Otomedius



Konami's combination of its own Parodius and Gradius series. A lighthearted Self-Parody, Otomedius is a Boob Shooter with its own standalone plot. It pulls elements from several of Konami's other properties, including Ganbare Goemon, Xexex, Twinbee, Parodius and, of course, Gradius itself.

Anoa Aoba, a second year high school student, is approached by a mysterious organization and offered a chance to pilot Vic Viper. While you might expect a Cool Plane, this one is less a plane and more a flying motorcycle. She's also introduced to the other "Angels" who form up the Five-Man Band.

What follows is adventure. Across the world, across space, across dimensions, involving a lot of bullets, a lot of enemy robots, and a lot of penguins.

Compare Parodius, which is Konami's older and much weirder take on the Cute'Em Up genre. Also compare Gradius, the flagship game that started it all.

If there isn't an Everything Is Better With Boobs trope, there should be, because this series lives in it. How about Refuge in Cleavage?

The series saw two console releases, both for Xbox 360: Otomedius Gorgeous, a port of the original arcade game, and Otomedius Excellent, a console-only sequel. Konami announced a North American release of Otomedius Excellent for 19 July 2011, but it got delayed for quite a while until, ultimately, it came out at 3 November 2011.

Now has its own Character page (Under Construction)

"Operetta: "Homing Missile!"
 * Action Girl - The entire cast. Emon counts as an Action Guy.
 * Adaptation Expansion - More of the world of Otomedius is revealed through the DLC. Also, the relationship between Earth and Gradius - Esmeralda complains about Earth's military in her intro.
 * All There in the Manual - A lot of information about the characters and setting can only be found on Konami's website, in the game booklet, and in the manga. Hope you can read Japanese!
 * Amazon Brigade -
 * Another Dimension - A lot of missions send the Angels to alternate dimensions of Earth. One notable example is a What If Ancient Egypt progressed into the Space Age, complete with floating sarcophagus gun platforms and mummified penguin robots.
 * The manga series is also called Otomedius: Another Dimension.
 * Art Evolution - The character designs have all changed in varying degrees between Gorgeous and Excellent.
 * Of particular note, the uniforms are now more like uniforms, with cuffs sporting the "G" Organization logo on each sleeve.
 * Batman Can Breathe in Space - Fan theories abound, but there's no current official explanation for why the characters have no trouble breathing in space, or don't get cold in Antarctica.
 * Boobs of Steel - Every female character's rank within the squadron can be gauged by her breast size. Rank is equivalent to fighting ability in the Angels. The only exception is Poini, who is at Diol's level of Platonic power but certainly not buxom at all.
 * Bullet Hell - In higher loops, there are enough bullets and enemies on the screen to cause slowdown on an Xbox 360.
 * Titi XIV's Scarab Core, on any difficulty, is this.
 * Calling Your Attacks - Indirectly. Each time one of the girls activates a weapon on their powerup bar, there's a chance they'll call it out after Operetta announces it. Invokes Rule of Cute on more than one occasion.

Poini Kune: "Misso~"

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Operetta: "Aqualaser, Level Two!"

Tita Nium: "Wa, wa, wa..Powa Up!""

"Operetta: "Homing Missile, level two!"
 * Also seen when a character performs her P-Burst or D-Burst attacks.
 * Cast of Snowflakes - Despite having an immense cast for a Shoot'Em Up, they're quite well written and unique without being one-dimensional.
 * Child Prodigy - The Otomedius Excellent trailer shows the entire cast in their school uniforms. Colored ribbons are used to differentiate between classes. Poini wears the same colors as Esmeralda and Diol, marking her as an upperclassmen to the rest of the cast despite her apparent age of 10.
 * By contrast, Madoka is also a genius, but still a first-year student. Madoka's know-how seems to be limited to engineering while Poini is more versatile.
 * Cool Plane - Well, cool flying bike based on a plane.
 * Custom Uniform - Most of the Angels wear some variation of the same outfit, usually color-coded to match their Ride Viper.
 * Averted with Madoka, who wears her school uniform instead. A rare case where a short pleated skirt is the less revealing choice.
 * Madoka has changed her outfit. It's still not the default G look, but it's not her school outfit either.
 * Even their school uniforms are somewhat customized, decorated with colored ribbons according to their class. Green ribbons are First-Year, Red ribbons are Second-Year, and Yellow ribbons are Third-Year.
 * Cute'Em Up
 * Downloadable Content - The only way to get Stage 4, Esmeralda, and Poini Kune.
 * All of the Character-specific soundtracks are also DLC.
 * In Excellent, Kokoro Belmont and Strarf are DLC.
 * Fan Service - And how. Gorgeous and Excellent even include galleries of character art out of the box, which can be expanded even more through gameplay.
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero - Diol Twee
 * The Lancer - Erul Tron
 * The Heart - Anoa Aoba
 * The Smart Girl - Madoka
 * The Big Guy - Emon Five
 * Sixth Rangers - Tita Nium, Poini Kune, and Esmeralda (The latter two introduced late)
 * Five-Bad Band
 * Big Bad - Dark Force (The Gofer Sisters L.B. and R.B. also fulfill this role)
 * The Dragon - Meta Lium, pilot of Big Core DX
 * Evil Genius - The Gofer Sisters
 * The Brute - Ryukotsuki
 * Dark Chick - T.B. Rika
 * Frickin' Laser Beams - A common weapon in the game, always leads to Beam Spam.
 * Funbag Airbag (Poini intentionally uses Esmeralda's chest this way in the Otomedius Excellent trailer. Doubles as a Freeze Frame Bonus. Esmeralda's reaction is predictable.)
 * Gainaxing - Especially from Anoa and Gesshi, though Diol and Esmeralda do it on occasion.
 * Gratuitous English - Poini Kune's voice actress is well-known in Japan for English dialogue. As a result, Poini has a lot of English dialogue as well as Japanese. It's also used to reflect her Child Prodigy status. It's also freakin' adorable.

