After completing the light puzzles, Berdly will accuse Susie of cheating, akin to when she "wavedash[es]". This is a nod to the exploit that originated in Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's fitting that Berdly says this, as his Dark World design resembles a mix of Fox McCloud and Falco Lombardi from the Star Fox series, who are two of the most popular characters used in the competitive scene for Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Two "Break Time" stages in Sunbaked Desert prominently incorporate music from Super Mario Sunshine: the level "Break Time! Raise The Stage" uses the track "Secret Course", while "Break Time! Bouncy Tunes" uses the track "Isle Delfino" (commonly known as the Delfino Plaza theme).
The use of music from Super Mario Sunshine appears to tie in with the subplot for Sunbaked Desert, in which Bowser Jr. hoards the region's water for himself; Sunshine was previously a water-themed game featuring Bowser Jr. as the main antagonist.
Squidward's forward tilt in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is based on a meme that went viral around the first game's pre-launch, showing a screenshot of Squidward kicking with poorly aligned fighting game hitboxes and the caption "AH HELL NAW SKODWERD GOT THE JANKY ASS HITBOX". Despite this origin, the move's hitbox "isn't very janky".
The series takes several naming cues from the English glam rock band Queen, who are highly popular in Japan. The name of the series itself, Ogre Battle, comes from a song off of Queen's 1974 sophomore album Queen II; another song on the album, "The March of the Black Queen", is the namesake for the series' first installment. The second game, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, takes its name from Queen's 1976 song "Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)", an homage to their Japanese fanbase.
Another Queen reference in The March of the Black Queen can be found with one of its regions, the Rhyan Sea. The area's name comes from "Seven Seas of Rhye", a song which appears in an unfinished instrumental form on Queen's 1973 self-titled debut and was later completed with vocals on Queen II.
In the Flashback Tape "Bandicoot vs. Wombat Eval", Cortex compares the results of preliminary tests deciding on if he should use a bandicoot or a wombat for future experiments to turn him into a general. Near the end of the game during the "Toxic Tunnels" stage, he exclaims had he chosen a wombat rather than a bandicoot, "this could have all been different". This plot point is a nod to Crash's early incarnation Willy the Wombat.
In the Flashback Tape "The Gauntlet", Cortex will say "Maybe next time I'll try a hedgehog…or a bobcat…or a gecko". These are references to Sonic the Hedgehog, Bubsy the Bobcat, and Gex the Gecko, all of which were wisecracking anthropomorphic characters from 1990s platformers, much like Crash.
According to the Willy the Wombat production bible, Dr. Neo Cortex was born in the circus and physically abused by clowns. Since then, anything that involves clowns makes Cortex enraged.
In games like Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Crash Team Rumble, Cortex has an unlockable skin in which he is dressed up like a clown. Humorously in Nitro-Fueled, Cortex’s victory animation features him with a dismal glare.
In Twilight Town, to enter the Le Grand Bistrot cooking minigames themed after the Pixar film "Ratatouille", you have to interact with a book outside the restaurant. The menu that appears before entering the restaurant features the film's main protagonist Remy emerging and standing in front of a page that features a message written in French on it. When translated to English, it reads:
"Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can emerge anywhere. Don't let anyone limit you on the pretext of your origins. Your only limit is your soul. Everybody can cook, but only the daring can achieve excellence."
This appears to be a shortened, paraphrased version of a restaurant review written by the critic Anton Ego towards the end of the original film.
The boss fight against Big Man in the single-player campaign appears to be an homage to Super Mario Sunshine's boss fight against the Phantamanta, with Big Man's ink being extremely similar in pattern and color scheme to the Phantamanta's goop, the method of attacking Big Man being splitting his shadow into smaller versions, and the boss title "The Hype Manta Storm" being a nod to the title of the mission in which Phantamanta is fought "The Manta Storm".
Traveler's Tales had intended to slide a Christian Easter egg into Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue!, inserting a sticker on a suitcase reading "JOHN 3:16", a citation for a Bible verse reading:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life"
When Disney saw it, they insisted that it be removed, so in the final game the sticker simply reads "NY CITY".
