Holy Beast Online

(Just inside Water Dragon Castle, by the mailbox.)

Uzumi: Welcome to Water Dragon Castle. How can I become a great writer?

—Dragon Soldier, NPC

Holy Beast Online is a Free to Play Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game developed by Easyfun Entertainment of Taiwan. It began beta phase on the 21st of May in the USA. A Download to the game client can be found at the official Cyber Step site here. This game also has a small Web Comic called Holy Beast Kidz.

Tropes used in Holy Beast Online include:

All Deserts Have Cacti: Many maps have cacti or mushrooms on them. They're usually small, but it doesn't stop your character from getting stuck on them. And then there are Wrigglons, which are cactus-like monsters that wear bowties.
All in a Row: With the option to "Track" other players, this can occur.
Allegedly Free Game: Some items you can't obtain without purchasing them in the Item Mall (which takes real money to purchase from), though they're sometimes given out in events.
Amazing Technicolor Wildlife
And Your Reward Is Clothes: Most quest rewards, along with gold and experience, consist of clothes or weapons. While some of it is rare or enhanced, other times it's just for looks.
Artificial Stupidity: While most monsters automatically work their way around obstacles like fences or rocks, sometimes they just flounder about while you hit them with long-ranged attacks. Averted with some bosses: they either run away when their HP is low or call on other monsters to help.
Battle Aura: Each animal has an aura that is unique to them based on their clan's element when using berserk.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The main "antagonists" of this game are the Insect Clan. There are tons of different types of insects, and generally, they get bigger as you go further in the game. The smallest of them is about waist-high.
Bizarro Fiction: The Bizarro monsters themselves.
Blessed with Suck: Healers. Already squishy as a mage, they don't get very good magic attack power until after level 30. From there, however, it's easy to handle monsters several levels higher as long as you have potions.
- Also don't expect to win at PvP unless you're fighting a Warrior who forgot how to use Shatter.
Breakable Weapons
Call A Rabbit A "Marla"
Call a Smeerp a Rabbit: Berserker Insects.
Camera Screw: The camera isn't fixed, technically, but that doesn't stop it from happening. Watch in horror as you turn your camera right when a lag occurs, the command gets stuck, and everything starts turning every which way by the slightest movement of the mouse. Fortunately, you can fix it easily with a right click. Just hope that you're not in danger when this happens.
Charles Atlas Superpower: You can punch bears to death.
Circling Birdies: After you die, you respawn at your home point. A dizzy swirl with circling stars along with a "Weak" status hangs over your head for the next three minutes.
Clothes Make the Superman: Proper armor could be the difference between the impossible and the possible.
Curb Stomp Battle: Nearly any time you enter the PvP arena with bored high-level players hanging around.
A Dog Named "Dog": Some players are uncreative.
Damage Sponge Boss: Many of the LARGE bosses found at dead ends or the end of a cave/PvP map have ridiculously huge amounts of HP to the point that it is near impossible to defeat them on your own, even if you're 10 levels higher than it is.
- Unless you've got a good supply of potions and are clever with either hit and run tactics or with long range attacks, assuming you can keep it up.
- For some bosses, their health bar is only half the problem. Once the boss's health is 3/4 decimated, it will try to escape you for a second, then turn around and double buff itself with Dark Rage, which makes it even more powerful than it already was. Sometimes while running away it will even cause hordes of the seemingly non-aggressive enemies to gang up on the player. Good luck fighting these guys alone.
Dual-Wielding: Twin weapons for the thief class.
Eastern Zodiac: All the playable animals are based on this concept, with some elements mixed around.
Eldritch Abomination: Several monsters can fall under this, but most notably the Geds.
- On a related note, there is an Eldritch Spirit Tower early on in the game.
Emote Animation
Everything's Better with Samurai: The samurai costumes. Their stats are on par with HQ armor.
Everything's Better with Cows: Taurus clan.
Everything's Better with Monkeys: Monkey clan.
Cute Kitten: Tiger clan.
Precious Puppies: Dog clan.
Everything's Worse with Bears: The teddies. They make this horrifying crashing noise when they hit you, but they die in an amusing fashion.
Experience Points: Taken for granted at low levels.
Experience Booster: Also taken for granted at low levels.
Fake Ultimate Mook: Giant monsters.
Fate Worse Than Death: After dying, you return to your home point. You lose 10% of your total hard-earned experience, are under the "Weak" condition for three minutes which, unsurprisingly, significantly cuts your stats low, and you cannot return to human form until Weak wears off. A little better when revived by healers: you only lose 9% of your experience, there is no Weak status, and you get more of your HP recovered depending on the level of Revive. At level 100, Healers get a revive which only takes 5% experience as a death penalty.
- There are revival bells from Item Mall that work better. A Resurrection Bell, which restores 75% HP with an 8% experience death penalty loss, a Sacrifice Bell which fully restores HP with 0% experience loss, and the Revive Bell, which restores 40% HP with a 5% experience death penalty loss. The bells do not cause weakening, but they do cost some money to get.
- The same penalty goes for pets. If your pet dies, they lose 10% of their total PP and have to slowly regain HP.
Feathered Fiend: Bird-type enemies, such as Evil Bird and it's counterparts.
Fetch Quest: Sometimes on the other side of the castle, sometimes five maps away. Always unnecessary.
Formally-Named Pet: Some pets bought in market.
Four-Legged Insect: All of the Insect Clan have either two or four limbs. Never six.
Fridge Logic: There is a dragon clan, but there are also dragon monsters. No relation?
- Birds can fly, but certainly not over anything.
