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• Calling Your Attacks:
  • All three disciples with the ultimate Earthen Heart technique in the remake.
    Lei/Yun/Hong: HEAVENLY PEAKS DESCENT!!!
  • In the remake's Japanese dub, Akira naturally starts doing a lot of attack calling once he gets his hands on the Steel Titan. Though he'll sometimes start quoting the mech's Bragging Theme Tune instead, which works just as well.
• Can't Drop the Hero: In the final chapter, you can switch your party members, to include any of the prior chapters' protagonists. You can't, however, remove the character you chose to start the final chapter with.
• Cap: In the remake, the maximum value for any stat before equipment is taken into account is 99; at that point, the stat will stop increasing when gaining levels. After equipment. the max value is 150; this means any additional boosts beyond that are "wasted" and it's better to swap equipment for something boosts a stat that hasn't reached 150 or provides some other benefit like status immunities.
• Cartoon Meat: All the meat in the Prehistory chapter takes the appearance of manga meat.
• Casting Gag: The Japanese cast for the remake at least takes note of the actors' typecasting for their roles with Takashi Tokita himself having chosen them, but a few of them stand out due to their respective actor's previous roles and their character in the game^note Seeing as Live A Live is known to make Shout-Out to different genres, this can be seen as trying to live up that spirit meta-wise:
  • Masaru is oft-considered someone who kind of looks like Domon Kasshu mixed with Ryu, and Domon's show is basically a Tournament Arc (with Humongous Mecha and a little political intrigue, but it's the tournament that's the heart of the show). Square Enix most likely took the cue and assigned Domon's VA, Tomokazu Seki for him. In turn, one of his opponents is voiced by Yosuke Akimoto, who played Master Asia, Domon's old instructor, in the same series. Another one is voiced by Hōchū Ōtsuka, who is known to play as one of Domon's True Companions, Chibodee Crocket. All of them makes Masaru's furious declaration of challenge against Odie O'Bright a lot more poignant.
  • Akira's chapter utilizes a Humongous Mecha, and he's voiced by Kenji Akabane, who rose to fame in the voice acting business with the Shin Mazinger incarnation of Kouji Kabuto, a re-interpretation of one of the most classic Humongous Mecha anime that no doubt inspired the chapter. His mentor Matsu/Lawless is coincidentally also voiced by Hideo Ishikawa, the current go-to VA of Ryoma Nagare, whose series also defined the genre along with Kouji's.
  • Although the original Kouji voice actor, Hiroya Ishimaru, is also present, since he has considerably aged, he got the Earthen Heart Shifu instead. However, it counts in another way: Ishimaru is best known as the official dub actor for Jackie Chan, one of the martial arts movie legends of Hong Kong who has also considerably aged (but would have been at his prime during the game's SFC release without voice acting), so that becomes the consideration.^note To be fair, it also could be a gag over Chan's role as Mr. Han in the The Karate Kid (2010) remake, which Ishimaru also dubbed. This also has an effect of the casting of Hong (whose Japanese name was the same as the fan translation one: Sammo), who is voiced by Yuu Mizushima, being the official dub actor of Sammo Hung (also known as one of Jackie Chan's best friends), the man whom Hong/Sammo is based on.
  • The casting of Akio Ōtsuka as Sundown Kid might not be too eye-catching and perhaps normal typecasting for Ōtsuka… until you notice that Sundown is one of the few video game characters that can be healed when he consumes smokes. Another well known video game character that Ōtsuka voiced also has this 'healing trait' and general fondness with smoking: Solid/Naked Snake. Likewise, Ōtsuka had previously voiced cowboy or American characters in Wild West-like settting characters before, especially in Japanese dubs of foreign films, mainly Marquis Warren in The Hateful Eight and Sam Chisholm in The Magnificent Seven (2016) remake.
  • Large Ham Villain-Role Grandmaster Norio Wakamoto once again plays a character meant to evoke Oda Nobunaga, something that he has done before and most likely has caught on with the Japanese crowd.
  • Akira Ishida's role as Yoshiyuki Kato in the Distant Future chapter could be an allusion to his role as Wesley Crusher in the Japanese dub of Star Trek: The Next Generation, considering the references about the Star Trek franchise included on it. This is enforced by the fact that "Kato" is the surname used for Hikaru Sulu in the dub of Star Trek: The Original Series. This would also not be the first time Akira Ishida voices a leading character who is known to build small, round, sentient robots. On the same note, the casting of Kazuhiko Inoue as Kirk Wells, the pilot of Cogito Ergo Sum, may also allude that he was also casted as a pilot in a famed sci-fi series who possesses the personality of a bully, Jerid Messa (piloting a Humongous Mecha rather than a ship, though).
  • Toshio Furukawa's role as Mad Dog in the Wild West Chapter, who is the rival who wants to kill the main character, but decides to create a truce when there is a bigger threat. If the Golden Ending is achieved and Sundown chooses to spare Mad Dog, the two are riding their horses together and seem to have made a friendship, despite their rivalry and past. Piccolo, is that you?
  • Finally, Yūichi Nakamura's role as Oersted is most likely an ironic gag over his role as Captain America, aka Steve Rogers, from the Japanese dubs of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (not to mention Square Enix themselves just had an Avengers-based game in the recent years, though they had different voices there, so they resorted to the more mainstream-based Cap dub voice), since Captain America had very similar traits with Oersted, except that everything that he represents is twisted beyond recognition at the end of his scenario.
  • This even extended to the score with the new arrangement of "Go! Go! Buriki Daioh!" having its vocals by Hironobu Kageyama, whose claims to fame not only include Dragon Ball, but also the long-running Super Robot Wars franchise, befitting with the Steel Titan's status as a Humongous Mecha.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: If you've fulfilled the requirements for the Golden Ending and refuse to kill Oersted, the protagonists who weren't in your party arrive to Odio's statue room right after you had just defeated Purity of Odio, then they get thrust in his final attempt at victory. Subverted in the remake, as the missing three show up again to help when the main four get incapacitated by Sin of Odio.
• Censored for Comedy: In the Present Day chapter, Great Aja calls Masaru a "motherfucker", which gets bleeped out in both text and voiceover as if the fight was being televised. The game otherwise doesn't shy away from uncensored cursing, but never goes further than the likes of "piss" and "shit".
• Central Theme: Most chapters have a major theme surrounding the events of the story. They also often serve as critical differences between the main protagonists and the Fallen Hero/Big Bad Oersted, who failed where they succeeded due to either the weakness in his own heart or simply being a Cosmic Plaything.
  • Prehistory: Love. Pogo's central motivation is to rescue Beru, the woman he has fallen in love with; said love brings peace between two warring tribes, and the word "love" even turns out to be the first word spoken by any human. Oersted also fights out of love for his fiancée Alethea, but unlike Beru, Alethea does not reciprocate his feelings and spits on the sacrifices he made to rescue her in the worst way possible, driving him over the edge.
  • Imperial China: Inheritance. The Earthen Heart Shifu seeks to pass along both his kung fu and his life philosophy down to a successor, and although two of his students are murdered, the third does take up his torch in the end. Oersted also has a mentor, Uranus, who tries to pass along his heroic teachings even in the face of adversity, but unlike the Shifu, Uranus' words fall on deaf ears when Oersted's problems and resentment grow too much to bear.
  • Twilight of Edo Japan: Trust and accountability. Oboromaru's mission is to rescue a prisoner who can oppose Ode Iou and prevent his conspiracy of plunging Japan into another age of war, all because the Enma ninja clan believes there's still good in people. Moreover, Oboro himself can go about his mission without any kills, killing everyone, or somewhere in between. Every decision he makes is a conscious one, even going as far as counting his kills and remembering the names of the people he encountered as his way of owning up to his actions, and he believes he's doing the right thing regardless of his kill count. Oersted also went on a similar quest in recruiting the old hero Hasshe to defeat the Lord of Dark, but said hero has been reduced into an ill, bitter man who would've easily succumbed to evil himself had he not caught the plague. Uranus also put his trust in Oersted, believing there's still good in him and that he'd slay the real Lord of Dark and rescue Alethea, but of course things didn't go as planned considering Streibough's betrayal and manipulation, causing Alethea to declare her love for the latter instead before committing suicide. When Oersted finally snaps, he blames everyone else for putting him in such a situation, and killed everyone in the kingdom without much thought, even the little kid who still believed in him whom he encountered earlier during his exile.
