History VideoGame / SigmaStarSaga

''Sigma Star Saga'' is a hybrid ShootEmUp / {{RPG}} developed by Creator/WayForwardTechnologies and published by Creator/{{Namco}} for the GameBoyAdvance in 2005.

'''''Sigma Star Saga''''' is a hybrid ShootEmUp / {{RPG}} developed by Creator/WayForwardTechnologies and published by Creator/{{Namco}} for the GameBoyAdvance in 2005.

* LethalJokeItem: Krill Puck

-->'''Recker''':''So do your [[BuffySpeak slug bikini thing]].''

** "So do your slug bikini thing."

* CardboardObstacle: Quite a few, actually. Lots of backtracking is required to get past most of them, and largely subverted by the scanner, which allows you to find most of the game's (hidden) equipment.
** One of the straight examples of a cardboard obstacle is also more [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolic]] in nature rather than a result of poor design. The commander's room in Starbase 6 is accessible only via an item which you should already have, but the person inside gives some meaning to the method used to get in.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Sigma_Star_Saga_9774.jpg
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* WithThisHerring: Played mostly straight with Earth (you get a gun and not much else), heavily subverted with the Krill.

''VideoGame/SigmaStarSaga'' is a hybrid ShootEmUp / {{RPG}} developed by Creator/WayForwardTechnologies and published by Creator/{{Namco}} for the GameBoyAdvance in 2005.

* BondOneLiner: "Looks like his [[spoiler:Ammer's]] schedule's clear now."

* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:The Tyrannical Overlord when he merges with the Flesh Deity.]]

* TheVirus: A very significant portion of the game's plot centers around a mysterious, human-developed virus.

* [[spoiler: EarthAllAlong]]: Most of the game is spent searching for a series of six planets which will ultimately lead to a DoomsdayDevice. [[spoiler: Earth is the "seventh" planet, which had already been destroyed by said device.]]
** Wrong. While it's true that [[spoiler: Earth was indeed the seventh planet, it was "saved" by the Krill. The very act that started the cosmic wars between the two planets, ergo the physical extraction of a good chunk of Earth, was done to capture the spawn of the Sleeping Flesh that was incubated there, unbeknown to all humans. Of course, this was done by the Krill's Tyrannical Overlord orders to both conduct research on said DoomsdayDevice and to drop it back at the Iot, the race that created said device, as a revenge, given how the Krill planet also got incubated. The fact that humanity survived said extraction was an ignorable afterthought.]]

** Wrong. While it's true that [[spoiler: Earth was indeed the seventh planet, it was "saved" by the Krill. The very act that started the cosmic wars between the two planets, ergo the physical extraction of a good chunk of Earth, was done to capture the spawn of the Sleeping Flesh that was incubated there, unbeknown to all humans. Of course, this was done by the Krill's Tyrannical Overlord orders to conduct research on said DoomsdayDevice. The fact that humanity survived said extraction was an ignorable afterthought.]]

** Wrong. While it's true that [[spoiler: Earth was indeed the seventh planet, it was "saved" by the Krill. The very act that started the cosmic wars between the two planets, ergo the physical extraction of a good chunk of Earth, was done to capture the spawn of the Sleeping Flesh that was incubated there, unbeknown to all humans. Of course, this was done by the Krill's Tyrannical Overlord orders in order to conduct research on said DoomsdayDevice, the fact that humanity survived said extraction was an ignorable afterthought.]]

* MeaningfulName: [[spoiler:Your own commanding officer, Commander [='Tierney.'=] Serves to outline how NotSoDifferent he is from the Tyrannical Overlord.]]

* DarkSkinnedRedhead: Psyme is a ''purple''-skinned redhead
* DeadlyWalls: Somewhat. If you crash into an enemy or the environment, your ship appears to explode, but you simply lose some health and "respawn", with brief MercyInvincibility.
** It should be noted that some enemies are more lethal than others in this regard -- crashing into a boss, for instance, will probably take out a good 90% of your life bar.

