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1[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_69799_front.jpg]]
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3%%
4%% The Justice version of Duel Savior, which contains sexual content, does not meet content policy due to the presence of Rico.
5%% Please do not add tropes exclusive to this adaptation.
6%%
7
8Touma Taiga is a man of passions. Passion for sex, so [[EstablishingCharacterMoment he’s in the middle of a plan to have a hundred girlfriends at once.]] While he’s meeting a temporary setback, he and his [[LittleSisterHeroine sister]] Mia stumble across a strange red book. When they touch it, they are suddenly dragged into an alternate world where Mia is extended the choice to become the Messiah and enter the Floria academy. Feeling left out, Taiga demands to also be able to take the entrance exam despite male Saviors supposedly being impossible. To everyone’s surprise, he passes when he calls forth the Aether Relic Traitor immediately after Mia calls her own Relic.
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10Taiga isn’t too concerned with what the job actually entails as he simply heard the promise that the Messiah can shape the world as they like after saving it from the destruction of Ruin and begins integrating into the new class, mostly by flirting with the girls in it. Before too long, however, things take a turn for the serious and Taiga finally shows his heroic side, making him one of the strongest contenders for the title of Messiah. But is it really that simple? After all, Ruin is beginning to make its move to destroy the world.
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12Duel Savior is a fighting game with considerable story elements putting it close to visual novel territory. There are six heroines, each of whom unlocks in later cycles of the game after being cleared. Finally, the story ends with a harem route, which was [[SelfCensoredRelease redone minus sex scenes]] to focus on the princess from the original version.
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14[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Has nothing to do]] with the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED three]] [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny Gundams]] it shares names with.
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16----
17!!This Work Provides Examples Of:
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19* AFriendInNeed: Taiga, in the final route. More like "Love Interest in Need" but fits because at that point all the girls were still friendzoned.
20* AlternateContinuity: Berio and Kaede's routes. Justified since these two are more of a set up that introduce several elements that will be important on the other routes.
21* AlternateDimension
22* AmplifierArtifact: The more physically based Aether Relics appear to grant improved physical ability to their wielders. Righteous, Lily's glove artifact, enhances spellcasting and allows her to use magic that she would not normally be capable of yet at her age even if she is a genius.
23* AnnoyingArrows: Averted. Mia's arrows ''sting''. [[spoiler:Especially when Justy awakens.]]
24* ArtifactOfDoom: The Messiah’s armor in the hands of an Apostle will awaken them into the Messiah, but it will be a raging, destructive Messiah who attempts to destroy all of humanity. [[spoiler:Which is what the Messiah is supposed to do anyway.]]
25* ArtificialStupidity: On the earlier routes, the AI is content to just float around during battles instead of actually fight you.
26* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:In the final route, Taiga gains the power of the Messiah, is rejected by God and thus can’t be controlled and then proceeds to fuse the two most powerful Aether Relics together. After that, he then adds the power of every other Aether Relic to it, putting him on par with or even above God, who is flat out omnipotent. Also, he’s apparently immortal and tireless since he had time to beat God millions of times without seeming to age.]]
27* AscendedExtra: In Destiny, Crea gets a larger role when the farewell party would have gotten... frisky... and takes over as the main heroine. Unfortunately, the last scenario was written without her in mind and only superficial details were changed.
28* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: [[spoiler:Nanashi’s ending implies that she and Taiga will become the new king and queen of Avatar.]]
29* TheBattleDidntCount: A lot of the boss fights seem to work like this, including several in a row during the final route where you’re not really supposed to be winning with what they’ve given you. Especially when [[spoiler:you’ve probably never even USED Black Papillon before.]]
30* BigBad: Downy Reed.
31* BittersweetEnding: Most of the endings tend to end well for Taiga and the Savior candidates, but after that it's anyone's guess as to how happy anything will be.