  • Wild West: Companionship. The Sundown Kid starts off as The Aloner due to accidentally provoking the wrath of a group of outlaws who killed everyone he cared about, but by the end of his tale, he relearns how to be with others again and begins longing for friendship again. Oersted, on the other hand, starts out apparently well loved by the citizens of his kingdom, but nearly all of the friendships he makes turn out to be shallow and unreciprocated (Alethea and the villagers abandon him for his perceived failings, Streibough secretly resents him enough to ruin his life) and the few genuine friends he has either end up dead (Hasshe, the king, Uranus) or are unable to reach out to him in time to prevent his downfall (the kid who still believes in him).
  • Present Day: Strength. Masaru and Odie O'Bright both seek physical strength, but while Masaru also places value on moral strength, Odie is just a violent thug interested only in using his strength to harm others who he perceives as beneath him. Oersted starts off like Masaru, having something worthwhile to use his martial strength in service of, but by the time his Trauma Conga Line ends, he is left with nothing but his own rage and resentment, causing him to lash out and hurt others the way Odie does.
  • Near Future: Destiny. Akira stubbornly insists that only he is in control of his own destiny, and in the end is able to carve out a happy ending for himself. Oersted, on the other hand, lets his fate be guided by others; he's perfectly happy to serve as a hero when he's loved by the civilians, but once they turn on him, he takes their condemnation of him to heart and becomes the very monster they believed him to be.
  • Distant Future: Humanism. Cube, despite being a robot, is not at all a crapshoot, and tries his best to keep his fellow human companions safe. He is the one that manages to fight off the super computer going haywire, despite the computer's reasoning that Humans Are Bastards. He takes Huey and Corporal Darthe's words to heart, striving to learn and learning never to hurt another human, to the point that Darthe even jokes that Cube is becoming more human himself. Oersted, on the other hand, ends up seeing humans acting ungrateful and bitter, especially when he is personally injured by their words as well as the deaths and betrayals of his companions. He ultimately tars all of humanity with the same brush as those who screwed him over and abandons his own humanity.
  • Middle Ages: Hatred. Streibough has a perfectly good gig as a powerful sorcerer and the best friend of the king-to-be, but he lets his hatred and jealousy of Oersted consume him, leading him to ruin Oersted's life and ultimately resulting in his own death. This in turn leaves Oersted with absolutely nothing to live for other than his own hatred, which has disastrous consequences for the timeline at large.
• Character as Himself: Cube is credited as "Himself" alongside the remake's voice actors during the True Ending staff roll.
• Chekhov's Gag: Reading Aki's mind in the Near Future chapter has him tell Akira to stop reading his mind, indicating that everyone who knows Akira is aware he can do this. Kaori tries to stop Akira from learning that Matsu went to Tsukaba (which fails since Akira knows he was planning to go there), and Matsu uses this as a Deathbed Confession regarding that he was the one who killed Akira's father.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the Distant Future chapter, there's a fun minigame called Captain Square in the Break Room which serves as a stand-in for the otherwise-absent battles from the other chapters. The arcade machine itself is used in the endgame by Cube and Darthe, since OD-10 forgot about it and Darthe patches her through to the game so Cube can fight OD-10 through there.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • At the end of the Imperial China chapter, the new master of Earthen Heart manages to split the rock on the mountain clean in half, which Shifu was unable to do himself. This becomes a central mechanic in their dungeon in the Final Chapter, where you have to break one to enter, then use the right skill to break the rocks blocking doorways inside.
  • Rather than "Flee", Akira has the "Teleport" skill, which works the same except Akira will reappear in random places. In the Final Chapter, teleporting away from battles with Akira is the only way to enter the Trial of the Heart.
• Cliffhanger: The remake's demo version ends during various climax points. For example, the Distant Future chapter cuts off after Kato and Kirk's space walk goes wrong and Kirk starts to suffocate. Justified because it's a demo, after all.
• Climax Boss: All the fights against the different chapter bosses, and the Lord of Dark in the Middle Ages chapter.
• Clock Punk: Karakuri ningyo are a surprisingly old Japanese craft, as Puppetmaster Gennai's creations are this and himself appears to be a primitive Cyborg with this level of technology. The Mimic Mammet takes the cake, though, being a Palette Swap of Oboromaru unless he breaks, which reveals his mechanical parts.
• Cognizant Limbs: Odio employs this in a game where it otherwise doesn't feature in boss fights.
  • First is Odio's face, the Final Boss of the original game. It consists of the Brow of Odio, two Eyes of Odio, and the Maw of Odio. Only the Eyes and the Maw attack, with the Brow being nearly invulnerable and countering with a full-field heal/buff to the other parts if it gets hurt. Once the Eyes and Maw are killed, the Brow shifts into Purity of Odio and fights alone for its second phase.
  • Second is Sin of Odio, the True Final Boss of the remake, consisting of the main body and its two hands. This is the only phase of the battle, and each individual part is much frailer than the parts of Odio's face, but they hit much harder on any party members below them on the grid.
• Color Motif: Every main chapter gets one in the remake. They serve as an accent color on menus and in battle during that specific chapter, as well as help differentiate the songs in the Jukebox. During the final chapter, the color motif of the main hero's chapter returns as the accent color.
  • Prehistory: Green.
  • Imperial China: Yellow-green.
  • Twilight of Edo Japan: Purple.
  • Wild West: Orange.
  • Present Day: Gold.
  • Near Future: Light teal.
  • Distant Future: Silver.
  • Middle Ages: Red.
  • General music and music from the Dominion of Hate (Jukebox): Blue.
• Consolation Backfire: The game has a deconstruction in the form of Oersted. After everyone turns their backs on him because of him accidentally committing regicide, he is convinced (by his remaining friend, who dies soon after) that there's one person that still believes in him: Princess Alethea. As long as he still has her, he can keep fighting. So he sets off to save her, only to find out that the "accident" was actually orchestrated by a jealous friend, and when he kills said former friend, the Princess reveals that she has already lost faith in him and commits suicide in front of him. Oersted in turn snaps. Then in retaliation, he becomes the new Lord of Dark, levels the kingdom, and then declares war on all of reality.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: In the Middle Ages chapter, there's a large rock off the side of the mountain path that's noticeably a darker shade of blue compared to the rest of the area, but you can't interact with it. It's also a similar rock to the one the Earthen Heart successor broke at the end of their chapter, and they break it in the Final Chapter to access their dungeon.
• Cool Ship: The Distant Future chapter takes place entirely on a spaceship called the Cogito Ergo Sum.
• Cosmic Plaything:
  • Any incarnation of the Watanabes, basically involving the father being killed in front of his son. Usually Played for Laughs.
  • Poor Oersted is on the receiving end of one breaking moment after another. Unfortunately, their chapter involves showing the logical conclusion of being subjected to this and having everything go as wrong as possible.
• Counter-Attack: Certain techniques are designated as "reactions", which cannot be used manually (unless they're also designated as a standard attack) but will instead trigger automatically if their owner get hurt while the opponent falls within its range. Masaru in particular is a counter-based character: by the end of his chapter, he'll have so many reaction moves that anything not attacking from a significant distance away will receive immediate payback, helped by him being very capable of taking hits.
• Covers Always Lie: Moreso an art piece lies. An art piece by Square Enix's official Twitter is captioned that it depicts a rendition of some of the game's heroes. However, the illustration actually contains side characters, opponents, and villains rather than any of the seven protagonists. The illustration lists Ou Di Wan Lee, the main antagonist of the Imperial China chapter, as a hero. Seishi Moribe is an opponent Masaru fights, but never joins the party and is simply an opponent Masaru fights in an organized show battle. While the rest are actually heroes, Kato is more of a Non-Action Guy Non-Player Character unlike the rest who are playable, which include Matsu, Gori, Mad Dog, The Prisoner, and Streibough (who hardly qualifies as a hero and is the Greater-Scope Villain who indirectly sets off Odio's rampage across time and space).
