"Raggy, Raphne, Relma, Red where are you?"
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights is a 2002 video game based on the popular cartoon character of the same name. In the game, Mystery Inc. travels to Mystic Manor to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Professor Alexander Graham, the uncle of Daphne's friend Holly. An eccentric villain known as the Mastermind is behind Professor Graham's disappearance, and has also somehow resurrected many of Scooby's old foes.
This game provides examples of the following tropes:
- 100% Completion: 100% completion is achieved in this game by collecting all Scooby Snacks and Scooby Snack boxes as well as finding all of the Monster Tokens and visiting every location on the map.
- Adaptational Badass:
- On the heroes side, Scooby-Doo is shown to be far more courageous, willing to take on his opponents head on rather than simply run away from them. Though he was willing to do this before, it has never been to this extent.
- On the villains side, the monsters are a lot more dangerous than their original appearance. For instance, the Spooky Space Kook is able to regenerate after a few seconds and wields a Ray Gun. This is especially true for the bosses, such as the Black Knight, who now generates electricity.
- Adaptational Villainy: One of the monsters is the Headless Specter, who, in his episode, wasn’t really as bad as the other crooks, as his portrayer was simply defending his property from thieves.
- Big Bad: The Mastermind is the main villain, having brought back past foes of Mystery, Inc. to try and defeat our heroes.
- Big Bad Friend: It turns out that Daphne's old friend Holly Graham is the actual mastermind of the operation, who used her know-how of Mystery Inc.'s previous cases to orchestrate everything.
- The Butler Did It: Shaggy suspects that the creepy groundskeeper is the Mastermind. Upon hearing this, the groundskeeper comes out from another room and complains at how the groundskeeper is always the one to be blamed and not the butler.
- Concept Art Gallery: Collecting all Scooby Snacks in an area will unlock concept art in the gallery. The older pre-release versions of the game had it
where if you achieved 100% Completion the concept art can be accessed. It can be found in the Easter Egg room known as the "Monster Gallery." - Continuity Porn: Every mook and boss in the game is from one of the TV shows (mostly Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!)
- Developer's Foresight:
- In "Creepy Crawlies in the Hallways Part 2", it's possible to throw Shaggy into the bottomless pit at the beginning of the area. Doing so will cause the game to immediately kill Scooby and reset the area, as he is unable to reach the key to the nearby door without Shaggy's help.
- If the "map" option on the pause screen is selected before Scooby obtains the map from Holly, unique text will appear addressing that Scooby does not have a "map" to view yet. Since the map is obtained within the first ten minutes of gameplay, there is a very small window of time where this text can be seen.
- Early Game Hell: The beginning of the game is noticeably a lot more hectic than the rest since Scooby can only stun enemies and lacks the ability to kill them (other than small ones such as rats and spiders). He also cannot even double jump, which makes platforming much more of a challenge. Once Scooby unlocks the ability to double jump and finds the professor's helmet invention, the game becomes significantly easier and much more action-oriented, since he now has the ability to fight back.
- Eternal Engine: The Super Secret Lab. Also doubles as The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Kinda the norm with Scooby-Doo villains like Werewolf, Zombie, Black Knight, Green Ghost etcetera. Strangely, a few villains in the game are given generic monikers when they had more distinguishing names in the show:
- The Sea Creature is really called the Creepy Heap.
- Ghosts are really the Phantom of Vasquez Castle.
- The Ghost Diver's real name is the Ghost of Captain Cutler.
- The real name of the Green Ghost is the Phantom Shadow.
- The Funland Robot is officially named Charlie.
- The Ghost of Geronimo is actually called the Indian Witch Doctor. That name was actually used for a false ghost he summoned up during his episode.
- The Space Kook is simply called It. Granted, this one is less egregious because that was the name of the episode it was in, and the monster is frequently referred to by this name...
- Derelict Graveyard: The shipwrecks.