32** Kaede and Berio's routes get what are probably the cleanest endings [[spoiler:with Floria essentially intact, the princess surviving and most of the population surviving.]] The only downsides are that the fundamental problem in the setting is only stalled, [[spoiler:Selbium is dead]] and [[spoiler:some of the Lords of Ruin may have survived, though they're presumed dead.]]
33** Rico and Nanashi's routes have a lot more civilian casualties, [[spoiler:Avatar's population centers have been essentially obliterated and took some heavy damage respectively]] and [[spoiler:the princess is dead]], but we're getting closer to really fixing the problem in this world. [[spoiler:Taiga is presumed dead in Rico's route and in Nanashi's route he ''is'' dead, but his soul was moved into an immortal homunculus body and made immortal.]]
34** Mia's route has two endings, A and B. You get B first and it's (supposed to be) even less happy than the alternative, which involves [[spoiler:Mia slaughtering thousands of innocent people, turning Selbium evil, killing Crea and nearly causing the apocalypse out of her own free will.]] In the A ending, though, Taiga [[spoiler:stops Mia without killing her, so at least they get to be happy since Mia doesn't have to live with the consequences of her mass murder and betrayal thanks to LaserGuidedAmnesia.]]
35** Lily's route has almost as much damage property damage as Rico's route, but much more recoverable [[spoiler:since most of the population was apparently able to evacuate thanks to the heroics of the royal army]]. [[spoiler:Muriel and Lily never see each other again, but when she does finally return she sees that Floria has established policies that will help ensure no Messiah is ever made while remaining strong enough to stop Ruin when it returns.]] All in all, a pretty happy ending.
36* BookEnds
37** Mia A and Rico routes ends have Taiga talking on the phone while walking down the street, same as the beginning of the game.
38** Berio's route ends with Taiga flirting with a girl and making the same name mix up he did at the beginning.
39* BrotherSisterIncest: Mia. [[spoiler:Shezar also had sex with Berio.]]
40* TheCameo: Several characters on the Practice, Parry and Endless Modes.
41* CastFromHP: Though it doesn't show up in gameplay possibly due to [[CutscenePowerToTheMax not enough power being used]], Justy's attacks in its second form are immensely powerful at the cost of draining the user's stamina rapidly.
42* CerebusSyndrome: This game suffers from an extreme case of it, to the point where it causes significant MoodWhiplash.
43* ChekhovsGun: Of all things, Traitor's name. By the time you finally understand why he's named that, its already so commonplace that you are likely to have forgotten the true meaning of the word.
44** Kaede's resistance to poison.
45* {{Combos}}: Chaining attacks and dealing damage fills up the red meter. One bar of red is required to do an attack cancel and two are used to use a super. You’re limited to two bars at the start, which increases as you gain levels.
46* CompleteImmortality: [[spoiler:God. He can be injured, his avatars can be beaten and he can be attacked and beaten on his home ground, but you can never kill him.]]
47* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: The AI is capable of spamming attacks and dodging without any delay, and gains a massive defence bonus whenever their health enters the green area. There's also [[spoiler:God, who is capable of freezing time, breaking your guard, then hitting you with an instant kill attack before you can control Taiga again.]]
48* ConvenientlyOrphaned: The Touma siblings, as well as most of the cast.
49* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Righteous' final spell. It sends the whole region around the caster to a black hole-like dimension, including the caster.
50* DarkIsNotEvil: Necromancy is not actually evil. Technically, holy magic and healing are a subset of it, making Berio a necromancer. She's never called one though since she's terrified of undead and doesn't raise them.
51* DavidVersusGoliath: In the final route [[spoiler:Selbium versus Downy. And no, it’s not supposed to be a hopeless boss fight.]]
52* DeusSexMachina: Though in Destiny there’s a fade to black where the sex scene would be, it’s still clear what has happened. One of the early examples is [[spoiler:Rico randomly pulling Taiga into a pocket dimension so they can have sex]].
