Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden



"Warning: The article you are about to read is canon."

"The Great B-Ball Purge of 2041, a day so painful to some that it is referred to only as the "B-Ballnacht". Thousands upon thousands of the world's greatest ballers were massacred in a swath of violence and sports bigotry as the game was outlawed worldwide. The reason: the Chaos Dunk, a jam so powerful its mere existence threatens the balance of chaos and order. Among the few ballers and fans that survived the basketball genocide was Charles Barkley, the man capable of performing the "Verboten Jam"..."

A freeware RPG by Tales of Game's (sic).

It's Twenty Minutes Into the Future In a World where basketball is Serious Business. The sport has been outlawed and the world's ballers have been hunted down and killed after a forbidden technique known as a Chaos Dunk killed millions.

Really, the whole game is one big moment of hilarity from start to finish, from the underground colony of furries to the ruins of Proto-Neo-New York and beyond. It has to be seen to be believed. The full title is Tales of Game's Presents Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.

And remember: If you can't slam with the best, then jam with the rest.

This game uses some of these tropes:
""Gold... Incan Gold...""
 * After the End: Specifically, After The End of The Revolutionary War.
 * Affectionate Parody: This game is an incredible parody of 16-bit JRPGs. There's also a much less affectionate parody of the RPG Maker community and certain Internet subcultures in general. A few of the rants that you read before saving are taken verbatim from real Internet discussion forums.
 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer
 * Action Commands: The attacks in the game are made stronger by well-timed button presses of various sorts, similar to Paper Mario.
 * All Myths Are True: Subverted. You can hear about a key in Cuchulainn's Tomb, and you see the door the key is supposed to open afterward, but there's no key in the tomb at all.
 * Actually you can apply that to virtually anything presented as a "secret" in this game. Anything that you really have Lost Forever you weren't told about if you missed it, and everything that you are told you "missed" didn't exist.
 * All in A Row
 * Alternate History: The Revolutionary War wasn't fought for America, but Jickleberg. The aftermath of the war is the Cyberpocalypse.
 * Always Check Behind the Chair: Lampshaded with the trash cans in the Spalding building.
 * Antidote Effect: Averted; healing items work by percents instead of fixed numbers. You'll still want to buy the all-purpose Standard Status Effect cure instead of the individual status medicine, though.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Most of the opponents in the B-Ball Dimension Arena Tournament, except for the final battle with Kevin Garnett. Special mention goes to the Flame Delmon, who blows himself up early into the fight. Barkley comments afterwards that it was tough.
 * Also the
 * Anti Grinding: Wandering enemies don't respawn, except in one area that gets visited twice.
 * Big Bad: Like many JRPGs, you don't see him or hear about it at all until you've beaten everything else.
 * Bigger On the Inside: Dikembe Mutombo's entire tomb is inside Cyberdwarf's house in Cesspool X.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: There are a lot of fake "bad translation" elements; "Gun" is always pluralized as "gun's", and people who use "gun's" are "gun'sbrasters", because they can "brast" things out of their "gun's".
 * Bonus Boss: Ghastly Darklord.
 * Boring but Practical: Charles' Double Team is one of the first moves you have access to, isn't too flashy, but is easily one of the most damaging moves he has in his arsenal as well as one of the least expensive to use, especially after acquiring the Infinity Plus One B-Ball. The same applies to Hoopz as well, as his Gun's Slay inflicts way more damage than Trickgun Assault, and costs three times as less.
 * Buffy-Speak: "Quit Vidcon? Yeah/Nah"
 * But Thou Must: Lampshaded at least once, when an NPC tells you he could tell you were a friend and if you'd answered "foe" he wouldn't have believed you.
 * Another exchange: "Will you promise to kill raffleson?" "Nah" "Saying no is simply not an option!" (Despite that you hardly know who Raffleson or the guy telling you to kill him are).
 * Calling Your Attacks: "CHAAAAAAOOOOOOSSS DUUUUUUUUNNK!"
