the end, Gale and Unit 66 are abducted by the same ship that did this.
- Aliens Are Bastards: All of them. Yes, including the Stellanites.
- Animal Wrongs Group: See the second example of Well-Intentioned Extremist below.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The first time the Big Robot is deactivated after hitting a wall, it stays that way until dropped through the floor (but cannot be damaged by weapons or tools in this state).
Word of God says that this is to give players time to figure out its weakness before beginning the fight in earnest. - Ascended Glitch: If you mash the attack button during a charged swing, you can do up to three double-damage swings in a row. This was initially an endless amount, but when the creator decided to leave it in (as a secret technique), he capped it at three swings for balancing reasons.
- Attack Animal: Plantdogs are trained by arcs for this purpose, though they're usually fought independently in-game.
- Attack Its Weak Point/Go for the Eye: The boss in the Ancient Crater. You have to hit said eye to start the fight; it then closes, and you have to re-open it (by shining the Artifact into more eyes) to deal damage.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Galactic Federation begins its invasion without a hitch... yet. Billy is bound to curb-stomp them with the Phoenix Weapons whenever he deems it appropriate, but he's arguably even worse than they are.
- Batter Up!: Gale's starting weapon is a baseball bat.
- Beam Spam: Used by both versions of the Big Robot.
- Bee Afraid: If you kill a Bull Bee, all the others on screen will initiate this. They respawn off screen, making it pointless to try killing all the bees to make navigating the area easier.
- Big Bad: The Galactic Federation is coming to harvest Earth's resources and keep humanity as livestock.
- Big Good: Billy, on behalf of the Free Space Confederacy. Except not really, because he's bent on ruling Earth and destroying half the universe.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: The flora and fauna of the Mul Caverns have a lot of this.
- Bittersweet Ending: You and Unit 66 are captured, and Earth is left with an army of Phoenix Weapons in the hands of someone with a god complex. But at least you get to reunite with the kidnapped adults, and a sequel has been confirmed.
- Bleak Level: The Dread Lands.
- Boring Return Journey: After beating the temple in Duri Forest, the return to Panselo has no enemies. When Prince Leo flees to Panselo, he makes it by nightfall despite the bridges between cities still being broken.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: The Optional Boss version of the Big Robot can be defeated without the trapdoors at either end of its room, but only via Death of a Thousand Cuts. The first one plays the trope completely straight, due to its Anti-Frustration Feature.
- Brats with Slingshots: One of the tools you can get. Justified as you get it from a kid.
- Bragging Rights Reward:
- The Blood Ring. It costs 999 rai, it only works if you have less than 10 HP left, it only heals you up to 10 HP, and it's found in the Hidden Village, which requires you to collect 30 moonstones and go through a rather difficult area. Most enemies in the aforementioned area and The Very Definitely Final Dungeon (which you've almost certainly reached if you have 35 moonstones) can either hit you for 10 HP or more with one attack, or attack too rapidly for the Gradual Regeneration to save you, rendering the item nearly useless.
- Demonstrated by the 'Last Song on Earth' achievement. In order to get it, you have to get all heart rubies and max out your HP to 99, get all 42 moonstones, and deck yourself with the best equipment, which means you have to get the two meteor rocks and pay 200 rai for the Morning Star, go into the vault in Adar's backyard to get the Ancient Armor, go into the creepy vault inside the Atai well to get the Nebula Armlet, and pay 999 rai for the Blood Ring. What do you get for all that trouble? Just a new, empty area with four capsules in the background and music that isn't listed in the soundtrack list.
- Bubblegloop Swamp: The Misty Gorge.
- Bullfight Boss: Both versions of the Big Robot.
- But Thou Must!:
- When you find Alex and the kids, if you keep saying you want to go back to the village and not proceed into the ruins, eventually Ella says you're being mean, and Alex decides you have to go in the ruins as a punishment for making her cry.