53* DevelopersForesight:
54** If you deal enough damage to the golem fight before Taiga gets Traitor, the battle ends and the principal and Dahlia remark on how Taiga would be a great soldier.
55* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: [[spoiler:God is the GreaterScopeVillain but only faced in the final two routes.]]
56* DistantFinale: [[spoiler:Lily Sheerfield]]’s epilogue take place long after everyone involved with the story is long dead when [[spoiler:her mother]] returns home.
57* DownerEnding: Mia B ending has [[spoiler:all the bad stuff from the Mia A good ending, but also Touma accidentally killing Mia and then having to commit suicide to prevent himself from ending the world.]]
58* DuelBoss: A few such as one against Mudou and a string of them during the end of the final two routes.
59* DyingDeclarationOfLove: [[spoiler:Princess Crea]] in the third and fourth routes.
60* EleventhHourSuperpower: Though often more in the form of just getting to use a different character.
61* EmpathicWeapon: Aether Relics are all alive, sentient and capable of speaking to their wielders, but they never really do anything. Traitor doesn’t even have any lines after his intro until the last route. Lily says that Righteous once told its wielded the ultimate spell it was capable of and Taiga internally monologues that he and Traitor barely speak let alone do that much. [[spoiler:In the final route we finally learn what they actually are and they get a little more focus as they finally get the chance to explain what's actually going on.]]
62* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: What Ruin seeks, [[spoiler: and what the MessianicArchetype is really about.]]
63* ExtendedGameplay: Endless Mode, which also lets you fight as anyone - or anything - you've fought against before.
64* FloralThemeNaming: Most of the characters are named after plants.
65* {{Foreshadowing}}: There’s a lot of foreshadowing of later route’s twists early on. For example, the game is not terribly subtle about Nanashi’s importance.
66* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:Downy's reason to be a part of Ruin.]]
67* FrothyMugsOfWater: That is totally orange juice they are drinking. Not alcohol. Nope.
68* [[spoiler:GodIsEvil: God created the world but apparently not humanity or something since they fall so far outside of his expectations that he got pissed off and keeps trying to blow up the world.]]
69* {{Golem}}: One of the rarer miniboss types are golems, of which there are at least three variants not counting pallet swaps.
70* GoryDiscretionShot: When [[spoiler:Selbium]] dies in Berio's route.
71* GratuitousEnglish: A few of the Aether Relics are named in English. Traitor, Righteous and Elder Arc, for example.
72** The opening video informs you that "You were chosen fatally to Avater, the first quadrant."
73* GreaterScopeVillain: [[spoiler:God, who is the TrueFinalBoss, but is not responsible for the actions of the plot except indirectly.]]
74* GuideDangIt: How many people suffered the "Mia C" ending (a.k.a. Bad Ending) before knowing that you're supposed to get the girls in a certain order?
75* HappyEnding: The harem/Crea route has [[spoiler:everyone survive, Ruin stopped for good and rather limited casualties.]] There's a teaser that [[spoiler:Taiga may be stuck fighting God forever]] but apparently not: [[spoiler:The epilogue for Crea reveals that after beating God ''several million times'' in a pocket dimension with vastly accelerated time the completely magically inept but apparently immortal Taiga eventually came up with a magic seal so powerful that he could seal God and finally go home no more than a few years after he left.]]
76* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose:
77** Some fights that you’re required to win still seem to result with Taiga losing. This happens the most often with Lobelia, due to having the easiest excuse.
78** If you beat [[spoiler:Shezar]] while being forced to use [[spoiler:Black Papillon instead of Berio]] she’s amazed that she won, but it’s quickly revealed that all she beat was a body double.
79** In Nanashi's route, if [[spoiler:you beat the four members of Ruin at once instead of losing, you're treated to a scene where they're revived from the border of death, since killing them would solve the plot]].
80* HopelessBossFight
81** During one of the routes you have to face off against Mudou, Shezar, Imnity and Lobelia all at once. By yourself. Good luck. It’s technically winnable but you’re supposed to get thrashed.
