History VideoGame / DragaliaLost

* KingMook: Some bosses you face are souped-up versions of regular enemies.
* KeepItForeign: All characters from [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Taiwu]] have their name transliterated as pinyin rather than romaji. Thus the names Suou, Kugai, Hourai, Sanzang, Gyokuryuu, and Goku become Su Fang, Ku Hai, Peng Lai, Xuan Zang, Yulong, and Wu Kong.
* LetsYouAndHimFight:
** During "Fire Emblem: Lost Heroes", the Prince's crew come across Alfonse escorting Veronica. As the Prince's crew saw someone resembling Veronica leading Dyrenell troops earlier, they assume Alfonse to be part of Dyrenell and demand that he and Veronica surrender to them. Alfonse, on the other hand, saved the real Veronica from Dyrenell troops pursuing her and assumes the Prince and crew to be part of Dyrenell as well. As neither side refuses to submit to the other, they square off.
** "Fire Emblem: Kindred Spirits" has three battles against other {{Guest Fighter}}s. First, the prince and crew have to break Peony out of a black mana-induced trance. Second, they have to halt a rampaging Tiki. Finally, they are tested by Chrom to see if they possess the resolve to proceed with their plan.
* LevelGrinding: Leveling up dragons, wyrmprints, weapons, and adventurers in general. As their levels get higher, so do the amount of EXP required, to the point that it's more convenient to use specialized items to level them up instead (i.e. [[NonCombatEXP Crystals and dragonfruit]] for adventurers and dragons respectively). In the case of weapons and wyrmprints, it's generally better to level them up using Gold Whetstone and Consecrated Water respectfully than using weapons and wyrmprints obtained from drops at higher levels.
* LevelUpFillUp: Raising your player level will fill your current stamina by an amount equal to your new maximum stamina, and you gain 12 Getherwings. If this exceeds your maximum stamina and Getherwing count, excess stamina and Getherwings will be stored.
* LimitBreak:
** There are skills each character can activate once enough damage is dealt, which can range from more damaging attacks to healing and buffing the team.
** Transforming into a dragon is controlled by a meter, which builds by killing enemies and damaging bosses.
* LittleBitBeastly: All members of the Sylvan race have ears that look like a cross between a cat's and a bunny's.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The game ''launched'' with sixty adventurers and thirty-five dragons. As of 2020 it has added nearly fifty more dragons and ''over a hundred'' adventurers, and there's a whole lot more to come. It's a big cast.
* LockedRoomMystery: [[spoiler: At the end of Gala Alex's story, a Templar informs her that Archbishop Magnus, the mastermind behind the events in her story, was found stabbed to death in his cell, and it was locked from the inside.]]
* MadnessMantra: One of the people-books the Prince's group read in "The Accursed Archives" repeats "MAKE IT STOP" and "STOP ME" intermittently.
* MagikarpPower: Almost all Adventurers fall prey to this trope in some form or another, as they come at level 1, no Mana Nodes unlocked, and with a very bad weapon, all of which you have to power up or obtain yourself. The prime example would be Xania. She starts out as a 3-star Adventurer. Six Void Seeds, several Flamewyrm's Scales/Scaldscales, metric tons of Mana and Elemental Orbs, many High Brunhilda and Very Hard campaign runs, and a whopping 98,000 Eldwater later, you have an extremely powerful SquishyWizard with stun resist that specializes in Burn-inflicting skills that hit like a wrecking ball.
* MaleGaze: Whenever a female character switches to a new outfit, you can expect a sequence where your view pans over their new duds. For example, in "Monster Hunter: Primal Crisis", Vanessa changing to a [[{{Stripperiffic}} Kirin armor set]] is shown in a scene where she equips each individual piece. In contrast, Berserker changes to a Rathalos set with little fanfare off-screen.
* MarathonBoss: The Astral Raid versions of bosses on Master difficulty are this as they not only attack faster, but also have more HP, with the time limit being 10 minutes instead of 3.
* MeaningfulEcho: The original version of Euden has a home screen line about how he needs to practice his instrument more, as it sounds like a cat being strangled. His Gala version's home screen line states that it's really good now, reflecting his growth. [[spoiler:Audric also has a home screen line referring to the instrument, as it was a gift he gave Euden a long time ago.]]
* MercyInvincibility: Getting hit by an attack that launches you into the air or knocks you on the ground will grant invincibility until you get up, even against purple area attacks. Enemies used to be invulnerable when they were knocked onto the ground, but this was later removed.
* MetalSlime: Rare enemies sometimes show up during levels. These enemies are much stronger and more aggressive than the other enemies in the level and can disappear if they aren't killed in time, but the rewards they drop are also better.
* MoodWhiplash:
** Most of Gala Mym's adventurer stories focus on her {{Imagine Spot}}s of a married life with the Prince. The last episode takes a turn for the somber when she curses being born a dragon, as she'll eventually outlive all her human companions.
** The epilogue of ''A Clawful Caper'' ends in a happy note welcoming the new year, for New Alberia's side at least. Meanwhile in Hinomoto, [[spoiler:Semei the Ox Wyrmclan leader had gone missing with grave implications if foul play was done by a certain suspected party]].
** The epilogue of ''Rhythmic Resolutions'', [[spoiler:reveals that Marvelous Naoto is the servant of Seimei speaking some ominous {{foreshadowing}} about the Prince]].
* MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers: Adventurers cannot be on the same team as an alternate version of themselves. The only exception is co-op, e.g. Regular Ranzal with Gala Ranzal via two or more different players controlling either.
* NeverTrustATrailer: The "Fire Emblem: Kindred Spirits" trailer shows a moment where Sharena tells the prince she's been a fan of his for decades, suggesting that the event might involve some time travel shenanigans. Come the actual event, after saying that, Sharena clarifies that it only ''feels'' like it, and she was being hyperbolic.
* NewWorkRecycledGraphics: Sunlight Stones and Damascus Bricks also exist in this game, with their names unchanged, and icons looking like their ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'' counterparts.
* NewYearHasCome:
** The "New Year Tidings Fortune From Afar" event is western New Year mixed in with Lunar New Year. It has Ieyasu, leader of the Boar Clan, visit the prince to deliver gifts and good fortune.
** A proper Lunar New Year raid is in the “Skyborne Spectacle” event.
** The "New Year Tidings A Clawed Caper" is the sequel to Tidings from Afar which formally introduces two new Wyrmclans; Mitsuhide, leader of the Mouse Clan and Nobunaga, leader of the Horse Clan.
* NoCasualtiesRun: [[invoked]] Many quests grant a bonus award if no one in your party is incapacitated.
* NoDamageRun: [[invoked]] Some quests grant a bonus if the character you control never takes damage. CastFromHitpoints abilities don't violate this condition.
* NonCombatEXP:
** Crystals can be used to level up adventurers outside of combat. They come in bronze, silver, and gold varieties.
** Dragons can only level up by giving them dragonfruit or sacrificing a different dragon to them.
** For weapons and wyrmprints, the player can use weapons/wyrmprints obtained as loot to level them up, but the player can also use whetstone and waters to level them up respectfully, which can normally be obtained from events or [[BribingYourWayToVictory certain starter packs]].
* NotTheIntendedUse: While Damascus Ingots and Steel Bricks are supposed to be used to upgrade weapons more easily, they can also be used to quickly obtain rare materials. By unbinding a weapon and then dismantling it, the player receives all of the materials that would've been needed if they tried to unbind the weapon without Damascus Ingots/Steel Bricks. This is helpful if the player is trying to make a different weapon or upgrade certain facilities.
* ObviousRulePatch: To prevent players from using Damascus Ingots to unbind them and dismantle them for the highly limited materials used to make them, weapons crafted from materials dropped by the Advanced Dragon Trials on Expert and Master cannot be dismantled.
* OhMyGods: Most characters use Ilia's name for such excalamtions. One conspicuous exception is Lathna, who instead calls out to a nonspecific "savior"/"kami-sama" when distressed. [[spoiler:This is because she worships the Ancient One.]]
* OminousCube: In the main campaign, there are bosses in the shape of cubes with no real explanation of what they actually are.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: "Fractured Futures" has a good sign that one future is in dire straits. [[spoiler:Notte is normally a cheerful fairy who's unflinchingly loyal to the Prince. It's a good sign that something went seriously wrong in the BadFuture when future Notte lashes out at the Prince]].
* OneStatToRuleThemAll: Of all the stats in ''Dragalia'', dragons and wyrmprints that boost the strength stat or adventurers that can boost the entire party's strength are highly valued over defensive-based adventurers, as the TimedMission nature of certain quests and battles means the player needs to kill the boss as quickly as possible before time runs out.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Dragons come in all shapes and sizes. Some low-rank dragons are called imps, for example. Some dragons can also assume a more humanoid form, with this setting's [[SeriesMascot Jeanne d'Arc]] being the most obvious example in the gacha. [[spoiler:Brunhilde proves it goes even further at the end of Chapter 3.]]