* RandomEncounters: Whenever one of these occurs, you are beamed up to a spaceship, and fight enemies shmup-style until you shoot down a certain amount of them. Bonus points to the "random" aspect, as the ship you pilot is also random. Possibly the only justified use of this trope in video game history.

* WakeUpCallBoss: The third boss stage

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler: By way of a Meaningful name to note the similarity between the two, your human [=CO=], Tierney, and the Tyrannical Overlord. Both are willing to sacrifice anybody and anything, even their own species, to get control of the bioweapon.]]

A hybrid ShootEmUp / {{RPG}} developed by WayForwardTechnologies and published by {{Namco}} for the GameBoyAdvance in 2005.

!!This game includes examples of:

* AcePilot - Recker, as previously mentioned, as well as Psyme.
* ActionPrologue - The game begins with a fight against the Krill.
* AfterTheEnd - The game takes place sixty years after the Earth was nearly destroyed by the Krill [[spoiler:(except it wasn't exactly the Krill's fault.)]]
* AGodAmI - [[spoiler:The Tyrannical Overlord when he merges with the Flesh Deity.]]

* ApologeticAttacker - Recker versus [[spoiler:Blune]], and to a certain extent in [[spoiler:his rematch with Psyme]].
* TheAtoner - Recker begins the game as leader of the elite Sigma Squadron. By the end of the first battle, he's the only member left alive, and he blames himself quite strongly.
* AWinnerIsYou - Given the game's strong focus on its storyline, the multiple endings are all very brief and fairly anticlimatic. Additionally, the easiest one to achieve is arguably the best.
* BackTracking - This game is just plain loaded with it. Made significantly worse with the game's unescapable RandomEncounters. At least the game is eventually nice enough to provide you with gun data that [[AntiFrustrationFeatures makes kills count more towards ending the fight]].
* BadBoss - Commander Zelly seems to have a reputation amongst the Krill leadership for this sort of behavior, at one point stated to be worse than the guy everyone calls the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Tyrannical Overlord]]. She shows it when [[spoiler:she slaughters her ''entire base personnel'' in order to keep sensitive information from being leaked... even though 90% of them had no idea that this sensitive information even existed. It's subverted in the endgame, where Zelly is just about the only high-ranking ally the player has.]]
* BigBoosHaunt - The Forgotten Planet
* BizarreAlienBiology/[[BizarreSexualDimorphism Sexual Dimorphism]] - played for all it's worth. Apparently, the females are telepathic, and grow wings when they're in love. Said wings are ''detachable'', and are given to the person she likes.

* BondOneLiner - "Looks like his [[spoiler:Ammer's]] schedule's clear now."
* BossRush - Actually, it's more of a mini-boss rush, if such a thing exists.
* BreastPlate - Female parasites seem more to protect their host's modesty than anything else (although, given their BizarreAlienBiology, the upper chest and nether regions may very well be the only places female Krill are vulnerable).

* CardboardObstacle - Quite a few, actually. Lots of backtracking is required to get past most of them, and largely subverted by the scanner, which allows you to find most of the game's (hidden) equipment.

* CharacterLevel - During shoot-em-up battles, the enemies you kill leave behind experience orbs (which could be mistaken for suicide bullets, since they're basically tiny dots). Gathering enough of these boosts your maximum health. Interestingly, it is your character's (living) armor that gathers the experience, not the character himself.
* ChekhovsGunman - The pilot of the first boss ship, [[spoiler:Psyme]].
* ChickMagnet - Recker, what with the way that Psyme and Scarlet treat him after knowing him for all of a few hours.
* CurbStompBattle - On the last planet, there's a random chance you'll control a [[spoiler:Krill Battleworm (the first boss)]]. As if controlling such a powerhouse wasn't enough, it's also invulnerable.
* DarkSkinnedRedhead - Psyme is a ''purple''-skinned redhead
* DeadlyWalls - Somewhat. If you crash into an enemy or the environment, your ship appears to explode, but you simply lose some health and "respawn", with brief MercyInvincibility.
** It should be noted that some enemies are more lethal than others in this regard - crashing into a boss, for instance, will probably take out a good 90% of your life bar.

