Battle Clash

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Battle Clash, known in Japan as Space Bazooka, is a Mecha-themed Light Gun Game released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992 which supported the Super Scope, a Light Gun peripheral for the SNES. It was developed by Intelligent Systems of Fire Emblem and Advance Wars fame. The player assumes the role of the gunner of a mecha ("Standing Tank", the game's preferred terminology) known as the "Falcon", as he helps the pilot Michael Anderson defeat the other Standing Tanks around the world in a tournament called the "Battle Game". Eventually, the player and Mike's journey take to the Moon, where they face the tournament's champion, the alien Anubis, the murderer of Mike's father.

The sequel Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge, released in 1993, took a Sequel Escalation approach to the original game's premise. The "Battle Game" tournament in the previous game is revealed to be a front for an incoming alien invasion, which now took Mike and the player to other planets around the solar system to defeat the invaders. The sequel further refined the gameplay by adding a training stage to the beginning and a second playable Standing Tank in the form of the "Tornado", piloted by a mysterious young girl named Carol Eugene.

Tropes used in Battle Clash include:
  • Achilles' Heel: Certain Standing Tanks have weak points that, when hit by a charged shot, will deal lots of damage (or, in Metal Combat, destroy them completely). They don't glow unless you hit them with a high-powered charge shot. In some cases (such as with Standing Tank Arachnus), you want to avoid hitting the enemy's weak spot, as it only makes them more powerful.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Any battle against any of Anubis' incarnations.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Typhon.
  • Berserk Button: When Mike mentions to Carlos that the Standing Tank Falcon has a separate person for the gunner.
  • Beyond the Impossible: Eddie and the Standing Tank Valius. This guy is so fast, he can jump out of the corner of one side of the screen and reappear from the other less than a second later, landing in the same exact spot. In other words, he manages to cover the entire span of the stage you're on in a single jump. The stage in question (the Tower of Babel) is a giant space elevator.
  • BFG: The Standing Tank Baron and Viscount carry large cannons, as do the Standing Tank Falcon and Tornado.
    • The Standing Tank Cobra is massive in itself, and one of its arms is entirely an Arm Cannon.
  • Cherry Tapping: Basic turbo shots. These do negligible damage and don't even scratch most Sanding Tanks' armor, but in Metal Combat, this can actually net you the best ending.
  • Cognizant Limbs: Every mech has bits and pieces of armor that can be damaged and/or destroyed in battle. In the first game, Standing Tank Lorca's limbs will fly back onto the torso when blasted off unless you deal enough damage to destroy them.
  • The Collector: Carlos collects the heads of his defeated opponents' Standing Tank's as personal trophies..
  • Combat Tentacles: Standing Tank Groken, although they're used more for shooting than strangling.
  • Deadly Upgrade: The V-System. It boosts your attack power, deflects all enemy bullets, and keeps the opponent centered, but continually drains your Standing Tank's energy until it reaches critical.
    • The Neutron Beam is this as well, as it deals massive amounts of damage if it hits, but using it also puts your Standing Tank in critical.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: See Heel Face Turn below for the first game. In the second game, you have Dayan (pilot of the Standing Tank Wong) who halts your advance because he believes you to be yet another challenger who's trying to contest the control of the Mongolia/Asia area. He then acknowledges that you aren't after the fight and encourages you to reach your goal. Carlos (Standing Tank Viscount) starts to see the errors of his ways and tells you where Anubis and the Standing Tank Thanatos is hiding.
  • Demoted to Dragon: Anubis in Metal Combat.
  • Doppleganger Attack: Standing Tank Thanatos and the Standing Tank Valius.
  • The Dragon: Carlos to Anubis in the first game, and Anubis (second form) to Giga-Desp in the second.
  • Energy Absorption: Standing Tank Cobra's shield absorbs blaster shots. You can nullify this by shooting at it and then quickly dropping a bomb, or you can just ignore all that and just fire the Disruptor Bomb as soon as he tries that, instantly destroying his shield.
  • Evil Is Visceral: The design of the Standing Tank Valius, the internals of the Standing Tank Baron, and pretty much everything about the Standing Tank Thanatos all invoke this trope.
  • Fake Weakness: Go ahead, shoot the Standing Tank Arachnus' abdomen.