** The only common trait that is shared by all dragons is to have horns and a tail.
* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Rokkans are archetypal dwarves in every way except they have [[HornedHumanoid horns]].
* OurElvesAreBetter: Sylvans are archetypal wood elves in every way but one -- they have [[LittleBitBeastly rabbit ears]] instead of simply pointed ones.
* PalmtreePanic: The summer events, "A Splash of Adventure" and "A Crescendo of Courage" all invoke this with the heroes fighting fiends on the beach.
* PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling:
** The Avenue of Power is intentionally designed to help players level up quickly by providing lots of crystals that can be used to level up adventurers.
** The Preludes for the Advance Dragon Trials are toned down versions of {{Bonus Boss}}es meant to teach the mechanics, but the weekly bonus provides a lot of Succulent Fruits and Crimson Cores, especially if it's combined with the [[BribingYourWayToVictory Double Daily Quest]] buff. However, those bonuses are only available three times a week.
** "A Sweeping Retrospective" included three quests, "Fafnir Clean-Up", "Treasure Slime Clean-Up", and "Gold Slime Clean-Up". They were the best ways to gain experience, materials, and money, respectively, while they were active.
** While "Monster Hunter: Primal Crisis" was active, the boss fight against Rathalos was the best quest to grind. Not only was the experience payout much higher than any other quest, it also dropped tons of basic materials that allowed newcomers to get a major jump on weapon crafting and facility leveling.
* PhantasySpelling: Holy knights in this game are called Paladyns, not paladins.
* PinataEnemy: Black Dragon Fatalis's raid from the ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' collab event is a subverted example of a Pinata ''Boss''. The minimum Might needed to challenge his highest difficulty is a meager 7,800, and he drops tons of event currency, enhance materials, Elemental Orbs, and all types of Dragon Scales.
* PintsizePowerhouse: The "Flames of Reflection" event shows that even though Lazry is a rokka about the size of a child, she's strong enough that she can wield a giant blacksmith hammer one handed and also pick up a giant sword that even Ranzal had trouble holding.
* PlayEveryDay: There are plenty of incentives to check in each day, like rotating dungeons, login bonuses, and daily missions.
* PowerCreep: This is expected in every gacha game, as later banners release stronger characters to the point where newer characters (especially higher rarity ones) makes the older characters nearly obsolete. The most blatant example is Gala Cleo, who happens to be so much of a power creep to all other Shadow adventurers to the point where players ''without'' her are locked out from doing High Jupiter Expert or Master altogether. Cygames address the issue of this trope with the introduction of Mana Spirals, which allows the player to further level their characters and unlock additional abilities for them; hence allowing the older characters to be on the same playing field with the newer characters.
* PowerLevels: Might is used as a rough indicator of how strong a character is. It's determined by the character's rarity, skills, and stats, along with the rarity and stats of their weapons, Wyrmprints, and dragons, with a dragon's Might also being determined by its bond level. Each stage has a Might requirement that has to be reached before it can be entered.
* PowerupLetdown: Knockback immunity is useful for keeping up the offensive without being slowed down by stray attacks, but it also removes MercyInvincibility, meaning it can cause attacks that normally hit once to hit multiple times, likely resulting in death.
* PreciousPuppy: AprilFoolsDay 2020 presents Wagabond Pupper, an event where the Halidom is greeted with a puppy. Visiting the Dragon's Nest lets you feed and pet the puppy, while there's a quest where you give it a walk and (after forming a strong enough bond) play fetch with it.
* ProtectionMission: The first part of a Defensive Battle requires you to defend a key location from advancing enemy troops.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Among the changes in the November 28, 2019 update is a change in the GUI. Home and Quests are separate buttons, while everything else moved over, with the menu moved to the top corner instead of the bottom corner. It takes a bit of an adjustment for veterans used to the original layout.
* DangerousPhlebotinumInteraction: During the ''Fire Emblem Heroes'' crossover, it turns out that the Askran and Emblan dimensional powers from ''Fire Emblem'' interact ''very badly'' with the ''Dragalia'' world. The Prince and his allies already deal with rifts to the space between worlds on a regular basis, and the presence of Alphonse and Veronica together causes these rifts to open and shut uncontrollably, tearing the world apart. ''Emblem'' villainess Loki even set up the crossover for this very purpose, in order [[ForTheEvulz to mess with everyone for laughs]].
* DarkestHour: So far, [[spoiler:the end of Chapter 5 and the first half of Chapter 6 deliver. See WhamEpisode below.]]
** [[spoiler:Nearly the entire ending of chapter 10 is this, as the only thing keeping it from being an outright DownerEnding is Alberius' HeroicSacrifice.]]
* ADayInTheLimelight:
** Adventurer and dragon stories give focus to that particular character, detailing how they joined the Prince's group, shows a bit of their time at the castle, and may reveal some of their backstory.
** Events can bring some characters to the forefront, like the Halloween event "Trick or Treasure!" giving Althemia and Edward a starring role.
** Wyrmprints also have stories based on one or more characters on the card.
* DarkSecret:
** Chapter 12's Interlude reveals the one that Elisanne found out in Chapter 11's interlude. [[spoiler: The actual Euden died 10 days after being born from Wyrmscale and King Aurelius and another person named Finlorda made a pact that led to him adopting the Euden we've been playing as.]]
** Gala Alex's story has one for the Ilian Church which involves the "Key to Perdition," something that the former archivist wants nobody to know about. That secret implies [[spoiler: a deeper relation besides the goddess Ilia and the Other and the Key would release the seal on the rest of the Scrolls of Perdition. The only way to open the Key is the sacrifice of a maiden, in this case, Elisanne the Grand Paladyn.]]
* DevelopersForesight: Tier 4 Elemental Orbs of all flavors are available via a RareRandomDrop from certain Void Battles (such as Void Zephyr Strike.) This, despite the fact that initially the only adventurers to have the Mana Spiral are Flame or Shadow attuned.
* DialogDuringGameplay: Certain quests have characters converse about recent story events. During single-player, your party might make some general comments during certain events as well.
* DifficultySpike:
** The game gets progressively harder with each quest cleared. However, the last boss of Chapter 5 recommends an staggering 5200 might, 500 more than the previous quest and 150 more than the last boss of the next chapter.
** The Advanced Dragon Trials are significantly harder than the Imperial Onslaught and Dragon Trials on Master difficulty as the dragon bosses have much more HP and stronger attacks, some of which can kill your adventurer even if they have full health. To demonstrate how hard the Advanced Dragon Trial is, having a max unbonded ''5* elemental weapon'' is almost a requirement for your main damage dealer, and 5* weapons utilize materials that can only be obtained from events. Cygames introduced Void Battles to help fill the difficulty gap between Advanced Dragon Trials and Imperial Onslaught[=/=]Dragon Trials, with some weapons craftable that help newer players to easily transition into High Dragon Trials (such as 5* weapons that deals bonus damage to high dragons and a Flame facility to help players start off in High Midgardsormr).
** The "Dream Big Under the Big Top" facility event introduced a new difficulty level for challenge battles, Master difficulty. This is almost the same as other facility events' challenge battles where the player needs to face 5 waves of enemies, except the difficulty is jacked UpToEleven, as normal {{Mooks}} are capable of dealing ''200-300 damage per attack'' while all of the bosses' attacks can instantly kill your adventurer.
** In the "Fire Emblem: Lost Heroes" event, the normal and hard versions "The Alberian Front" are manageable, even if some errors occur. The Lunatic version, on the other hand, requires your team to be agile and coordinate well, as the enemies are far more hardy and strong. One wrong move and you'll find yourself failing the level in short order.
** In the "Resplendent Refrain" re-run, Sabnock fell easily on all returning fights, even the EX one. The Nightmare version, however, has loads more HP and is ''very'' hard to take out within the time limit.
** There are two points when the Mercurial Gauntlet becomes much harder all at once. Starting from level 41, the time limit is doubled, and Fafnir Roy III gains a massive boost in HP to match. Then, starting from level 51, his attacks can no longer be blocked by using skills, so a healer must be brought along. This massively reduces DPS, all while Roy III continues to gain HP each level, even faster than he did between levels 41 and 50.
** The Agito Uprising boss fights are ''harder'' than Advanced Dragon Trials at ''Master'' difficulty, as the bosses can inflict ''two'' StandardStatusEffects, meaning Gala adventurers are almost required for this fight.
* DifficultButAwesome: Soloing hard content and boss fights (especially timed ones) using ''[[SoloCharacterRun one]]'' adventurer, it requires the player to have some of the strongest wyrmprints, weapons, and dragon to do this effectively. But this requires precise timing on dodges, skill activation, and animation canceling in order to solo a boss while still maintaining DPS. For ranged characters, this is generally easy to do, but much harder to perform with melee-based characters. The awesome part is that soloing hard content is generally more viable than taking an AI team with you in some cases due to massive ArtificialStupidity of the AI. And keep in note that ANY adventurer with reasonable DPS can solo anything, even 3 star rarity ones.
