Ty the Tasmanian Tiger



Ty The Tasmanian Tiger is an Aussie-made video game series about Australia and its many wonderous (and often dangerous) things, utilizing Funny Animals.

The first game chronicled the story of TY, the eponymous Tazzy Tiger trying to stop the villainous Boss Cass from reclaiming five talismans and unsealing the Dreamtime, which would let the cassowary wipe out all those mammals who usurped the dinosaurs' place. In a complete coincidence, recovering all the talismans allowed TY to reunite with his family and put Boss Cass behind bars.

The second game began with a full-scale assault and jailbreak, which of course went off with barely a hitch. Freed, Boss Cass began his plans to conquer Southern Rivers through more traditional means... military force. TY, his brother Sly, ostensible girlfriend Shazza, and friends form the rather unfortunately named Bush Rescue group. TY then goes around Southern Rivers solving everyone's problems and fighting a few boss battles and Mooks until he puts an end to Boss Cass's plans.

The third, and so far final, game has TY going to rescue the mysterious Bunyips from the Quinkan, and in the process of returning home, get stuck in limbo for six months. When he does finally return, Southern Rivers is devastated, the Quinkan have the few survivors bottled up in a small, run-down town, and Boss Cass has allied with them and is the puppet ruler of the land. Though Cass isn't too happy about being on a leash, he's unable to actively oppose his masters, and helps TY -- as long as it's convenient and furthers his own plots -- in getting rid of their evil overlords.

