Little Busters! is Key Visual Arts' sixth Visual Novel. Like Clannad and Planetarian, it is entirely "clean", although an "adult" version was released which featured additional heroines.

Little Busters! tells the story of protagonist Riki Naoe, who is a member of the titular Little Busters, a group consisting of four boys and one girl who have all been close friends since childhood. The other members are the leader Kyousuke, his shy and quiet sister Rin, the muscle-obsessed Masato and the kendo user Kengo. The story begins one day in the Little Busters' second year of high school, when they decide to play a game of baseball but need more players. Riki recruits five new girls to join them: childlike Komari, troublemaker Haruka, big-sisterly Yuiko, frail Mio, and But Not Too Foreign Kudryavka.

And thus begins a laid-back and certainly not horribly depressing Dating Sim-type Visual Novel with a touch of Fighting Game, wherein you (as Riki) try to befriend the various girls, while getting into fights with the other Little Busters and several other people at your school. Or at least, they'd like you to think that's what it is. But it's Key Visual Arts, so of course there's more to it than that.

(Before reading the list of tropes, note that some of them are, in and of themselves, spoilers.)

Not to be confused with the song by The Pillows that was featured in FLCL

  • Broken Bridge: Riki lampshades on how he's just like an RPG protagonist who can't cross a river with anything other than a bridge when he finds himself in a situation where he is mysteriously unable to exit the school.
  • But Thou Must! - When Saya asks Riki about his opinion on Kyousuke (and subsequently, how it would turn out if she challenges him). Riki mercilessly lampshades on it after both "choices". Kengo will overrule you if you say you don't want to go to Kyousuke's room when he's bored, and at another point you are asked if you want to go to town with Kyousuke and can refuse up to three times before you're still forced to go anyway.
  • Catch Phrase - "Mission Start!"
  • Cerebus Retcon - A few, naturally. Some of the easiest examples are realizing the actual significance of several scenes in the opening song.
  • Chick Magnet - For once not limited to the protagonist. In fact, Kengo and Kyousuke are both more popular. Kurugaya says he attracts people that want to mother him rather than Kengo's stoicism and strength and Kyousuke's good looks and innocence.
  • Childhood Friends - The eponymous Little Busters are five childhood friends and more or less inseparable.
  • Cuteness Proximity - Yuiko when it comes to anything Moe
    • In one battle scene of her vs Komari, after Komari starts calling her Yui-chan, Hilarity Ensues.
    • The manga version explains the scene further.
  • Cute Shotaro Boy - Riki, heck even Kyousuke calls him cute, and when he is forced to crossdress, he looks like a girl !
  • Defeat Means Friendship - Kyousuke and Rin was able to recruit Masato to Little Busters by defeating him when they're all young. Riki lampshades on this when he hears of it.
  • Downer Ending - route ends in failure the first reading as a way of giving the reader more information about the story. There is an alternate True Ending after the game has been completed, however. Also, the first ending is slightly ambiguous anyway, so not a complete downer.
  • Driven by Envy - In the beginning of Kurugaya's route, the nicest of the three girls trying (and failing) to bully her is doing it because she's friends with Riki and likes him herself. So she envies Kurugaya and tries to drive the two apart.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending -
  • Fan Translation: The people at TLWiki released a full English patch for the Windows game on December 18 2011.
    • It's good to warn that the patch is for the original version of the VN and works only partially with the EX/ME versions.
  • Final Speech -
  • Fission Mailed -
  • Go Out with a Smile -
  • Guide Dang It - Saya Route. There are so much Failure Is the Only Option in it, it's not even funny.
    • The first time you go through Rin's route, the end screen tells you to go back and make the choice you didn't made before. You think the game is telling you to start again and go through her route again using different choices, right? Nope. If you actually do this you discover that there's no choice screen at all at that point. You have to go through her route for the second time only after completing the other girls routes, so Riki can make the choice in question... automatically. .
  • Groundhog Day Loop -
  • Heroic Sacrifice -
  • Hey, It's That Voice! - The ones who played/watched ef will recognize Chihiro's voice when they hear Komari.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight - In Saya's route, she keeps watch on Riki's baseball practices while hiding behind a wooden barrel in a large grassfield. It's kind of hard to say if she's trying hard to hide, though, considering that if the ball goes nearby her she'll come out and shoot the ball with her gun. It's pretty amusing how nobody ever catches on at all.
    • Even more amusing since one of her own phrases during the baseball practice is somewhere along the lines of "Perfectly Hidden. No one can see me here."
  • If You Know What I Mean - Seen only in where Kyousuke give Masato a certain role. If you know what I mean. No really.
  • Left the Background Music On - The end of Kurugaya's route with the song Kurugaya played on the piano.
  • Lethal Joke Item - The paper-made items are surprisingly powerful. Once the user manages to fold them in time, their opponents' lives are counted.
  • Licked by the Dog - Or cat, in this case.
    • Dog too, to Sasami
  • Joke Item - Basically every weapon except some of Mio's science team weapons and Kurugaya's machine gun (yes really).
  • Lotus Eater Machine
  • Mind Screw - A lot, and in many many routes. Whenever the music "Thin Chronicle" plays, chances are you have one on your hands.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Rin's Cats. A list of their names - Lennon, Hitler, Audrey, Kobain, Tezuka, Gates, Einstein, Fedor[1], Aristotle, Hokusai[2], Jackie Chan, and Matsuda[3]. And those are just the cats in battle ranking plus the plot-important ones...
  • The Nicknamer - EVERYONE, after the battle the winner chooses a humiliating nickname for the loser.