In Resort Island in Sonic R, there is a small village next to a cave containing 3 buildings, one of which has an ichthys (known colloquially as the "Jesus fish") on it. When it was added to the game, Sega asked Travelers' Tales founder Jon Burton if it was intended as a Christian reference, and nonchalantly gave the go-ahead when he answered honestly.
Puggsy features a secret level unlockable by completing a math question hidden in the credits. The level contains nothing but the words "ALL LEVELS COMPLETE" and "REV 22v21", the latter being the citation for a Christian Bible verse reading:
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen"
This Easter egg was added to the game by Traveler Tales' founder Jon Burton, a devout Christian.
After the Alignment Lock happens near the end of the game, if you return to Club Milton in Shibuya, you can view a hidden scene showing the accented club manager busily attending to a surge of demon customers. If you listen closely, the music that plays in the background is a remix of the Normal Battle theme from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. During the same scene, one of the sprites shown bears a striking resemblance to actor Heath Ledger, based on his appearance as the Joker wearing a nurse's outfit in the 2008 film "The Dark Knight".
One of Master Hand's attacks has him firing what appear to be golden versions of the Banzai Bill enemies from Super Mario World. These predate the first appearance of a Gold Bullet Bill in the Mario series 3 years later in Super Mario Sunshine. This would also mark one of the few times that one of Master Hand's attacks references another series outside of the Kirby franchise.
Among Japanese RPG fans, there is a group of female characters that are generally disliked by the audience, being referred to as "The Three Great She-Devils of Square". The reasons why these characters are disliked varies, but largely revolve around them betraying the main hero(es) in some way. The two generally agreed-upon members are:
• Princess Yoyo from Bahamut Lagoon, the childhood friend of protagonist Byuu and set up as his love interest, only to instead get together with another character, General Palpeleos. • Alethea from Live a Live, who due to the machinations of the chapter's villain Streibough, came to believe the protagonist Oersted (who she was meant to marry) had abandoned her, and commits suicide after witnessing him murder Streibough. This leads to Oersted becoming the game's overall antagonist, Odio.
There is some debate as to who the third member of the group is, but the list of candidates include:
• Mileille from The Final Fantasy Legend, who was introduced as the leader of a resistance group alongside her twin sister Jeanne, only for it to be revealed that she had been working for Byak-ko the whole time. • Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII, largely due to her personality and lingering feelings for her ex-boyfriend Seifer, though she ends up with protagonist Squall in the end. Note that this pick might be due in part because of how divisive the game is in general. • Catholine from the PS2 Hanjuku Hero games, due to her ugly and obnoxious nature, as well as constantly forcing herself onto the hero.
The group term would later be referenced in SaGa: Scarlet Grace - Ambitions, which featured an enemy team named "Lady Power", that consisted of three female demons with names that reference Yoyo, Alethea, and Milielle (though the former two were known as "Jojo" and "Alicia", respectively).
Each of the game's chapters is named after a different song:
• The prologue is named "Children of the Grave", after the song by Black Sabbath. • Chapter 1 is named "The Struggle for Survival", after the song by Riverside. • Chapter 2 is named "To Live is to Die", after the song by Metallica. • Chapter 3 is named "Only the Good Die Young", after the song by Iron Maiden. • Chapter 4 is named "Mandatory Suicide", after the song by Slayer. • Chapter 5 is named "In Fiction", after the song by Isis. • Chapter 6 is named "Another Version of the Truth", after the song by Nine Inch Nails. • While not named after a song, the bonus story "Synthetic Love" is named after the album by Trevor Something.
The default emote "Dance Moves" is a reference to a scene from the episode "My Half-Acre" of the TV series "Scrubs" from 2006, where Turk auditions for the hospital air-band by dancing to the song "Poison" by Bell Biv Devoe, during which he does the dance featured in the game. Following the default dance's popularization as a meme, it would be discovered that the dance had also been referenced in the episode "Darby the Plant Sitter" of the animated series "My Friends Tigger & Pooh" from 2009, in which Tigger does the same dance as a "grow dance" to try and make crops grow. This discovery briefly caused some confusion from unaware players as to where the dance originated from.
