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Treasure Hunter Man 2 - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Dec 25 2021

The second game in the Treasure Hunter Man series by Bernie, released on October 24, 2015, this time about Dorothy, the mother of the protagonist of Treasure Hunter Man 1. Because she's trying to find him.

On the 31st of January, 2022, the game received an Updated Re-release on the Nintendo Switch, which added an easy mode and a completely new soundtrack that would be mostly repurposed for the Steam version of the first game. Then, on October 26th, 2022, just two days past 7 years since its initial release, this version made its way to Steam by way of being included as an alternate version in the game's install directory, in its own subfolder.

Tropes:

  • 100% Completion: Getting all coins, stat upgrades, items, turning Marvin back to normal, and beating the Super Boss.
  • Big Bad: The Wizard(ess), who trapped all the lost souls of Treasure Hunters who came to the island and many of the inhabitants whom she deemed greedy, and is using them to create an artificial sun made of souls in the Wizard's Realm. She also turned Marvin into a skeleton.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Collecting everything in the Kitty Temple, which can technically be done before you can access the Super Boss, only awards you with the Kittey Coin, which does nothing except give you some flavor text dialogue from NPCs when shown.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: The Shipwreck Bay and the Kitty Temple, which are only accessible in the post-game. The former is a Marathon Level filled to the brim with hard-to-collect treasures and houses the game's Super Boss, while the latter may be short but houses two annoying unique enemies, a new type of platform that breaks very easily and is filled with spikes.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The seemingly inconspicuous grind stones located inside the Windmill at the End are actually vital to accessing the Wizard's Realm, since you need to grind the Dark Gemstone in them to open up a portal.
  • Deflector Shields: The Final Boss starts using one after reaching 80% health, reducing all damage taken to Scratch Damage unless the player deactivates each of the magical gems floating around the arena, which reactivate after a while with a Chain Lightning attack.
  • Dem Bones:
    • Both types of skulls present in the first game return here, with several Underground Monkey variations. A Giant Mook version of the regular skull enemies is also present as both a miniboss and later degraded to an Elite Mook.
    • A new enemy introduced in this game are the Skeleton Warriors, who jump away if you try using the sword unless they're throwing bones, but are particularly susceptible to the Goomba Stomp.
    • Also, the Countless Bones area, a technically optional endgame area located in the depths of the caverns. Guess what most of the area is comprised of.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: The Puppet King, who the game builds up as being the Big Bad as soon as you reach the Abandoned Town, with one townie telling Dorothy to stay away from the castle in the sky as the king possesses a cursed artifact. Defeating him is required to reach the Black Treasury, which houses the gem required to access The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The Wizard(ess)' response to being threatened to have her staff taken away by the king? To commit regicide, and then proceed to steal all the souls of people inhabiting his kingdom whom she deems greedy.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Marvin seems none worse for wear despite being turned into a skeleton, cracking one skeleton Pun after another. He's arguably more happy if you don't go out of your way to cure his curse in the ending!
  • Door to Before: Done in a couple areas. If an area isn't incredibly short, or otherwise has no other way to go back the way you came from, chances are that the game will provide a door that'll bring you back right to the start instead of forcing you to backtrack.
  • Father's Quest: Gender-Inverted Example. In THM2, the mother of the protagonist of the first game, arrives to find her son in the Kruz Island who got lost after those events.
  • Golden Ending: Buying the Anti Curse Potion and using it on Marvin in the Countless Bones area allows you to return home with him as a human boy, much to the chagrin of Marvin himself.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Holding left or right when slide jumping allows you to jump significantly farther horizontally than you would normally. The game doesn't explain this anywhere, which is a problem given that as soon as you reach the Black Treasury, knowledge of this mechanic is required to progress.
    • Obtaining the "Yeah, rub it in!" secret achievement secret achievement. Unless you know that pressing the Use Item button in front of NPC]s nets you extra flavor dialogue from them, you won't know that showing the Biggest Gem you obtain from defeating the Super Boss to someone is how you obtain it.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: A sword is the first weapon available.
  • Hit Points: Listed as Current / Maximum in the top left corner.
  • Insistent Terminology: The Wizard(ess), despite being dressed like a witch, only refers to herself as a wizard.
  • Interface Screw: The Diamondo enemy and two bosses are capable of tilting the screen in one direction for over 5 seconds, which also affects the gravity of objects and makes it harder for you to walk in the opposite direction they're tilting it to.
