In it, you play as the Knight of the Ember Order, who goes down with their party in order to protect the realm from the Ember corruption. However, there's a dark twist: the only way to get stronger beyond the normal human capabilities is through absorbing Ember, which also allows the party members to learn the enemies' abilities. However, this accumulation of Ember corrupts them as well, up until they eventually turn on their former brethren and become bosses in their own right. It's up to you to discover if this cycle can ever be broken.
Tropes present in this game:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: This is one of the sets of levels, which can potentially replace the Caves.
- All Your Powers Combined: The boss can potentially end up as this.
- Blob Monster: The Slimes, although instead of being completely shapeless like most examples, they retain a pair of hands and even a face (and the Slime Queen possesses a noticeable bust as well), suggesting that each one of them Was Once a Man.
- Chain Pain: Fallen Angels wield a chain with a circular blade on either end.
- The Corruption: Ember powers both makes their carriers stronger, and also corrupt them as they accumulate within their bodies. That includes the party members as well. There's even a persistent corruption level accumulated between runs, which is what unlocks further levels, heroes and more.
- Dem Bones: Skeletons are encountered in the Catacombs at level 3. This makes them stronger than many other enemies, like elves or goblins or giant spiders.
- Dual Boss: The battle against two Fallen Angels in the Catacombs.
- Everything Fades: Dead bodies instantly disappear from the battlefield.
- Fallen Angel: A pair of these, with black wings, necromantic spells and the ability to summon zombies, act as the level 3 boss.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Your starting class selection consists of the Blaze Knight, Pyromancer and Smoke-Shrouded (an archer who can use smoke to sneak around).
- Giant Spider: Large spiders are one of the enemy types fought in the Caves. However, they are not much stronger than the giant snakes and rats that are often fought alongside them.
- Healing Potion: Bright red healing potions are at first the only thing you can buy in the shops, and they are also regularly dropped by the enemies.
- King Mook: The Elf Queen and the Slime Queen are both essentially a larger and stronger version of their species' basic fighters.
- Knightly Sword and Shield: The equipment of the Blaze Knights, although they wield a curved schimitar in place of a conventional straight sword.
- Large and in Charge: The Elf Queen is an early-game boss and she is nearly twice as tall as both the regular elves and your own fighters.
- Life Drain: The Siphon Life skill.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Thanks to their shield, Blaze Knights can perform a Block skill that raises their armor rating for the next turn.
- Multiple Endings: Managing to complete a "purity run" without ever absorbing the abilities from the enemies avoids the final battle of a normal ending, where the corrupted party members turn against each other, and provides a better ending instead.
- Our Elves Are Different: Elf Warriors, Dancers and Mages are all corrupted, and so they possess mottled grey skin and black horns on their head. They are also the earliest enemies you face, and so possess about half the health of even your Pyromancers, with Smoke-Shrouded having quadruple their HP and Blaze Knights possessing almost ten times more. Moreover, they are also much weaker than the giant spiders, snakes and rats in the caves that follow, while skeletons and zombies are stronger than them all.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The Ghouls here are not bad at melee with their Snapping Bite, but their true power consists of their spellcasting, such as the Necromantic Cloud spell.
- Our Goblins Are Different: First, there are Kobolds in the Caves, which fit the goblin stereotypes in everything but their strength: the universe of Emberlight is quite possibly the only one out there where Kobolds are much stronger than elves (if only because the Surface, where corrupted Elves dwell, is level 1, and Kobolds' Caves are level 2). This goes to the point an Elven Queen has less HP (650) than a basic Kobold (1100). Then, you can meet an actual Goblin Shaman, who has 5000 HP and is a powerful spellcaster as well.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Here, zombies are undead warriors with some armor, axes and shields. This goes some way to explaining why they are much stronger than is usually the case in the fantasy genre.
- Plant Person: The Treant enemies are corrupted trees who attack with tree limbs and roots.
- Playing with Fire: As their name implies, this is the specialization of the Ember Order Pyromancers, with their Flame Bolt and Uncontrolled Blast spells.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: The Elf Queen is taller than the normal elves and is a much stronger fighter as well.
- Rat Stomp: Unlike most other games, rats are not the first enemy you face, as they only start showing up at level 2. To further subvert expectations, they are much tougher than elves.
- Squishy Wizard: Played straight, as your pyromancer class has about half the health of the Smoke-Shrouded (ranger class) and a third of the Blaze Knight's health.
- You All Look Familiar: Every enemy type has exactly one sprite, which is especially noticeable if two or three members of the same type are all present within the same encounter.