* DiscOneFinalDungeon - The Forgotten Planet
* DoomsdayDevice - [[spoiler: The Sleeping Flesh]]
* [[spoiler: EarthAllAlong]] - Most of the game is spent searching for a series of six planets which will ultimately lead to a DoomsdayDevice. [[spoiler: Earth is the "seventh" planet, which had already been destroyed by said device.]]
* EarthShatteringKaboom - [[spoiler:Sort of. The Sleeping Flesh uses entire planets as eggs, so when they "hatch"... Ironically, part of what the Krill were doing in their first "attack" on Earth was ''saving'' it from this fate. Sort of.]]
* ExposedToTheElements - Female Krill [[spoiler: and Scarlett]] on the [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Ice Planet]].
* FloatingContinent - Every planet seems to consist entirely of these (except, presumably, Earth).
* GambitPileup - Keeping up with the plot in the latter half of the game can be somewhat difficult, to say the least.
* GameBreakingBug - Protip: don't shoot the "tombstone" enemies on the Forgotten Planet as your last kill of the battle. This occasionally makes the battle {{Unwinnable}}, since no more enemies spawn, but the battle doesn't end.

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere - Although most of the game's bosses tie in pretty well with the story, it does throw a couple of these at you (including a ''literal'' swarm of giant space fleas).

* GladiatorGames - Early in the game, you are forced to fight another Krill soldier. Luckily, they let you keep your gun.
* [[spoiler:GovernmentConspiracy]] - [[spoiler:On ''both'' sides, as it turns out.]]
* GreenHillZone - The Forest Planet
* GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe - ''Purple''-skinned space babe Psyme.
* GrayAndGrayMorality - Who are the good guys again?

* GroundPound - A pair of boots gives you the ability to do this.
* GogglesDoNothing - Scarlet
* [[spoiler:HeroicSacrifice]] - [[spoiler: Scarlet]]

* HopelessWar - The Krill military outnumbers humanity's by a very large margin. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the Krill don't even consider themselves at war with Earth. Earth's entire military is seen as so pathetically small that it isn't even worth fighting. The two "attacks" they made? They were ridding Earth of an extremely destructive CosmicHorror type thing, and later simply checking up on us to see how well the Earth was recovering. Earth ''mistook'' them for attacks and retaliated, "like frightened animals who bite back after blood is drawn", as one Krill puts it.]]
* HotScientist - Scarlet
* HundredPercentCompletion - the game will acknowledge when you beat it if you found all of the gun data, and will make it all immediately available to you in the NewGamePlus.
* InnocentFanserviceGirl - any female Krill.
* [[ItsAllUpstairsFromHere It's All Upstairs From Here]] - [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Final Planet]]
* LethalJokeItem - Krill Puck
* LethalLavaLand - The Fire Planet
* LockedInARoom - [[spoiler: Recker and Psyme are sent to the Ice Planet inside a cargo box.]]
* LoveTriangle - Recker, Psyme, and Scarlet. [[spoiler:Psyme wins in both endings where she survives, Scarlet wins if she survives and Psyme dies.]]
* LuckBasedMission - Some random encounters are outright unwinnable if you are unlucky enough to be summoned by a large/slow moving spaceship in a constricted area that it cannot possibly navigate through without crashing (at least one such area results in a crash before the game ''even relinquishes control of the ship to you''). And since there's no option to retreat, your only option when faced with any fight that you have no chance of winning is to [[CycleOfHurting commit suicide]].
* MercyInvincibility - Notable as the game not only provides this normally, but there is also a power-up which provides it for every 30 hits you make. Can be something of a game breaker when combined with a gun that can score hits fast enough to keep it going near-constantly.
* MissingSecret - sort of. The inventory code was for some reason copied over from the gun data code, resulting in about a gazillion more slots than you will ever be able to fill. May or may not count as a MissingSecret, but is definitely a case of lazy programming.
* MistakenForPregnant - One [[CrowningMomentofFunny particularly hilarious]] subplot partway through the game has Recker [[spoiler:thinking this about Psyme, mainly due to an incomplete understanding of Krill physiology. To be fair to him, though, the comments made by the Krill characters hinted that something "miraculous" was taking place...]]
* TheMole - Recker, [[spoiler:and Blune]].
* MultipleEndings - There are four different endings to the game... which one you see depends on [[spoiler:which main characters you keep alive]].
* NewGamePlus - After beating the game, it can be replayed with all previously unlocked weapons and ships available at the beginning... as well as get a chance to get the best ending, which is unavailable on the first playthough.

