History VideoGame / Ikenfell

* AmicableExes: [[spoiler:Maritte and Gilda dated between the game's end and epilogue, but separated when they realized they were in love with other people. They remain close friends, though.]]

* DamageOverTime: Some enemies can cause your party members to be poisoned, losing some of their HP for a certain number of their turns. Petronelle also has two skills where this can be done to enemies.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: During a cutscene after the party meets Ima, ze talks to Pertisia about a spell that she's under, but we don't learn the details until later: [[spoiler:it's to hide the scarring on her face]]. There are also a few scenes where Pertisia reacts with a VisibleSilence when secrets are brought up, [[spoiler:because the hidden scar is a secret of her own]].

* GradualRegeneration: Petronella's "Aura" and Ima's "Rainbow" can be used in party members to increase their HP over several of their turns, as can specific items.

* ToiletTeleportation: When you reach the end of the Snatcher's Lair, you'll find a toiler, which the Snatcher says will take you back to Ikenfell (specifically a bathroom in the Northern Dorms), which can be used to travel between the school and the lair should you want to backtrack.

* NewWorldTease: The map shows almost everywhere you will go to in the game. One particular place, the Ruins is shown near the top left corner, which isn’t visited until about halfway through the game.

* GoodiesInTheToilets: There are several bathrooms in the game where you can find gems that are hidden, some of which are ‘’in the toilets’’. Some bathrooms also have enemies in them.

* NonLethalKO: Party members at 0HP will be KO'd rather than dying. However, they can only be revived with specific items rather than just any healing items. If the attack that reduces them to 0HP was defended well, they'll come back with 1HP, referre to as a "clutch", but it only works once per battle.

ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: You can only have 3 characters in your active party at a time, who will be shown in the overworld as well.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Safina caused a lot of this because she never told anyone exactly what she was up to. [[spoiler:When Pertisia confronted her about it, she responsed by trapping her in a mirror rather than actually telling her what was going on, and she destroyed the Summerstone without telling Aeldra that she was actually trying to free the Sapling and that the Dark Fold was dead, leading to Aeldra putting her under a sleep spell and trapping the two of them in the Spelltower, where she continued to keep the Sapling contained, causing earthquakes all over the school.]]

* SadBattleMusic: [[LonelyPianoPiece A sad piano song]] plays during the second phase of the final boss fight against [[spoiler:Ibn Oxley, having transformed into a monster as a result of losing control of his powers when he believes that Bax has died]]. A slower version plays in the third phase.

** Safina and Petronella joined the Coven, with the latter successfully finding a way for [[spoiler:OIbn to keep his powers under control.]]

* DefrostingTheIceQueen: Pertisia starts off very standoffish to the point you can't even control her after she joins the party at first, however Maritte's kindness and warmth eventually win her over. [[spoiler:Pertisia even falls in love with Maritte due to Maritte's kindness.]]

* EternalRecurrence: [[spoiler: A variation. Every thousand years, the "season" of magic changes, causing great upheaval of the magic system, changing the types of powers found in people, and causing all texts from that era to simply vanish. It also requires the Sapling to die to function properly, and Aeldra's refusal to let it do so threatens all of Ikenfell, if not the whole magic world.]]

* ShootTheDog: Occurs in the backstory, which led to the creation of the Summerstone. [[spoiler:When Aeldra and her friends attempted to stop the Dark Fold in the past, the Fold killed everyone but Aeldra. In grief and rage, Aeldra used her powers to seal away the Dark Fold with the Summer Sapling by using the souls of her dead comrades as the Dark Fold's prison. However, the guilt of having to do this and failing to save her friends has been eating away at Aeldra for over a thousand years, to the point it drives her to use {{blood magic}} to exile her pain and guilt.]]

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Two of them, one before the credits, and one after. The first one tells us what the main cast did after the ending cutscene, while the second one involves a TimeSkip.

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: After a certain even where [[spoiler:Maritte suffers a HeroicBSOD and rejects her magic over what Safina did with the Summerstone]], Ima temporarily takes over the role of party leader from Maritte. It's justified by zir being a junior professor and sixth-year student, and ze's already trusted by the other party members anyway.