Tropes used: "Sly: So... a nuclear powered kart, huh?
 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: It does fit under the town proper, but the tunnels themselves are incredibly wide for what they do, even if you see smaller pipes emptying into the sewer. Oh, and it's full of crocodiles.
 * Action Girl/Faux Action Girl: Shazza, flip-flopping between the two. Dear lord, Shazza. See "Distressed Damsel".
 * Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Why is your brother charging you 75,000 opals for twin boomerangs?!
 * Advancing Wall of Doom: The Giant Stone Beetle of Rhinocarnook. Exactly What It Says on the Tin, coupled with Grind Boots. While moving toward the camera.
 * After the End: TY 3.
 * Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: The Bunyip Gauntlet in TY 3.
 * Apathetic Citizens: Oh, yes, Boss Cass has planned is planning to conquer us. Again. Ho hum. Though that does come back to bite them in the arse.
 * Arrow Cam: The camera follows the Doomerang as you control it.
 * Artificial Stupidity: Enemies will almost always run straight towards you, even if you are firing directly at them.
 * Australian Accent: Duh.
 * Awesome but Impractical: In TY 2 and 3, the Doomerang. Sure, it's remote-controlled, but you never need to snipe the mooks anyway. The Kaboomerang in TY 2 also counts; it generates a large explosion in front of you, but requires that TY throw both boomerangs at once leaving him nearly defenseless, and there is a significant delay before they detonate. In TY 1, however, it's the best choice simply for how much damage it does.
 * Awesome Yet Practical: By comparison, Sly's Deadlyrangs in TY 2, once purchased from him. They explode for just as much damage as the Kaboomerangs, but fly quickly in a straight line as opposed to a slow, closing spiral, can be thrown individually, and come back much faster.
 * Bad Boss: Boss Cass, oh so very much. Physically abusing a Mook for suggesting an alteration to your plan, then going on to use his idea anyway?
 * Back Tracking: If you're a 100% completionist kind of person, anyways.
 * Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Ty.
 * Bizarrchitecture: In TY 2, Julius' lab is a normal mashup of house and observatory... built to twice the scale (including doors and windows!) of all the other buildings. Also, parodies and references to Australia's Big Things abound.
 * Boomerang Comeback: The opening cinematic in TY 1, it actually knocked Boss Cass out of his Humongous Mecha. Pity about his remote, really...
 * Cardboard Obstacle: Technically concrete, but it fences you off from getting the uber-rangs until about halfway through the second and third game.
 * Check Point: If you die, you simply pop out at the nearest... er, dunny. In the first game your exit out of the Aussie outhouse was preceded by a relieved sigh.
 * Cheeky Mouth: Just find a picture of Ty gritting his teeth the way he does in the above image, but facing head on.
 * Opening his mouth mid-bite attack does not count.
 * The 4th picture in the Picture Gallery on Ty 1 has him head on.
 * Chekhov's Boomerang: Perhaps an inexcusable use as a trope title given TY's weapon, but in TY 1,
 * Hang on, Ty only uses that thing once, so wouldn't that make it a regular Chekhov's Gun, rather than a Chekhov's Boomerang?
 * The Chosen One: TY in the first and third game. Less so in the second, where he's saving the day because he can, not because a higher power is saying he ought.
 * Classic Cheat Code: The Konami Code in the GBA version of TY 2.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Gooboo Steve. . Unfortunately...
 * Collection Sidequest: Bilbies and Cogs and Gooboo Steve encounters and Frill Spies...
 * Combos: From the second game on. In the second game, they seemingly served no purpose, other than to record how many enemies you took down in quick succession. In the third, since you participated in hand-to-hand combat, the concept made considerably more sense.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Only in the racing segments. While there's no Rubber Band AI, the karts are barely slowed by taking hits, whereas you will be spun into facing the wrong way while everyone passes you by.
 * Conjoined Eyes
 * Convection, Schmonvection: You wander around in volcanoes a little too often; guess what, the lava only hurts by contact damage!
 * Cosmic Keystone: TY 1's five Talismans.
 * Crate Expectations: Everywhere.