- Equipment Upgrade: Later in the game, you get the Black Knight Armor that replaces the Bunny Slippers and Lampshade disguise for the smarter enemies.
- Evil Laugh: The Mastermind, Black Knight, and the Space Kook have pretty good ones. The Mastermind lets out a particularly big one if you die in the final area.
- Final Boss: The game ends with a final boss fight against the Mastermind.
- Fireballs: The Witch Doctor's primary power is to shoot fireballs.
- Floating in a Bubble: The soap invention allows Scooby to blow bubbles to trap enemies.
- Flying Seafood Special: One in a series of many other Goombas.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Parodied with Professor Graham whose many "inventions" serve as your power ups in the game.
- Genius Ditz: Despite being an accomplished inventor, Professor Graham shows shades of this. An example is when he is falsely revealed as the Mastermind and asks, "it was me?"
- The Goomba: Flying fish, rats, and spiders, none of which will attack so long as you're not in the way.
- Goomba Stomp: Scooby can kill the aforementioned creatures - and pretty much any non-monster enemy - by jumping on them.
- Have a Nice Death: If you die in the final area, the Mastermind will mock you.
- Holiday Mode: Hearts appear on the Scooby Snacks if the game is played on February 14, snow appears everywhere if the game is played on December 25, and fireworks appear when the game is played on December 31.
- Hologram: Holly Graham is revealed to be the Mastermind, using a hologram of herself so that both she and the Mastermind could be at the same place at the same time. The gang's old foes are also revealed to be holograms. This is foreshadowed by Holly's name being a pun on the word, "hologram."
- Gangplank Galleon: Red Beard's ship.
- Hub Level: The Mystery Machine serves as a hub level for the game.
- Invention Pretension: The items that Professor Graham "invents" include galoshes, springs, and a football helmet.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The Ghosts are invulnerable to all of Scooby's attacks and can only be stalled by the bubblegum or soap.
- Jerkass: The Grounds Keeper isn't very friendly and makes unpleasant remarks toward Scooby.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While the Grounds Keeper will make rude remarks toward Scooby, he will also provide hints to Scooby and occasionally give him powerups he needs to progress.
- Large Ham: The Mastermind. Though what else would you expect from Tim Curry?
- Laugh Track: The game has one in reference to how the older shows did.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The groundskeeper: "Who put all these dang-blasted Scooby Snacks around here?!"
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Though it's big enough to be considered an Elaborate Underground Base.
- Man-Eating Plant: The green house levels contain some plants that spew out green gasses.
- Metroidvania: A rather surprising case of this, as you wouldn't normally expect a Scooby-Doo game of all things to work like one. While it's decidedly much less mazelike than other such games and it's in 3D unlike the usual 2D examples, it still borrows a lot of elements — large, interconnected areas that are all separated into a few parts, and an expanding ability set that allows the player to reach previously inaccessible areas.
- Missing Secret:
- The game's manual claims that "something special will happen in the gallery" if all monster tokens are collected. However, while monster tokens will unlock the bio for that monster specifically and a short trivia question, collecting all of them will achieve... absolutely nothing. Even stranger is that collecting all Scooby Snacks in an area will unlock concept art in the gallery, which does not get hinted at by the manual, so it's unknown if the "special reward" was the concept art and it was switched around in development, something else that never made it into the final game, or was just simple flavor text to encourage collecting them all.
- If you go out of your way to collect all of the bubble gum and soap bubble ammunition upgrades, you will always end up with one more soap bubble upgrade than the gum. This has led to some players running around every area of the game looking for an extra bubble gum upgrade, only to find that said upgrade does not exist.
- Mythology Gag: The groundskeeper is clear inksuit of Don Knotts, one of the most frequent celebrity guest-stars in Scooby properties. In fact, voicing him was one of Knotts' last roles!
- Obviously Evil: It's pretty clear from the start that Holly is the one responsible for her uncle's disappearance:
- As the professor's niece and a friend of Daphne's, Holly is the only one who would have knowledge about her uncle's inventions and secret lab, as well as Mystery Inc's history.