• Crapsaccharine World:
  • The city in which the Near Future chapter takes place. A lush park with a food stall, an Orphanage of Love, marvelous inventions and such... but there's a biker gang kidnapping people, a bar full of drunk punks, and a trio of conspirators planning to summon a false god by liquefying the kidnapped.
  • Lucrece looks like your usual picturesque fairy-tale kingdom, that hosts grand tournaments and banquets...but upon Oersted accidentally killing the king, turns out the people here don't take kindly towards whoever they think are traitors, to the point of torture and execution.
• Credits Gag: Completing the Captain Square minigame in the Distant Future chapter has a credits sequence like the other chapters, except it's comprised of fictional names that range from being akin to online handles to ones that sound robotic and alienlike.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Oersted as the core of Sin of Odio during the remake's Golden Ending.
• Crutch Character:
  • Gori in the Prehistory chapter is a mild example. When Pogo is at level 1 with no equipment to his name, Gori is a big help by being tanky and powerful even unarmed. However, his inability to equip much of anything means that he'll fall behind Pogo around the second half of the chapter once he's fully equipped and learned most of his varied moveset, but Gori can still prove effective support by spreading poison tiles and using the multi-hitting Chest Pound on anything that doesn't resist it.
  • The Earthen Heart Shifu. He starts at Level 10 and can beat up street thugs and forest tigers quite easily. However, as noted in the beginning of his story, he's getting weak and past his prime; he can't level up no matter how many battles you have him fight, and because of his Glass Cannon stats, he's prone to being knocked out easily as he fights through the Indomitable Fist Fortress.
  • Hasshe and Uranus from the Middle Ages chapter. They are ungodly powerful when they join Oersted and Streibough, but only gain miniscule accuracy and evasion boosts when they level up (Uranus at least learns a couple more powerful spells) and are only around for the first half of the chapter.
  • Oboromaru and Pogo can (and probably will) be leveled up very high in order to defeat their respective superbosses, making them ridiculously overpowered during the first half of the final chapter until everyone else catches up (though this can also end up being a headache if you have to fight them to recruit them).
  • Matsu from the Near Future Chapter becomes this for the first fight, saving the currently under-leveled Akira from a group of gang members who would have smeared him all over the landscape without Matsu's level 10 ass-kicking skills. When he joins your party for good later, you've leveled up too much for him to be considered a crutch, but he's still quite useful.
• Cyberpunk: The Near Future chapter is still a moderately average setting on the surface, but robots are extremely prevalent (mainly as weapons), but the local professor Tobei provides benevolent tech such as Taro's new body, a work-in-progress teleporter, and his crown jewel; the Steel Titan. There's also the whole liquefied humans tech as well, which can be used to save lives or harm them.
• Dance Party Ending: Downplayed example in the Prehistory chapter. The second half of its credits show the NPC cavemen from both tribes happily dancing together around Zaki, the chief of Pogo's tribe, and what appears to be Odo's remains, but the rest of the main party are noticeably absent.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Heavenly Peaks Descent from the Imperial China chapter. You can only use it once in the final battle of the chapter. It stops being dangerous and forbidden in the final chapter, though, where it can be used at any time once it's learned. Justified, considering that it's only dangerous to the Shifu because he was too old to use it — his successor has no such problems.
• Dangerous Terrain:
  • In battle, there are different types of damaging panels: poison, water, fire, and electricity. These panels also affect enemies, and some enemies can recover on said panels. Oboro is capable of creating fire- and water-based panels, and Cube can create electric-based panels. Gori from the Caveman chapter can create poison-based spaces.
  • The bosses love elemental spaces. Most notably, Ode Iou's true One-Winged Angel form has an attack that creates an enormous area of poison-based panels. OD-10 also has Reformat Sector, which creates electric-based panels in a 3x3 placement (which can actually kill it).
  • Taken to extremes in the Captain Square minigame, the only part of the game where you can quickly die from elemental squares alone. The Fire Elemental enemy on the Earth level tanks everything but the Water tiles generated by the Water Elemental enemies alongside it.
• Dark Reprise: The remake manages to do this with the already-dark Odio's theme; the credits sequence of the Middle Ages chapter plays a version with a more cinematic quality, signifying just how high the stakes are as it becomes clearer and clearer that Oersted is the one responsible for the events of the first seven chapters.
• Death by Irony: Earthen Heart Shifu takes Yun under his wing and tries to teach him to believe in himself and harness his inner courage. Should Yun die fighting the Indomitable Fist, Shifu laments that Yun perished because he took these same lessons to heart. By contrast, Yun survives if he's the favored disciple because he panics and hides himself away.
• Decapitated Army: This is termed "overpowering enemies" in-game. Some enemy groups appear with a particular type of enemy as the leader(s). Should the leader(s) go down, the rest of the enemies disappear from the battle screen and the player-controlled characters win. The remake for the Switch has the leader(s) in question tagged with a flag to help the player with the identification process.
• Decon-Recon Switch: The Middle Ages chapter serves as a Deconstruction of a lot of RPG tropes, especially Apathetic Citizens, Standard Hero Reward, and As Long as There Is One Man. Then the final chapter becomes available, and the player is allowed to choose whether or not humanity is worth fighting for, after all. If you choose anyone except Oersted/Odio for the Final Chapter, that's when the Reconstruction comes in, as the seven heroes of the previous chapters (who have never even met each other before) team up to defeat the God of Hatred.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Oersted hit this pretty hard. After being tricked, he finds that everyone has now abandoned him and considers him a demon, his only remaining ally is dragged away to be tortured, and he is blamed for the death of said ally, who expends the last of his power to set Oersted free. Oh, then he finds out that his best friend betrayed him to this fate because he was jealous. Oh, and the 'Aesop' which has been so far in the game? "Don't lose hope as long as somebody believes in you". That went well. The last person who he hoped believed in him, the princess? After Oersted duels his traitorous friend and kills him, she asks why he didn't come to rescue her (Ouch. He did. Streibough only got there first by faking his death and ruining Oersted's life), declares that she loves said traitor, and kills herself. That was the absolute last straw, the severing of his last tenuous tie to sanity. The result? Lord of Dark Odio is (re)born and is bent on destroying humanity.
  • Alethea crosses it when she realizes that Streibough, who reached to her first and gaslighted her into loving him and not Oersted through manipulation along with betrayal, is dead. Which leads to her being Driven to Suicide.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Every character has a unique thing to say to Oersted in the final chapter if they're the player character.
  • Taroimo and Cube, both being robots, can equip the same extra parts which provide new combat abilities. However, most of these can only be obtained in the Near Future chapter for Taro. There is an unintuitive method of transferring them to the final chapter for Cube to use: Have Akira equip the parts when you finish his chapter. This does not benefit him in any way, but equipped items are carried over to the final chapter (and it doesn't handicap Akira for the final battle, since you're using Steel Titan instead). The remake also mixes inventory contents when a protagonist enters the party, but you still need to remove them from Taroimo first or carry duplicates.
  • In the Near Future chapter at the Tsukuba Research Facility, a scripted battle against four Crusader members occurs and tells Akira that unlike at the start of the chapter, there will be no Lawless to bail him out of this fight. However, their dialogue will change if Akira detours to a restroom where a businessman will try to attack him, then Lawless will knock the man out and join the party early.
  • In the Final chapter, what your character calls the item required to recruit Cube (if he is not your main character) varies logically depending on their original time period: Pogo has no idea what to make of it, showing up in his inventory as "????"; the Earthen Heart successor, Oboromaru, and the Sundown Kid simply call it a "metal box"; Masaru calls it an "odd part". Only Akira, being from a near-futuristic society, correctly identifies it as a battery.
  • A minor one: All of the characters have a unique sound clip they make when selected on the scenario screen, and it gets reused both when they level up and for the final ending screen that features your chosen protagonist's portrait — for example, Pogo's select sounds are monkey noises, Sundown's is a gunshot, etc. The Imperial China chapter utilizes a high-pitched Wa-chow! for these sounds in the original release. This sound will remain if you had either Yun or Hong as the one to succeed the Mountain Shifu, but if you picked Lei, said sound is changed to a unique feminine-sounding battle cry instead. The remake instead assigns unique voice clips pertaining to the characters.