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Only one copy of a co-ability can be active on a team. If multiple characters have the same co-ability, only the highest value will be used, while the others will do nothing.
* DoomedHometown: While the prince is off completing his task in the first chapter, the kingdom of Alberia falls and reforms as the Dyrenell Empire. Most of the soldiers protecting the kingdom have similarly converted.
* DoubleUnlock: There's quite a lot that needs to be double unlocked in terms of building units in your Halidom and also in crafting weapons.
** For leveling up your main Halidom, it involves your Facility Level, your cumulative upgraded buildings as well as having money and materials needed.
** For enhancing weapons to new tiers, it first involves having the previous one be fully Unbound to its tier 4, then having it maxed out in level as well as having materials needed to create it.
** To make a High Dragon weapon depending on class and element, the respective 5.3 (5 star tier 3) weapon has to be made, along with making the second tier of its void weapon from its opposite void dragon (e.g. water weapons needing parts from Void Agni).
** The 6 star weapons from the Agito Uprising first need the second tier of a Chimera weapon to be made before the Agito weapon can be crafted. The Chimera weapons themselves require a tier 3 Manticore weapon of the same element to be crafted first before they can be made.
* DrawSwordDrawBlood: The flavor text of the 5 star tier 3 shadow sword, Dáinsleif, tells that it's an evil weapon that it cannot be returned to its scabbard until it has tasted human blood.
* EasterSpecial: “The Hunt for Harmony” is an Easter event involving not only a spring event, but also the Sylvans as a race of bunny people.
* ElementalRockPaperScissors: Water beats Flame, Flame beats Wind, and Wind beats Water. Like Cygames' ''Granblue Fantasy'', Shadow and Light are weak to each other in a fashion that always benefits the player (e.g., Shadow players deal more damage and take less from Light monsters, and vice versa).
* EliteTweak:
** A March 2020 update changed the way co-abilities worked in co-op so that your party's co-abilities applied instead of the co-op party's, and added chain co-abilities to everyone, which usually gave more niche or conditional boosts. This added another layer of character building, as certain adventurers can greatly benefit from certain co-abilities, e.g. stacking buff time boosts on a buff-centric adventurer.
** A May 2020 update added shared skills. You can use certain skills from other adventurers in place of weapon and helper skills, provided the adventurer you're receiving skills from is either a story character or is level 80 with completed mana circles. With very few exceptions, adventurers can greatly benefit from shared skills that complement their build.
* TheEmperor: Part of the backstory told in wyrmprints and in Jupiter's backstory involves a formerly kind Prince Dane who, after being shown the sights of the world by Jupiter and told to forge his own path, took it to mean "create an empire." With that, he became a bloodthirsty emperor who went onto conquer the world until his death.
* TheEmpire: The backstory of the game has the Dyrenell Empire as its evil empire as it was infamous for crushing countless peoples underfoot. Alberia suddenly renaming itself after this empire and declaring war on the world is the first sign that something has gone seriously wrong with the status quo. [[spoiler:Chapter 10 reveals that the original Dyrenell Empire originally started as a ''religious retreat'' from the rest of the world with a currently unknown gap in-between the people who wished to isolate themselves from the world to followers of Morsayati who wished to TakeOverTheWorld.]]
* EqualOpportunityEvil: As of late, the known Agito include Volk (human,) Kai Yan (Rokkan,) and Ciella (Sylvan.)
* EquipmentUpgrade:
** Weapons and Wyrmprints can level up by using dedicated items[[note]](whetstones for weapons, holy water for Wyrmprints)[[/note]] or different weapons or Wyrmprints on them respectively.
** Weapons can be upgraded into a new form once they're fully unbound and reach their max level.
** Wyrmprints gain stronger effects if they're fully unbound. After the April 2019 update, it was buffed so that they have upgrades every two unbind levels, making a fully unbound version even stronger.
** As of the July 2019 update, Dragons, Adventurers, Weapons, and Wyrmprints can be upgraded using Augments earned from Astral Raids
* EvolvingCredits: Starting with Patch 1.12, the login screen changes depending on story progress. The first time, it has all the main cast along with Zethia. The second screen has Zethia removed though adds in Mym and Alex. The third screen after Chapter 10 changes Euden to his Gala form. The fourth screen after Chapter 11 adds in Laxi. The fifth screen after Chapter 14 adds [[spoiler: Zena]] to the login screen.
* ExcusePlot: In homage to the older ''Mega Man'' games, the crossover plot can be pretty much summed up as "Dr. Wily crossed over to another dimension and brainwashed the Greatwyrms. Go beat them up with Mega Man who is also here now." There is no dialogue from any of the ''Mega Man'' characters or any significant interactions between them and the ''Dragalia Lost'' cast.
* ExpendableAlternateUniverse: Audric's adventurer story reveals that ''no one'' is safe in his BadFuture. [[spoiler:The worst case is even Notte, the innocent cute fairy companion, gets a death by angry mob along with Cassandra. By the time it's over, literally ''everyone'' shown on-screen that Zodiark and Audric have met is dead.]]
* ExperienceBooster:
** The prince has an unlockable skill that increases Player experience received if he participated in the quest. This effect can trigger in co-op even if he isn't the lead character by having him in the same team as the chosen character.
** Some wyrmprints increase Player experience, but they don't stack with each other or the prince's skill.
** The Bronze Fafnir increases Adventurer experience for everyone in the party, and its effect can stack with other Bronze Fafnirs, especially if each one is max unbound.
* EyesDoNotBelongThere: The Dáinsleif and Mistilteinn, the {{Infinity Plus One Sword}}s for shadow sword and lance, respectively, have eyes on their bodies as well as dark backstories.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Nidhogg's Dragon Story tells the tale of a noble who was cast out and exiled to Nidhogg's toxic swamp. Rather than despairing over his situation, he uses his last moments to ask the dragon about the afterlife. His last words before he passes away are of excitement as to what may come next.
* FaceDoodling: The "Hanetsuki Rally" Wyrmprint has this happen between Luca and Euden doing it to each other as they trade victories against each other by marking one another with X's.
* FairyCompanion: Notte, a faerie the Prince and Zethia met when they were young.
* FantasticFruitsAndVegetables: In their Valentine's story, Ranzal and Luca look for somnium apples which are meant to be sweeter than any apple. Turns out they have better luck looking for them at night since they glow with moonlight. Now they just have to avoid eating them all before Euden gets a taste.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture:
** Hinomoto is a fantasy version of feudal Japan. It's an island nation like Japan, it has a hierarchical structure reminiscent of its country of inspiration, samurai are everywhere, and if the Boar Clan is any indication, the Twelve Wyrmclans are based off the eastern zodiac.
** The land of Taiwu, where the people of Peng Lai come from, is based on China.
** Svenitla, the country Victor, Noelle, Kirsty and Joachim come from is strongly evocative of [[MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong Russia]].
* FestivalEpisode: "Rhythmic Resolutions" takes place during the Bon Festival in Quinbell, which borders Hinomoto.
* FishingEpisode: The Castle Story "Anglers' Day Off" has three of the Halidom's best fishers in Musashi, Thaniel and Jiang Ziya in a contest. Musashi starts DualWielding fishing rods, Jiang Ziya uses Qilin artifacts to bring the fish into the bucket and Thaniel uses his maritime knowledge to fall into a spot where he just grabs them by the handful. By the time Ebisu gets there, they've caught every last fish.
* FlavorText: A lot of the world's lore is found in weapon and Wyrmprint descriptions or in unlockable Dragon Stories.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Characters like Noelle and Kirsty hailing from North Grastaea has been slow buildup for their homeland's entrance into the main story, as chapter 13 reveals that the Dyrenell Empire as led by Valyx will clash with encroaching troops from the north.