Poini Kune: "Level two~."

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Poini Kune: "Drive system switched to normal mode."

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Poini Kune: "Ryoukai! Select your route~!"

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Poini Kune: "Crush all of them!""

"Poini Kune: "Blast Orb..!""
 * If some of Poini's quotes sound familiar, that's because she loves to quote Gradius Gaiden's announcer.
 * And sometimes, the actual names of stages. When entering Easter Island, Poini occasionally declares "Ruins of Silence~!" She also does this in the jungle ruins stage of Excellent.
 * Hitbox Dissonance - The player characters all have hitboxes smaller than their graphics. Without this, you would die a lot more often. Bullet Hell and all.
 * Human Aliens - Esmeralda, Erul Tron, and Poini Kune are all Gradians, but look exactly like humans. Madoka is also an alien, from planet Mel. Emon Five is from Ebisuboshi. R.B. and L.B. Gofer, Meta Lium, Tita Nium, and Dark Force are all Bacterians and are also very human-like in appearance.
 * Especially wierd in the case of the Bacterians, considering every other Bacterian before them has been a giant, pulsating brain and destroyable free-floating eyes.
 * Kaizo Trap - Odin Core features a nostalgic attack pattern where it shoots out huge laser beams, then reflects small lasers off them. If Odin Core is defeated during this phase, it will continue to fire the huge laser beams while it collapses inward in its death animation, sweeping the screen and gauranteeing player death.
 * Level in Boss Clothing - The final stages in Excellent and Gorgeous are both extremely hard. In true Gradius tradition, Excellent's ends with an Anticlimax Boss, though Gorgeous follows its Level in Boss Clothing with a Boss Rush and then the True Final Boss.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters - 11 playable characters are featured in Excellent, and then there's the villains...
 * More Dakka - As with most shooters. Scarab Core approaches enough dakka in higher loops.
 * New Powers As the Plot Demands - In Otomedius, it was suggested that Platonic power is why the characters can breathe in space. In Excellent, if this is the case, Platonic power's purview expands to include protection against atmospheric re-entry.
 * Nice Hat - Madoka and Emon are the only ones without nice hats.
 * No Export for You - For the first game, probably due to its dependence on a special arcade stick with a touchpad. The console-only sequel, Otomedius Excellent, released in North America in November, 2011 following some severe release date jumbling due to Executive Meddling from Microsoft.
 * Norse Mythology - R.B. and L.B. pilot paired fighters named Hugin and Mugin. They also team up to fly Odin Core. Their moonbase is called Valhalla.
 * Portmanteau - Otomedius is a combination of Otome (meaning Maiden) and Gradius.
 * Reflecting Laser - Happens all over the place in the Antarctic stage and versus Snowflake Core. Also one of several attack combinations performed by R.B. and L.B. Gofers' tandem fighters, Hugin and Munin.
 * Excellent's Red Hot Mine stage includes a branch filled with laser-refracting crystals, and there's an enemy type which reflects lasers back at the player as their only form of attack.
 * Replacement Goldfish -
 * Rule 34 - It didn't take long for artists to notice that Diol Twee has tentacles.
 * Schizo-Tech - The game is set in what appears to be 21st-century, modern Earth. But then you have flying motorbikes with lasers and missiles.
 * Somewhat justified, the Riding Vipers were built by "G", an alien organization from a far more advanced civilization.
 * Sequel First - Otomedius/Otomedius Gorgeous remain Japan-Only, while the sequel Otomedius Excellent is migrating across the pond to America and Europe.
 * Shoot'Em Up - While also a Cute Em Up, Otomedius has enough of a plot to stand on its own rather than hiding in audacity and cultural in-jokes.
 * Shout-Out - Moved to the Character tropes page.
 * Super Move Portrait Attack - The playable characters can initiate special moves termed P-Burst and D-Burst. After Shouting it out over their portrait, the character burns a P-Burst charge to clear the screen. A D-Burst, by contrast, is a character-specific super attack with a charge time, and is generally a Game Breaker when used on bosses.

"Diol Twee: "'Big Sis'...? What a rude guy he is!"
 * In Excellent, the portraits only cut in during the Bomb-type Platonic Burst, which clears the screen of enemies and bullets. The super attack styled Platonic Break has no portraits, but also doesn't consume a Burst Capsule and can be spammed (cooldown permitting).
 * Superpower Lottery - According to official art, Poini can generate gravity wells on her own. The graphic is identical to her Ride Viper's Gravity Bullet weapon, balanced on her fingertip.
 * Similarly, official art shows Esmeralda mimicking Jade Knight's Ring Laser weapon with only her hands. Gradians have a terrible power, it seems. 
 * So where's Erul's special laser power?
 * The One Guy - Emon Five. Lampshaded, as the other Angels don't seem to like him or even know why he's on the team.

Emon Five: "This is bullshit! I'm just doin' my job and I'm already in bad air!"

Madoka: "Why is there a man among us, anyway?""


 * Tokyo Is the Center of The Universe - The first mission that takes place on Anoa's version of Earth takes place in Tokyo.

"O to me di oo su ... Go--orjasu~"