  • In the Distant Future chapter, if you play the Captain Square game as soon as you're introduced to it and before you try to give Darthe coffee to advance the plot, Kirk comments on your progress, and actually reacts if you manage to beat it in one sitting, which is difficult since in order to save your progress on this minigame, you need the Memory Card which you obtain after Kirk's death.
  • Two interesting bits of foresight in the Middle Ages chapter in the remake; normally, after Oersted is framed for killing the King and cast out of Lucrece, it's expected the player will wander aimlessly around most of the world map before eventually resigning themselves to the fact that there's nothing Oersted can do; he'll need to go back to Lucrece and turn himself in. However, if you go to Archon's Roost, enemies are leveled appropriately for the next major story beat, which takes place in the area. A daring player may choose to trek all the way through the longest dungeon in the game to try the doors that should be stuck leading to where Hasshe died, and find the doors… actually open now. You still can't complete the dungeon and end the chapter early, but it makes sense that Streibough isn't sealing the doors anymore. Furthermore, once you leave Archon's Roost, Oersted is immediately arrested and brought to the Lucrece dungeons; even if his intentions were to try once again to save Princess Alethea, the soldiers don't know that, and are operating under the belief Oersted is the Lord of Dark… and they just watched the man leave what is functionally the Lord of Dark's house, validating their beliefs.
  • Recruiting Akira in the final chapter involves him reading the main character's mind to figure out their name. Normally this isn't voiced in the remake since the game uses a Hello, [Insert Name Here] system, but if you're playing as the current Earthen Heart Master (all of whom have set names but go by the same title in the final chapter), Akira saying the name will be voiced. Similarly, the Bountiful Heart in the Trial of Skill also has full voiced lines for this.
  • In the Final Chapter, you can interact with the statues of Odio's incarnations with the respective character in your party, which will cause them to be surprised.
  • In the Distant Future chapter, Kato asks Cube at one point to get a code from Decimus to enter the Captain’s room. After getting said code and giving it to Kato, he’s shocked to discover it doesn’t work. This scene changes if Cube attempted to use the code beforehand which also yields the same failed result, so they tell Kato about their discovery. Kato confirms it doesn't work just as Cube said.
  • Normally in the Dominion of Hate, Pogo needs to be fought before being recruited. However, if the chosen main protagonist is Lei Kugo, he instead gets attached to her and refuses to fight. The remake also has her react in bewilderment with a voiced line.
  • The remake's Sin of Odio fight has two scripted attacks which covers your current party in black ooze and renders them out of action. Checking the Party Status screen shows they are afflicted with a unique status effect. It also expands to include the other three heroes not in your party once they show up, and accounts for Oersted.
  • In the Middle Ages chapter, going to Lucrece Castle after recruiting Uranus but not going to Hasshe yet will have new reactions from the townsfolk and guards to the heroic priest's return, along with voiced lines from the King and the minister. The same thing happens if Hasshe joins your party, causing new reactions to appear.
  • After the Purity of Odio boss fight, if the player chooses to kill Oersted, he has a unique set of voice lines as an enemy, including lines for if the player somehow loses.
• Disguised Horror Story: And perhaps the Ur-Example of this trope for video games at that. A fair bunch of the chapters masquerade themselves as something innocent and not too far-off from the genre they represent, only to suddenly pull the rug out from under the player and reveal themselves as something way worse.
  • The Imperial China chapter takes place in a typical Wuxia setting where an old master recruits several youngsters to inherit his fighting style. What the game doesn't tell you, however, is that after you drive off a local gang, a rival sect will be out to kill all your pupils, and only one will survive.
  • The Present Day chapter, on the surface, seems like a light-hearted Punch-Out!!-like campaign where Masaru spars with martial artists all over the world. You go through the entire scenario without encountering a single dark element… until you defeat all six of them and the BGM becomes the foreboding Demon King Odio theme, and the portraits of the martial artists fade to grey. Then Odie O'Bright shows up and gleefully brags about having killed all of them.
  • The Near Future chapter starts off as a somewhat hilarious playable concept of a mecha anime series starring a Stock Shōnen Hero with psychic powers who can help a local biker run a taiyaki stand and both beat up thugs for fun, and the resident Absent-Minded Professor takes care of said mecha while coming up with several chaotic ideas. Then you get to the Tsukaba Research Facility and the plot's tone drops off of a cliff when Akira discovers the liquefied humans who were part of the kidnapped 2,000 civilians mentioned earlier - one of them being Watanabe's dad - and the conspirators are running an Assimilation Plot to summon the evil god Odeo. Even if the good guys win in the end, Akira's best friend and big brother figure is now dead alongside 2,000 people who won't be going back to their families.
  • The Middle Ages chapter seems like a trademark Square Enix "hero and mage save the princess" scenario. In actuality, it's a brutal self-Genre Deconstruction of Square Enix's trademark RPG setting, twisting something out of a typical middle-age fantasy into a horrible tragedy and becoming the origin story of the game's Big Bad.
• Do Not Spoil This Ending: Up until the November 18th 2022 patch, the remake prevented use of the Switch's Capture function during extremely plot-critical events, mainly everything related to Odio's origin such as the final arc of Middle Ages where Streibough reveals his true intentions, the final battles against Odio in the Final Chapter, and the entirety of Oersted's Final Chapter.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect:
  • Both the 0-kill and 100-kill paths through the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter require making a few sub-optimal decisions to complete them. Getting zero kills requires Oboromaru to avoid all of the steps to free the Prisoner, as making it to the top of Castle Ode without him allows him to interrupt what would otherwise be an eight-man fight. Getting every kill requires that certain people be kept alive long enough, such as every woman (an NPC required for 100 kills only shows up if Oboromaru reaches the end of the chapter without killing any women beforehand).
  • A perfect execution of the setup portion of the Wild West chapter leaves O. Dio without any minions to support him in the final battle. However, an optimal execution leaves him with exactly one, as the Frying Pan trap that normally takes out a single outlaw can instead be equipped, and a defense boost for a Glass Cannon like Sundown is worth having to deal with a lone grunt enemy. You can also save the Dynamite and/or all of the Bottled Fire that Mad Dog makes, losing more impactful traps in exchange for a few strong battle items to toss at O. Dio or in the remake, save for the Final Chapter.
• Door to Before: Many trials in the Final Chapter spawn a portal leading outside when you reach the end.
• Double Meaning: In the PlayStation/Steam trailer, the description for the Middle Ages chapter is "A Demon King and a Hero True". This can be easily read in the context of "the villain versus the hero", but this also describes Oersted perfectly in the remake, who becomes said Demon King, but he ultimately prevails as a hero in the end by slaying Sin of Odio. This could also be a triple meaning if you count Odio calling himself the "hero true" during the ending of his version of the final chapter.
• Downer Ending:
  • The Middle Ages chapter ends with Oersted losing everything and everyone held dear to him, with the whole of Lucrece branding him a villain after Streibough tricked him into committing regicide, and Alethea commits suicide out of love for Streibough, dismissing all of Oersted's attempts to save her. This leads to the creation of the Lord of Dark Odio.
  • Any of the endings that isn't the best one either ends up with the heroes dead if Oersted/Odio is protagonist, stuck in Lucrece if Oersted isn't spared, or with all of reality wiped from existence.
• Dramatic Irony: In the Final Chapter, the protagonists find each other wandering the ruins of Lucrece. To the player, they're exactly who they need in order to survive. However, every single one of them are complete strangers to each other still shaken by their circumstances, and most are understandably on the defensive when you encounter them.
• Driven to Suicide: It turns out Alethea fell in love with Streibough when he reached her first and hated the fact that, from her perspective thanks to Streibough's manipulation, Oersted never came to save her. When she learns that Oersted has killed Streibough, she snaps and kills herself.
• Drop the Washtub: A washtub comedically falls on Akira's head after one of his failed attempts to control the Steel Titan.
• Duel Boss: In terms of chapter bosses, Ou Di Wan Lee, Odie O'Bright, Odeo, and Streibough. The protagonist doesn't have any party members and the boss doesn't have any minions.
• Dueling Player Characters:
  • In the Imperial China chapter, the Shifu trains his students by beating the crap out of them. Twelve times over.
  • In the Final Chapter, depending on your protagonist, you may have to fight Pogo, Lei, Masaru and/or Akira to get them to join you. The Neutral Ending also has Oersted as its Post-Final Boss.