* FriendlyLocalChinatown: Peng Lai (the place, [[NamesTheSame not the dragon]]) is an Alberian town established by Taiwu immigrants and modeled after Taiwu cities.
* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
** While you sell weapons and Wyrmprints, you part ways with dragons instead. Parting ways is functionally identical to selling, but it maintains the idea that the dragons are just lending you their power.
** Mym is the human form of Brunhilda. Therefore, it makes sense that she shapeshifts into Brunhilda regardless of what dragon she has equipped.
** Comedically, in ''Dragalia Life'' #129, when Mym tries to wait in the Prince's bed to make him sleep with her, she falls asleep first since she doesn't have a Sleep Res ability.
** Laxi is one of the commander units of the android army. The [[EliteMook Elite Imperial Soldiers]] in the Imperial Onslaught quests have an attack wherein they send shadow clones of themselves to perform an attack with a purple indicator, a technique that Laxi also uses in her boss fight. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the former has the technique programmed into her, based on the latter.
** Unlike other event welfare characters, Sharena in "Fire Emblem: Kindred Spirits" instantly joins your permanent roster, without having to max out a friendship meter. Fitting, given that she wants to be friends with everyone.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** Especially with regards to the gacha mechanics. For instance, gameplay-wise, you get most adventurers by summoning them. Story-wise, they join the Prince's group through a variety of other circumstances.
** "Fire Emblem: Lost Heroes" concludes with all the ''Fire Emblem'' characters returning to their world. However, you can still use any ''Fire Emblem'' character you have without issue.
** Just like with the Fire Emblem characters above, the epilogue of "Mega Man: Chaos Protocol" details that Mega Man returns to his world with Dr. Wily in hand. Again though, if you managed to max out his friendship before the end of the event, you can continue to use him regardless.
** Both Stribog and Vodyanoy are shown being killed in chapter 11 cutscenes. Despite this, they both remain attainable and usable even after their deaths. Then again it might be that the ones who were killed are just one of many of their species of dragon.
* GagSeries: As a counterpart to ''Grand Blues!'' from ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'', this game has ''Dragalia Life'' which also focuses more on comedy, particularly various character and event-related gag skits.
* GenreRoulette: While it's normally a HighFantasy game, the themes in each event are where the roulette comes in from holidays (Halloween and New Year for example), horror (The Accursed Archives) and on literature (Echoes of Antiquity).
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere:
** The antagonist of "The Accursed Archives" is taken out in a story sequence. The boss you fight in the repeatable quests at the end is one that doesn't show up anywhere in the event's story and has no explanation for its presence.
** From Chapter 10 of the main story onwards, there have been inexplicable giant cubes that can be found off the beaten path, all of which have bizarre attack patterns, come in different elements, and have names solely consisting of question marks. Their attack names appear to be utter gibberish, but using the Epithets for fully clearing their fights as a hint reveals that all of them are actually ciphers. They're all named after spacecraft and have vague ramblings about themselves, which muddle the mystery even further.
* GoldfishScoopingGame: The wyrmprint "Indelible Summer" has Cleo trying and failing to play this while her unknown companion, most likely Euden, has gotten seven of them.
* GuestFighter: ''Dragalia Lost'' occasionally runs collaborations with other series like ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' or ''VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}'', which can also bring characters from those series as playable adventurers.
* HalloweenEpisode: The "Trick or Treasure" event is a Halloween event with Althemia, Edward and Elisanne getting dressed as vampires to get closer to the fiends attacking them.
* HarderThanHard:
** The rerun of "Resplendent Refrain" introduces the Nightmare difficulty for the raid boss Sabnock, where he's even tougher than his EX version. This has now become a mechanic going forward as it was also used on Qitian Dasheng as well.
** The first anniversary added the Omega difficulty, which is even harder than Nightmare.
** The second run of Loyalty's Requiem added a second level to Omega difficulty.
** The higher levels of Mercurial Gauntlet are this where you need to have a gameplan to beat the short amount of time given to beat Fafnir Roy III.
** Patch 1.12 does this to the Advanced Dragon Trials which were already harsh enough even with the best teams possible adding in Expert and Master difficulties.
* HelloInsertNameHere: The main character, canon name Euden, is re-namable, though he is often referred to by his title of prince.
* HiddenElfVillage:
** The “Hallowed Mountains” wyrmprint show that the Qilin clan are heavily isolated and rarely make contact with humans.
** The Sylvans are very reclusive due to their lifestyle of living with nature. Due to the Dyrenell Empire attacking Luca and Sarisse's village, the siblings are aware of the danger of this isolation and try to warn other Sylvans of the potential threat as seen in "The Hunt for Harmony".
* HitboxDissonance: Notte's hitbox in Notte's Slumber Shot is only the size of the dot centered in her. This is necessary because the higher difficulties are {{Bullet Hell}}s where the gaps in the enemies' attacks are smaller than Notte herself.
* HolyGround: The player's base of operations, the Halidom. Its name is even literally an archaic word for holygrounds.
* HolyWater: Holy water is a common material used to upgrade wyrmprints; each bottle grants 500 exp to a single wyrmprint.
* HornedHumanoid: Besides dragons that have a human appearance, there are two races that have horns.
** The Qilin have antler-like horns.
** The Rokka have curved horns.
* HowWeGotHere: The whole ''Flames of Reflection'' event is Ramona reminiscing on how she and her sisters joined the Halidom. It provides the in-universe explanation of how the Smithy facility is added to the Castle Grounds after completing Chapter 2 of the main story.
* IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: An EvilEmpire named Dyrenell.
* IHaveManyNames: In Mistilteinn's flavor text, it's described as not the name of a single weapon. It's been a sword, a lance and the sprout of a plant.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: In Cupid's dragon story, he is approached by a lady who wants to fall in love with an amazing man. When Cupid learns that the lady wants to be with a gardener, he's about to object, but stops when he realizes that he was only going to mention himself, and knowing fully that the two were perfect for each other. He hooks the two up as promised and redoubled his efforts to spread love to others.
* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels:
** The difficulty levels in Notte's Slumber Shot are Sweet, Sassy, and Molassy, named after a phrase Notte said back in Halloween.
** The difficulty levels in the "Lost Heroes" event are Normal, Hard, Lunatic, and Infernal, like ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes''.
* InfinityMinusOneSword:
** The Fólkvangr sword that you can get during the "Fire Emblem: Lost Heroes" event is outright stated to be just a replica of Alfonse's sword and is only slightly better than a fully unbound and leveled up 4-star sword. It does have the bonus of increasing strength once the wielder has their HP under 50% health.
** The 4-star strength dragons obtained by summoning (Ifrit, Vodyanoy, Roc, Lindworm, and Juggernaut) provide a 45% strength boost when fully unbound, making them very effective for late game content while being fairly easy to obtain and power up.
** The Chimeratech weapons lack a weapon skill, but they're fairly easy to obtain since Chimera isn't a hard boss, and tier 2 Chimeratech weapons actually have higher stats than tier 1 High Dragon weapons, which are already stronger than tier 3 5-star weapons.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: While each weapon class and element has a 5* tier three weapon, the highest weapon is currently those that can be obtained by fighting the Agito bosses which are stronger than the Void Chimera and High Dragon weapons, but are the only weapons that start at 6* and when fully unbound, their maximum level is 200.
* InterfaceSpoiler: All the Agito Uprising weapons require the second tier of the Chimeratech weapon of the same element to be crafted beforehand. Therefore, when a new element of Chimera is introduced, you can be sure that a new Agito Uprising quest is on the way.
* InterspeciesRomance: It's not unheard of for dragons, even non-humanoid ones, to be attracted to or fall in love with humans or Sylvans, and several dragons you can summon will express attraction to or fall in love with the Prince.
* InvulnerableAttack: Special attacks, such as the Prince's Blazing Circlet, leave the user mostly invulnerable during the attack animation. This can be exploited to power right through most large area-effect attacks without harm. However, attacks marked with a ''Purple'' area indicator will bypass your invulnerability and must still be physically avoided. The only way to tank through those specific ones is timed dragon transformations.
* ItemCrafting: The game's stronger weapons can be created at the smithy by using materials and money.