82** During the final route you’ll run into several of these. If, for example, you [[spoiler:beat Shezar with Black Papillon or Lobelia with Nanashi (both of which are surprisingly easy to do)]] they just stand up and basically undo the victory so that you can beat them the way you’re supposed to this time.
83* HumanityEnsues: [[spoiler:Taiga strips Imnity and Rico of their status as spirits at the end, converting them into humans.]]
84* IKnowYouAreInThereSomewhereFight: [[spoiler:Super Mia and Selbium vs Taiga in the cursed Messiah Armor, though it’s briefly interrupted by a fight between Selbium and Downy.]]
85* {{Immortality}}: Rico and Imnity are almost unkillable. Lobelia has survived as an undead for a thousand years, though for much of it she was sealed. In Nanashi's ending, [[spoiler:Taiga joins her as an immortal homunculus]] and finally in the true ending [[spoiler:Taiga returns to the world of Avatar after decades (at least) of nonstop fighting against God apparently the same age that he left.]]
86* ImprobablyFemaleCast: There are only five even mildly important male characters in the entire story and three are villains.
87* {{Infodump}}: Subverted at one point. Crea starts lecturing Taiga on the history of Avatar and about the Messiah, but he just falls asleep and misses the entirety of it.
88* InstantDeathRadius: The last two bosses have absolutely massive range, great damage and surprisingly small hitboxes while you're using the pure melee Taiga. Good luck getting close before they unleach the apocalypse on you.
89* IWillWaitForYou: [[spoiler: Crea, in her ending. The story cuts off just as Taiga arrives to see her after successfully sealing God.]]
90* KarmaHoudini
91** [[spoiler:In Mia’s good ending, she doesn’t even have to feel guilty over atrocities she knowingly committed or the friends she betrayed at least partially willingly. Do note that she killed thousands of people including the princess and left her friends to die after she tried to get them petrified in the first place. As a point of justification, this could be argued to be because the hero of the entire world vouched for her.]]
92** Downy’s backstory involves [[spoiler:a noble who pitted children against each other in fights to the death. After his sister died and he grew up, he returned to get revenge, only to find the noble had died peacefully surrounded by friends and family.]]
93* KirkSummation: Attempts to talk down [[spoiler:Lobelia, the undead guarding the Messiah Armor or Sel in Mia’s route]] never work.
94** ShutUpKirk: From the first and third of those three.
95* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:The Messiah is supposed to bring about the end of the world.]]
96* LimitedWardrobe: The girls are always with the same clothes. This is particularly jarring on the DistantFinale of the final route, four years later.
97* LivingWithTheVillain: [[spoiler:Downy is the big bad, a spy and a teacher at Floria while Mia is the true White Apostle.]]
98* LoveTriangle: Lily, Taiga and Mia in Mia’s route. [[spoiler:Mia goes absolutely apeshit over the matter and ends up killing thousands of people.]]
99* MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: Though the strategically placed scene cuts stop the scene from being shown, it becomes clear what people are actually doing in the middle of a ruined city, in the middle of a cafeteria with seven people or, perhaps most glaringly of all, in the middle of an enemy prison. While waiting for rescue. And so many times that when they stop to think about it they realize they're not sure they can even walk anymore, let alone run and fight.
100* MarryThemAll: In the Crea route that replaced the harem route Crea refers to the other girls as Taiga’s lovers to [[spoiler:her son]] noting that nobody ever said Avatar exclusively practiced monogamy. It’s unlocked after completing the second Mia ending and resolves the story more than any other route preceding it. It’s also what Taiga is aiming for from the beginning.
101** {{Polyamory}}
102* MeaningfulName: [[spoiler:The reason for Traitor’s name is not clear until essentially the final boss. Turns out, his name means he’s Blade of Rebellion against God.]]
103* MementoMacGuffin: The picture they take in the final route ends up helping them all during their final battles.
