Charlie Ninja
Charlie Ninja is a rather obscure arcade game made in 1994 by Mitchell, of Pang fame. You control a pair of ninjas killing people in totally unrelated scenarios, such as the Wild West, a stadium and a haunted house/laboratory.
It plays like a fairly average Platform Game, crossed with a Fighting Game: our heroes are able to perform a variety of special moves with specific button and joystick movement combinations. It also has a very peculiar art style, which looks like a homage/parody of American comic book and cartoon characters, complete with Written Sound Effects, many years before Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt made this style cool and fashionable.
Tropes used in Charlie Ninja include:
- Acrofatic: The boss of stage four, a huge quarterback.
- Gonk: Almost every character in the game has weird physical features.
- Gratuitous English: Fitting with the cartoon-inspired style of the game. Our heroes shout "Yeah!" when they complete a level, and every boss says "I GIVE UP" when defeated.
- Guide Dang It: While the attract mode takes its time to show that, by pressing both the jump and shoot button at the same time, you will activate the temporary invincibility (a rather difficult feat, huh?), the button and movement sequences used to perform the special moves are explained absolutely nowhere in the game.
- Leather Man: The third boss is a Macho Camp, kiss-blowing, gas-belching moustached delinquent named Freddie... Borders on Take That crossed with No Celebrities Were Harmed.
- Mad Scientist: Some enemies in the final stage, and the Final Boss.
- Satire, Parody, Pastiche: Two enemies are parodies of Rambo and Jason Voorhees.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: It seems averted when you meet female enemies, cheerleaders. But then you kill them, and they're exposed as Wholesome Crossdressers. No, screw that, Butt-Ugly Crossdressers.
- X Meets Y: Shinobi meets cartoons.