* ActorAllusion: Creator/MegumiHan voices Jeanne D'Arc in this game as she also does for the incarnations of Jeanne from other Cygames franchises such as ''VideoGame/RageOfBahamut'', ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'' and ''VideoGame/{{Shadowverse}}'' (even though said incarnations aren't technically on the same universe).
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts:
** From the Teams -> Collection menu, you can sell extra weapons, wyrmprints, and dragons for cash or Eldwater. However, aside from the Eldwater the bounty for doing so is a pittance and is almost completely useless for contributing to actually getting the funds for buying anything stronger than the thing you just sold.
** [[ItemCrafting The Crafting menu]] lets you build weapons for cash and resources, and later Enhance those weapons into stronger forms. Actually doing so, however, is enormously expensive. You'll need five copies of the weapon you intend to enhance (four to Unbind the one you will be Enhancing), plus a load of Whetstones and scrap weapons to level up the weapon to its maximum level. Then, after spending more resources to actually do the Enhance, you will be left with one copy of the new weapon, with no unbinds, at level 1. Be prepared to repeat the process all over again in order to make extra copies of the weapon for further unbinding, and of course, the new weapon will be mostly useless until you feed it more whetstones and scrap weapons to get ''that'' level up too.
** In order to progress in Chapter 12, you MUST upgrade your Halidom level. To do THAT, you have to level up your facilities 300 times for the first check, and then 100 more times for the second. Say goodbye to your Hustle Hammers, and then to your Wyrmite once those are gone.
* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: In Chapter 7, Mym mentions that some ruins near Saint Loiter used to be part of an advanced civilization long ago. [[spoiler:Its destruction came about because the dragons were angry that the civilization's development of technology was disrupting the flow of mana, so a vast number of them descended upon the area and laid waste to everything]].
* AdvertisedExtra: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. The character Leif is usually presented in loading screen tips like he's important along with characters like Euden, Notte or even Harle despite only showing up for all of one chapter segment in the entire story. The only other time he's shown up is in ''Dragalia Life'' and in wyrmprints. [[TheBusCameBack He finally returns in Chapter 8, revealed to be biding his time doing the Dyrenell Empire’s bidding waiting for an opportune moment to join Euden and strike.]] Then in Chapter 9 he has a significant role.
* AerithAndBob: In such a fantastic setting, one would come across names such as Ezelith, Cibella, Ranzal, Elisanne, Sarisse, Joe, Sophie, Vanessa...and that's just [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters a handful]] of the characters.
* AIBreaker: High Zodiark once suffered a flaw where if a player constantly circled around him, High Zodiark would spin in place and never attack. This was eventually fixed.
* AllChinesePeopleKnowKungFu: Parodied, as Xuan Zang is baffled to learn that Lin You (who is herself an AnimeChineseGirl) is fully convinced of this and thus will not stop pestering her for kung fu lessons.
-->'''Wu Kong:''' So now she assumes everyone from the tribe has the exact same skill set?\\
'''Lin You:''' Bingo! Which is why I wanted to get Xuan Zang here to give me a few lessons in the ol' kung-fu department.
* AllLoveIsUnrequited: If a character has a crush, it will invariably be on someone who either isn't interested or too ObliviousToLove to notice.
* AllThereInTheManual: The history of Alberia is detailed in two pre-release videos, including information of the Dyrenell Empire and the name of the sixth greatwyrm. The website also includes two [[LoveChart relationship charts]], one for the [[https://dragalialost.com/en/world/chart/ story characters]] up until the middle of the second chapter and another for the royal family. Notably, it shows Euden's relationship with even his siblings that have yet to be properly introduced.
%%* AlternateRealityGame: There seems to be one going on involving the Cube bosses in the EX levels first introduced in Chapter 10 and now in Chapter 11 as well.
* AndIMustScream: In "The Accursed Archives", a village's residents are transformed into books through a ritual. From what can be read on the books, it's an agonizing experience.
-->''STOP STOP STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP STOP STOP MAKE IT STOP ME STOP ME STOP ME STOP ME STOP''
* AngelsDevilsAndSquid: On the angel side, you have [[CrystalDragonJesus the Ilian Church and the holywrym]]. For devils, you have Morsayati and his army of fiends. And then there's the Ancient One, who's very, very heavily implied to be [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos literally Yog Sothoth]], as well as the 5-star Shadow dragon Nyarlathotep and 5-star Wind dragon Hastur.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
** Failing a quest won't cost any stamina (or Getherwings, if you do a co-op quest). This is helpful if you accidentally use the wrong team, have connection issues, or get saddled with a bad player.
** The AI behind your computer-controlled allies is ''staggeringly'' bad and tends to just sit there and die instead of making any effort to avoid the danger indicators of [[HerdHittingAttack area-effect attacks.]] Thankfully, if you use one of your special attacks, the invulnerability frames you gain during the attack animation will also protect your AI companions from harm.
** Complete a time-limited endeavor but forget to turn it in? Fear not, as any completed endeavors will remain even after they've expired, so you won't miss out on their rewards.
** If a co-op quest is abruptly interrupted by either disconnecting or the host giving up, you'll be switched to solo play. This might not be enough for the tougher ones, but otherwise, you still have a shot at finishing it.
** Your first summon of the game will always give you a 5-star adventurer. Even if your subsequent pulls get you junk, you'll at least have something cool to start with.
** Any characters that join through the campaign will have shared skills available to equip right away, giving you a chance to tweak your adventurers' movesets from the start.
* AnimalMotif: The Boar Clan of Hinomoto has boars and pigs for their clan, based off of the Year of the Pig in the Eastern Zodiac.
* ArbitraryMissionRestriction: Some levels fix the stats of your party. On one hand, this means you can't cheese the quest by bringing in high-level adventurers; on the other hand, this means you don't have to miss out if you only have low-level characters.
* ApocalypticLog: During "The Accursed Archives" the heroes stumble on the diary of a deceased priest stationed in an ominous village. It starts off normally, but as they go through the diary, its entries become more deranged, up to the last few pages where all that is written are {{Madness Mantra}}s.
* AppealToTradition: The “That Special Day” series of Castle Stories focuses on a cultural conflict, with Wedding Elisanne saying an Alberian wedding is best while Wedding Aoi insists on a Hinomoto wedding. Wedding Xania, however, is stuck in the middle.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: "The Hunt for Harmony" reveals that Luca keeps a variety of {{Trick Bomb}}s with him for pranks. This comes in handy when he has to stop a rampaging dragon, as he happens to have a Calmbomb DX for that moment.
* AprilFoolsDay:
** In 2019, starting up the game brings players to Notte's Slumber Shot, a top-down shmup in which Notte takes on fiends, with Midgardsormr as the boss. The difficulties available? [[IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels Sweet, Sassy, and Molassy]].
** 2020 has the Wagabond Pupper event where a puppy wanders into the Halidom and everyone goes into CutenessProximity over it. It has a Bond Level it can be filled up like it was a dragon and has a level called "Walkies" which allows you to take pictures of any character in the roster playing with the puppy.
* AristocratTeam: You can make up teams out of Adventurers who are/were nobles.
* ArousedByTheirVoice: Elly has a very strong reaction to Louise reading her romance novels out loud.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The description for the void wind staff weapon, Skypainter Staff, starts off apocalyptic and then veers into this trope.
--> “A staff imbued with the mana of Void Poseidon. It uses the authority of a grand ruler to birth gales that blow across the world entire, causing the atmosphere to tremble... before creating a lovely rainbow!”
* ArtificialStupidity: Your AI partners at launch left much to be desired. They did't attack nearly as frequently as you did and they rarely got out of the way of attacks. Thankfully, the creators worked on them to the point that many quests are doable with just you and your AI teammates now. That said, the AI can still have trouble avoiding certain attacks, such as running in the same direction of the attack when just [[OneDimensionalThinking moving to the side]] would be more effective.