- Outside of Mystery Inc, Holly is literally the only other character in the game other than the professor (who spends most of the game "missing" and is perfectly friendly the few times we see him) and the grounds keeper (who acts like a Jerkass to Scooby and keeps randomly appearing everywhere, but he also gives Scooby hints, which wouldn't make sense if he was trying to stop him). Though to be fair, Scooby and Shaggy both suspect the grounds keeper for being "creepy", but Fred and Velma seem to have already figured it out.
- Holly's name is "Holly Graham", which should give you a hint about the nature of the "monsters" the Mastermind is summoning, as well as how Holly is in two places at once.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Daphne is kidnapped in this way.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Scooby uses a lampshade and bunny slippers as a disguise. It manages to fool Mooks while standing still (Though you can sneak past mooks that are asleep or hiding). Its upgrade, the Black Knight Armor allows you to fool and sneak by Mooks at the same time.
- Parasol Parachute: The umbrella allows Scooby to glide further distances.
- Power Up Letdown: After defeating the Gargoyle that prevents the stone from floating, you are able to use it and lead it to where the Black Knight Armor invention is located which allow you to sneak through every Mooks in the game. However, in order to even get it in the first place, you must acquire the Super Smash invention which pretty much allow you to defeat any monster you come across, thus making sneaking at that point of the game rather redundant.
- Reused Character Design: Holly's design is just Daphne's model, just tweaked.
- Reviving Enemy: The Space Kook has the ability to regenerate seconds after death, save for the ones encountered in the final boss fight.
- Rise to the Challenge: The final area of the caverns, which lead straight into the cemetery.
- Shock and Awe:
- The Black Knight's boss battle revolves this. He throws axes that actually shock Scooby. However, the boss himself is prone to this if the rain cloud is next to him and Scooby can activate one of the buttons that controls the lightning rod.
- This is how Scooby ultimately defeats the Mastermind, by knocking him into an electrical field.
- Shot-for-Shot Remake: The opening cinematic that plays when you boot up the game is a one-to-one recreation of the season 1 theme song from the original show, except redone with the game's graphical style.
- Sticky Situation: The bubblegum lets Scooby stop enemies in their tracks for a few moments, which is useful in reaching platforms and collectibles that are too high for Scooby to jump to.
- Super Drowning Skills: Scooby will instantly die if he touches any sort of water hazard. Naturally, Smuggler's Cove is full of platforming above it.
- Take That!: The random placement of the Laugh Track seems to be making fun of how the original shows would play it
at very weird moments. - "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Mastermind's boss theme is one big one directed at Scooby, with him boasting about how clever he is and how he managed to outsmart Scooby-Doo and co. All with lyrics sung by the great Tim Curry.
- Unique Enemy: Unlike other Mooks that are regularly encountered, Ghost of Captain Moody is only encountered twice in the game, with a single monster in the Secret Lab being the only regular encounter along with the ones that the Rebeard boss sent against you.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can have Scooby charge into NPCs. He'll even apologise for attacking them!
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: In one area, you can throw Shaggy into a bottomless pit, but the game will immediately kill Scooby and force you to start the area from the beginning if you do so.
- Villain Song:
- Mastermind gets one in the final boss fight, complete with boasting about how he's too clever for Scooby and friends to defeat him.
- The other bosses get one, too, though it’s simply background vocals, they don’t get involved. If you want to hear them again after beating the boss, find their monster tokens then view them in the gallery.
- Villain Team-Up: Every enemy and boss in the game is a foe that the gang has encountered in the past.
- Vocal Dissonance: For whatever reason, the Creepy Heap is given the soft voice of a young girl.
- Warp Whistle: the Warp Gates serve as this. They can only be used in levels that have the gates activated.
- Weapons That Suck: The Green Ghost boss requires the tombstones below to suck the ghost three times.
