Video Game / En Garde!

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Several centuries ago in Spain, a swordswoman named Adalia de Volador fights to protect her city from the corrupt Count-Duke.

The game's main claim to fame is its sense of humor, which comes in the form of its dialog, story and gameplay mechanics. You can kick enemies into racks that fall onto them, throw vases and even chickens onto heads, and knock chandeliers down onto groups of enemies. All the while, there's a lot of back-and-forth banter between Adalia and her enemies. You can also examine various things to get more backstory, often told in a humorous way.

These tropes are no match for Adalia de Volador!:

• Action Girl: The swordswoman Adalia de Volador is a prime example, of course. As is her crush ZaÏda. There are also some female soldiers working for the Count-Duke, like the aged Grenadiers or the brawny Captains.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Or at least the Count-Duke is, wringing all the money out of the common people with his taxes and declaring any satire of him seditious.
  • Inverted with Adalia herself who hails from a Noble family but stands up to tyranny, often getting arrested as a result. The same applies to her good-hearted brother Alejandro.
• Badass in Distress: Right before the final boss battle, both Alejandro and ZaÏda wind up as captives of the Count-Duke and are held in cages at his fortress with it being up to Adalia to rescue them.
• Big Bad: The main villain is the Count-Duke, a tyrannical nobleman.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The Captain and The Duelist who can individually put up about as much of a fight as "El Vigilante" in the first mission.
  • The Captain is quite robust thanks to her shield and gets very aggressive and quick once angered all while using primarily Unblockable Attacks.
  • Meanwhile, the Duelist is aptly-named being the quickest most skillful swordfighter amongst the regular enemies and having a regenerating Guard bar. The two of them can also No-Sell several methods of stunning and are also the only regular enemy types that don't become helpless once Weakened as they can still interrupt Adalia's combos to try and strike back.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: The identity of the masked vigilante is pretty clear from the way Adalia's brother talks him up. (Unlike most examples of this trope, though, he does actually have the sword skills to back up his hero credentials—he's just not as good as Adalia.)
• But Not Too Bi: When faced with Zaida, Adalia is reduced to a blushing mess, though we never see her attracted to men despite Adalia being confirmed by the devs as bisexual.
• Cardboard Prison: Adalia has apparently been in and out of the Count-Duke's dungeons so often that not only do the guards just leave her stuff in her cell knowing she'll be back, she also has a pre-dug escape tunnel in her cell hidden behind a painting.
  Lackey: Oh no! She found the conveniently hidden exit? Again?!
• Casual Danger Dialogue: This happens constantly, with combatants commenting on the fight or just taunting one another, as well as responding with their own remarks.
  Duellist: I have trained with the King's musketeers!
  Adalia: How are those three?
  Duellist: There are four of them now.
• Clark Kenting: Alejandro's disguise as El Vigilante consists of him wearing a Domino Mask, feathered hat, and a short cape over his everyday aristocratic clothes.
• Combat Pragmatist: Adalia is encouraged by the game to use her environment to her advantage, such as kicking nearby objects into enemies to distract and disorient them so she can get a free hit on them or focus on a different enemy. Considering the many group fights she ends up in that avert Mook Chivalry, fighting dirty like this is basically a necessity.
• Cowardly Mooks: The Grenadiers are unique for relying purely on ranged attacks so they usually stick to higher vantage points to rain down misery and will flee when approached. Annoyingly, they can use smoke bombs while they're fleeing to keep you at bay which often means having to find something to toss at and stun them.
• Dialog During Gameplay: One of the game's selling points. Characters continuously joke and banter back and forth with each other during battle, and some of the battle dialog is pretty funny.
• Duel Boss:
  • Zadia who is fought 1-on-1 unlike other bosses. She does inexplicably pull a Doppelgänger Attack at one point which arguably downplays it a bit.
  • El Vigilante in the final episode appears as a duel mini-boss.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The student project version of the game had a slightly heavier plot, with Adalia seeking to reclaim her family home and driven by revenge. The final version is a much lighter swashbuckling romp to defeat an evil city-wide conspiracy. It also had significant differences in gameplay, such as having to "repartee" to regenerate health, being able to kick tons of objects around, and far less emphasis on parrying or dodging. It also took place entirely in an open level, rather than the linear level design of the finished game.
• Elite Mooks: The aptly-named Elite Soldiers introduced in the 3rd Mission. They introduce the Regenerating Guard mechanic which overall makes them a lot more durable than the average Soldiers. Even aside from that, they're a decent bit more skilled than the average Soldier, and can use an Unblockable thrust attack without needing to be fighting in a Group unlike the normal Soldiers.