Schoolboy : "Now Rin-sama pick a title for that Loser."
Rin : "Waste."
Masato : "Uwaaa! I don't want this title!!!"

  • Nonstandard Game Over - By choosing to hang out with Masato at every opportunity and following the Kud route, you open the Muscles Sensation mini route, which starts the Muscle Revolution! Kurugaya will stop you the first time, but if you choose to do it a second time the revolution apparently takes over the world.
  • No Romantic Resolution - route ends up working out like this
  • Otaku - Kyousuke (he based lots of the missions on manga)
    • Part of the reason he doesn't do anything at the beginning of Saya's route, since
  • Only Sane Man - Riki
  • Only Six Faces - Somewhat averted, at least when compared to prior KEY games. Little Busters! is a unique game in that there were actually two character designers working on the project, each working on three of the six heroines; Hinoue Itaru (who was the primary character designer for Kanon, AIR and Clannad) designed Komari, Haruka and Kuragaya, whilst Na-Ga (Angel Beats) was responsible for Rin, Kud and Mio.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise - It's almost painfully obvious to the views who Mask the Saito really is. It's slightly less painfully but still extremely obvious who is, too.
  • Schrödinger's Gun - In Ecstasy, a choice between feeling "hatred" or "friendliness" from a character will determine her attitude toward the rest of the cast (and the story path) for the rest of the game.
  • Second Year Protagonist - Except Kyosuke, all of the Little Busters are Second Years and all but two of them are in the same class.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong
  • Shout-Out - One to Final Fantasy :
    • Right after a Final Fantasy-style fanfare plays.
  • Talking to Herself - Other than Haruka and Kanata, 3 different characters (Rin, Sasami, and Riki) are voiced by the same woman. Considering that Riki and Rin are the lead male and female characters, it must be pretty awkward in the eroge version.
    • Even more since in the eroge version (Ecstasy) Sasami is a Ascended Extra with her own route.
  • There Are No Therapists: And in the one route where that's averted, therapy only deepened the problem rather than solving it.
  • Updated Rerelease: Little Busters ME, it is the clean version of the game but with all the extras from the EX (Exstasy) version, released on the Key 10th Anniversary Box, and the basis for the PSV version.
  • Utsuge: .
  • Verbal Tic - Kudryavka - wafuu, Riki - Iyaiyaiya (means No no no!), Saya - Gigigouee, Ungaa
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: During the baseball practices, you can help your team members gain bonus stats by hitting the ball towards them. Problem is, sometimes two of the girls are resting or doing something that makes them defenseless to incoming balls, and those two girls happen to be weaker than the others and could use a lot of stat raising... Also, all but one of Rin's pitches are learned (randomly?) after you piss her off by hitting one of the many cats (although it's harder to feel sympathy for the cats, as sometimes they'll block the ball that would've went to someone behind them, or jump in mid-air to intercept incoming flyballs with their body...)
  • Weapon of Choice - Kengo uses a Shinai (Wooden Sword), Masato his FIST, and Rin uses her cats as weapons. The other girls also have their own weapons of choice for the battle mini-games:
    • Komari can use a penguin doll and her sketchbook.
    • Kurugaya can use her wooden sword and a machine gun (yes really!)
    • Kud can use her dogs
    • Haruka can use glass marbles and a spinning top
    • Mio has her parasol, book, and eventually cyber weapons like a lab-grown virus, Lightsabers, and finally a man-portable railgun.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle: You get several fake epilogues before the true one in which Riki saves everyone.
  1. ↑ Russian heavyweight mixed martial artist
  2. ↑ Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese Artist in Edo period
  3. ↑ A famous Japanese actor of the past

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