  • Forced Tutorial: Before you can start out in Metal Combat, you have to go through a training course with Rola. It's only slightly justified in that the Standing Tank Falcon's combat capabilities have improved between games.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Typhon and his Standing Tank Giga-Desp.
  • Giant Spider: Standing Tank Arachnus in the second game.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: The player's coach in the second game, Rola, is revealed to be an alien who wants to protect the Earth from an incoming invasion. Her actual skin is more of a teal.
  • Heel Face Turn: In the first game, Tasha, Eddie and Antonov, pilots of the Standing Tanks Artemis, Valius and Ivan, help you out in the final battle against Anubis and his Standing Tank Thanatos.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Eddie and the Standing Tank Valius. To start things off, he's the 3rd-to-last enemy in the game, which qualifies his skill. His power comes from the sheer variety of attacks he has, from firing volleys of missles to blasting away with his twin shoulder mounted laser cannons. See Beyond the Impossible above for an example of his speed, but also know that he is also able to create illusory doubles and even causes the screen to bob back and forth from trying to catch up with him. He can also easily take hits, as you'll still need to fire several energy bolts at him even if you blow off the entire lower half of his mech.
  • Mama Bear: Pamela in Metal Combat, in regards to her husband Zephyr. When you defeat him, she gets very angry.
  • Market-Based Title: Battle Clash is known as Space Bazooka in Japan.
  • Mighty Glacier: Antonov and the Standing Tank Ivan.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Rola and Carol.
  • New Neo City: New York is re-christened Neo New York in Metal Combat, even though the city is still pretty much the same as it was in the previous game... completely ruined.
  • Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Why is the sequel called Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge instead of Metal Combat: Battle Clash 2 or Battle Clash 2: Falcon's Revenge?
    • Could have been playing off of the name Mortal Kombat, which was rather popular at the time.
  • Oh Crap: Whenever your Standing Tank has sustained enough damage, you get a beeping alarm and the word CRITICAL appears in the lower right corner of the screen, in red no less.
  • One-Hit Kill: If you fail to find a way to defeat Giga-Desp's first form when the music changes and it powers up its ultimate attack, you will lose, regardless of how much energy your Standing Tank has left.
    • To clue you in to this, once Giga-Desp starts charging its attack, the music takes a turn for the dramatic and the background looks like it's having a seizure (6:14). Oh Crap indeed.
    • This works in your favor, as well: under the right conditions, a fully-charged shot from the Standing Tank Tornado can bring down some early enemies in one hit.
  • One-Winged Angel: Thanatos in the first game, and Virvius and Giga-Desp in the second.
  • Puzzle Boss: Everyone can usually be taken down with enough shots to vulnerable areas, but if you know the correct areas to shoot at (and in what order), you can take down a good portion of bosses in an extremely short amount of time.
    • Some bosses actually fit the strict description of the trope, such as the Standing Tank Groken.
  • Rank Inflation: Metal Combat gives out military ranks based on how fast you complete the game.
  • Rocket Punch: Garam and Thanatos use them. Thanatos will even use a Rocket Kick by launching his Standing Tank's legs at you.
  • Shoot the Hostage: In Metal Combat's Final Boss battle, Typhon has captured Rola and uses her to guard his newly-upgraded mech's weak spot. She begs you to shoot her to help bring him down, but you can avoid doing so to get a better ending.
    • PROTIP: Use TURBO Shots.
  • Shout-Out: The theme that plays after completing a practice level is the same music as the level-up theme from Fire Emblem. After all, the composer of both games was Yuka Tsujiyoko, the woman behind the music composition of most of the Fire Emblem games.
  • Spider Tank: The Standing Tank Ivan, which is so massive that it takes up the entire screen.
  • Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Carlos in Standing Tank Baron, and again in Standing Tank Viscount.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Zephyr and his wife Pamela.
  • Turns Red: Inverted. Whenever a part of the enemy Standing Tank flashes orange it means that's either the critical weakpoint or that its armor is weakening and becoming a new weakpoint.
  • Warmup Boss: Guido, pilot of Garam and Garam Mk II, is your first opponent in both games.
  • Wave Motion Gun: The Neutron Beam.
  • You Have No Chance to Survive:

Alfred (Standing Tank Schneider): My calculations say the chances of you winning are... 0%.

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