- When Alex says someone needs to go and find Ruth, you have the options of saying "Me" or "You". If you say "You", Alex replies "No way! It has to be you!"
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Pukis (sheep), Perros (chickens), and Mikans (oranges). Humanoid robots are called Golems. Averted by animal enemies.
- Carry a Big Stick: Gale's strongest weapon, the Cosmic Morningstar, is one of these.
- Cartoon Bomb: One of the tools you can get.
- Collapsing Ceiling Boss: The armored toad boss.
- Consummate Professional: In-universe, the Kobolds, a race of spacefaring, wolf-like, howling mercenaries, are so well-known for this that their mere presence on a planet is a good sign that someone else is up to something covert.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: An interesting case appears in the Ancient Crater; it has parts that are strictly turrets (the shockwave generators), strictly cores (the smaller eyes), and both (the big eye, which is the boss's true weak point and only opens when all the smaller eyes are deactivated).
- Critical Annoyance: Mostly averted - there is a warning sound whenever Gale has less than 10 HP left, but it's much softer than the background music and other game sounds.
- Cute Bruiser: Gale, judging by several NPCs' comments.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: Unit 66. He's powerful enough to blast Gale through several feet of metal via Kamehame Hadoken, but, in-game, it takes him a few seconds to punch through a single metal door.
- Degraded Boss: The Kobold in charge of the Dungeons is the same as the regular enemies in the very next area.
- Destructible Projectiles: You can destroy some projectiles like axes or arrows with your slingshot or javelin. Some projectiles can also be attacked with your melee weapon if they're moving horizontally, but you can't stop projectiles from Energy Weapons.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Kobold boss.
- Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Prince's Tower.
- Don't Wake the Sleeper: Several bandits in the Bandits' Hideout.
- Doomed Hometown: All the adults in Panselo are abducted by aliens early in the game, forcing the children to run the village while Gale seeks aid. Somewhat subverted by the trope standards, the hometown survives unscathed, and the children who remained had to take matters in hand about surviving on a farm community. Completely subverted in the ending, at least in the literal meaning of "doomed": those who were captured were the ones who went unscathed. Everyone else who remained in the planet are to be harvested by the GF.
- Down the Drain: The Daea sewers.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Subverted and Played for Laughs. Gale survives Unit 66's initial attack - discovering that she herself is a Phoenix Weapon in the process - but doesn't know how to use her newfound powers and runs away.
- Empty Room Psych: All over the Dread Lands.
- Energy Weapon: Used by the Kobolds and every non-skeletal robot enemy.
- Everything Fades: Animals disappear in a puff of smoke when killed, but humans and Kobolds stay on the floor when defeated, disappearing when you leave the area they are in.
- The Empire: The Galactic Federation. We never find out their rationale for judging human civilization unworthy of rights, though. It might have been humans' relation to members of the Free Space Confederacy (the Stellanites), but for all we know, the Federation could be entirely justified - it's their word against Billy's, after all. Based on Billy's true goals and the Federation hiring the Kobolds, though, it's likely that both intergalactic empires fall under this trope.
- Falling Chandelier of Doom: Invoking this in the Prince's Tower (by knocking chandeliers down with the slingshot) is the easiest way to take out most of the Kobolds.
- False Friend: Billy. He claims to be looking out for his distant cousins (Earth humans), but he really just wants to crush the Federation and become king of Earth while he's at it.
- The Federation: The Free Space Confederacy. This is how Billy portrays it, anyway - for all anyone else knows, the Confederacy could actually be The Empire.
- Fluffy Tamer: The bandit leader. Justified - according to a girl in Atai, the bandits are sand dragon rights activists.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Bubbles the Sand Dragon.
- Flunky Boss: The frog boss can cause slimes to fall from the ceiling.
- Foreshadowing:
- A minor case appears whenever Gale dies. She glows blue - while this seems to be nothing but artistic choice, it foreshadows the fact that Gale is not human, but a Phoenix Weapon.