* AttackItsWeakPoint: Certain bosses reveal a weak point when charging up a powerful attack. For example, the Volcanic Chimera will do this during its Searing Circle attack. Fail to destroy the weak point before the purple attack indicator around the arena charges up, and it unleashes the attack, insta-killing any party members unfortunate enough to be in the circle, and temporarily shrinking the arena by replacing the borders with lava. Destroy the weak point, and the Chimera gets stunned, and you ger a huge boost to your Dragon Gauge.
* AudienceParticipation: To celebrate 100 comics of ''Dragalia Life'', the creators made three Twitter polls to decide which panel will be adapted into new stickers for the game. The winners are labelled "What you said!", "Boom.", and "Hee hee!".
** Another one was held after 200 strips were reached. The winners in that cycle are "Hello there...", "Eh? Eh?", and "IT'S UP TO YOU!".
* AwesomeButImpractical:
** Five-star characters. Because of the astonishingly low rates for summoning five star anything, a rate that is divided between characters, dragons, and wyrmprints (That is, until wyrmprints were removed from the gacha from April 2019 onwards), it's very rare to find any five-star character. It's simply a better strategy to build a team of four-star or even some three-star characters and train them well than hold out to get five-star characters.[[note]]Though starting with a later update, every player will be guaranteed to be able to get at least one five-star adventurer for free.[[/note]]
** The status effects that immobilize or severely hinder enemies (Blindness, Frozen, Sleep, and Stun) make fighting mooks and lesser bosses a breeze, but because they're so powerful, all of the game's strongest bosses have ContractualBossImmunity to them to prevent them from getting too easy. This causes any character that inflicts these statuses to be far less useful against these bosses than others. Bog and Paralysis get this to a lesser extent; since their effects aren't as crippling, there are more bosses that are vulnerable to them than the ones above, but they still impair movement in some way, so it's still possible for bosses to be resistant or immune to them.
* BadFuture:
** A doomed future is featured prominently in the "Fractured Futures" event. In it, the Halidom is in ruins, and most of its inhabitants either are dead or have fled elsewhere to continue the fight.
** The second ''Fire Emblem Heroes'' crossover reveals that [[spoiler:the consequence of the black mana-infused Alfonse opening up rifts everywhere in one timeline causes Euden to accept the power of the Other in a desperate bid to close them all. Chrom is sent back from that future into the past to prevent this.]]
* BalanceBuff: Mana spirals are an attempt to power up weaker adventurers by giving them more nodes to increase their stats and enhance their abilities.
* BareYourMidriff: A common trait in Sylvan fashion, both to male and female characters of that race. Cleo is the only Sylvan shown to not show her belly (and this helps mark her as an oddball among Sylvans), although she does bare hers on her alternate skins.
* BarrierBustingBlow: Certain barricades such as fallen trees and piles of rubble can be destroyed in dragon form, grating access to shortcuts and hidden areas, or just clearing out more room to fight.
* BeachEpisode: The "A Splash of Adventure" event sees the crew go on a beach trip, with Summer themed versions of the main cast as well as Summer versions of Julietta and Celliera. There's one for Verica but she's not playable in this event.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Svenitla, a country north of Alberia, wished for their own dragon so they could have power equal to them. What they got was Juggernaut, who promptly proceeded to cow them into submission and terrorized the people of the kingdom.
* BigDamnHeroes: Jeanne d'Arc's dragon story focuses on a woman who was falsely declared to be pactbound to the dragon of note. She leads an army to a nest of fiends, but everyone gets separated in a fog generated by the fiends. When all hope seemed lost, a hand breaks through and guides the woman through, and the army miraculously manages to rout all the fiends. While the others mention they were able to find their way by the faint image of a flag, only the woman knew the whole truth - that Jeanne herself came to their aid.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The current crop of Alberian royalty have various issues that need to be ironed out but [[spoiler:Aurelius' death and the power vacuum that's left behind has them doubling down on their issues rather than fixing it. Also none of them but Euden show any concern for the fact that their youngest sister's been ''possessed by a demonic force hundreds of years old''.]]
** Leonidas's shown to care very little about Euden because of his lofty ambitions and belief that only those equal to him in prowess are worthy of his attention. [[spoiler:Chapter 12 reveals that his mother died in his childhood in a dragon-caused accident, giving him a massive complex over dragons and power.]]
** Phares is far too engrossed with feeding his curiosity and carrying out his experiments to actually interact much with everyone else or care about the ongoing war. He claims that morality doesn't matter to him, merely facts and the quest for more knowledge. [[spoiler:He's suffering from the incurable disease of wyrmscale and is willing to do anything to avoid succumbing to it completely. Later chapters reveal that he's teamed up with his younger brother Beren and that he's potentially played a hand in the release of the Other and the creation of the Empire all just to cure his condition.]]
** Chelle is obsessed with social class and maintaining her image of glamorous princess [[WhileRomeBurns holding balls for her fellow nobles as the Dyrenell Empire viciously annexes the continent one bit at a time]]. [[spoiler:But she is the one sibling who tempers their hang-ups for the sake of dealing with the bigger threat instead of stubbornly sticking to what they were doing. Though she did frequently bully Euden when he was younger. She then turns on Euden in chapter 10 to side with Morsayati, only to be revealed later on to be working on her own agenda all the while still trying to maintain that political image of power and classiness as much as possible.]]
** Valyx is a lot less screwed up than his siblings but has decided to side with the Dyrenell Empire because of rigid adherence to his oaths.
** No one even knows what happened to the fifth heir, or at least, by Euden's time has bothered to explain to him who they were before they disappeared. [[spoiler:Chapter 12 indicates that they are TheDreaded as both Leonidas and Chelle are disturbed at the mere notion of Phares bringing them back into Alberian politics. Chapter 13 introduces him as Beren and he's the one who corrupts the void dragons that the player has been fighting.]]
** Emile being long overshadowed by his siblings with only his pact (which he loses) as his distinguishing accomplishment has led him to take out his anger at Euden when he can. It's also hinted that something terrible happened to him a while ago to add even more fuel to the emotionally troubled fire.
** Euden is the most well-adjusted, though he's a bit ''too'' obsessed with protecting his twin sister at all costs and has a hang-up over being the youngest child, and therefore neglected by most of his already grown siblings. [[spoiler:And then Chapter 12's Interlude reveals he's not even the ''real'' Euden, the real one having died of wyrmscale at only a month into his birth, with the Euden we all know and love being an [[ReplacementGoldfish adopted child.]] Which brings up the question: How does this Euden still have dragonblood?]]
** Zethia is the one exception because of her IncorruptiblePurePureness and having no claim to the throne by being the Auspex, with no desire to contest this status. [[spoiler:But then she gets possessed by the BigBad and becomes the primary threat which the other siblings must choose to ally with or oppose. In addition, her alternate BadFuture self acts rather distant to Euden because of vaguely alluded to events.]]
* BizarreSexualDimorphism: Like their [[VideoGame/GranblueFantasy draph]] counterparts, male rokkans are huge, hulking mountains of muscle while females are child-sized but stronger than any human man.
* BlackBeadEyes: Anytime someone in Euden's imagination has gone through Celliera's training, their eyes turn into these.
* BonusBoss:
** The Advanced Dragon Trials, featuring a High version on one of the Greatwyrms. They're much more fierce than their regular counterparts, with souped-up versions of their regular attacks and many new and tricky moves. They require a high amount of Might to unlock, and even then if you're not careful you'll find yourself downed in short order. Taking them down requires high-end equipment and an incredibly powerful and coordinated team, but if you win, you'll be able to use the High Greatwyrm, who is on the same level as the summonable 5-star dragons, as your shapeshift dragon.
** The "Fire Emblem: Lost Heroes" event adds Alfonse as one to the event, making his attacks hit like a truck and also using force strikes like the players can, letting everyone know why he's called “[[FanNickname the Benchlord]].”
** The Mega Man: Chaos Protocol Event also adds the Blue Bomber himself as one too and he shows no mercy as he uses every move he had in his second game, including some that not even his playable counterpart can do. He definitely shows us why he's Dr. Light's greatest robot!
** The Agito series now introduces a new set of them. Unlike the High Dragons who were testing Euden's might, this group is out for blood.
* BoringButPractical:
** While 4-star weapons and 5-star Void weapons aren't as strong as 5-star elemental weapons, they're ''much'' easier to power up. Not only are they much cheaper to fully upgrade than 5-star elemental weapons, they only require materials that can be obtained infinitely, while 5-star weapons need materials that can only be obtained from events in limited quantities. In fact, there are some 4-star weapons and 5-star Void weapons that are actually ''better'' to equip on certain adventurers than their 5-star elemental weapon counterparts.
** Having a skill that boosts the team's strength doesn't seem that exciting, but boosting the entire team's strength can improve damage output far more than a skill that just deals damage, especially if it's the primary skill, which charges faster than the secondary skill.
** The DamageOverTime status effects (Burn, Poison, and Frostbite) just inflict a small amount of damage periodically and nothing else, but nearly all of the game's strongest bosses are vulnerable to them, making them much more reliable and consistent than the other status effects. There are also wyrmprints with punisher abilities that deal increased damage against enemies with these status effects, which can stack with characters who have these abilities naturally to greatly increase damage.
* BreakMeter: Bosses have a separate meter that builds as it takes damage. Once the meter fills, it enters an overdrive state, becoming much more aggressive. Attacking the boss while it's in overdrive depletes the meter, and once it's empty it enters a break state and becomes vulnerable.
* BreakingOldTrends: High Mercury differs from the other High Greatwyrms in that her opening attack is significantly weaker, to the point where melee adventurers can survive it without her associated Wyrmprint. High Mercury also lacks unavoidable attacks besides her first one and has around ''twice'' the HP of High Brunhilda, meaning the challenge is based less on surviving and more on beating her before time runs out.
* BreatherEpisode:
** "New Years Tidings Fortune from Afar" can be seen as one, airing after the release of an eventful Chapter 7 and having no real antagonist, unlike the previous raid events.
** The ValentinesDayEpisode, "Valentine's Confection," is all about the main characters and the representing Valentine-variation of the adventurers and their business. Unlike other events, it has no storyline nor bosses, and the resource for the event is acquired by just completing quests.
** “The Hunt for Harmony” is a lighthearted Easter themed romp compared to the Lovecraftian horror of “The Accursed Archive.
* BribingYourWayToVictory: You can pay real money for a variety of boosts, currency to perform summons, instant enhancement materials, and more. ''DL'' does stand out, however, for having a few of the cheapest options for this on the market (like a daily paid-currency pull that is one-fifth the cost of a usual pull, and options for getting paid currency that reduce the cost of this to as low as 36 cents a day).
* CallingYourAttacks: Adventurers will call out the names their personal skills. Subverted with characters from the ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'' {{crossover}}, who say a PreMortemOneLiner instead, and weapon skills, which adventurers say a more general line when using. Also averted with Franchise/MegaMan, who [[TheVoiceless doesn't say anything]].
* TheCameo: Several ''VideoGame/RageOfBahamut'' characters appear in wyrmprints like Forte in "Lord of the Skies", Cerberus (with Coco and Mimi) in "Fireside Gathering" and Albert in "Levin's Champion". The Jeanne d'Arc dragon also takes some obvious cues from the Jeannes in ''Rage'' and ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'', including being voiced by Creator/MegumiHan in Japanese.
* {{Cap}}:
** Adventurers, weapons, dragons, and wyrmprints all have a level cap, which depends on their star rating, mana spiral progress for the former, and unbind level for the latter three.
** You can have at most 999 Stamina and 99 (was 50 at launch) Getherwings in reserve.
** Boosts from Wyrmprints have a maximum value by which they can be increased, e.g. bonus skill damage caps at 40% and skill haste caps at 15%.
* CastHerd: The many characters can be put into groups that could overlap/intersect with other groups that one would need a Venn, Euler and/or spider diagram in 3D to comprehend.
* CharacterPortrait: During story scenes, the characters use their illustrations which are slightly altered. There are a few characters who use entirely different illustrations as their portraits, like the Prince, Elisanne (regular and Halloween), Luca, Elias, and Vixel.
* CharacterSelectForcing: Or Wyrmprint Select Forcing.
** Early events included Wyrmprints that gave event-specific benefits, like dealing extra damage to the event's raid boss or getting more event items. Usually, this meant that the event Wyrmprint was all but required in order to get the most out of the event. Boss-specific Wyrmprints were phased out in later raid events and the ability to equip a second Wyrmprint was later implemented to encourage more diverse usage of Wyrmprints.
** There are Wyrmprints that reduce damage done by a specific High Greatwyrm. Most Advanced Dragon Trials will require the use of those Wyrmprints, as the High Greatwyrm's opening attack will deal enough damage to take you out if you don't have it equipped.
* ChargedAttack: Force strikes are of the hold type. By tapping and holding on the screen for a bit, you can unleash a stronger attack that can break enemies' guards.
* ChristmasEpisode: The event "The Miracle of [[YouMeanXMas Dragonyule]]" is one, with Cleo, Nefaria, and Xander donning seasonal attire. There is even a Yuletree to add to the castle.
* CircusEpisode: The “Dream Under the Big Top” facility event focuses on a traveling circus troupe.
* CognizantLimbs: Raid bosses often have at least one.
** Some bosses only expose one during certain attacks.
* CompanyCrossReferences: The device Nadine carries around with her looks suspiciously like a [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Sheikah Slate.]]
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: CrosshairAware attacks come in two types. Red and yellow ones can be avoided by performing a skill, and purple ones will hit anyone within its area regardless of what they are doing.
* CoOpMultiplayer: The game is mostly playable with other people. Raid battles, in particular, require you to play in co-op.
* CoolHorse: "Scorn the Destrier" is a wyrmprint that tells the story of the horse that Emperor Dane rode on, that whoever broke him in would be king.
* CooldownManipulation:
** Skill Prep and Shapeshift Prep pre-fill your respective gauges by a certain amount at the start of a quest.
** Skill Haste and Dragon Haste boost the fill rate of their respective gauges.
* CorruptChurch: the Ilian Church isn't evil or irrideemable, but it ''is'' a hot mess of political backstabbing and hypocritical or exploitative clergy.
* CosmicHorror: While The Accursed Archives was more on the side of LovecraftLite, the Stirring Shadows story event is basically a Lovecraft short story starring [[ADayInTheLimelight Curran and Heinwald]].
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: The "A New Year's Challenge" has Taro, Emma and Joe climb a mountain so Taro can see the first sunrise of the new year and make a wish. While they make it, he learns from Emma that she prays to Apollo. With that, he vows next year to pray to Apollo instead.
* CriticalStatusBuff: The Last series of abilities give a substantial boost the first time its user's HP falls below a certain amount.
* CrosshairAware: Some of the enemies' and bosses' stronger attacks will have colored areas appear on the ground indicating where and how soon it'll hit.
* {{Crossover}}:
** A crossover promotional event occurs between ''Dragalia Lost'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'' held on April 2019. During the event, players could summon Marth, Fjorm, and Veronica, while Alfonse is the GuestStarPartyMember requiring friendship points to be a permanent member. The event returned on April 2020 to coincide the [[Franchise/FireEmblem series']] 30th anniversary.
** An event held on late November 2019 involving ''VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}'' features the Blue Bomber as the GuestStarPartyMember who requires friendship points. Rush also appears as Mega Man's exclusive dragon form.
** An event held on February 2020 involving ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' [[note]]specifically ''Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate'' due to the inclusion of the Soratorium[[/note]], making it the second Creator/{{Capcom}} crossover. The Rathalos makes an appearance as a recruitable character with its Dreadking version being obtainable in the gacha. During the event, Fatalis is also recruitable through the gacha as well as a raid boss. Hunter themed versions of Berserker, Vanessa and Sarisse were added to the gacha as well.
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Ilian Church is basically the ThemeParkVersion of Catholicism if Jesus were a woman and also had a pet dragon.

