Epic Battle Fantasy/Shout Out

General

• The design for Matt's Soul Eater sword was originally based on a certain other sword, not to mention its name.
• Matt's Legend attack looks a lot like Cloud Strife's Omnislash.
• Natalie assumes a pose from Macross Frontier in her Kyun Limit Break.
• Lance wields a gunblade. His scanner is actually a scouter from Dragonball Z.
• Anna has a brown Triforce necklace.
• There are a couple of Golden Sun Shout-Outs throughout the series: the Heaven's Gate sword bears a striking resembance to the Titan Blade, Water of Life appears as an item in the first two games, and Seiken is similar to the Ragnarok unleash, not to mention the actual Ragnarok Limit Break from the third game, which takes the same "summon a magic sword to fall on an enemy" idea up to eleven.

Epic Battle Fantasy 1

• The first game doesn't even bother with Shout Outs, and directly uses foreign material; Pichu, Mareep, Registeel, Regirock, Regice, Catastrophe, Lord Canti, and Goku are all present.
• When you fight against the first robot, you can read "Mobile Suits" in the sign. It also happens to be named Defender.

Epic Battle Fantasy 2

• Matt shouts out "Pierce the heavens!" when he first uses his Cleaver Limit Break. He later says "Fight da powah!!!"
• The final boss , a neo-Nazi named Lance and his tank, seems to be a blatant Shout-Out to Valkyrie. The tank's pilot even wears an eyepatch like Tom Cruise's character does in the movie; but actually, the tank was inspired by Metal Slug; Matt called it the Valkyrie because some friends of his noticed that Lance looked like Tom Cruise's character, which surprised him because he hadn't seen the movie.

Epic Battle Fantasy 3

The third game has a lot of them.

• Among the idle animations are Natz playing Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon on a Nintendo DS, as well as an old grey-brick Game Boy.
• There's an NPC early on wearing Kamina shades. Later, the man himself appears, alongside Simon and Yoko, who all give you quests. Kamina will even teach your characters the "Tera Drill".
  • Using Tera Drill the first time will prompt the user to say "Pierce the heavens with your drill!" The old flying robots with drills seen in the second game are now described with something like "They'll pierce your heavens.", and when they use a drill attack the first time, a character will remark that it's a good thing they don't have the spirit for a Giga Drill Breaker. Yup, lots of Gurren Lagann Shout Outs...
  • Yoko's quest nets you the Flame Skirt, armor for Natalie that is exactly the same as Yoko's outfit, and has high fire resistance.
  • Yoko's hairpin can be found in the secret area of Kitten Ruins, which increases accuracy. Simon's quest also gives you a pair of drill hairclips, which increase defense.
• After using the move Bullet Hell, Lance will say "I'd like to see them get through that with one life and no bombs!"
• The third area has snow sculptures of Kirby, Pichu, and Pikachu. The fourth area has a sand statue of Meowth.
  • Also in the third area: a snow sculpture of a castle and four knights, and another snow sculpture of a White Mage, a Black Mage, a Fighter, and a Ninja. The heroes feel a sense of deja vu when both of these sculptures are approached, but can't quite put their finger on it.
• One of the attacks Leaf Eaters use involves sending razor sharp leaves at the players.
• The Diamond item is described as "The hardest metal known to man.".
• One of the Game Over screens for the third game says "Tonight we dine in hell".
  • Another Game Over screen plays "People die when they are killed." Other Game Over messages include: "You are out of usable Pokémon... You blacked out!", "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?", "Someone set you up the bomb.", "That's all, folks!" and Fission Mailed. Suffice to say, there's a lot of Shout Outs in the Game Over screen.
• Konata is a NPC who gives you a quest, and if you complete it, she rewards you with chocolate cornets. Also, one of Natalie's spells is called "Lucky Star", though that may be just a coincidence.
• The NPC for the first minigame is a samurai with an odd manner of speaking named Sir Ken.
  • And the NPC for the final minigame is Curly. When you speak to her the first time, her first sentence is actually "Did you know the witch woman Jenka had... oh, wrong person.", which is another reference to Cave Story. She also describes the minigame as "Looks like your cat wants to speedrun this stage", which could be a reference to how many players speedrun the bonus level in Cave Story.
• Natalie's Genesis Limit Break creates a huge cross-shaped explosion. She also says "May God have mercy on man and machine for their sins."
• Lance's Oblivion Limit Break consists of dropping a tank of the enemy. Complete with, "WRYYYYYYYYY".
• Matt's Protect move summons a slightly modified Triforce.
• The Final Boss, Akron, has an attack that turns the screen black with eyes and jagged smiles, which is reminiscent of Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist or Alucard's transformations.
  • That, and its design is eerily similar to Anima.
    • There's also some semblance to Asura.
  • Akron's name comes from the Big Bad of the Rhapsody of Fire songs, believe it or not.
• The Power Metal attack plays a few notes from "Through the Fire and Flames", named outright by the characters when used.
• When a character gets hit in the third, sometimes they have the "shoop da whoop" face.
• Fighting a Trojan Horse enemy in the first area and witnessing it use its buff ability will cause the player characters to shout, "Its the Horn of Gondor! It boosts their morale!"
• The Cosmic Monolith is an obvious reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• When you fight the Sand Worm miniboss in the ruins, one of them will say "Walk without rhythm to confuse the worm!"
• When the Ancient Monolith in the fourth area unleashes its beam attack, Matt will say "I once knew a guy with golden hair who shot beams like that. Was nasty."
  • Lance also implies in an early conversation that he stole his scouter from Vegeta.

Bill: That's an interesting device you've got there, my son.
Lance: I'm not your son, and it's called a scouter. I stole it from a guy with a rough attitude and a tail. It seems to gauge an opponent's power level.

• When fighting a Fire Elemental for the first time, Lance may comment about how it must think it's a Mobile Suit, with the beam sword and all.
• When you revive Lance, he may say this:

Lance: Tomorrow my breakfast will taste better than any meal I have ever had.
or this: I am Jack's crippling morning headache.

• There's a crafting item called a Metal Gear.
• Wild ARMs 2: There's a battle robot named Jack, and Lance's Heavy Claw weapon looks like the weapon wielded by Ptolomea.

Bullet Heaven

• The use of the '3.3' rather than something like 3.5 or 'gaiden' is probably a Shout-Out to Touhou Project, which has Hisoutensoku as 12.3^[1].
• The Final Boss's Yin-Yang Bomb tendencies is an extended Ikaruga Shout-Out.
• The bonus version of the third boss is essentially Utsuho, complete with a near-replica of her Mega Flare spellcard.
  • The second Bonus Boss cribs off of Flandre, specifically her Cranberry Trap and her And Then There Will Be None? cards, as well as ganking Yukari's Border of Wave and Particle.
  • Lance's bomb is his giant laser attack, which works remarkably like a Master Spark here.
• One of the medals is I Like Swords.
  • This may also be a minor reference to the developer's Newgrounds account: Matt-Likes-Swords.
• The Kongregate achievements are Can't Outsmart Bullet, Ten Desires, All Cats Go to Bullet Heaven, and Imperishable Player.
• The first bonus stage, Razor Leaf Storm, is named for two Pokémon moves.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4

• The puppy cap is available as a hat.

1. ↑ This turned out pretty well, since there ended up being two other spinoffs that took 12.5 and 12.8, but it looked damn odd when it was the only one