• Dwindling Party:
  • Occurs in the Distant Future chapter as the crew is gradually taken out by OD-10's machinations. In order, Hor chokes to death offscreen while locked in his room, Kirk suffocates when his oxygen supply is cut off in outer space, Huey and Rachel simultaneously get mauled by the Behemoth (Huey dies on the spot while Rachel gets her cryo pod's life support disabled a bit later), Kato passes out after being attacked by the OD-10-controlled Cube prototype, and Darthe is cornered by the Behemoth just as he enables Cube to interface with the Captain Square game. Following the chapter boss, Cube appears to be the only one left, though Darthe is revealed to have killed the Behemoth unscathed and Kato survives his injuries just fine.
  • This happens very rapidly after the first half of the Middle Ages chapter. Hasshe dies from blood loss due to his illness right after the false Lord of Dark is killed, Streibough is seemingly crushed when he fails to escape the Lord of Dark's room (he survives, but is no longer on the side of good), and Uranus makes it a bit longer but passes away when he uses the last of his energy to free Oersted from the dungeon, leaving him completely alone on his way back up Archon's Roost.
• Dying Town: Success Town in the Wild West chapter. It was a very successful town in its heyday when prospectors went for the gold rush, but it's reduced to its quiet state once there was nothing left of value, leaving the Crazy Bunch to bully the townspeople for what little they had left.
• Dysfunction Junction:
  • The Cogito Ergo Sum cargo vessel in the Distant Future chapter is revealed to be one. Its regular crew consists of newly activated worker robot Cube; Kirk, a macho Jerk Jock; his Bitch in Sheep's Clothing girlfriend and communications officer Rachel (who ultimately suffers from Love Makes You Crazy after Kirk's death); her ex-boyfriend, ship's cargo loader and all-around Shrinking Violet Huey, who she disdains and Kirk bullies for being a chicken; a nerdy, nebbish mechanic named Kato (also the Only Sane Man); and a very distant, extremely hands-off Captain Hor who is actually dead and being impersonated by the ship's Mother Computer. Not to mention its passenger, a gruff military officer who hates robots. This is actually a plot point, as all the conflict on the ship leads its Mother Computer OD-10 to decide that the best way to maintain harmony onboard is to kill the entire crew. If the player has Cube access Captain Hor's log at the end of the chapter, he can see that the captain was planning on pretty much dumping the entire crew at the end of the mission and getting a new one that would function better.
  • The Kingdom of Lucrece upon the Middle Ages' second half makes the above seem well-mannered in comparison. To the point no sane person is alive by the end, one of them committing suicide completely insane.
• Early-Bird Cameo: See that castle on the title screen? It's Lucrece Castle, a major location in the endgame.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: In the remake, getting all or nearly all 100 human kills in the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter adds some foreboding atmosphere to the ending shots that isn't present in the original game. Like the original game, however, getting every kill is nigh-impossible to do by accident; while Oboromaru will get strong enough to win every fight effortlessly, finding all the targets requires absurd knowledge of the chapter due to the amount of obscure encounters as well as a lot of backtracking, and taking certain actions in the wrong order can lock people out of being fought.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • "The First" ends with Pogo rescuing Beru, killing the evil dinosaur Odo, making peace with the Kuu Tribe, and getting his banishment lifted. The last scene is of him and Beru retreating to his room for some… private lover's time.
  • The True Ending; Odio is defeated, and Oersted realizes his wrongdoings before dying as himself and being allowed to rest in peace. Each of the characters are returned to their respective times and are shown living happily afterwards.
• Easter Egg: In the Twilight of Edo Japan chapter on a pacifist run, you can peek into a hole where two mice are talking in human language. This was made to congratulate two of the game's designers on their wedding.
• Endgame+: If you reload a chapter you've already beaten, the game deposits you right before the chapter boss.
• Enemies with Death: The remake styles the Death Prophet as a malevolent personification of death, come to punish the party for their cowardice.
• Engrish: Present in both the fanmade and official translations; e.g. in the final chapter, the fanmade translation mangles the "Titanblood" enemy's name into "Titan Brad", while the official translation warps "Barbarian" into "Balbalayan".
• Equipment Spoiler:
  • Completing Oboromaru's chapter with zero kills rewards him with the Prisoner's katana… after the chapter boss, meaning there's nothing left to use it on. Naturally, you get a chance to play as him again later on.
  • Robotic Enhancements and "gun" accessories in the Near Future chapter are noted in the remake's tooltips as being compatible with robotic party members — a conspicuous distinction when there's only one robot party member in that chapter to begin with. Come the final chapter, and Cube can use them as well.
  • Defied in the Dominion of Hate, where you can loot plenty of European-styled swords, including Brion, despite no characters being able to equip them except sometimes in their off-hand (Oboromaru strictly uses Japanese swords). Despite this, Oersted doesn't ever join the party in the Super Famicom original, and in the remake, he joins at the end of the True Final Boss fight and can't have his equipment changed.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: In the ending of the Prehistory chapter, both tribes laugh when Gori runs off with Pogo's tribe's elder.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • The Shifu, in the Imperial China Chapter; you don't name the Shifu, but rather, his fighting style. He is just referred to as the Shifu.
  • The Sundown Kid as well, for the sheriff of Success Town notes that he doesn't care for his real name.
• Evil Overlooker: Ode Iou in both the promotional art of the original game◊ and the remake◊ for the Infiltrator chapter.
• Evil Overlord: The Middle Ages chapter introduces (and is so named after) The Lord of Dark, a powerful Archon thought killed twenty years prior who's seemingly returned to again reign terror upon the kingdom, with the twist being, he hasn't. Turns out the Lord of Dark isn't actually a singular person, but rather a role anyone can fill should they submit to their worst aspects. Oersted, the chapter hero, tragically demonstrates this by his tale's end, when he declares himself the new Lord of Dark after a brutal Trauma Conga Line leads to him being consumed by a hatred for humanity, becoming the game's overarching Big Bad.
• Evil Speech Of Evil: All sapient/sentient Odio incarnations make one. The most memorable has to be the speech at the end of Oersted's chapter, delivered by Oersted himself.
• Evolving Title Screen: The opening montage of the remake's title screen changes depending on your progress. After completing the Middle Ages chapter, the final shot of Hasshe's grave is replaced with the Middle Ages heroes facing off against the Lord of Dark. Completing the game adds a shot of Oersted within Sin of Odio framed inside the "A" of the title and replaces the end screen overlooking Lucrece Castle with one featuring the seven heroes looking over it as well as the sun shines on them.
• Exact Words: The Robot Weapons and Robotic Enhancements from the Near Future chapter can be used with Taroimo to increase attack power and gain new moves. The game doesn't specifically say that only Taroimo can use them, rather that a robot can use them, such as Cube in the Dominion of Hate.
• Exposed to the Elements: Pogo and Akira show more skin than most of the protagonists, but have no problem venturing a snowy mountain in the final chapter.
• Expy:
  • The Sundown Kid is quite similar-looking to The Man with No Name from the Dollars Trilogy.
  • Oersted is very similar-looking to the Fighter from Final Fantasy, especially with the remakes.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Most of the events in each chapter take place within a single day or three, with the exception of the Imperial China chapter (which explicitly takes place over an extended amount of time) and a likely exception of the Present Day chapter (considering that Masaru has to travel between different countries to face his opponents). The fall of Lucrece begins after a disastrous two to three days. Special mention goes to both Twilight of Edo Japan and Distant Future, which take place over only a few hours.
• Face–Heel Turn: Occurs twice in the Middle Ages chapter. Streibough betrays the party and causes the events that break Oersted. And Oersted himself, after he thinks the last person has stopped believing in him, decides to become the dreaded Lord of Dark everyone took him for.
• Fallen Hero: Hasshe in the Middle Ages chapter. He was a hero who defeated the Lord of Dark, but lost faith in humanity and went to live as a hermit in the mountains. He subverts it by helping Oersted defeat the Lord of Dark to prove that he is still brave. Oersted eventually falls much harder.
• Fakeout Escape: If Oboromaru gets arrested and thrown into the castle jail, the assigned guard declares that there’s no escape as long as he's on watch. To escape, you have to use the Invisibility Cloak to trick him into thinking you’ve vanished, then take him out once he opens the jail cell to investigate.