 * Darker and Edgier: TY 3. Where to begin? The player character is missing for six months, and in that time your hometown is completely razed, the survivors relocated, and the entirety of Southern Rivers conquered and devastated by the Quinkan.
 * Death Course: Some areas seem to delight in this.
 * Defeat Means Friendship: Sly and Fluffy.
 * Ditto Fighter: Sly in TY 1, CY in TY 2, in TY 3.
 * Distressed Damsel: Shazza, in two of the three games. In the first one she was only in danger for a quick fight, in the third she was gone for half the game.
 * Dual-Wielding: Ty receives his second boomerang in the one of the first levels in TY 1. From there on he has at least two, sometimes more.
 * Easter Egg: Shazza's old, rickety Jeep has cameos in TY 2 and TY 3. In TY 3,.
 * An Economy Is You: Crosses over with Adam Smith Hates Your Guts with some of the asking prices.
 * Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The Doomerang in TY 1, the Shadow Bunyip in TY 2, and the Shadowrang in TY 3.
 * Elite Mooks: The Uber Frills of TY 2 and 3. They're impossible to kill with a basic boomerang, though the upgraded rangs and Sly's Deadlyrangs cut right through them.
 * Escort Mission: Dennis, in all three games.
 * Everything Fades: Opals, your currency in the second and third games, will disappear if left alone long enough. Also applies to your defeated enemies, who vanish in a puff of smoke.
 * Everything's Better with Princesses: TY 2 has the character Princess Orchid, who was merely mentioned in the first game, make an appearance. She sends you through the Temple of Carnook.
 * Evil Is Hammy: What? How dare you imply that Boss Cass is the least bit hammy, you moronic nincompoop!
 * Evil Laugh: Boss Cass likes this, yes he does.
 * Evil Twin: In the first game, it was more Evil Big Brother. The next time around, it was a robot copy. First Sly, then a mechanical replica meant to help you improve your abilities. Even with five against one, they're still pretty pathetic...
 * Exploding Barrels: Technically boxes, but they still go boom. And how.
 * Fake Platform: Often indistinguishable from the real ones, other times they'll smoke and spark when you're not standing on them.
 * Fantastic Racism: More like Fantastic Speciesism, and related to the below Reptiles Are Abhorrent, you only see two frill lizards that are good. Shouldn't there be more lurking around somewhere?
 * The end of TY 3 averts this a little, as you see a young frill on the same playground as the mammals. For a fraction of a second.
 * Fire, Ice, Lightning: Your boomerangs come in, yep, fire, ice, and electricity, as did the Thunder Eggs and opals you collected in the first game. Interestingly enough, concept art for the opals showed one of the earth element, which might have matched up with the exploding Kaboomerang...
 * Flamboyant Gay: Dennis the cheapskate, I mean green tree frog. It's not stated, but he seems a safe bet. The same goes for his nephew...
 * Hinted at further when you retrieve a Thunder Egg in the third game. So far, they've all been color coded: red for fire, blue for ice, green for... electricity, and several gold ones were used as medals. The ones Dennis tasks you with finding? Pink.
 * Floating Platforms: Handwaved with them consisting mostly of a large fan encased in a rectangular safety grille. Power supply and fuel isn't addressed. Oh, and some are (mostly) invisible.
 * Follow the Money: Again with the opals!
 * Frictionless Ice: To a rather annoying extent in the first game. Trying to get Hundred-Percent Completion where you must slide over thin ice without adjusting your direction would be bad enough. The kicker is when you have to have the precise angle set up from a good two hundred feet away... on the slippery ice.
 * The thin ice doesn't shatter if you use the very slightest pressure on the stick, causing Ty to tiptoe. Still difficult, and rife with gnashing of teeth.
 * Furry Confusion: TY 1, in the Hub Level: "Aww, look at the cute little wallabies hopping around!" A single level later (the very first one!), you're whacking their sapient kangaroo cousins out cold. Let's not get into the lizards crawling about the place...
 * Gameplay Ally Immortality: Sure, your brother and your love interest are in Mini-Mecha, but yours is far superior -- so why isn't that BFG killing them?
 * Genre Savvy: TY and Sly might have become this in the third game.