In the promotional comic "Sonic Superstars: Fang's Big Break", Dr. Eggman refers to Fang by various different names before coming to his current name of "Fang the Hunter". Each of the names mentioned is a reference to a name Fang was given in the past Sonic titles:
• "Nack the Weasel" was Fang's original name in Western regions, as well as the Sonic comics published by Fleetway and Archie. • "Jet the Jerboa" is a reference to the name under which Fang was first revealed in Western regions (the article where Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble was first previewed in the Mean Machines Sega article, when it was called "Sonic Chaos 2", with Fang originally being named "Jet the Sniper"). • "Fang the Sniper" was Fang's original name in Japanese regions, and would later be carried over into the West via Sonic the Fighters.
The comic itself provides an in-universe explanation for the numerous name changes: being a wanted criminal, Fang has had to constantly change his name in order to keep the authorities off his toes.
In the opening cutscene of the Sonic the Hedgehog level pack, Dr. Eggman juggles six of the Chaos Emeralds in a similar fashion to the bad ending of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game.
In the opening cutscene of the Mission Impossible level pack, Jim Phelps watches an in-flight movie that features Ethan Hunt playing volleyball with a goose. This references the film "Top Gun", which also stars Ethan's actor Tom Cruise and features a scene in which he plays volleyball with a character named Goose.
After completing the light puzzles, Berdly will accuse Susie of cheating, akin to when she "wavedash[es]". This is a nod to the exploit that originated in Super Smash Bros. Melee. It's fitting that Berdly says this, as his Dark World design resembles a mix of Fox McCloud and Falco Lombardi from the Star Fox series, who are two of the most popular characters used in the competitive scene for Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Squidward's forward tilt in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is based on a meme that went viral around the first game's pre-launch, showing a screenshot of Squidward kicking with poorly aligned fighting game hitboxes and the caption "AH HELL NAW SKODWERD GOT THE JANKY ASS HITBOX". Despite this origin, the move's hitbox "isn't very janky".
According to the Willy the Wombat production bible, Dr. Neo Cortex was born in the circus and physically abused by clowns. Since then, anything that involves clowns makes Cortex enraged.
In Twilight Town, to enter the Le Grand Bistrot cooking minigames themed after the Pixar film "Ratatouille", you have to interact with a book outside the restaurant. The menu that appears before entering the restaurant features the film's main protagonist Remy emerging and standing in front of a page that features a message written in French on it. When translated to English, it reads:
The boss fight against Big Man in the single-player campaign appears to be an homage to Super Mario Sunshine's boss fight against the Phantamanta, with Big Man's ink being extremely similar in pattern and color scheme to the Phantamanta's goop, the method of attacking Big Man being splitting his shadow into smaller versions, and the boss title "The Hype Manta Storm" being a nod to the title of the mission in which Phantamanta is fought "The Manta Storm".
After the Alignment Lock happens near the end of the game, if you return to Club Milton in Shibuya, you can view a hidden scene showing the accented club manager busily attending to a surge of demon customers. If you listen closely, the music that plays in the background is a remix of the Normal Battle theme from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. During the same scene, one of the sprites shown bears a striking resemblance to actor Heath Ledger, based on his appearance as the Joker wearing a nurse's outfit in the 2008 film "The Dark Knight".
One of Master Hand's attacks has him firing what appear to be golden versions of the Banzai Bill enemies from Super Mario World. These predate the first appearance of a Gold Bullet Bill in the Mario series 3 years later in Super Mario Sunshine. This would also mark one of the few times that one of Master Hand's attacks references another series outside of the Kirby franchise.
In the promotional comic "Sonic Superstars: Fang's Big Break", Dr. Eggman refers to Fang by various different names before coming to his current name of "Fang the Hunter". Each of the names mentioned is a reference to a name Fang was given in the past Sonic titles: