The Sword and The Fish

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You are Clifford, a scrubby hick with a penchant for amorality, sarcasm, and thumping stuff before thinking. Along with his comrades, Clifford travels a twisted path towards his great fate: to be the one destined to "try" and fight Gwar, the demonic villain whose name is only coincidentally after the 80's metal band. Along this path your journeys take many unstereotypical routes - such as a Battle of the Bands, DNA cloning, ghost pirate sea ballads, and an infectious disease that sounds more like a cereal. The journey also contains particularly stereotypical routes - such as the Generic Tower, discussions over whether towers are more evil than caves, and the Island of Too Many Towers.

The Sword and The Fish is a freeware comedic-RPG created by Joel Minty and his brother, Tyler Minty, using RPG Maker 2000. Released Summer of 2006, the game was a huge hit. Featuring a large cast of sidekicks, over 1,500 maps, loads of items and optional quests galore, this game is long. Nonetheless, its quirky plot and the interesting cast of characters (and awesome music) will keep you dying to know what happens next. Download it here: [1] ^{[dead link]}

You can also access the game's facebook page here: [2]

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Tropes used in The Sword and The Fish include:

• The Ace: Presto Mundo, without question!
• Always Someone Better: Clifford is this for Apocalypso.
• An Axe to Grind: Risco Rah's weapon of choice.
• Badass Princess: She's called Princess Headbutt for a reason!
• Bag of Sharing
• BFG: Quadlink's weapon.
• Better Than It Sounds: One can easily dismiss this game as a "silly joke game", but it is actually really, really good and a lot of fun. The amount of effort the Minty brothers put into this is evident.
• Bishonen: Forgor mostly, but Clifford, Edge and Zaknafien all turn into one after the midway point plot-upgrade.
• Blow You Away: Forgor's tech skills consist of these.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Clifford is with you from beginning to end.
• Casting a Shadow: Zaknafien's tech skills.
• The Charmer: Sweet C
• The Chick: Sasha starts as this, but the role is shifted to Anna when she joins.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: In the middle of game, every character gets an upgrade. Not only do they become more powerful, but they also get new sprite and face graphics, effectively elevating them from "regular kids" (some of them anyway) to actual heroes. The whole sequence just feels *epic*.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Several tracks. Where else are you going to hear a Beastie Boys track in an RPG?
  • Special mention goes to Archibald's theme.
• Cute Bruiser: Princess Anna Headbutt. Try to guess what her fighting technique consists of.
• Cute Witch: Penelope. And she has wings, too!
• The Cutie: Penelope again.
• Deadpan Snarker: Most of the characters have their moments, but Clifford is the king.
• Disappeared Dad: We never see or hear anything about Clifford's father.
• Disc One Final Dungeon: Okay, so, you've broken through the barrier and are about to confront the madman behind everything. The dungeon is difficult and the music is properly epic. By the time the dungeon is over with, a new character has joined your party, seven powerful demons have been released and you're off to a new chapter...the longest one yet!
• Dishing Out Dirt: Sasha's tech skills.
• Dual-Wielding: Zaknafien and Risco Rah
• Dungeon Bypass: When you head to the ruins of Roma to save Clifford's mother, you're expected to take the secret entrance into the castle for a standard dungeon romp...or you can just go through the front door, kill the boss and leave.
• Easily Forgiven: The Curves are awfully chummy towards Clifford when he reunites with each one despite the fact it was entirely his fault they broke up in the first place.
• Elemental Powers: Each character's tech skill consists of magic that is geared towards a specific elemental property, as well as skills that are related to his or her weapon of choice.
• Evil All Along: Moop, which was actually a pretty surprising twist.
• Fake Longevity: Mostly absent, though in the original release random encounters were much longer than they should have been.
• Flanderization: Zaknafien seems to get dumber as the game goes on.
• Four Man Bad:
  • Clifford - The Hero
  • Sasha - Doubles as The Smart One & The Chick
  • Edge - The Lancer
  • Zaknafien - The Big Guy (comparatively speaking)
• Genki Girl: Gwen and Princess Headbutt.
• Get on the Boat
• Global Airship: Obtained towards the end.
• The Heart: Sasha
• Housewife: Clifford's mom, more or less.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Zaknafien sets out to do this by joining a pack of vampires.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • Sasha - Bass
  • Edge - Guitar
  • Anna - Her head
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Apocalypso and his goons.
• Kill It with Ice: Quinn and Anna
• Kill It with Water: Presto Mundo's tech skills.
• Light'Em Up: What Clifford's tech skills mostly consist of.
• The Medic: Clifford alternates between this and Lightening Bruiser.
• Millionaire Playboy: Forgor. His mansion has more people living in it than some of the game's villages.
• Money Spider: This is a traditional RPG. It's to be expected.
• Now Where Was I Going Again?: Especially during the final chapter, in which the game becomes totally nonlinear.
• One of the Boys: Sasha, and this extends beyond her role in the band.
• Party in My Pocket
• Perma-Shave: None of the male characters have facial hair (well, Quinn 'may', but you can't tell)
• Recurring Character: Presto Mundo starts as this before becoming a regular member of the team.
• The Rival: Apocalypso (at least he tries to be)
• Running Gag: The mirror demon, Clifford only being able to play "Bad Cops" on pianos, and Clifford constantly being referred to as "that freaky haired lout".
• Shock and Awe: Quadlink's and Edge's tech skills.
• Spoiled Sweet: Princess Anna
• Spoiler Opening: The title screen shows off every major villain in the game.
• Tomboy: Sasha
• Updated Rerelease: One was released a year or so after the original version. It fixed balances issues including (but limited to) lowering the encounter rate and decreasing some of the normal encounters' health points. All very good changes.
• Useless Useful Spell: Subverted with Presto Mundo's "Me Love Me Life" tech skill. It recovers 40 health and magic points to the whole party. Unfortunately, by the time Priesto joins, enemies will be dishing out 3x that amount of damage every single turn and recovering 40 magic points (give or take) is barely enough to cover one round. So what exactly is it good for, you ask? As long as Presto has enough magic points to cast the spell while on the field map, you'll pretty much NEVER have to buy another healing item ever again. This is especially useful in that healing items (and money) are not as plentiful as you'd probably like, especially at that stage of the game, so to have the opportunity to enter every battle fully-recovered gives you a HUGE advantage. Not that it makes the rest of the game a piece of cake mind you, but it does make certain dungeons much less stressful (The Inca Ruins, for an example).
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Gwar's Castle
• Whip It Good: A number of Sasha's skills (such as "Ponytail Whiplash").