* NotDistractedByTheSexy - Well, Recker is distracted at first, but grows used to it by the second chapter.
* OminousSavePrompt - the game gives you a somewhat-unneeded one of these (as you would probably have remembered to save before heading into the battle in question, anyways).
* OneHitPointWonder - Subverted, although you only receive Mercy Invincibility if you crash into something.
* OneManArmy - There are two instances in wich Recker wipe out the crew of a enemy base. All by himself.

* OrganicTechnology - The Krill have some organic tech, though most of it is still mechanical. Their ships are living beings that form a psychic bond with their pilots to improve performance, and Krill Parasites are powerful living armor that, despite their name, are completely harmless, and in fact boost the physical capabilities of their wearer.
* PoweredArmor - Krill parasites.
* PowerupLetdown - One of the game's highlights is the vast array of options to customize your ship's guns. You'll find lots of these upgrades hidden all throughout the game as you progress through it. Only a small handful of them are actually worth the trouble to find.
* PuzzleBoss - At least two, one of which has an entire paragraph on the trope's page about [[ThatOneBoss how]] [[GuideDangIt unfair]] [[AttackReflector it]] [[LuckBasedMission is]].
* RandomEncounters - Whenever one of these occurs, you are beamed up to a spaceship, and fight enemies shmup-style until you shoot down a certain amount of them. Bonus points to the "random" aspect, as the ship you pilot is also random. Possibly the only justified use of this trope in video game history.
* RapunzelHair - Psyme, though it's only noticeable in a few shots (her parasite makes her look like she has short hair).
* RealMenWearPink - The girl wings. Even the game makes fun of you for it.