• Exploding Barrels: They're the traditional red kind, and you can kick them towards enemies just like standard barrels for a ranged explosive attack.
• Expy: Adalia is based on several different swashbuckling pulp heroes, most especially Zorro.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: There are many chandelier in the game's fancy villas. Adalia can drop them on enemies for one of the deadliest attacks in the game.
• Flunky Boss: Considering that the main challenge of the game is to find a way to fight multiple enemies, the bosses epitomize this.
  • While battling El Vigilante, soldiers will appear and attack you as well. Interestingly, El Vigilante did not want them there, since he is also an outlaw, but decides to proceed the battle instead of pausing it anyway in the name of testing Adalia even harder.
  • Zaida is a more downplayed example. For the most part, she is a Duel Boss and will fight Adalia one on one, but on her third health loss, she will vanish and leave behind multiple doppelgangers of her and only come back once they're all defeated.
  • The Count-Duke is the most emphatic example of this, as both battles with him will see him flood the field with flunkies, with a new wave appearing every time he loses health.
• Flynning: Would it really be a swashbuckling story without it?
• French Jerk: All of the Duelist type enemies, a bunch of conceited and flowery dandies that have apparently arrived from France to attend the Count-Duke's Celebration as he receives the Keys To The City that will apparently grant him absolute power over the city due to some strange laws. They also gather at the supposedly deserted Island Fortress to help guard the Count-Duke's secret vault full of ill-gotten treasure. Adalia sees their presence there as proof that the Count-Duke has a big, nefarious plan brewing there.
• Friend of Masked Self: Alejandro claims to be a friend of El Vigilante to try to hand-wave away to Adalia why he is "helping" the masked man test/train her during the tutorial section. It doesn't take long for a skeptical Adalia to see through this.
• Friendly Enemy: Adalia and the Count-Duke's soldiers are quite cordial to each other (at least once they're done fighting).
• Friendly Rival: Alejandro as "El Vigilante" and Zadia. They're definitely close companions to Adalia but they also definitely enjoy challenging her to duels though they each have their own personal reasons for doing so.
• Gratuitous Spanish: The characters constantly mix in Spanish expressions into their spoken English.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Being an Expy of Zorro, Adalia is a skilled fencer, able to put the guards' skills to shame.
• Improvised Weapon: Adalia can grab things such as buckets or pots to toss at her enemies in order to stun them and give her some breathing room. If enemies get buckets on their heads they'll stumble around blindly.
• King Mook: Every major character and Boss Fight.
  • Alejandro as "El Vigilante" is one for the Soldier enemy-type using a lot of similarly competent yet basic attacks with a few unique flairs. On the rematch, upgrading his Guard bar into a regenerating one makes him one to the Elite Soldiers.
  • The Count-Duke is one to the Captain enemies, sharing a similar bulky build, using almost entirely Unblockable Attacks and carrying a shield initially before he Turns Red once he takes too much damage. In the rematch and Final Boss fight, he uniquely gains a regenerating Guard bar that no other Captain enemy has.
  • Zadia is this to the Duelist enemies, having a regenerating Guard bar and using much of the same quick and tricky attacks. Her usage of eplosives and smoke bombs later into the fight also gives her shades of the Grenadier enemy type.
• Loveable Rogue: Adalia, of course. Her brother is also an example in his "masked vigilante" guise. Zadia too despite how unscrupulous and cynical she can be at times. All of the heroes essentially which makes sense considering that they're up against the corrupt Count-Duke and his city guard.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: An enemy example. The Grenadier differ from all other enemies in that they're not swordsmen, they only run away to throw explosives. Trying to attack them directly will have them dodge automatically and they have no guard bar, which means the only way to defeat them is by surprising them or knocking them out with the environmental itens so they won't dodge. Because they have no bar, they will also always go down in two attack and can't get the "Weakened" status.
• Minimalist Cast: There's only three named characters, one unnamed main antagonist and an entire army's worth of nameless goons.
• Mook Debut Cutscene: Every common enemy (except the Elite Soldier) has a small scene where they taunt Adalia before duelling her. The Lackey stumbles over his words, the Soldier states the law, the Grenadier makes a threat based on her age, the Captain relates a story about hitting a soldier she trained, and the Duelist boasts about his training and nobility.