 * Camp: How else can you describe a game featuring Charles Barkley, his gunslinger son, a cyborg dwarf with basketball leather for skin, and a sword-wielding descendant of LeBron James with Elemental Powers fighting a monster consisting of Bill Cosby's head on a ghost body?
 * Celibate Hero: After the death of his wife, Barkley would never allow himself to fall for another woman.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Chiptune: The game's theme is the Space Jam theme backed by one of these.
 * The Chosen One: Hoopz Barkley, but whatever it is he was chosen to do, he doesn't do it in this game.
 * Crutch Character: Don't get too used to Vinceborg's uncanny ability to kill entire waves of enemies with his Eye Beams.
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: Clispaeth.
 * Dangerous Forbidden Technique \ My God, What Have I Done?: The Chaos Dunk.
 * (Good lord) Applebottoms.
 * Depending On the Artist: Within the same game, many characters are depicted as looking radically different in their different sprites. Between Balthios's portrait, overworld, and battle sprites, his hair goes from long and white to short and black to short and white, respectively. Also, Hoopz's overworld sprites look nothing like how he does in-battle and in his portrait. Put simply, Cyberdwarf is the only character who has any degree of correlation between sprites and picture. Invoked from the start, where Hoopz turns into the "generic basketball player" sprite and back when showing Barkley his skills.
 * Developers Room:
 * Development Hell: Years have passed since this game came out, and Episode 2 still doesn't exist. Given all the other jokes at video gaming's expense, this is probably deliberate.
 * The Dragon: Michael Jordan.
 * Dual-Wielding: Eventually Charles learns to dual-wield basketballs by double-dribbling, allowing him to perform normal attacks twice in a row and doubling his power.
 * Duel to The Death/Duel Boss: Barkley v. Jordan.
 * Easter Egg: Jordan's theme is, just in a minor key and played slowly on a synthesizer.
 * Elves vs. Dwarves: Sludge Elves and Dwarves don't get along.
 * Enemy Summoner: The blasted dread ref.
 * Enemy Without:.
 * Everything Fades/Stuff Blowing Up: Dying enemies randomly choose between the two.
 * Everything's Better With Dinosaurs:
 * Face Heel Turn:.
 * Fallen Hero: Michael Jordan plays this role, especially given that Space Jam is considered canon.
 * Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Features dwarves, the undead, elemental Magic Knights, aliens, genies, and superpowered basketball players, among other things. In near-future America without explanation, no less.
 * Fan Sequel: To Space Jam, and (naturally) to the obscure Genesis game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam!.
 * Fight Woosh: About 20+ different wooshes, chosen at random.
 * Flat What: Barkley delivers one upon seeing the "reward" for
 * Fun With Acronyms B.L.O.O.D.M.O.S.E.S., the Statue of L.I.B.E.R.T.Y., ~F.A.T.E~, and the legendary F.I.N.A.L.G.U.N. Mind, if any of these actually stand for anything, it's never elaborated upon.
 * Furry Fandom: They live in the sewers of Neo New York. Surprisingly, they're actually treated pretty fairly - they're decent people (some hostility towards the "norms" aside, and that's required for the standard post-apocalypse sewer-dweller template), rather intelligent and insightful. Barkley's a dick to them, but he's a dick to everyone in this game. All in all, they come off far better here than in, say, Kingdom of Loathing.
 * Future Food Is Artificial: In the post-cyberpocalypse, mankind will live off of Protein Paste and Hi-C Ecto Coolers.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation: After getting the Sword of Plot Advancement, Barkley claims he can "sink a three-pointer from 30 yards away", but his accuracy doesn't seem to improve at all from it.
 * Gaiden Game/Fan Sequel: Allegedly.
 * Genre Savvy: Hoopz is an experienced enough gamer that he immediately knows what to do when the party encounters some well-worn vidcon trope.
 * Global Currency: Neo-Shekels.
 * Gratuitous German: Zaubers ("charm"s), Das Fructose Unhuer, and Verboten Jam.
 * Gratuitous Japanese: During one exchange, Charles Barkley repeatedly calls Jordan a "baka".
 * Also, Clispaeth's full name was Clispaeth Ryuji Atucks.
 * Hacking Minigame: Hinted to in the vending machine, but you never get any "science points" to attempt it.
 * Healing Hands:
 * Heroic Sacrifice: It's heavily implied that
 * Hollywood Cyborg: Vinceborg is a conventional example, but there's also the Cyberdwarf, whose skin was replaced with basketballs after being injured.
 * Idiot Ball - Cuchulainn's Tomb. Just... Cuchulainn's Tomb.