104* MightMakesRight: A core piece of White Law is the idea of survival of the fittest. The strong dominate the weak.
105* MindRape: [[spoiler: What God does to the Messiah when she's chosen.]]
106* MultipleEndings: Six heroines and one group route make for seven routes. The order is Kaede/Berio -> Rico -> Nanashi -> Lily -> Mia -> Crea/Harem depending on version. Mia has two endings and the final route gets a bonus scene on second viewing.
107* {{Necromancy}}: It has the classical interpretation for the most part. Healing is associated with necromancy and raising the dead is not seen as evil, though the undead are seen as tools at best and more frequently as creepy. Lobelia is the prominent necromancer in the story [[spoiler:though her good counterpart Rubinas also performs necromancy in order to save Taiga’s soul after she kills him before using alchemy to make him a homunculus]]
108* NewGamePlus: If you carry over a save, you gain the ability to use the heroine you just cleared in any maps she’s available in.
109* NoConservationOfEnergy: When you boil down all the fluffy terminology, White Law is basically science and logic and Red Law is magic and emotions. White Law has consistent rules that follow principles a scientific society gradually uncovers while Red Law has to do with making something out of nothing, which is the core reason they don’t really mix very well. From a White Law perspective, Red is something like 0x1 = 2 rather than nothing.
110* NotBloodRelated: According to one ending, Mia and Taiga aren’t actually related. [[{{Retcon}} According to another]], they are. And it’s kind of important that they are too.
111* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: During the final route, all the girls stay back to fight their respective arch nemesis, and though they win their fights, they don't exactly come out unscathed. Each scene ends with what would be their dying scene. But they all show up a few minutes later to help Taiga break free of God's control.]]
112* TheOmniscient: Specifically averted. God is all powerful but not all knowing. [[spoiler:This means he wants to destroy humanity and restart the universe since he apparently hates not knowing what people are going to do.]]
113* OneHitKill: One of [[spoiler:God's]] attacks. You can't dodge it, and blocking doesn't always prevent it from killing you. You're also supposed to ''win'' this fight.
114* PaintingTheMedium: People are able to tell when Nanashi is using the wrong kanji in her speech. The equivalent in English (and how it's translated) is using the word 'weight' instead of 'wait.'
115* PostEndGameContent: Endless Mode only unlocks after finishing all the routes.
116* ThePowerOfFriendship
117* ThePowerOfLove: One of the factors that made possible for Taiga to be summoned, in the final route. [[spoiler: Because of a StableTimeLoop, Taiga saves Crea as a little girl from an attack from God. With his image ingrained in her because of that event, it made possible for Traitor to summon him in a gambit to destroy God.]]
118* PsychoRangers: The Lords of Ruin are basically the White Apostle candidates as opposed to the Red Apostle Savior class.
119* Really700YearsOld: A surprising amount of the cast is much older than they should be, for a number of different reasons.
120* TheReveal
121** [[spoiler:Nanashi is an ancient hero with a sealed memory.]]
122** [[spoiler:Aether Relics are the souls of former Messiahs who were forced to destroy their own world and create a new one.]]
123* TheRestShallPass
124* SealedGoodInACan: [[spoiler:Aether Relics, though thanks to God keeping a close eye on them there’s not much they can do about him until the end.]]
125* SealedEvilInACan: [[spoiler:Lobelia is sealed into Rubinas’ rosary in the final route.]]
126* SealedEvilInADuel: [[spoiler: Invoked. Taiga goes to fight God with the expectation that God is unkillable. And he’s right. However, so long as God is busy fighting him off, he can’t keep bringing Ruin to the world. In the end, Taiga ‘kills’ God so many times that he apparently figures out how to make a proper seal to bind him despite how terrible he is at magical theory. He beat him several million times.]]
127* SelfCensoredRelease: Destiny removes or completely changes several sex scenes, cleans up some of the iffier normal [=CGs=] and fades to black when the remaining sex scenes would have occurred in the original. Finally, the last route is changed from a harem route into a Crea route.
128* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler:Selbium]] gets hit by [[spoiler:Mudou's]] mind control, and has to be killed for Taiga to get to [[spoiler:Mudou]]. Taiga kills them, but he ultimately fails his task of killing [[spoiler:Mudou]].
129* {{Shapeshifter}}: [[spoiler:It’s briefly mentioned that Rico and Imnity used to look different, but are hiding their true identities.]]
130* ShapeshifterWeapon: Traitor’s default form is a sword, but it can also become a three sectioned staff, a giant axe, bombs, a hammer or increase its length. [[spoiler:Traitor’s super form is shown to change into even more weapons, such as a trident.]]
131* ShoutOut: [[WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry Jerry got eaten by a cat monster. Tom was torn apart by rat monsters.]]
132* SituationalSword: Traitor changes shape depending on what kind of attack its wielder wishes to use, even spawning explosives if necessary. Justy has a more exaggerated effect in that after [[spoiler:Mia awakens as the White Apostle]] its true power is unleashed, making it an incredibly powerful but life draining weapon.
133* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: [[spoiler:Crea's son [[DeadGuyJunior Taiga]] in the final ending. Not that Taiga is actually dead and he returns after a few years.]]
134** The same also applies in [[spoiler:the harem ending, where every girl has their own child named Taiga. And unlike in the Crea route, there's no sign that Taiga is coming back]]
135* SummoningRitual: How Rico summons Savior Candidates to Avatar.
136* SurpriseIncest: Taiga and Mia think they're completely unrelated, but Mia learns in the final route that she's actually his half sister. After a very brief moment of awkwardness everyone completely ignores this for the rest of the story since it's a bit late to do anything about it ''now.'' Not after the night before.
137* SympathyForTheDevil: [[spoiler:Taiga realizes that Downy is driven by a past that could easily have led him to the same conclusion.]]
138* TakeAThirdOption: [[spoiler:Taiga, upon finally becoming the Messiah, decides he’d rather punch out God than remake the universe.]]
139* TaremeEyes: Most of the girls with the obvious exception of [[{{Tsundere}} Lily]].
140* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: [[spoiler:There are actually two Apostles, Red and White. One has to kill the other to become the Messiah.]] However, it turns out there’s a loophole [[spoiler:because by either acquiring the Messiah armor or destroying it and having an Apostle sit in God’s Throne, that person will still become the Messiah.]]
141* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: Taiga summons Traitor in front of a monster but instead of fighting it with it, he throws it on the tentacles that are holding Lily, so Justy can use Traitor as a target and blast the monster away from Lily.
142* TimeTravel: Mentioned in passing as the consequence of not having a proper anchor when dimensional hopping. It’s apparently nothing you can exploit and may only go in one direction.
143* TookALevelInBadass: Mudou. What was once someone completely nonthreatening is capable of perfectly blocking attacks nearly all the time in later routes. Other enemies get this as well, but only much later.
144* TrueFinalBoss: [[spoiler:Butterfly God.]]
145* ViciousCycle: The fight to become Messiah regularly happens. Good winning results in it just happening again after a long period of time, whereas evil winning destroys the world and, by extension, all the other worlds.
146* VillainsNeverLie
147* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: Several. For example, Crea route shows us [[spoiler:all the girls cleaning up the remnants of Ruin and returning home to make a report, at which point Taiga returns.]]
148* {{Woolseyism}}: Invoked. Aroduc, the translator, points out a lot of silly mistakes Giga made and his attempts to correct them, for better or worse. Apparently, he did not appreciate some of the puns or consistency issues.
149* YearInsideHourOutside: As well as [[YearOutsideHourInside the reverse]] depending on the relation between two places. The most extreme example of this is [[spoiler:at the end of the final route, Taiga has time to beat God millions of times and then set up a seal and return six or seven years after he left.]]
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