• Mook Horror Show: Lighthearted example. It seems Adalia's fearsome reputation precedes her; during the jailbreak, one of the guards is trapped behind a closing portcullis as you approach, and frantically begs to be let through. In addition, despite the combat with bladed weapons, Adalia never seem to actually kill any of the guards. Stick around in a completed combat arena for a while and the defeated soldiers will begin to banter.
• Nameless Narrative: Downplayed. All the heroes have proper names but none of the bad guys have ones beyond their title. Not even The Count-Duke. He'll even refer to himself solely as The Count-Duke in a letter to his mother.
• Nobody Can Die: Defeated enemies can still talk, even if they explode or have a chandelier fall on their head. Several enemies even note having fought Adalia before, but never mention dying. And if you're ever defeated, Adalia mentions trying again another day.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: The Count-Duke is based on Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares. This is most blatant when comparing their portraits.
• One-Woman Army: Adalia is able to take on the entire city guard on her own.
  Captain: You caused quite a mess back there. You remind of a soldier I once trained.
  Adalia: You trained a one-woman army?
• Opening Monologue: Parodied. Turn around in the first level and speak to Alejandro. He'll introduce the story, the overall setting, and the current conflict between the tyrannical Count-Duke and the heroic Adalia de Volador all with the sort of gusto you'd expect of a proper narrator. Adalia will simply be confused, asking him why he's doing that.
• Rage Breaking Point: For as much as the Captains are ever calm, they become furious after losing health. They lose their shield and no longer stagger when hit, even when broken.
  Lackey: It will take hours to calm her down!
• Regenerating Shield, Static Health: The third mission introduces the Elite Soldier and Duelist enemy types who boast a special Guard bar with a lightning bolt symbol indicating their bar regenerates if you're not aggressive enough at parrying and riposting. Most maddeningly, if you take damage from them, their Guard bar resets to full no matter what. Even if you manage to break their Guard entirely, it will reset after they take lose a healthbar unlike most other enemies. All the boss fights from this point forward also have a regenerating Guard bar. Naturally, dealing with multiple enemies with this sort of Guard bar can be a tricky and potentially nasty affair.
• Sarcasm Failure: When the Count-Duke raves about his ultimate plans for world domination he finds himself pausing awkwardly afterwards, surprised that Adalia has no quip or witty retort. She finds the whole scheme to be so sad and pathetic that she can't even bring herself to mock it.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the lackeys will question "are we the bad ones?", likely a reference to the "Are we the baddies?" meme.
  • A book that can be found in Episode 4 is called "Mounsieur D'Artagnan's Memoirs".
  • One of the lines Soldiers can say when defeated is "Heaven knows I try... every damn day." This can bring to mind the lyrics of "What's Up?" by the 4 Non Blondes.
• Staircase Tumble: One of the more basic yet effective tactics in combat is to knock enemies down the nearest staircase usually by kicking them when they're vulnerable. It does a tremendous amount of damage to their Guard bar, often rendering them Weakened for an easy takedown.
• Sword and Fist: Adalia is a truly skilled fencer but she also has a pretty strong kick perfect for knocking around objects like boxes and tables to confound foes. She can even directly knock vulnerable enemies away which can make for some potent environmental attacks.
  • On the villains' end, Captains and The Count-Duke sometimes use punches in their combos. They're just as powerful and unblockable as their sword swings.
• Take Over the World: Right before the final boss battle against the Count-Duke, he gives a typical villainous speech where he reveals the reason he was embezzling so much money was to fund his future ambitions for world domination.
• Unblockable Attack: If an enemy's sword turns Red before an attack, it cannot be parried. In groups, Soldier type enemies can do this while Adalia is distracted by a different enemy while Bosses and certain stronger enemy types are able to perform Red Attacks all on their own. In fact, Captains and the Count-Duke use almost entirely Red Attacks. On the upside, successfully avoiding a Red Attack will almost always leave an enemy vulnerable.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Subverted with El Vigilante. When he returns in the final episode as a mini-boss, his attacks are much more well developed, he has a rechargeable guard bar, and can use Red Attacks.
• Warm-Up Boss: "El Vigilante". He's essentially a souped up Soldier with more health and some unique moves but he's nothing you can't handle so long as you're careful once the guards jump in to take you down him.
• World of Ham: Owing to the swashbuckling tone and constant mid-combat banter, every single character is pretty theatrical. Arguably, Zaida is the closest a character gets to being relatively down-to-earth which suits her being a more cynical Anti-Hero compared to the Volador siblings.