• Fartillery: Both Pogo and Gori have gaseous attacks which can cause some status effects to boot.
• Farts on Fire: Gori farts next to a fire and it ends up exploding in everyone's face. Pogo and Beru aren't pleased when this happens.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • In the Near Future chapter, the people being abducted are being turned into liquefied humans to power the Great Inko Buddha statue, or to become robotic super soldiers. Watanabe's father just happened to be one of those unfortunate victims, except he is made into a robot guard instead.
  • Oersted ended up with a horrible fate: He is left in a land where people either think he is a traitor, or think he is a demon, because everyone who believed in him ended up dying. He winds up accepting the label of demon, and becomes the Big Bad.
  • Everyone in the Middle Ages chapter. They are reduced to souls that are forever locked inside the Dungeon of the Mind, neither dead nor alive and unable to do anything except think or speak.
• Feathered Fiend: Odeo from the Near Future chapter is a giant statue that looks like a cross between a Buddha and a parrot. The parrots in his temple cry out his name, and later screech "Begone!" at you.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: At the end, Odio has been defeated and the 7 protagonists part ways as they get sent back to their time periods to live their lives, aware that they'll never see each other again.
• Fetch Quest: You don't have to go through the character dungeons in the final chapter, but if you don't, you'll have a difficult time with Odio.
• Fight Woosh: A spinning triangle-shaped Iris Out.
• Fighting Game: The Present Day chapter, which tries to emulate the traditional fighting game formula with the game's tile-based system by having its protagonist Masaru Takahara fight one-on-one against his opponents.
• First-Person Smartass: In the Near Future chapter, the item descriptions and loading tips specific to this chapter are from Akira, with some quips here and there.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: In the remake, all the characters in the Middle Ages chapter speak with a Shakespearean eloquency and gravitas befitting its tragic tale.
• Flunky Boss: O. Dio in the Cowboy chapter, which is the center of its main gimmick. The better you are at setting the traps, the less enemies will be able to fight with Dio, and it's possible to get rid of all his men before the fight starts.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls:
  • The arrival of the Crazy Bunch gang in the Wild West chapter marches closer when the bell rings eight times before sunrise. This also happens in Sundown's dungeon in the Final Chapter, where if you don't find the .44 Magnum and escape the dungeon in time, the party will get attacked by the Jaggedy Jacks.
  • To drive the point of the Armageddon ending home, its theme has bell sounds getting progressively louder, and accompanied by wind sounds. Eventually, even the bells become quieter and stop playing altogether, leaving nothing but wind sounds, symbolizing how there's nothing left.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Not only is each chapter's end boss named after some variation of the word "Odio", but in the remake, after their defeat, they expel a cloud of dark red energy as they die. They also share the same Ominous Pipe Organ music when they appear, which tend to stand out even more in chapters with a more upbeat soundtrack, such as Prehistory, Wild West, or Present Day. All of this suggests that something is tying each villain together.
  • In the Prehistory chapter, what can be easily seen as just a decoration for the overworld is a giant dinosaur skeleton, foreshadowing the presence of Odo, a giant living dinosaur that instigated most of the chapter's conflict through the Kuu tribe chief. Additionally, the Tips mentions that it was killed some time ago by Pogo's tribe chief, so humans did fight dinosaurs in this timeline.
  • In the Wild West chapter, Billy (a child) refuses to believe Sundown is a criminal like how his "Wanted!" Poster and Mad Dog portray him as. Not only was the bounty on Sundown placed by himself as a Suicide by Cop plan, a similar situation befell Oersted after being tricked into becoming a pariah by his rival, where a single boy was the only person who believed in him to the very end.
  • The Distant Future chapter:
    • Reading Kato's Personal Log mentions his previous attempts at building a robot. In particular, the second attempt mentions that it could be remote-controlled and it's stashed in the Personal Storage hangar. OD-10 uses it to kill Rachel.
    • The audio log in the captain's room, which records the moments of the captain's murder, is followed by Visible Silence. This hints that the computer system itself is what murdered the captain.
    • When Darthe introduces Cube to the Behemoth, he guesses that the military wants to study it for combat purposes and turn it into a weapon, all in an unenthusiastic tone. This hints that he doesn't care about following his orders to prioritise its survival above everyone else even if it goes on a rampage, and has no qualms about killing it in justified self-defense.
  • The Middle Ages chapter in general is very rich with this one, especially when it comes to its main protagonist, Oersted.
    • The chapter in question lacks a character with a name that sounds like "Odio" like the seven before it, the only one coming close being the player character, Oersted. This is your first hint that Oersted has more to do with Odio than first thought.
    • The fact that the Middle Ages chapter doesn't open up until after you've finished the previous seven hints that Oersted is more significant to the overarching plot regarding the Lord of Dark.
    • Oersted is also the only protagonist who has no key art in the game's promo material in the Super Famicom version, while the remake has. However, in case of the remake, his character model has his back slightly turned towards the camera, and he has no voice lines in the character trailer despite his voice actor being revealed, further hinting that his role in the game's overarching plot is more than it seems.
    • In the remake, each character has a color theme in the menu screen. Oersted's color theme is the same sinister shade of red emitted by each Odio incarnation in the preceding chapters.
    • Both Hasshe and Oersted had their final technique, 'Archon's Mark', labelled as a 'legendary demonic art once used to defeat the Lord of Dark'. Hasshe ends up disillusioned with mankind and could have been consumed fully with misanthropy if it wasn't for his sickness. That is also a sign that Oersted will lose himself to evil. To another extent, Streibough's final technique is Black Abyss, which is also a Demonic technique, only that it works as a counter. That, too, is a sign of Streibough's own jealousy and hatred of Oersted consuming him to plot against his own friend in the worst possible way.
    • After hearing Hasshe's remark that what they just killed wasn't the true Lord of Dark, Streibough starts poking around the room and becomes fixated on the pedestal at the back. It's revealed later that he discovered it was actually a secret panel where Alethea was locked behind.
    • In the original, each chapter has a small paragraph detailing what the chapter is about, but the Middle Ages chapter lacks one completely, which goads the player into thinking that this is a straightforward story like the previous chapters. It's anything but. The remake does add a paragraph to it, but it noticeably only has one page compared to the others that have two, as it's describing half of the true story.
    • Completing a chapter in the remake unlocks its set of songs in the Jukebox feature. Megalomania, the chapter boss fight theme, is unlocked from the start and is included among the basic themes of the game. The overworld Leitmotif of said bosses, Odio, the Lord of Dark, is not. That's because it's unlocked by completing the Middle Ages chapter, the chapter that explains Odio's origins thoroughly, and is positioned in that chapter's library.
    • After Oersted wins the tournament for Alethea's hand, Alethea's dialogue seems uneasy and displeased. As an example, she emphasizes how happy her father is about Oersted becoming his heir, only backtracking and saying of course she's happy too afterwards. Her dissatisfaction with the Arranged Marriage by Engagement Challenge can be read either as her preferring Streibough from the start or being open to his efforts when he gets time alone with her; either way, it sets up her decision to kill herself rather than be with Oersted at the end.
  • In the remake, each of the chapters of the seven eras have titles that are themed around their specific protagonist. There are, however, two exceptions:
    • The Imperial China chapter is titled "The Successor", which should be a pretty big hint that the Shifu is a Decoy Protagonist, since he's the one looking for a successor. His one surviving student is the true protagonist of the chapter.
    • The Middle Ages chapter instead has the Antagonist Title named after the main villain known as The Lord Of Dark — further hinting that not only does the main villain have more to do with the plot of the overall game, but also the fate of the hero himself.
  • In the remake, each of the chapter bosses have a dark aura surrounding them in battle, which dissipates once they are defeated. In the Middle Ages chapter, the battle against the false Lord of Dark lacks this dark aura, which foreshadows that it isn't the Final Boss of that chapter, and is merely a minion of the true Lord of Dark.
  • In the remake, Akira's dungeon ends with the ghost of Alethea pleading with the heroes to stop Oersted, as he's been twisted into Odio so much that he's lost his own identity. While this may sound like a standard-fare warning about a Fallen Hero, Oersted does remember his true identity at the end of the Sin of Odio fight and kills Odio himself.