 * Involuntary Suicide Mechanism: This seems to kick in on near the end....
 * Irrelevant Sidequest: Several, such as rewriting a poem and negotiating a labor contract, much to Barkley's annoyance.
 * I Know Madden Kombat
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: "Vidcons, dad."
 * Infant Immortality:
 * Infinity+1 Sword: Shimmerglobe.
 * Also,
 * Inn Security:
 * Informed Ability - Barkley can supposedly perform the Verboten Jam and the Chaos Dunk, but never actually does it during gameplay. (Given what the Chaos Dunk does, he might simply refuse to use it in combat despite being capable of it.)  does use the Verboten Jam against you when you fight him, having no moral qualms with it, unlike Barkley. It is a One-Hit Kill on anyone it hits regardless of equipment or stats, making it actually as powerful as you are told.
 * Actually, reading the descriptions of some of Barkley's abilities during combat would imply that all of Barkley's special moves are Verboten Jams, which would make it more of a fighting style than a single special move.
 * The term seems to be used inconsistently in homage to badly translated JRPGs.
 * Jump Scare - Parodied. At one point in the Sugar Caves, an image of a sugar shaker will flash on the screen, horror-movie style.
 * Lampshade Hanging - "Both of these keys broke when I put them in the door! And the sugar counter's gone!" "Thankfully we won't need those items anymore."
 * At one point you need to insert crystals into pedestals to open a door in a tomb. Barkley says there's no way that's right, there must be a key somewhere. Balthios comments that weird things like this are designed to drive intruders insane.
 * Leitmotif: has "Eternity" during both fights.
 * Locomotive Level: The Underground Railroad (if you choose to take it).
 * Lost Forever: Subverted - most of the secret items that the game says you didn't find....
 * Magic Plastic Surgery: Dr. Allard is able to transform human furries into the species of their desire.
 * Magitech: Manufacted Slamicite. It has a less harmful counterpart, jamicite, but for your purposes you need the strong stuff.
 * Mega Corp: Square-Enix-Goya.
 * Mons: The B-Ball Ranch. (
 * Monster Compendium: The Animayor's bestiary, although most of the entries are never actually encountered elsewhere.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The Ultimate Hellbane,.
 * New Game Plus:
 * New Neo City: Neo New York.
 * Never Found the Body:
 * Never Got to Say Goodbye
 * No Fair Cheating: If you quit and restart the game after losing money gambling, the gambler will come up to you, take all your money, and auto-save the game.
 * Non-Indicative Name: The soundtrack's metadata is full of vaguely obscene, badly typed nonsense, most of which has nothing to do with the music at all (with a few exceptions like 'Hilarious Georgia Brown', 'jesus christ the guy from deep purple sang this', and the simply titled 'sad').
 * Nonstandard Game Over: Hell. Also, the normal game over screen does not make any sense at all.
 * No Time to Explain: The cyberdwarf says this about taking Hoops to the church. However, before doing that you do have time to complete an unrelated dungeon.
 * One-Winged Angel: The final boss's second form. The less said about it, the better. Also, the first form is
 * Only Sane Man: Barkley frequently comes off as this, and when he's doing something insane, Balthios takes the role.
 * Our Delmons Are Different: They differ from demons because they can use the Junction System, while demons get a "Level 2 Imp Summon".
 * Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Except for the ones who are from outer space for some reason.
 * Parody: Of JRPGs. Does it very well, too.
 * Planet Heck: If you refuse to give money to all of the beggars, then .)
 * Press X to Not Die: To be fair, you get one mistake. Not so fair: this is almost the first interactivity the game has. Expect to play through the chase sequence a few times.
 * Product Placement: Parodied; the game's most potent healing item is a Burger King Chicken Fry. Not an entire carton, just one. It cures death, maxes out health and magic, and cures all status effects, for the whole party. The second-strongest healing item is the greasy "dew" left behind by a Chicken Fry.
 * Punctuated for Emphasis: Courtesy of Dikembe Mutombo. BOOM! SHAKA! LAKA!
 * Putting On the Reich: The B-Ballnacht
 * Real Person Fic: Well, duh.
 * Ragnarok Proofing: The Spalding factory is mostly untouched years after being abandoned due to the Chaos Dunk.
 * Redemption Equals Death:.
 * Red Herring: ... and it is never mentioned again. Perhaps we'll see the results in Chapter 2, if it ever comes out.
