Press Start/Recap

This is a synopsis of the first Press Start movie.

The movie starts with an Animated Credits Opening resembling several old, low-graphics video games. Scrolling Text explains the setting: that it takes place in a world very similar to modern Earth, except things like monsters from video games exist in it, and that it has been mostly conquered by an evil sorcerer named Lord Vile.

The opening sequence of the live-action part –with a paperboy on a bicycle hitting people with newspapers- is a homage to the video games Paperboy and Burger Time.

We then see the protagonist, a young man named Zack Nimbus (who dresses like Ken from Street Fighter) as he goes through his morning routine, lampshading the odd facts about living in a universe that runs on video game logic. (He sounds like they are all new to him, as if he just awakened on a different reality, but this isn’t explained.)

Later, he meets a man in a spacesuit –actually a young woman, but he doesn’t realize that- named Sam. She then contacts her ally, a bloodthirsty Ninja named Lin-Ku, telling him she thinks she’s found the Chosen One foretold by a prophecy to kill Vile- Zack.

A short time later, Zack is attacked by monsters outside of the town. He’s outnumbered, but Sam and Lin-ku show up to help him. Their Exposition Fairy, Zippy, also shows up afterwards, but he only gives them advice that they have already figured out, annoying them.

The two heroes tell Zack about the ancient prophecy, but he’s doubtful about his part in it. Still, he joins the Resistance.

Meanwhile, Lord Vile is informed by his long-suffering assistant, Johnson, about the heroes, but he dismisses them as harmless, since he lives in a castle protected by a spell that can only be broken with three relics that he has hid in different places.

The heroes go to the local supplies salesman and find a map that helps them find the location of the first relic; its inside a tree in the forest. Zack also picks up a visor nobody else wanted (it gives the user headaches.)

The heroes find the tree, only to discover that it is alive! Lin-Ku wants to kill it, but Zack tries being friendly first, and it almost works, until Zack mentions that he hates the Jackomo card game, which the tree loves, so it attacks them. They then kill it by throwing its own apples back at it. This upsets Zack, and Lin-ku gets angry at him for being soft.

Anyway they find the first relic inside the tree (which is shaped like a game boy) and when Zack touches it, he gets a vision of where the next relic is located: in an abandoned martial arts arena. They go there, where they meet Vile's minion, G. Foreman, who is also the man who killed Lin-Ku’s masters (he’s based on Street Fighter's M. Bison). Lin-Ku takes on him one-on-one (with Sam acting as the announcer) and Lin-Ku kills him by ripping his heart out. They then find the second relic inside a trophy.

As they head out of the Dojo, they run into the vendor again –who has a selling spot here too, despite it making no sense-. Lin-Ku hits him with his axe, just to find out if video game characters besides the protagonists could die. He hurts the vendor, but they leave him since they assume he can cure himself with his own healing potions.

The second relic gives Zack another vision- this time the last relic is inside a scientific laboratory that has become overrun with a zombie-creating virus. Sam is therefore the only person who can safely get inside because of her spacesuit.

While they wait outside for her, Lin-Ku talks with Zack about Sam’s attraction to him, which leads to a hilarious confusion over her being gay. Lin-Ku finally explains to Zack that Sam is actually a girl.

Sam manages to fight her way to the relic, though she has to kill the vendor, who became a zombie intentionally just to get revenge on them. But then she is attacked by Vile, whom Johnson finally convinced on coming to handle things personally. Sadly for him Vile teleported Johnson along with him, meaning he got exposed to the zombie virus (Vile is immune to it.) Vile captures Sam and teleports back to his lair where he places her in chains (and out of her suit) and taunts her, until he realizes that the relic she gave him is a fake- Zack and Lin-Ku have the real one!

Equipped with the three relics, the two heroes enter Vile's lair, and he monitors their progress as they slowly overcome all his traps. Finally he kills Sam and goes to face the others himself. Hoever Sam survives (thanks to a magic mushroom that Zack had given her as a gift earler) and joins the battle. However it turns out that the weapons they needed to beat Vile could only be obtained by playing the Jackomo game, which they disdained! Vile is curb stomping the three of them, mainly because he can continuously create duplicates of himself; however, using the supposedly useless visor, Zack spots the real Vile and kills him.

The movie ends with another animated credits sequence, in which we see all the other heroes that Vile had turned to stone (all of whom are thinly disguised versions of famous video game characters) come back to life due to Vile's death.