• For Want Of A Nail: In the Imperial China chapter, the Shifu was about to teach his pupils self-defense after mainly teaching them how to perform his art and fight, only to receive the news that Sun Tzu Wang is wreaking havoc in town, telling his pupils to stay put while he goes to sort it out. Naturally, his dojo gets destroyed and two of his pupils are killed after he leaves. Had he been able to teach the self-defense lessons, or Sun Tzu Wang decided to not wreak havoc at that time, they likely would've had a much better chance of survival overall.
• Four Is Death: If the party ever reaches its capacity of 4 and this isn't a non-Oersted Final Chapter, expect something bad to happen. The Imperial China chapter has the Shifu find three disciples and can only do 4 training sessions a day, which leads to two of them being murdered. The Middle Ages chapter, being a Wham Episode, leads to Hasshe and Uranus dying, Oersted killing Streibough in a Duel to the Death, and the suicide of Alethea corrupts Oersted into Odio. While nothing explicitly bad happens to the heroes in the initial Prehistory chapter once Zaki joins the party to fight against Odo, they all die in Oersted's Final Chapter following his rewrite of history.
• The Four Gods: Oboromaru's dungeon in the final chapter has keys named after them in order to progress.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Once OD-10's homicidal intentions are made clear in the remake, the game's loading screen tips are replaced by messages telling you to give up. A similar thing happens in the Final Chapter, when the tips on the loading screen are replaced with a simple "..." by Odio himself, until you defeat Lucretius and get answers from him, or defeat Odio for the first time.
• Free-Sample Plot Coupon: In the Dominion of Hate, the Earthen Heart Master will start at Hasshe's grave where Brion is, which gives you a headstart in entering the Archon's Roost if you're playing as them, and if your master is Lei, Pogo will unconditionally join you.
• Freudian Trio: The Earthen Heart pupils. Hong is The Kirk, Yun is The Spock, and Lei is The McCoy.
• Fun with Acronyms: Read all of Cube's abilities in order and write down the first letter of each. It reads HUMANISM, the main theme for Cube's character. A few early English translations screwed it up. The remake's official localization hides this in the moves' descriptions instead.
• Gag Censor: In the remake, the pixellated censoring of Zaki and Gori's provate parts during certain attacks in the original release were replaced with a smiley face instead.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • In the remake, the radar shows room entrances and exits as well as orange markers for progressing the story. In the Distant Future chapter, however, Kato realises how Cube could use a terminal to battle OD-10 without damaging its hardware, but falls unconscious before telling Cube which terminal he's thinking of, forcing Cube and Darthe to figure it out for themselves. The answer doesn't show up on the radar because of this.
  • In the Prehistory chapter of the remake, Pogo's rite of passage at the beginning has him gather food for his tribe, which is stated in the Gameplay Tips to be divided equally between everyone. Upon returning back to Elder after gathering enough food, all Haunches of Meat get taken away from Pogo to be stored.
  • In a similar vein to what Final Fantasy IV did with Tellah, old and experienced party members with no further potential to awaken have trouble leveling up. The Shifu in particular has reached so close to his peak that he cannot gain experience at all, staying at a fixed level 10 while his students can and will surpass him. Hasshe and Uranus can level up (in fact, Uranus has a few extra skills to obtain, which he presumably forgot during his retirement), but they won't be getting any stat increases from it.
  • In the Middle Ages chapter, after Oersted gets charged with regicide and Royal Guard enemies start spawning, attacking them will inflict the Fear status on them, since he's been branded as the Lord of Dark at this point and they're fearing for their lives.
  • The Tips in the Final Chapter are all left blank since no one knows anything about the alien environment they're in aside from a (possibly vandalised) map, in contrast to the information in the previous chapters, which they would have logically learned beforehand or in Akira's case, wrote himself. The missing information gets added once they get answers from Lucretius, who's the only living non-hostile source of information in Lucrece, or for some reason, after defeating Odio for the first time.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Ou Di Wan Lee's plan on tiring the Shifu before fighting him only happens in-universe. Gameplay mechanics prevents the Shifu from experiencing this, as all HP is restored and status effects are removed at the end of each battle.
  • The type of weapons equipped does not affect what attacks can and cannot be used. The Tiger Glove in particular can be equipped by a number of characters^*Earthen Heart Shifu, Yun Jou, Lei Kugo, Hong Hakka, Pogo, Oboromaru, Sundown, Masaru Takahara, Akira Tadokoro, and Cube, including bone-wielding Pogo and gunslinging Sundown. Humorously, they still use their respective weapons in battle, even though it is possible to not have them using their weapons if their weapon is the Tiger Glove with none of their weapons equipped as Hand armor. Lei only uses martial arts attacks in her first battle, despite having a billhook equipped when fought.
  • Earthen Heart Shifu takes in Lei, Hong, and Yun to make them all successors of Earthen Heart Kung Fu. However, over the events of the story, two of the disciples will die to an ambush by the Indomitable Fist, incentivizing the player to only train one of the three disciples to maximize their stats.
  • Hong/Sammo Hakka is introduced as being an agile dine and dasher who can swiftly dodge attacks by a restaurant owner and is observed by the Shifu to have the speed of a man half his size. However, his in-game speed stat is extremely low and might be the lowest of all the playable characters. This trope might be played with, as he can learn the ultimate technique of Earthen Heart, which requires high-speed movement animation-wise, although Hong/Sammo has the lowest damage output when using the technique compared to Lei and Yun (although this is because it uses the IQ stat rather than the speed stat). Additionally, Hong/Sammo's low speed can be because he is fighting enemies, which means he needs fast reflexes rather than raw running speed, which he used to run away from people rather than fighting them.
  • Akira mentions that he gained the power to move objects without touching them. However, none of his attacks in combat involve using telekinesis, nor does he use it in any cutscenes, making this ability an Informed Attribute. The Informed Attribute part is removed in the 2022 remake art, which depicts Akira telekinetically floating some stationery. The manga adaptation of the Near Future shows Akira using telekinesis to grab a water bottle.
  • After the first fight in the remake's Near Future chapter where Matsu drops Akira off at the orphanage, Taeko gasps on how Akira got into another fight and how his shirt got ruined. However, Akira doesn't actually wear a shirt.
  • The Mimic Mammet cannot stay submerged in water for long periods of time without breaking, but does not have a weakness to water-element attacks. However, this could be attributed to being submerged in water rather than being in contact with it. Although no playable characters have elemental weaknesses (Oersted's weakness to Divine attacks only surfacing when fought and not when played as), this weakness is not applied when the Mimic Mammet is fought either.
  • At the beginning of the Middle Ages chapter where Lucrece wishes Oersted luck in his quest, one resident recommends he visit Fugalia Village where her sisters live. However, the village itself only consists of two houses, one where Uranus lives and a small family who don't appear to live with anyone else aside from the mother, father, and their son.
• Game Within a Game: "Captain Square" in the Distant Future chapter, which provides the otherwise-absent battles in other chapters. Despite being a retro game from 1994 according to the Tips, it's still popular enough by this time to have an active fanbase. The arcade machine itself is what Cube needs to face the Mother Computer OD-10, since it's technically a terminal that's connected to her, but unnecessary enough to be forgotten so Cube and Darthe can launch a surprise attack with it.
• Gatling Good: O. Dio's weapon. Stay out of its area of effect lest you get one-shotted.
• Genre Roulette: The settings of the chapters not only vary wildly in time period and narrative genre, even their gameplay can differ, with Oboromaru being more of a Stealth-Based Mission that can be beaten without taking a single life, Masaru having a full-blown tournament arc, and Cube going through a near-combat-free Survival Horror story. Even enemy encounters are uniquely triggered, with some being random, others can be avoided on the overworld, or completely scripted.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There are multiple in the Dominion of Hate; the most notable example is the guardian of the Dungeon of Strength, who only appears if Masaru is in your party.
• Glass Cannon: Several. Yun has the highest power rating of the Imperial China heroes, but the lowest HP. The Sundown Kid has very low HP as well, but strong, long-range attacks and some of the most devastating techniques in the game. Oboro is similarly flimsy, but he's a Ninja, which is enough said right there. From the Middle Ages chapter, we also have Streibough, a standard swords-and-sorcery elemental mage. He's not so Glassy the second time you fight him, though.
• Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter: Much of the dialogue in the Middle Ages chapter in the remake as well as when characters from the time period appear in the finale is written using iambic pentameter to enhance the effect of the Flowery Elizabethan English.
• Gratuitous Latin: The ship in the Distant Future chapter is named Cogito Ergo Sum, Latin for "I think, therefore I am." It describes Cube's theme succinctly.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Among the final bosses, Odo and Odeo. It's their followers who directly cause the problems in their chapters.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: In the end, although the main protagonists saved all of reality and return to their home time periods to live their lives, only they have the knowledge of what happened, as there was no one alive left in Lucrece to witness this.
• Gone Horribly Right: A successful attempt to one-up his rival led to not only Streibough's death at the hands of Oersted for instigating this, but Alethea's suicide kicks him over the edge and he becomes a threat to all of reality.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Lei, Akira, and Matsu are all heroic characters depicted with scars to symbolize their abrasiveness and rougher pasts compared to most of the other heroes. In contrast, Zaki from Pogo's chapter has an ugly-looking scar across his face and is the most active villain of the chapter. This particular example later gets turned on its head, however, when Zaki joins the heroes in the final fight against Odo and later after Pogo's and Zaki's respective tribes bury the hatchet following the deaths of Odo and the Kuu Tribe chief. One of the fighters Masaru challenges, Tula Han, also has a scar running down his face, though he's not a bad person and simply fights Masaru during the latter's path to become the strongest.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Almost every chapter has the main hero get some allies that, one way or another, leave before the final chapter:
  • Prehistory gives Pogo an eventual full party of Gori, Beru, and Zaki.
  • Imperial China has an interesting case of this, as out of the three pupils that the Shifu takes on, Yun, Hong, and Lei, only one will survive the story, becoming a permanent party member after that. They ultimately take over the starring role at the end of the chapter.
  • Imperial Japan has The Prisoner team up with Oboromaru. Optionally, the Mimic Mammet can also join, though it'll be destroyed one way or another before the final few battles.
  • The Wild West has Mad Dog team up with the Sundown Kid to protect Success.
  • In Near Future, Akira's allies consist of Taroimo as a permanent sidekick, while Matsu comes and goes until the climactic dungeon.
  • The Middle Ages gives Oersted a balanced party with Streibough, Uranus, and Hasshe… until it gets chopped down to just Oersted after the first trip to Archon's Roost.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • There's no hint that a strengths and weaknesses system is in play during the battles, so you're going to have to resort to brute-forcing different attacks once you find out that your strongest attack does zilch against an enemy or boss who likely resists it. The remake alleviates this by marking each skill with a type icon and displaying what a targeted enemy is weak to.
  • Some attacks do not state what stat they calculate damage from, so players might invest a lot in one stat but not know that the attack they use calculates damage from a different one. For example, Masaru's Arm Lock might be assumed to be a physical attack because it is a martial-based attack. In reality, it calculates damage off the Special Attack/IQ stat, the one stat Masaru cannot increase through level-up.
  • In the Prehistory chapter:
    • Nothing tells or tracks what a combination of materials will make when having artisans craft items, so all you can do is either try all sorts of combinations or look up a guide of someone who already did it.
    • Getting the Rock of Rocks requires interacting with a particular stone face exactly 100 times (if you go over, you have to start from scratch), then backtracking to a door that appeared out of nowhere, finding a slab inside, and using a Bone on it (using anything else on it makes the Rock of Rocks inaccessible) with the only hint being that you're offering a bone to a Monolith unless you don't recognise the reference. The remake thankfully gives off a hint in the Tips on how to get this, but it still doesn't tell you how to make the door open, nor tell you that you need a Bone to get it.
    • Finding the Mammoth King can only be done after reaching the Kuu Tribe hideout near the end of the chapter, then backtracking to the first area where Pogo and his friends were banished to, and looking for a scent cloud that smells like a mammoth. However, while this does prevent you from accidentally running into a walking deathmobile without preparation, you have to press A while next to Mammoth King's invisible overworld tile, which also moves extremely fast. The remake makes this a lot easier by adding icons to the radar after touching scent clouds, loud footstep sounds when near the mammoth, and an input prompt when close enough to start the fight.
  • The Twilight of Edo Japan chapter:
    • A special weapon can only be obtained by completing the chapter with no kills. Doing this requires you to have Mimic Mammet in your party, and getting him is confusing in itself; and it requires that you avoid rescuing the Prisoner, since the cutscene where the Prisoner forces his way into your party near the end will have him drive off people you would otherwise have had to kill.
    • Trying to get all 100 possible kills (something which has no reward) requires keeping certain people alive until a specific point in the chapter, and you may not kill any women until late in the chapter for a good item and need to backtrack and take detours to get them all.
    • The Muramasa is a sword as powerful as the sword you get for a pacifist run, but obtaining it is an even bigger Guide Dang It! than getting the other one all by itself — it requires walking to a precise point in a particular corridor, then turning around at exactly the correct spot to find a hidden room, then ignoring everything in that room and walking back the other way to access a superboss. The remake tries to alleviate it by adding a hint in the Tips about the existence of this, where the location of which is also named in the room title in the top-left corner of the screen, the specific spot makes a loud clicking noise which stops Oboromaru for a moment, changing the hidden room to have just the sword, and having the boss appear by trying to take it.
  • In the Near Future chapter, nothing tells or tracks what Tobei can make from the items you give him, only saying when an item can't be changed. Many items also have more than one possible result when changed and there's no telling beforehand of that. Sometimes Tobei will fail to make something, although you won't lose the items involved, so you might mistake the result for meaning the item can't be changed if you haven't already seen said items succeed in being changed.
  • In the Present Day chapter, there is a third move (Worldbreaker's Wrath) you can learn from Jackie Iaukea, but you have to be in a very specific position in relation to him for him to use it. In the remake, a hint exists in the Tips that mentions that Jackie gets angry if he can't use any of his traditional moves.
  • In the Dominion of Hate:
    • To recruit Sundown, you have to pester him at several locations in a specific order, some of which you have to deliberately poke around to find that you can even traverse there. If he leaves your party afterwards, he sits around at any of the random locations prior. The remake changes this to him just waiting outside of Hasshe's hut.
    • Finding the Trial of Heart is a puzzle, as you have to teleport from battles when Akira's in your party which eventually throws you in there; the remake has a Tip that hints at this. Once there you have access to Akira's mind-reader skill from the Near Future chapter; while the remake has input prompts, the original game doesn't, so the only hint you get reminding you of this is the ghosts who don't say anything if talked to directly, and you have to mind read Alethea's ghost at the end to leave.
    • Finding the Trial of Instinct requires you to go through an out-of-the-way narrow path in the Hero's Last Grave's first area to a dead end, then use Pogo's likely-forgotten smell skill to find a suspicious scent cloud emanating from a wall, then interact with it. The remake makes this clearer by making said path more obvious and putting several conspicuous giant ice crystals around it and putting it on the radar, showing there should be a door there, and reminds the player when they first control or recruit Pogo that he can still use his scent tracking ability.
    • To fight Death Prophet to obtain the Cosmic Mail, you have to flee from battles 100 times, where the only hint about this exists in the Trial of Instinct with the Watanabe statues, which you have to use Akira’s mind reader skill on to get the hint.
• Guns Are Worthless: Defied. The Sundown Kid is the strongest character in the game, even more so if you get his .44 Magnum. Gun attacks in general are long-ranged, damaging, take no time whatsoever, and tend to not pose a significant disadvantage on the character using them, and on the other end, O. Dio's ultimate attack has a range that's either completely diagonal^note original game or includes all cardinal directions^note remake to the end of the field and hits for damage in the high triple digits (in a game where your health is unlikely to reach 200). So basically, the Sundown Kid and the Big Bad of his chapter both avert this trope.
• The Gunslinger: Sundown and Mad Dog are two cowboys from the Wild West era, and fight exclusively using their guns. Compared to other characters, their attacks are lacking in elemental variance and they themselves are frail, but they can strike from further distances and their attacks usually either hit multiple times, hit in a wide area, or have a high chance of disruption.

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