* RPGElements - Sort of; it's an RPG with space-shooter Sidescroller elements.
* RubberForeheadAliens - Purple skin, finlike ears, and unusual outfits aside, the Krill appear pretty much identical to humans.
* ShiftingSandLand - The Sand Planet
* ShoutOut - In the beginning of the game, a human fighter [[Film/IndependenceDay flies straight up into a giant alien laser, causing severe damage to the mothership.]]
* SingleBiomePlanet - Used heavily, even in Earth's case (Earth is at one point referred to as the "Ocean Planet").
* SlapSlapKiss - Recker's relationship with Psyme is something of a volatile one. When he first meets her [[spoiler: he blasts her out of the sky]], and she spends most of the game calling him an idiot for not automatically knowing everything about her BizarreAlienBiology. She threatens to kill Recker several times, and that's before she gets ''really'' pissed off at him.
* SlippySlideyIceWorld - The Ice Planet, though the "slippy slidey" portion is averted.
* SmartBomb - And they can even kill some enemies your normal shots can't destroy.
* StormingTheCastle - TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon
* {{Stripperiffic}} - Scarlet (a human) really isn't wearing that much more than Psyme (a Krill female), especially considering that [[spoiler: you meet her on the Ice Planet]].
* SwordOfPlotAdvancement - You eventually receive a puck (yes, a puck) which - in addition to fixing a few BrokenBridges - can be kicked at your enemies. For far much more damage than your gun does.
* SupernaturalGoldEyes - Standard coloration for Krill eyes.
* SpamAttack - The best gun data combinations all tend to be these.
* TheVirus - A very significant portion of the game's plot centers around a mysterious, human-developed virus.
* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters - [[spoiler:The Iot were the original creators of the Sleeping Flesh. The Krill caught on early and removed a Sleeper from Earth, then used it to wipe out the Iot in retaliation for "impregnating" the Krill Homeworld with another Sleeper.]]
* TwentyFourHourArmor - The parasites hardly ever come off--according to some dialogue on the Ice Planet, some Krill don't even take them off to shower.
* TwinTelepathy - Psyme's younger sisters Lolly, Folly, and Sliss are "tri-oplets": triplets that share a PsychicLink. They always operate and often speak in unison, leading the Krill to consider them as a single HiveMind-like entity. They also count as TheDividual.
* WakeUpCallBoss - The third boss stage
* WeaponOfMassDestruction - The game's plot hinges on a superweapon that both sides would very much like to have in their possession. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a bio-weapon that incubates inside a planet, then "hatches" out of the planet like an egg, and is capable of annihilating all life on other planets as well, [[NightmareFuel leaving the planets as dusty, lifeless rocks with only ghosts left behind]]]].
* WelcomeBackTraitor - [[spoiler: Inverted. You're allowed surprising free reign of the Krill's starbase network even after you've obviously expressed your intent to betray them (yet before you have a significant bargaining chip).]]
* WhatMeasureIsANonhuman - Admittedly, the humans have a reason to hate the Krill, but making boots from the skin of dead Krill pilots is probably overkill.
* WingedHumanoid - Sort of.
* WithThisHerring - Played mostly straight with Earth (you get a gun and not much else), heavily subverted with the Krill.
* WombLevel - [[spoiler: the final battle]]
* ZombieApocalypse - [[spoiler: the Ice Planet]]

* PaintingTheMedium - Recker takes off from the Namco building at the very start. The publisher? Namco.

* PaintingTheFourthWall - Recker takes off from the Namco building at the very start. The publisher? Namco.

* EyesOfGold - Standard coloration for Krill eyes.

A hybrid ShootEmUp / {{RPG}} developed by {{WayForward Technologies}} and published by {{Namco}} for the GameBoyAdvance in 2005.

An alien race known as the Krill attacked Earth 60 years ago, and, though they were driven off, the global ecosystem was left in tatters due to a "hole the size of Canada" getting carved out of the Pacific Ocean. Now, the Krill have returned, and humanity is ready for vengeance. You play as {{Ace Pilot}} Ian Recker, who, after leading the initial counterattack, is sent undercover in the Krill army to gather intelligence on a rumored superweapon they're developing. However, the lines between friend and foe quickly become blurred, and Recker is left in serious confusion as to where his loyalty truly belongs as he tries to unravel the mysteries of the Krill.

* AlienInvasion
* ApologeticAttacker - Recker versus [[spoiler:Blune]], and to a certain extent in [[spoiler:his rematch with Psyme]].

* ShoutOut - In the beginning of the game, a human fighter [[IndependenceDay flies straight up into a giant alien laser, causing severe damage to the mothership.]]

* SmartBomb - And they can even kill some enemies your normal shots can't destroy.

* {{Stripperiffic}} - Scarlet (a human) really isn't wearing that much more than Psyme (a Krill female), especially considering that [[spoiler: you meet her on the Ice Planet]].

* TwentyFourHourArmor - The parasites hardly ever come off--according to some dialogue on the Ice Planet, some Krill don't even take them off to shower.
* TwinTelepathy - Psyme's younger sisters Lolly, Folly, and Sliss are "tri-oplets": triplets that share a {{Psychic Link}}. They always operate and often speak in unison, leading the Krill to consider them as a single {{Hive Mind}}-like entity. They also count as TheDividual.

* WhatMeasureIsANonhuman - Admittedly, the humans have a reason to hate the Krill, but making boots from the skin of dead Krill pilots is probably overkill.