** A menu option lets you shut off {{Seizuriffic}} lights and attack patterns.

* BonusBoss: The game has a few optional boss fights, if you can find them. These include [[spoiler: the Allcat, the Spectres, and Codexus]]. They don't become available until during the final dungeon, however, as [[spoiler: finding the Allcat and the Spectres involve sidequests that require access to said dungeon, while Codexus is a book that gets knocked off the top of a shelf in a specific cutscene, also during the final dungeon]].

* ImportantHaircut: [[spoiler:After regaining her magic and vowing to find Safina in order to get the truth, Maritte gains MismatchedEyes (one red, one blue), and her hair turns from redheaded to a sparkling maroon.]]
* InfinityPlusOneSword: In the final level, the party can acquire their best weapons by doing optional trials with one member doing a solo battle against a group of enemies. [[spoiler: There's also the Kitty Wand, which can be equipped by any party member and is just as powerful as the weapons earned through the trials.]]

* MookMaker: Quite a few of the bosses will summon other enemies as part of the fight, making it more difficult as you not only have to deal with their attacks but the turn order is also changed to include them.

* SadBattleMusic: A sad piano song plays during the second phase of the final boss fight against [[spoiler:Ibn Oxley, having transformed into a monster as a result of losing control of his powers when he believes that Bax has died]]. A slower version plays in the third phase.

* RespawningEnemies: Leaving an area and entering it again will have previously-defeated enemies re-appear. It can be a nuisance when backtracking to find secrets, but it's also useful for LevelGrinding.

** Most scenes before boss fights will have [[SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity a save cat and sometimes even a shop nearby]], as well as [[BossWarningSiren a specific song playing]], to let you know you're about to enter a boss fight.

* WhamEpisode: Chapter 4 serves as one. [[spoiler:After the boss battle, a memory shard shows that Safina intentionally shattered the Summerstone, the only thing keeping the Dark Fold in check. When Maritte finds out, she undergoes a HeroicBSOD and gives up her magic because of how shocked she is that her sister would do that.]]

* BonusBoss: The game has a few optional boss fights, if you can find them. These include [[spoiler: the Allcat, which requires a sidequest to be able to fight, and Codexus, a book in the room in the Library where you meet Pertisia that doesn't become available to fight until during the final dungeon]].

* InformationBroker: Meracchi a student who uses a army of mice familiars to collect intel and offers to sell it to the player.

* RecurringBoss: Gilda fights Maritte a few times before she joins the party.

* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Petronella saves the day at the end of the game. They use their alchemy, along with a healing rune from Rook, to being Bax back from the brink of death. This enables Bax to talk down Ibn Oxley from his despair-induced madness.]]

* AmicableExes: [[spoiler:Maritte and Gilda dated between the game's end and epilogue, but separated when they realized they were in love with other people.]]

* BaddieFlattery: The boss of the Dueling Arena is essentially the school's equivalent of a gym teacher. During the fight, she'll praise your characters for getting her down to half health, and once again after beating her. Justified, as she's testing your strength; the fact you're winning is what she wanted to see.
* BarrierWarrior: Pertisia fights using glass and ice constructs to form shields.

* BrokenPedestal: Maritte learns some pretty bad things about her big sister over the course of the story, but what really hurts her the most is that Safina kept Maritte a secret from the other students out of shame. [[spoiler:Well, all of them except Pertisia. Petronella and Rook aren't too happy when they find out they Safina intentionally didn't tell her best friends about her sister.]]
* CantDropTheHero: Played with. Maritte is the central focus of the story, and must always be in the party. However, after a certain even where [[spoiler:Maritte suffers a HeroicBSOD and rejects her magic over what Safina did with the Summerstone]], Ima takes over the role of party leader instead. Maritte is still technically in the party, but she just can't be switched into the front lines. Maritte becomes playable again later, but she can be switched out freely after she becomes playable again.

* DefrostingTheIceQueen: Pertisia starts off very standoffish to the point you can't even control her after she joins the party at first, however Maritte's kindness and warmth eventually win her over.