Glass Cannon: Hunters get skills that increase critical hit rate and specialize in bow skills that bind and cause damage over time at as safe a distance -- think mage classes with the bonus of faster attack speed. Their defense stats are, unfortunately, quite terrible.
Gotta Kill Em All: If it's not another player, you kill it. End of story. Unless you're in PvP, then the players are fair game as well as the monsters there.
Gradual Regeneration: Your health slowly regains on its own.
Gratuitous Foreign Language: Not counting the language of the players themselves, but anything with writing on it is in undecipherable runes. Halos, however, are {{{Exactly What It Says on the Tin} Japanese characters.}}
Hit Points: Warriors have enough to share.
Hub Level: Holy Beast Castle is the hub of hubs.
- The other fortresses later in the game also, aside from lacking a skill trainer and storehouse. Waterdragon Castle at least brings the storehouse back.
I Am Not Weasel: Norn is not a turkey.
Infinity+1 Sword: Often a quest reward.
Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: The Dragon Clan. The Water Dragon Castle is amazing as well. Inverted in that there are also dragon monsters.
Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Doesn't even have to be a fence. Some structures, hills just a little too steep, and things growing out of the landscape (such as six-inch mushrooms) are impossible to pass across.
Interspecies Romance: Relationships between players can lead to this.
Kleptomaniac Hero: If you chose Thief as your job class.
Leaked Experience: Affectionately known as power-leveling.
Level Grinding
Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest: The goal of most quests, actually.
Milestone Celebration: At level 20, you evolve into your second form. At one time, you got 10 free CD for reaching level 25, and currently you receive a free Flying Cloud at level 30. At level 50, you perform a quests and get rewarded with a third evolution with a better berserk than your unevolved form.
Money Spider: There was once a month-long event in which monsters with high experience rates and high gold drops covered one map. However, normal monsters in caves drop a good amount of gold, as well as bosses.
Monster Allies: Pets.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Any name colored in red.
Noodle Incident: Many NPCs reference them.
Oh Crap: The boss is down low on HP, and so are you. In an attempt to save itself, it called on all its nearby friends to attack you. Oh, and your healer died.
- Or, you're the healer, your fighter died, and all the monsters turn on you.
One Size Fits All: Armor fits everyone, and even comes in variations for male and female. Apparently, monsters wear it too, because why else would they have it?
- Maybe it's tasty?
Petting Zoo People: The whole game.
Piggyback Cute: The tiger player in the first chapter of the Holy Beast Kidz web comic does this to a dragon player, who apparently doesn't like it. Guess what?
- Done again in the final chapter, where our once newbie players finally reach the beautiful Waterdragon Castle and obtain their 3rd forms, this time with an extra passenger.
Player-Generated Economy: Best way to make money? Farm some good stuff and set up shop in Market.
Pretty Butterflies: Completely averted. Butterflies in this game are usually something to hide from.
Rainbow Pimp Gear: Lower leveled players are most subject to this, but higher levels are no exception. There is a point where you can neither afford nor find your level armor at the merchants. That means you have to farm your own armor from monsters, and it can result in a mismatched array of colors.
Randomly Drops
Room Full of Crazy: More like caves.
Sand Worm: The Geds, though apparently not just limited to sand, as there are some coming out of stones in towers. There's also a pet that is quite obvious it came from a volcano, which as long as it is out, will follow you ANY WHERE.
Scenery Porn: While there are several maps out there that can be bland, torn up here and there from apparent battle, or the breeding grounds of the resident killer insects, there are just as many that can be beautiful enough to not even care about how pointless it is to explore them.
- Examples include this, this, this, this, and this.
- Scenery Gorn: Several of the maps after Tiger Star Hill feature this. Holes with green fumes, insect hives, bones of dead giant praying mantises, spirits of the dead doing you harm, and an atmosphere of grey everywhere you look. Even the Fortress of Peace, which turns out to be quite the opposite.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Boss boxes.
Shapeshifting: From level 3 upward, you can change between beast form and human form.
Skill Point Reset
Small Annoying Creature: Arguably noobs.
Small Delicious Fish: At least one in every castle, and several more scattered about.
Sound of No Damage: DODGE! DODGE! MISS!
Space Compression: Most notable examples would be towers, especially Seraphim Tower. They look small outside, but are actually quite large inside.
Spell My Name with an "S": Many players use alt+ codes to write certain characters in their name, thereby avoiding random friend invites, group invites, and P Ms.
Spiteful AI: Some monsters in some areas, even if they're the non-aggressive ones, will gang up on you and attack in a group if you attack one of them. The first horrifying example is Small Demonblades, and it only gets worse from there.
Super Not-Drowning Skills: There are several maps in this game completely under large lakes.
Take Your Time: Quests can stay unfinished in your journal until you feel the motivation to finish them.
Talking Animal: Use general chat in beast form and you get this.
Tiger Versus Dragon: Can happen literally in PvP. Or for those tigers who are high enough to fight the dragon monsters.
Troublemaking New Pet: Especially if left on "aggressive."
Tutorial Level: Daybreak Valley.
Twenty Bear Asses: Can be taken figuratively or literally.
Tyrannosaurus Rex: As a pet.
Wallet of Holding
We Buy Anything: Useful for clearing inventory for at least a little gold from any of the merchants.
When Trees Attack: The Alarkey enemies.
Yet Another Stupid Death: Often the way to get back to your home point after just leveling.
You All Look Familiar: The only customization is clothes, hairstyle and hair color. However, some NPCs' hairstyles are different from those of player characters.