** The end of "Rhythmic Resolutions" [[spoiler:reveals Marvelous Naoto to not actually be whom he claimed. After reposting a fiend warding talisman that had been torn down by a dragon, he begins to ponder whether Euden will bring good fortune or bad omens, all while being surrounded by black mana and preparing to report back to an unseen master he calls Seimei]].

** The end of "New Years Tiding A Clawed Caper" has a scene in Hinomoto involving other Wyrmclan leaders including Ieyasu which involves the missing leader of the Ox Clan[[note]]Which coincides with 2021 being the Year of the Ox[[/note]], and that Amaterasu may have to get involved in the future.
** The end of "Rhythmic Resolutions" reveals Marvelous Naoto to not actually be whom he claimed. After reposting a fiend warding talisman that had been torn down by a dragon, he begins to ponder whether Euden will bring good fortune or bad omens, all while being surrounded by black mana and preparing to report back to an unseen master he calls Seimei.

* SequelHook: The end of "New Years Tiding A Clawed Caper" has a scene in Hinomoto involving other Wyrmclan leaders including Ieyasu which involves the missing leader of the Ox Clan[[note]]Which coincides with 2021 being the Year of the Ox[[/note]], and that Amaterasu may have to get involved in the future.

** The epilogue of ''Rhythmic Resolutions'', [[spoiler:reveals that Marvelous Naoto is the servant of Seimei]].

* DevelopersForesight: Tier 4 Elemental Orbs of all flavors are available via a RareRandomDrop from certain Void Battles (such as Void Zephyr Strike.) This, despite the fact that the only adventurers to have the Mana Spiral are Flame or Shadow attuned.

* DifficultButAwesome: Soloing hard content and boss fights (especially timed ones) using ''[[SoloCharacterRun one]]'' adventurer, it requires the player to have some of the strongest wyrmprints, weapons, and dragon to do this effectively. But this requires precise timing on dodges, skill activation, and animation canceling in order to solo a boss while still maintaining DPS. For ranged characters, this is generally easy to do, but much harder to perform with melee based characters. The awesome part is that soloing hard content is generally more viable than taking an AI team with you in some cases due to massive ArtificialStupidity of the AI. And keep in note that ANY adventurer with reasonable DPS can solo anything, even 3 star rarity ones.

** Just like with the Fire Emblem characters above, the epilogue of "Mega Man:Chaos Protocol" details that Mega Man returns to his world with Dr. Wily in hand. Again though, if you managed to max out his friendship before the end of the event, you can continue to use him regardless.
** Both Stribog and Vodyanoy are shown being killed in chapter 11 cutscenes. Despite this, they both remain attainable and usable even after their deaths. Then again it might be that the one who were killed were just one of many of their species of dragon.

* GenreRoulette: While it's normally a HighFantasy game, the themes in each event are where the roulette come in from holidays (Halloween and New Year for example), horror (The Accursed Archives) and on literature (Echoes of Antiquity).

* InterspeciesRomance: It's not unheard of for dragons, even nonhumanoid ones, to be attracted to or fall in love with humans or Sylvans, and several dragons you can summon will express attraction to or fall in love with the Prince.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Five-star characters. Because of the astonishingly low rates for summoning five star anything, a rate that is divided between characters, dragons, and wyrmprints (That is, until wyrmprints were removed from the gacha from April 2019 onwards), it's very rare to find any five-star character. It's simply a better strategy to build a team of four-star or even some three-star characters and train them well than hold out to get five-star characters.[[note]]Though starting with a later update, every player will be guaranteed to be able to get at least one five-star adventurer for free.[[/note]]

* OminousCubes: Ine the main campaign, there are bosses in the shape of cubes.

** The epilogue of ''A Clawful Caper'' ends in a happy note welcoming the new year, for New Alberia's side at least. Meanwhile in Hinamoto, [[spoiler:Semei the Ox Wyrmclan leader had gone missing with grave implications if foul play was done by a certain suspected party]].

** The "New Year Tidings A Clawed Caper" is the sequel to Tidings from Afar which introduces two new Wyrmclans; Mitsuhide, leader of the Mouse Clan and Nobunaga, leader of the Horse Clan.

** The Rhythmic Resolutions event is a homage to ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'', with Sam serving as the Gizmo stand-in and the Styx spawned from Sam as the Gremlins reference. [[spoiler:The MetaTwist is that Catherine giving Sam a bath is not the root cause of the Styx appearing, it's Sam feeling troubled over Catherine and Eugene's argument with each other.]] There's even a Styx dressed up as a Japanese courtesan as a send-up to the scene where a Gremlin puts on makeup.

* ShoutOut: Edward's Halloween Outfit resembles a vampire, of all the beasts he could portray... Now wasn't there [[Literature/{{Twilight}} another popular vampire named Edward]]?

* EvolvingCredits: Starting with Patch 1.12, the login screen changes depending on story progress. The first time, it has all the main cast along with Zethia. The second screen has Zethia removed though adds in Mym and Alex. The third screen changes Euden to his Gala form. The fourth screen adds in Laxi.

** Some bosses only expose one during certain attacks.

* AllThereInTheManual: The history of Alberia is detailed in two pre-release videos, including information of the Dyrenell Empire and the name of the sixth greatwyrm. The website also includes two relationship charts, one for the [[https://dragalialost.com/en/world/chart/ story characters]] up until the middle of the second chapter and another for the royal family. Notably, it shows Euden's relationship with even his siblings that have yet to be properly introduced.

** A March 2020 update changed the way co-abilities worked in co-op so that your party's co-abilities applied instead of the co-op party's, and added chain co-abilities to everyone, which usually gave more niche or conditional boosts. This added another layer of character building, as certain adventurers can greatly benefit from certain benefits, e.g. stacking buff time boosts on a buff-centric adventurer.

** Adventurers, weapons, dragons, and wyrmprints all have a level cap, which depends on their star rating and, for the latter three, their unbind level.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: CrosshairAware attacks come in three colors. Red ones come quickly but have small areas of effect, yellow ones are slower but hit in a larger area, and purple ones are massive and additionally will hit anyone within its area regardless of what they are doing.

* An official GagSeries {{webcomic}}/manga titled ''Dragalia Life'', which can be accessed in-game. It is also freely accessible [[https://comic.dragalialost.com/dragalialife/en/ here]]!

* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: ''Dragalia Life'' #23 has Emile play sick to get out of training with Leif. Leif gives him a drink made of 200 blended plants, animals and fish that Emile drinks, only to get sick from it. Harle wonders if Leif was trying to poison the prince while Leif protests he had some that morning.

* BroughtToYouByTheLetterS: In ''Dragalia Life,'' the royal family will sometimes be shown in t-shirts with numbers matching their position in the family, i.e. Leonidas with a 1 shirt, Phares with a 2 and Euden with a 7.

** ''Dragalia Life'' is a gag comic which does this to different characters, usually those from a new showcase.

* DeniedFoodAsPunishment: Played for laughs in ''Dragalia Life'' Comic #26 when Melsa figures out Ranzal and Luca have not only stolen two bread rolls, but have also stolen some other food. Elisanne says they don't get dinner that night.

* {{Yonkoma}}: The format for the series of ''Dragalia Life'' comic strips accessible in-game.

* SecretArt: Certain status effects can only be inflicted by one element. Flame gets Burning; Water gets Freeze, Bog, and Frostbite; and Light gets Paralysis.