- This is at first related to the concept of ki that a few people, children, and Gale herself, practice and comment on. This may or may not be a big hint that everyone currently inhabiting the Earth are descendants of a Phoenix Weapon that escaped stasis, which might explain the minuscule grasp that Gale has on her own power. Only the sequel will tell.
- A conversation in the Hidden Village also suggests this. If you talk to one of the harpy children, who have pink feathers, she will notice your pink hair and ask if you're related to harpies. In a way, you are - both harpies and Phoenix Weapons are results of human gene splicing during the ancient war.
- Even more subtly, a lot of things Gale pulls off are characterized as "not humanly possible" by one NPC or another.
- A minor case appears whenever Gale dies. She glows blue - while this seems to be nothing but artistic choice, it foreshadows the fact that Gale is not human, but a Phoenix Weapon.
- Galactic Conqueror: Billy plans to use the Phoenix Weapons to become one. Whether he wants the Confederacy or only himself to rule the universe is unclear - depending on his position in the Confederacy, there may even be no difference - but he definitely aims to conquer the Federation, which is about half of the universe.
- Galactic Superpower: All of the known universe is controlled by either the Galactic Federation or the Free Space Confederacy.
- Giant Spider: In Sunflower Road, the Bandits' Hideout basement, the Misty Gorge, and some areas of Mul Caverns.
- The Glomp: Gale gets one of these from Lisa. She gives one to Billy herself when they meet in person.
- A God Am I: Billy, once he gains access to the Phoenix Weapons.
- The Goggles Do Nothing: As worn by the Kobolds.
- Gradual Regeneration: The Blood Ring has this effect whenever Gale has less than 10 HP left.
- Green Hill Zone: Duri Forest.
- Guide Dang It!: The Ascended Glitch described above is necessary for the speed-run achievement, and it's never mentioned in-game.
- Harping on About Harpies: Not Always Chaotic Evil, though the ones that are
more than make up for it. - He Knows Too Much: Thomas, when you first meet him, thinks you are there to silence him because of his scientific work.
- Heroic Mime: Gale. Played for Laughs in that she's immune to the Talkinator's effects.
- He Was Right There All Along: Every single boss except the first.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Any enemy with an explosion-based attack can have said attack turned against it (or its allies) somehow. The most glaring example is harpies, which can be killed by setting off bombs they're still carrying. (In fact, there's an achievement for doing this at least once.) Additionally, Gale can be injured by being too close to her own bombs when they go off.
- Human Popsicle: The vault behind Adar's house has a number of these, and talking to one of the golems there reveals that the humans inside (if there are any) are meant to wake up in 57 years.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: There are only three potions in the game; two are only for use on NPCs, and the third temporarily makes all your melee attacks count as charged swings. Every single consumable item other than these three is some kind of conventional (if sometimes unusual) food or drink.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Cosmic Morningstar. You need two pieces of a special ore to get it: one is in an obscure location in the Misty Gorge that you can't reach until right before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, and the other is obtained from Fran after collecting 25 moonstones.
- Javelin Thrower: One of the tools you can get. It creates a platform every time it's embedded into a wall. You can also get an upgrade that makes it able to explode.
- Jump Scare: Near the save point in the Dread Lands, there are two storage rooms and a bedroom. Whatever you do, do not approach the crates on the right in the bedroom. The big one contains a red golem that screams and pounces on you. The fact that the screen flashes red when you take damage - which you will if you don't break the crate from a distance first - does not help.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Unit 66 uses one. Gale can, too, but she doesn't know how.
- Killer Robot: The skeletal golems, according to both NPC dialogue and first-hand experience.
- King Mook: Every non-robotic boss, unless you count Unit 66 as one.