* ShockAndAwe: Gilda's newfound power takes the form of lightning magic.
* ShootTheDog: Occurs in the backstory, which led to the creation of the Summerstone. [[spoiler:When Aeldra and her friends attempted to stop the Dark Fold in the past, the Fold killed everyone but Aeldra. In grief and rage, Aeldra used her powers to seal away the Dark Fold with the Summer Sapling by using the souls of her dead comrades as the Dark Fold's prison. However, the guilt of having to do this and failing to save her friends has been eating away at Aeldra for over a thousand years, to the point it drives her to get in the party's way.]]

* BewareTheSillyOnes: Ibn Oxley is an amicable, foppish coven wizard who goes down easily in a fight to a teenage girl who has been using her powers for all of a few minutes. [[spoiler: Except he is an exceptionally powerful spirit mage who is being restrained by his handler/lover Bax, and once that restraint is removed, all bets are off.]]

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Several quality-of-life options are included to make the game easier or for people with photosensitivity.

** In sections where you have to sneak past sentries, your party will be reduced to only the character you're controlling. This way, you only need to worry about one character instead of three.

* BossTease: It turns out [[spoiler:Ibn Oxley really is the most powerful mage in the coven. It's just that Bax was intentionally holding back his magic]].

With her new [[PlayingWithFire Pyromancy]], she must find her way into the school and uncover the mystery of her missing sister as well as the sudden wild shifts in magic that are plaguing the area.

* AlwaysSecondBest: Gilda felt like an incompetent at Ikenfell, not helped by Safina's bullying, until she suddenly developed previously unseen lightning magic. Finally thinking she has come into her own, Gilda then keeps losing to Safina's formerly [[{{Muggle}} Ordinary]] younger sister Maritte, who only just developed her own magic. Gilda takes a major hit to her self-esteem for a while because of this.

* NoAntagonist: Deconstructed. [[spoiler:Despite the evidence that suggests that an EldritchAbomination called the Dark Fold being the game's antagonist, it turns out that it's long gone. However, Headmistress Aeldra legitimately fears that it's still alive. Fueled by said fears and years of suppressed guilt and self-loathing, Aeldra causes more than a few problems out of paranoia. The season of magic changing is being held back by Aeldra, out of a refusal to let the past die and for magic to change.]]

* CantDropTheHero: Played with. Maritte is the central focus of the story, and must always be in the party. However, after a certain even where [[spoiler:Maritte suffers a HeroicBSOD and rejects her magic over what Safina did with the Summerstone]], Ima takes over this role instead. Maritte rejoins the party later, but she can be switched out freely after she rejoins.
* CastFullOfGay: There are quite a few gay and transgender people in this game. Most of the party shows blatant attraction to women or non-binary people, with Rook, Ima, and Petronella preferring to not identify as a gender. (They are, respectively, he/him, ze/zir, and they/them for pronouns.) Outside of that, there are several other same-sex couples, including Gilda openly hitting on Maritte, and Ibn and Bax also being in a romantic relationship.

* ElementalPowers: Several characters have suddenly developed these despite it not being normally possible for mages to do such things.

* MultiStageBattle: The final battle with [[spoiler:a grief-stricken Ibn Oxley starts at the top of the spell tower before he drags the party into the Ghost Realm]].
* NoAntagonist: Deconstructed. [[spoiler:Despite the evidence that suggests that an EldritchAbomination called the Dark Fold being the game's antagonist, it turns out that it's long gone. However, Headmistress Aeldra legitimately fears that it's still alive, and fueled by said fears and years of suppressed guilt and self-loathing, it has her cause more than a few problems. The season of magic changing is being held back by Aeldra, out of a refusal to let the past die and for magic to change.]]

* TragicMonster: Both of the back-to-back final bosses qualify. [[spoiler:Headmistress Aeldra]] is literally possessed by years and years of suppressed guilt and self-loathing, and [[spoiler:Ibn Oxley loses control of his incredibly powerful spirit magic when a possessed Aeldra mortally wounds his lover/partner, Bax.]]

* UnSorcerer: Maritte is an Ordinary, meaning she lacks magic powers compared to her sister Safina; it's also implied that she's the only Ordinary in her family. However, when she steps onto school grounds, she awakens to fire abilities. [[spoiler:After her DespairEventHorizon over Safina's actions, she wills her magic away, turning her back into an Ordinary. She gets better.]]