TY: Yup!

Sly (After a short pause): Shouldn't we be freaked out by that?

TY (Frowning and scratching his ear): I think so. (Pauses.) Wanna just go?

Sly: Yyyyyyyyyep."


 * Go for the Eye: Buster, the (non)nanobot works this way... by targeting the controller revealed when he "roars".
 * Grind Boots: TY can do this with his bare paws. Ouch.
 * Guide Dang It: Getting Hundred-Percent Completion sometimes requires this.
 * Guns Are Worthless: When Julius is working with plutonium?!
 * Haunted Castle: Parodied. Aside from one Mook disguised as a ghost and getting them riled, they're perfectly content to wander around harmlessly.
 * Heel Face Turn: An amazingly rapid one from TY's elder brother Sly, after encountering his brother twice, and getting the stuffing knocked out of him both times. The second time consisted entirely of a cutscene. Fluffy takes much longer and gets character development too.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:.
 * Hollywood Science: The boomerangs, the portals, the "energy from geodes 'Thunder Eggs'", the bunyips, any of the inventions...
 * High Altitude Battle: In a cross between a jet and a ship from R-Type.
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Boss Cass's ninja geckoes will stand around until they see you... then backflip around, climb trees and bungee down, and throw shuriken at you.
 * Hijacked by Ganon: Guess who let the Quinkan into Southern Rivers. Go on. Guess.
 * Hundred-Percent Completion: It can take years to completely finish the first game.
 * Humongous Mecha: You get to fight several throughout the series. Unlike the others, in the first game you fought one on foot.
 * Hub Level: Rainbow Cliffs, Bush Rescue, New Burramudgee, and Cassopolis.
 * Idle Animation: One involves TY spinning both boomerangs with his fingers... and one flying off into the bush. He pulls a replacement out of the front of his shorts. Others involve fanning himself with his rangs, which can have... clipping issues, and biting at insects.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Aside from the Chekhov's Boomerang example, the Zoomerang, Kaboomerang, X-rang and Doomerang all qualify. Also, Lenny the lyrebird, Mount Boom...
 * Insistent Terminology: "TY" is always spelled in all capitals in offical material. The reason is unknown. Possibly a combination of Xtreme Kool Letterz and attempted Rule of Cool.
 * Interspecies Romance: TY the tazzy tiger and Shazza the dingo. Possibly Fluffy and TY... until TY 3's ending.
 * Invisible Block: Partially visible, but bloody annoying when your X-rang is equipped. That handy 'ping', letting you know something hidden is nearby? It gets irritating. Quickly. Also applies to platforms.
 * Invulnerable Civilians: You can have the most dangerous weapons in the game, and you still can't hurt the townspeople.
 * Item Crafting: TY 3 has you setting what attributes you want to each boomerang chassis you own.
 * Killer Robot: The CY robots in the training grounds, who are programmed to make you feel a world of hurt. Alas, they're not very good at that either.
 * Land Down Under: Accents, slang, sweeping generalizations abound. Originally left at the top because, well, it practically defines the game.
 * Large Ham: Boss Cass, yet again. When informed that the latest evil device copies the warm-bloodedness of mammals and puts it in his frill minions, leaving the mammal "cold-blooded" and shivering, his response is "That's not a side-effect, that's a feature! It'll make a great bullet-point on the side of the box!"
 * Last Lousy Point: Getting all the picture frame collectables will drive you insane.
 * Law of One Hundred: Thankfully avoided, unless you count Hundred-Percent Completion.
 * Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Oh so thoroughly abused.
 * Lethal Lava Land: Mount Boom.
 * Loading Screen: TY 1. The later games hid the loading during area transitions, though they still crop up when transitioning to a race or Gunyip area.
 * Lost Forever: TY 3 has some levels become unaccessable after you leave them for the last plot-related reason. Guide Dang It!
 * Lost World: The Never Never in TY 2.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Click here, click EnTYclopedia, then click Characters. Honestly, too many to keep track of...
 * Mad Scientist: Julius' uncle Karlos, who despite being mammalian helps Boss Cass. We're never given a credible reason why except for young Julius being a far brighter scientist at a much younger age.
 * Meaningless Lives: At least in TY 1, it's near-impossible to run out. Not so much in the sequels.
 * Mecha-Mooks: The robots faced in the bunyips. More of an obstacle and annoyance than a credible threat, and that's even when you're using the bunyip designed to put out fires.
 * Mercy Invincibility: Lasts juuuuuust long enough for you to pummel whatever dared hurt you.
 * Mini-Mecha: The Bunyips from the sequel.
 * Money for Nothing: Opals litter the streets and every area you come across. Oh, and they respawn.
 * More Dakka: You can acquire boomerang sets that let you fling at least four at once. Some will home in on enemies before returning. Repeatedly.
 * Multi Mook Melee: They're pushovers.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: The hidden ending clip to TY 1 shows CY being ominously activated, leading to the logical conclusion it'd play a large part in the next game. It didn't.
 * Night of the Living Mooks: The imaginatively named Zombie Frills of TY 3.
 * No OSHA Compliance: Boss Cass' fortresses tend to have an overabundance of lava, suspended platforms over it with no railings, flamethrowers aimed at said platforms, air strikes, swarms of Killer Robots standing around, legions of mooks, Spikes of Doom...
 * No Indoor Voice: A major part of Boss Cass's personality. And the games are better for it.
 * Non-Mammal Mammaries: Fluffy, and the female Frills.
 * Numbered Sequels
 * One-Winged Angel:
 * Pass Through the Rings: The racing segments of TY 1. Also, the dive from the tower later in the same game.
 * Personal Space Invader: On foot, leeches and ticks, which cling to your face until you shake them off. On your Bunyip, the Mooks will latch onto your mech's head. Also, the Drop Bears in TY 3, who'll, well... drop onto you. Then start playing drums with your skull.
 * The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Pretty much everyone except TY, though your Bush Rescue teammembers will lend an occasional hand in the second and third games. Exceptionally glaring when the head of police comments there's a spy in town... who'll never be caught if you personally don't get rid of him. Also, there's yet another in the town alone. Don't even get started at the number spread throughout the World Map and levels.