- Knight Templar: Subverted. Billy seems to be this at first. After Gale brings him to the Phoenix Weapons, he reveals his plan to use them to destroy the Galactic Federation and save Earth as well as the Stellanites. Gale opposes this plan; in response, he orders Unit 66 to kill her. After she and Unit 66 are abducted, however, Billy states his true intentions: to destroy the Federation after most of the humans are dead or captured, set himself up as a hero, and eventually rule over the survivors as king.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Your friend Aella suffers from one; there is a sidequest to restore her memory.
- Lethal Chef: At least two NPCs in Fran's Lab give you "Food?" that causes damage when consumed. Lampshaded by their acknowledging that no one in the lab knows how to cook.
- Locked in the Dungeon: Under the castle in Daea.
- Logo Joke: Gale replaces the driver of the Newgrounds tank.
- Lost Technology: Golems (robots) were this until shortly before the game's events. Teleporters, the Artifact, and everything compatible with the latter still are.
- Luck-Based Mission: Whether the Big Robot is moderately easy or (almost) impossible depends on how often it fires all its lasers at once. They can be dodged, but not repeatedly - jumping them consecutively forces you back a bit, and you have limited floor space.
- Missing Secret: So many that the creator has published a list and encourages players to ask about suspected secrets they can't access.
- There are no sidequests behind the Perro or the fake love letters in Daea, and none involving Sand Dragon eggs or the abducted harpy (an egg quest was planned, but scrapped, and the harpy's going to be in a sequel).
- The door seen when running from Unit 66 cannot be accessed.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Kobold boss.
- Multi-Mook Melee: In the Bandits' hideout and the Dungeons.
- My Nayme Is: Arcs.*
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Unit 66 delivers one to Gale if he catches her. The first hit deals 99 damage (just enough to guarantee a One-Hit Kill), but he continues bashing her around the screen for a while before she dies.
- Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling into pits deals 5 damage (which, at the start of the game, is a quarter of your health) and warps you back to solid ground.
- One-Gender Race: Arcs (all-male) and harpies (all-female), judging by the Hidden Village.
- Optional Boss: The Big Robot in the basement of a house in the Forgotten Forest is basically the same as the one in Thomas' Lab, but it drops a line of bombs when it charges at you, making it harder to damage.
- Our Elves Are Different: Billy isn't technically an elf, but he looks and acts the part. Whether the other Stellanites fall under the trope remains to be seen.
- Our Kobolds Are Different: Kobolds are interstellar mercenaries that look like green anthropomorphic wolves.
- Our Orcs Are Different: The arcs in the Forgotten Forest and Hidden Village. The ones in the latter are clearly "Blizzard"-type, but in the former, they seem to be somewhere between the two types. Harpies, as part of the same societies, are similar. Both are the results of super-soldier experiments by ancient humans.
- Patchwork Map: Partially justified by the Great Walls, which close off a section that ancient humans didn't want monsters getting out of - or, rather, didn't want humans getting into - and has stood for centuries. No in-universe justification exists for the rest of the map, however.
- Patrolling Mook: The guard dogs in the Daea dungeon. When they spot you or take damage, they howl to alert nearby guards.
- Planet Looters: Billy suspects that this is why the Galactic Federation is invading Earth. We never find out whether he's right, or even whether he's being genuine when he says it.
- Point-and-Click Map: Well, arrow-keys map, but still. Somehow, if you intentionally return to an area which is the only route between two places (Misty Gorge, the Dread Lands) you have to fight the monsters there, but if you "travel by map" you can pass through them without incident.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The friendly arcs.
- The Right of a Superior Species: The reason behind the Federation invasion.
- Rock Beats Laser: The Kobolds, interstellar mercenaries with Ray Guns, personal teleporters, and tactical goggles, have one of the easier attack patterns, hence their usual thorough schooling by a little girl with a big hammer and a javelin. (Or, in many cases, a slingshot, albeit indirectly.)
- Run or Die: From Unit 66.