 * Depending on your choices, two NPCs will swear revenge on you in the latter half of the game, only to never be heard from again. In fact, generally the game makes up and doesn't follow through on plot threads and gameplay elements so often it's easier to count the number of sidequests or arcs that don't leave hanging threads.
 * Running Gag: Diabetes is used not only as a Standard Status Effect corresponding to poison, it's also mentioned off-hand several times
 * Balthios's terrible taste in poetry.
 * Reginald using a different name in every conversation that talks about him.
 * RP Gs Equal Combat: There's a "basketball game" that consists of Barkley throwing basketballs at an enemy that shoots back at him with a gun.
 * Stealth Pun: That would make it more of a shootout.
 * Sdrawkcab Name:.
 * Serious Business: Basketball is a forbidden art.
 * There's an island that has a cult of those who abhor sugar and diabetes in all of its forms.
 * Shout Out: All over the damn place. One non-video game related example: the metadata title for one of the songs is "In Memory of Kawaoru"
 * A lot of these are ironic shout-outs, though.
 * Silliness Switch: In addition to the "Al Bhed" language option and the game's general silliness, upon beating the game you unlock mode (seemingly inspired by Barkley's old nickname of "Sir Charles"), which replaces all character names and portraits with ones appropriate to the wrong setting.
 * SMURFING: This game takes the amount of words or phrases that can have "b-ball" appended to them Up to Eleven.
 * So Long and Thanks For All The Gear: Averted - any departing character's equipment is given back to you.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: The battle theme to the Duel Boss is Sweet Georgia Brown.
 * Space Station: Necron 5.
 * Sprint Meter: Marked by a giant sneaker in the corner of the screen. It only appears when you dash.
 * Standard Status Effects: With very non-standard names, including Bamboozled, Fouled (Stun), Diabetes (Poison) and Glaucoma (Blind).
 * Super Move Portrait Attack: When Charles uses.
 * Sword of Plot Advancement: The Hell B-Ball.
 * Tagline: You don't need a reason to help people. Are you ready to slamjam? Also, "If you can't slam with the best, then jam with the rest" and "This game is canon".
 * Take That: Among other things, it mocks Fan Dumb, "Stop Having Fun!" Guys, Furry Fandom, and the Otaku subculture.
 * Take Your Time: There's no urgency to find the diabetes cure for Hoopz.
 * Theme Music Power-Up: The first phase of the final boss fight is a Title Theme Drop, which is a remix of the theme from Space Jam. A riff can also be heard during Charles's flashback to the first Chaos Dunk.
 * Too Awesome to Use: The
 * Trademark Favourite Food: Duergars rely entirely on Dunkaroos and chemical potions for sustenance.
 * Unexpected Genre Change: Most of the game plays as an RPG with some action elements. Liberty Island is an Adventure Game, although it still uses the same engine.
 * In true Adventure Game style, Barkley will describe all items you find. Which the other characters remark upon.
 * Useless Item: Alcohol. Sure it does cure Asperger's Syndrome, but the only thing that the status does in the first place is make your character move awkwardly.
 * Violation of Common Sense: How do you get the best reward from the poetry-composing sidequest?
 * Wake Up Call Boss: While the first few bosses off the game are fairly easy, the Ghost Dad is a major kick in the nuts considering how early in the game you face him. He has a ridiculous amount of VP, he can power himself up with Ghost Muscle, he can reduce your attack power, and he can inflict multiple random status ailments on the entire party with Ghostly Curse. That last attack is particularly brutal because there isn't a whole lot you can do about the multiple status ailments that early in the game. And he is very liberal with it. If you allow the fight to go on too long, your characters will become weakened so much that they will do very little damage to him.
 * We Can Rule Together: Things go slightly downhill if you accept this offer.
 * Wrestler in All of Us: Cyberdwarf performs suplexes for his physical attacks.
 * World Map: Parodied - It appears just before the last dungeon, and there's only two locations on it.
 * X Meets Y: The developers stated in an interview that is's like "Final Fantasy VI meets Space Jam" or something to that effect. Alternatively, NBA Jam meets Fallout meets Dragonball.
 * You Are the Translated Foreign Word
 * Young Gun: Hoopz Barkley.
 * Zonk: Giving the F.I.N.A.L.G.U.N. to the guy in Proto Neo New York gets you...
 * Zonk: Giving the F.I.N.A.L.G.U.N. to the guy in Proto Neo New York gets you...