  • Kill Enemies to Open: The room in the cave at the far bottom right of the "Windmill at the End" has a door at its top that needs the death of all the monsters inside to unlock it. Unlike other other rooms in the game with a similar scenario, you're not locked inside upon engaging the enemies, meaning you're free to leave as you please.
  • Level in the Clouds: Skyview Towers, with cloud backgrounds and cloud-shaped platforms.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Similar to the first game's Heavy Combat Boots, the first mandatory Power-Up you get that isn't a status increase is a shield that allows for blocking projectiles while standing still and holding up/down. It also allows for performing a ground pound that allows you to Goomba Stomp enemies. Unlike the Heavy Combat Boots, it also allows you to safely bounce off of Spikes of Doom.
  • Made of Explodium: Grannies are a type of enemy that can explode, for some reason.
  • Mook Maker: Both the Book o' Spells and Wizard(ess) can summon enemies to try and hinder you. The former summons Diamondos while the latter summons exploding grannies.
  • Moon Logic Puzzle: The puzzles required for obtaining hidden coins and power ups in this game can be incredibly obtuse, which is a step up from the first one. Of particular note is the chest located in the middle of the large vertical shaft in the Wizard's Realm that also doubles as an enemy gauntlet. There are bomb blocks nearby, and one of them seemingly destroys a hidden brick that's blocking the way in, and there's a respawning bubble that you'd think would give you a lift there, right? Wrong. You're supposed to time a shield bash on the shield enemy at the exact time it reaches below the dirt, at which point you also need to perform a double jump to reach high enough and collect the treasure. Accidentally kill the enemy by failing to perform this? Too bad, you have to exit the entire area and return there to try again.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: Reach the far end of each side of the island while still having the Dark Gemstone in your inventory will cause Dorothy to be Taken for Granite, much like all those other adventurers scattered throughout the island, with the disembodied voice of the Wizard(ess) lamenting that she was no different from the rest.
  • Only One Save File: The game has only one file, so when selecting Load on the Start Screen, there's no selecting a save file, while making a new game doesn't tell the player that a save already exists.
  • Retraux: Again, like many of Bernie's past works, Treasure Hunter Man 2 is reminiscent of 16-bit era games in terms of aesthetics. The amount of sprite rotation and the slight screen crunch due to the screen resolution used, however, gives the game a very distinct Game Boy Advance look and feel.
  • Rise to the Challenge: The final room before the last save point in the Wizard's Guard Tower involves you trying to outrun a spiked floor that scrolls upwards. There are coins hidden in this room, and you can't retry it unless you exit the area entirely and come back. Have fun!
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The epic and triumphant Final Boss theme being reused for the gigantic and menacing Rumbling Nightmare? Very fitting. The same theme being used for the enemy gauntlet room in the Kitty Temple, which consists of a mere 4 enemies that you've faced many times before? Not so much.
  • Super Boss: The Rumbling Nightmare, a giant wheel with a single eye in the middle that summons more fiery souls around itself the closer it is to dying and can employ Interface Screw when it feels like it. It's only accessible by achieving 100% treasure collecting on the Shipwreck Bay area.
  • Temporary Platform: The main gimmick of the Kitty Temple. Stand on them for too long, and they go pop. Jump on top of them or attack them, and they go pop instantly.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Wizard's Guard Tower in the Wizard's Realm, a gauntlet full of the most dastardly enemies and treacherous platforming found in the main campaign.
  • Toilet Humor: Achieve 90% or more on the Adventure Meter, and Ye Olde Smelly (the shopkeeper) will say that he'll "fart rocket" from excitement. After Dorothy and Marvin both go off-screen, and a Beat, he does just that. You even get an achievement lampshading what just happened.
  • Updated Re-release: Alongside having a brand new soundtrack and an easy mode, the new version also runs better than the original release due to an updated runtime.
  • Underground Monkey: A few standard enemies get stronger variants who first serve as a Mini-Boss, then later become a Degraded Boss. They have more Hit Points, move faster, and throw more projectiles, depending on the enemy.
  • Unique Enemy:
    • There are only three pre-placed exploding grannies in the entire game. The first one is right before the Final Boss, and the other two are only found within a secret room in the Shipwreck Bay. The only other time they're used is during the battle with the Wizard(ess), where she summons them from time to time.
    • The Kitty Temple has two enemies exclusive to it, which don't appear anywhere else in the game: A small bipedal kitty that shoots three projectiles at once in a vertical spread, and a kitty-pig hybrid that more or less acts like a Degraded Boss version of the Hugest Pig when it's in panic mode.
  • Warm-Up Boss: The Hugest Pig, a boss who attacks very similarly to the first miniboss of the first game. Not much of a threat on its own, but can be tricky if you're not used to timing jump slashes.