- Schizo Tech: Justified - humanity was clearly very advanced before the invasion, and much of their technology was lost during the war.
- Shifting Sand Land: Atai and the Bandits' Hideout.
- Shout-Out:
- The red skeletal golems are likely one to the Castlevania series, which features red skeletons that cannot be killed permanently by conventional means.
- The item description for E-Soda says, "The label on the can says it's got what plants crave."
- An NPC refers to the skeletal golems as "those terminator things."
- SkeleBot 9000: The skeletal golems.
- Space Elves: Stellanites.
- Space People: The Stellanites and the ancient humans who fled to space. The former are the result of the latter's genetic self-engineering.
- Sprint Shoes: Honey-based items boost your speed temporarily.
- Stationary Boss: The boss in the Ancient Crater.
- Stepping-Stone Sword: The javelin sticks in walls and produces a small platform.
- Super Drowning Skills: Touching any body of water before buying the Flotation Donut will hurt you and warp you to the last solid ground you were standing on. Justified and lampshaded when one of the kids reminds Gale that she is the worst swimmer in Panselo.
- Superior Species: Stellanites to humans. Justified - Stellanites are the descendants of the ancient humans who went to space, and they had to genetically engineer themselves to survive.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: Bubbles, the Kobold boss, and both versions of the Big Robot.
- Take Over the World: The aliens who abduct half of Panselo are really just collectors looking to preserve the species in a zoo. Later, the Galactic Federation simply try to claim what's theirs by intergalactic law. Finally, Billy reveals this to be his ultimate goal, other than destroying the Federation.
- There Are No Adults: In Panselo after the abduction.
- Trauma Inn: Sleeping at Gale's house or an inn fully heals her.
- Trick Shot: In the temple, there's a switch you have to hit by bouncing a rock from your slingshot off the wall.
- Truth Serum: Played with by the Talkinator potion. It just makes the consumer more talkative, and therefore more likely to fall prey to I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!.
- Turns Red: Dogs, plantdogs, Bull Bees, and the Kobold boss.
- Ultimate Life Form: Adam, the specimen from which the Phoenix Weapons were created. The Phoenix Weapons themselves may also count.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: If you pay to respawn after dying to the Big Robot in Thomas' Lab, it disappears, leaving you unable to reach Thomas.
- Vacuum Mouth: One of the armored toad boss's attacks.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Ancient Crater.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The Bandit Leader tries this after Bubbles is killed, but doesn't get very far.
- Visionary Villain: Double-subverted by Billy; see Knight Templar above.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Bubbles. It will kill you if there's any kind of attack you can't dodge.
- Walking Spoiler: Unit 66. Knowing his name is fine, but it's hard to go beyond that without mentioning that he's one of hundreds of Phoenix Weapons, or that they end up being used for evil.
- Wave-Motion Gun: Used by the Ancient Crater boss.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- Subverted by Billy. See Knight Templar above.
- According to a girl in Atai City, the bandits in Atai are really just animal rights activists protesting the slaughter of baby Sand Dragons for bacon, although, considering their behaviour around Gale, this is more an Informed Attribute from a girl in the city than anything. Until you wake up the leader's pet Sand Dragon, anyway.
- Wolf Man: The Kobolds look like odd-colored anthropomorphic wolves.
- The Worf Effect: Exploited and possibly invoked by Gale (it's unclear, given her Heroic Mime status). It's well-known in Atai that baby sand dragons are hunted for bacon because adults are Nigh-Invulnerable. Naturally, when Gale kills Bubbles, the bandit leader runs for his life.
- You ALL Look Familiar: There are several identical little girls, old men, old ladies, guards, men in turbans, and innkeepers.
- You Have Researched Breathing: The Scroll of Rolling, which even the inventory description seems surprised Gale needed ("You paid money for this?") Word of God on Quell's blog is that he was never happy with this (coming very close to calling the trope by name!) and will do things differently in the sequel.