 * Plot Hole: In the first game, your adoptive bilby family was caged, and you had to rescue them for, yep, Hundred-Percent Completion. The same went for the Golden Cogs, where collecting fifteen netted you a more powerful boomerang set. The second and third game has bilbies and Platinum Cogs lying around the world map, with no reason given to collect them, aside from a slight boost to your wallet.
 * The Power of Friendship: Exactly what brings Fluffy over to TY's side,.
 * Precision-Guided Boomerang: The Doomerang, quite literally. You switch to controlling it directly while TY simply stands there. This can have complications if enemies are in close quarters.
 * President Evil: Boss Cass in the second and third games, with his own independent city of Cassopolis. Works until Fridge Logic sets in and you realize he's pretty much already declared war on you, so why haven't you sent in the army yet?
 * Unfortunately, they have been sent in. The problem is, they suck.
 * The Professor: The amusingly and aptly named Julius McGuffin.
 * Projected Man: How Julius appears in the training grounds, and a few other places. One was a very short walk away from where he's always standing...
 * Puzzle Boss: A lot of them turn into this. The puzzles tend to be fairly simple, though. Like "shoot the buttons", "Attack Its Weak Point For Massive Damage", etc...
 * Racing Mini Game: TY 2 has a surprisingly fleshed-out one as a kind of mini-mode, available right from the start.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Gooboo Steve.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The main Mooks are frilled lizards. In the second game, however, a frilled lizard is the cook for Bush Rescue, and responds to Ty's surprise at seeing him with "Not all lizards are bad, you know!" Aside from running the tutorial in the second game, they're useless. Averted in TY 3, though, where they run a very helpful shop.
 * Rewarding Vandalism: There are crates of opals littered all over the place. No one comments on you breaking them open and stealing the contents. Even when you use explosives in the middle of town.
 * Save the Princess: Shazza in TY 1 and TY 3. Much, much worse in the third game.
 * Scarf of Asskicking: TY gets one in the third game; since it has the same pattern as his shorts from the previous one, there's a decent chance it was actually made from them. Or just made from the same type of fabric.
 * Secret Level: In TY 1, just containing collectables.
 * Seldom-Seen Species: Oh yes. In the case of the title character and family, they're currently thought to be extinct.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Any of the mads. No, not THOSE Mads...
 * Shown Their Work: The koalas have two thumbs on each hand. That's only the start... An Expy of Ned Kelly is even a miniboss fight in the first game.
 * Shout-Out: The CY robot wandering around Burramudgee will sometimes say "By your command."
 * Stop Helping Me!: A literal case for Lenny the lyrebird. However, he's not as helpful as you'd want... until you start doing the opposite of what he says. He later gets a job telling stories to kids in daycare.
 * Take That: this commerical has Ty beating up Sonic, Crash, and Spyro. Sonic fans were NOT amused.
 * Techno Babble: Julius, Karlos, anyone who deals with anything vaguely referrable to as "Science".
 * Techno Wizard: Julius, who can make anything. And apparently, often has.
 * Temple of Doom: The Temples of Carnook and Rhinocarnook. You get money opals for surviving it! When did going inside become a good idea?
 * Temporary Platform: Both types of ice boomerangs do this, by either freezing water or chilling lava-based platforms. Other floating platforms will shrink and grow in and out of existence, either on a timer or shortly after you step on them.
 * Timed Mission: TY 2 does this, usually with explosives. Once, with a spark plug of all things. No, I don't know why it had to be delivered in five minutes, though having plutonium on a ticking clock made sense.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Of all people, Dennis. He went from being scared of walking home alone in the dark in TY 1 to gleefully running around blasting Quinkan with a rocket launcher in TY 3.
 * Unbreakable Weapons: This applies to every one of your boomerangs. Including the ones that explode violently.
 * Underwater Boss Battle: TY 3 has one that you can only lose if you're very, very poor at playing, or are very, very overconfident. Hint: streams of bubbles refill your air meter. Your air meter equals your health.
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: OK, so it's SLIGHTLY expected this time around -- TY 2 and 3 feature Cart Racing courts littered across the world map. However, they're also open right from the menu, so you at least know they're there. TY 3 adds in a High Altitude Battle or eight.
 * Unfortunate Names: Bush Rescue. Bush. Rescue.
 * Victory Pose: Involves balancing the item on the flat of a boomerang. How does he do that with a geode? Or a turning gear?
 * Voice with an Internet Connection: TY 2 and 3 have this as a way to relay mission objectives.
 * Wacky Racing: The Kart Racing minigames in TY 2 and TY 3. Epecially in TY 3, where one race won't let you use, or even pick up, powerups!
 * Wallet of Holding: The opals. This is what number again?
 * Weaksauce Weakness: If you can knock any frill or Quinkan, Uber or otherwise, into water, it's instant death. This also goes for lava, which is mighty strange for the Uber Frills that can breathe ice at you or the molten-rock based Quinkan.
 * What the Hell, Player?: It gets downright comedic in the third game, where whacking your Friend to All Living Things ally Ranger Ken with an exploding rang fills the shaking screen with smoke and fire... and his response is "That one hurt!" You might as well run around every game, smacking your allies repeatedly. Oh, and Sly's reaction to being blown up? "Good one, bro!"
 * Wretched Hive: Cassopolis in TY 2.
 * You All Look Familiar: Just follow any wandering citizen of Burramudgee around in TY 2. There's only a few characters, but at least their appearance isn't recycled. Except for the enemies, the koala workers, the dinosaurs... There are sometimes bugs that cause clones of the characters to walk around. Most noticably, this happens with Sheila.
 * You Ripper: Nearly 90% of TY's dialogue consists of Australian slang.
 * Australian slang that even some Australians haven't heard, at that!
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One: Every. Single. Game. At least the evil plan varies in each one...
 * You Have to Burn the Web: Often to continue onward, or to get to a collectible for Hundred Percent Completion. Oddly, they're frictionless.
 * You Have to Burn the Web: Often to continue onward, or to get to a collectible for Hundred Percent Completion. Oddly, they're frictionless.