History VideoGame / CobaltCore

* BrickJoke: If Riggs, one of the three starting characters, is in the party and your ship takes a hit, she may say "Ah! I spilled my boba!" If Max, one of the last characters to unlock is inside the ship when under fire, whether Riggs is present or not, will sometimes say "Ah! I spilled Riggs' old boba!"

* FutureMeScaresMe: Subverted. Riggs discovers that the best way to emotionally traumatize her evil time clone is to reveal their shared embarrassing past memories to the rest of the crew.
* GroundhogDayLoop: The crew find themselves trapped in one, and seek to find a way to end it by stopping the rift caused by the [[TitleDrop Cobalt Core]]. While the game starts with "Loop #1", CAT.exe mentions it being the their ''517th'' while stopping an argument she had heard already!

* ICallItVera: Isaac regularly names all of his drones, and will often proudly announce them as they're being launched. Though there are moments where he's clearly struggling a bit to come up with suitable monikers. This also appears to impact his level of attachment to individual drones; while he typically mourns their loss, he'll occasionally accept that they managed to do their job... or that he hadn't named them properly.

** Also invoked by name [[spoiler:during the final run, and then used to shatter the space-time continuum. CAT.exe wants out of the time loop more than anyone else, but can't bear to leave without saving the crew she loves. The player's final turn starts with a hand full of useless situational cards from each crew member... along with her unique attack that deals damage equal to the number of card colors in hand]].

* SecretCharacter: At the start of the game, only three of the eight playable characters are available to participate in a run: Dizzy, Riggs, and Peri. Three are unlocked successively, and have their portrait and unlock conditions clearly stated on the selection menu: win one run to unlock Isaac, win with Isaac on the team to unlock Drake, and win with Drake on the team to unlock Max. The final two characters, [[spoiler:Books and CAT.exe]], are completely hidden at first but can be unlocked by progressing through the overarching narrative.

* ScienceWizard: Wizbo, a potential enemy encounter, is a skilled spaceship pirate that also dresses like a wizard with a robe and pointed hat, and can cast spells between turns to cause strange effects like temporarily vanishing a party member. [[spoiler:His abilities are entirely technological in nature, but the crew's scientist graciously keeps quiet about it.]]

* AnimalThemeNaming: The various drone fighters the crew encounters are named after different animals and insects. Many of these names also hint at their respective combat styles.

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Four of the five unlockable ships are named after [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek or Roman gods]]. The fifth one doesn't follow this naming convention in order to further emphasize how it differs from the others, being [[spoiler:made out of wood rather than metal and themed after a pirate ship]].

* MyGreatestFailure: Parodied in Peri's second core memory, which reveals that her overly serious demeanor and strict regulations were caused by, of all things, [[spoiler:getting too excited on her fifth birthday and dropping her cake]].

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The core memories show that Peri's full name is actually Hyperion, but in the present, she's exclusively referred to by the former.

* PerspectiveFlip: In the "future memory" unlocked by witnessing all of the others, [[spoiler:you play as CAT.exe piloting the Cobalt against all of the player ship models (and Drake's ship, the Fireball) in order to collect the whole crew and finally end the loops]].

* TheUnchosenOne: The secret seventh playable character, [[spoiler:Books]], is completely unconnected to the GroundhogDayLoop and has no core memories that need to be restored to fix things, but still tags along just because she wants to help.
* UnlockableContent: In addition to five {{Secret Character}}s, there are variations of the crew's ship that must be unlocked by playing on harder difficulties, filling up enough of the codex, winning a certain amount of runs, or winning a run with a team that excludes the default crewmates.
* VirtualSidekick: The crew has an AI assistant, CAT.exe, that's responsible for waking them up from cryosleep at the start of each run and guiding them to victory. [[spoiler:It's also the secret eighth playable character.]]

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Due to being trapped in the time loop for 517 iterations and counting, the crew tends to take a rather blasé attitude towards their own impending deaths whenever a run looks like it's about to end violently.

* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: One potential enemy encounter is Sir Ratzo, an elderly rat wearing medieval knight armor that will challenge the crew to honorable duels in which neither side is allowed to attack the other's core.

* EvilTwin: The boss of the second area is "Riggs?", a punk version of one of the main characters that claims to be her future self. [[spoiler:It turns out she is indeed the "real" Riggs from the original timeline. Because she started the loop by stealing a shard of the time crystal core, she has been able to keep her memories and self completely intact through hundreds of loops.]]

* ColorCodedCharacters: Each crew member is associated with a different color, making it easy to tell at a glance which cards and artefacts belong to which member.

* HundredPercentCompletion: The game keeps track of every artifact and card you've obtained, every unique event and opponent you've encountered, and every possible combination of characters to win a run with.