Video Game / Epic Seven

Epic Seven is a turn-based mobile gacha RPG developed by Super Creative and published by Smilegate Megaport for the Android and iOS smartphones. Initially a Korean game released on August 30, 2018, it received an English global version on November 8, 2018, and a Japanese version published by Yostar on November 7, 2019.

As a standard for gacha games, the player randomly receives a selection of heroes to build adventuring parties with, each having their own unique strengths and skills. The general gameplay consists of entering corridor-based maps and fighting waves of enemies, then culminating in a boss battle. Players can also collect various equipment, charms, fodders and artifacts to further improve their characters and teams to tackle even harder contents.

With its Tagline of "The Playable Animation", the game boasts a 2D animated art style emulating the Live2D technology, following its rising usage in gacha games since the late 2010's. It also uses a proprietary game engine, the "Yuna Engine", named after the Epic Seven character, Yuna Woo.

Epic Seven is most likely inspired by Summoners War: Sky Arena due to the plethora of similar gameplay systems and mechanics (gear slots, enhancements, capped levels and promotions up to 6★) as well as similar stages/dungeons (five elemental boss fights called Hunts, dungeon-crawling labyrinths and floored dungeon towers), among other things.

Beware of unmarked spoilers from the first main Story Arc, Episode 1.

Synopsis

A long time ago, a war between gods happened. In the middle of it, the god Orbis was struck down, and his wife Diche, in her grief, made a world from his corpse, which she tended to, instead of fighting on the war.

Tired of her losing time with a corpse, the other gods cast on it a curse that manifested itself as the Archdemon in the world of Orbis, with the destruction of Orbis as it's objective. To counteract this, Diche created the Heir system, where some beings of Orbis are selected by Guardians and are given some of Diche's power, with Ras Elclare as Diche's own direct Heir.

Alas, this was not enough and Orbis was on the verge of destruction, with Ras and the Heirs failing to stop the Archdemon. Using a lot of her power, Diche turned back time to give the world of Orbis a new chance.

We are in the seventh attempt to save Orbis now.
Diche's power is fading.
The Heirs that died, aside from Ras, can't be revived.

It's the epic of the 7th world, and our last chance.

Welcome to Epic Seven, the Playable Animation!

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Epic Seven contains examples of:

A

• Achievement System: The "Reputation" menu consists of incremental tasks that reward players with Reputation Points upon completion. Gathering enough Reputation Points unlocks permanent passive bonuses to certain gameplay aspects.
• Action Bomb: There are mushroom-like enemies that self-donate in their ultimate move, with the explosion dealing higher damage the more HP they currently have before they explode.
• Action Prologue: The game begins with the Heirs and their allies fighting the Archdemon's forces in the final battle of the Sixth World.
• Adjective Noun Fred:
  • The names of Moonlight Heroes follow this syntax to differentiate them from their similarly-named alternate counterparts.
  • Specialty Changed Heroes are indicated by an adjective or title before their name.
  • It also applies to themed alternate versions of characters (e.g. Seaside Bellona, Holiday Yufine) to differentiate from their regular versions.
• Aerith and Bob: As expected for a medieval fantasy game, character names range from "realistic" (Mercedes, Yuna, Ken, Celeste, Helga, Jecht, Charles, Violet, etc...) to "fictional" (Kayron, Tenebria, Corvus, Mistychain, Gloomyrain, Kise, Khawazu, Ravi, etc...).
• After-Combat Recovery: Completing an Adventure stage restores a portion of your party members' HP.
• After the End: The world's already ended six times. Each time it's been restored, it becomes a little bit more corrupted or altered, making life in the seventh world harder than it should be.
• The Ageless:
  • Most characters' sprites/artworks don't change over time, but a notable exception is Diene.
  • Nocturnes perform a ritual that stops their aging.
• The Alliance: Episode 3 involves the heroes travelling to another continent to form an alliance with other nations for the sake of protecting the world from further external threats.
• Always Night: When camping inside a Labyrinth, the background is always a starry night.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Character sprites are horizontally flipped when they change directions. Egregious examples flip certain accessories such as an eyepatch (Schuri), tattoo (Assassin Coli) or a Fashionable Asymmetry (Luluca). Even the handedness and the placement of weapons also get flipped.
• Anachronic Order: "Unrecorded History" / Episode 1.5 is chronologically an Interquel between Episode 1 and 2. But since it is an optional Side Story, you can either just skip it, or start Episode 2 without consequences.
• Anachronism Stew: Generally, the setting is a Medieval Fantasy, but there are also characters displaced from another time and setting. "Modern" concepts exist in this ancient world such as Yuna (with her gadgets and machines) and Tamarinne (an Idol Singer).
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Epic Passes give characters outfits for 900 Skystones and/or after some milestones are achieved.
• Another Side, Another Story:
  • The story maps in Adventure Mode contain Hidden Stories, or optional subplots that focus more on the side characters' short adventures.
  • Side Stories are two-week events that focus on certain characters, and are usually accompanied by the characters' rate-up banners. They include scripted battles and event-exclusive currencies exchangeable for items.
• Anti-Debuff:
  • The Effect Resistance stat increases the chance to resist status ailments. It can be boosted by the Resist gear set
  • Immunity Set makes the Hero immune from any status ailments for 1 turn. These are mostly used in PVP content.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • There's a built in re-rolling feature after completing the tutorial. Selective Summons give 30 chances of rolling a 10-draw, making players choose what results would they want to keep among the 30.
  • In most content, Energy is refunded if you didn't complete a stage, which is helpful if the app suddenly crashed. To prevent players from exploiting this, the drops and objects (e.g. Goddess Shrines) will be the same unless you spend your energy elsewhere. Players can also yield out of stages but the entry resources (Energy, Abyss Guides, Labyrinth Compasses, etc...) gets refunded, resulting in worry-free retries.
  • Stuck in an Abyss Floor? Unused Abyss Guides can be easily traded for Gold and Stigma.
  • Epic Seven has a gacha "safety net" that allows players to get the featured Hero after a certain amount of draws.
    • Save at least 121 Covenant Summons (equivalent to at least 605 Covenant Bookmarks) to get the featured Fire/Ice/Earth Hero from their banner. However, the counter resets when the banner changes.
    • Save at least 200 Mystic Summons (equivalent to at least 10,000 Mystic Bookmarks) to get the featured Light/Dark Moonlight Hero. But unlike Covenant Summons, the counter here is carried over the next Mystic Summon banner, without expirations.
  • There are mechanics to help in Level Grinding:
    • Heroes will still gain EXP even if they are defeated in the stage.
    • The fewer Heroes you bring on a stage, the more EXP is rewarded individually.
    • If you bring a max-levelled Hero, their "excess EXP" is transferred to all other non-max-levelled Heroes.
  • Double-tapping a node in the Adventure/World map saves a lot of time than tapping on it once and waiting for your Hero to arrive there.
  • You can refresh the opponent list in Arena if you're having difficulties against the current list. The first refresh for every 10 minutes is free, but you can still instantly refresh by paying gold.
  • "NPC Challenge" fights in Arena are counted in the "5 Arena Battles" Daily Quest.
  • If your party is killed in a Labyrinth, you can pay Skystones to revive them and respawn at the previous tile. It also gives you the chance to teleport to the Portal and keep your loot. The first Labyrinth revive of the day is also free.
  • Some QoL updates streamline the screen transitions, saving time, taps, and fixing interfaces that used to be cumbersome.
  • An update added the ability to compare equipment and preview stat changes before actually equipping them. This helps players decide first before they commit to spending gold due to the unequip costs of swapping equipment.
  • Heroes, Equipment and Artifacts can be locked to prevent them from being accidentally sold or "fed" to others for EXP.
  • When you obtain Epic-rarity equipment from crafting, events or shops, it would automatically open the Preview screen, giving you quick access to the Lock/Sell/Extract options.
  • Equipped gears aren't counted in the inventory cap, so if you're running out of space, you could just equip some gear on Heroes to free up slots. An update on 2020 eases inventory management via the Extraction mechanic which allows players to convert Lv.58+ equipment into materials that can be used for Gear Conversion.
  • The "Waiting Room" acts like a second Hero inventory, giving more free space for players who have a full or cluttered Hero list.
  • "Free Unequip" events are conducted to give players the chance to move/swap gear without worrying about the unequip costs.
• Anti-Grinding:
  • In the Alchemists' Steeple, you can only convert Catalysts and Crafting Materials for a limited number of times that refresh either daily or weekly.
  • The Labyrinth stages run on Morale, which decreases by 1 when you move to a tile, by 3 when you teleport to a portal, and by 7 when you complete battles. If the threshold gets lower, your party gets fewer stat benefits. A negative morale inflicts a penalty in the party's Health, Attack, and Defense stats. You can set up a camp to recover some Morale twice.
• Anti-Hoarding:
  • If your Equipment/Artifact inventory cap reaches its limit or overflows, you won't be able to enter quests until you can have free spaces for you next run.
  • You could only convert Hunt materials up to 5 times daily for each specific type.
• Anti Idling:
  • "Auto Mode" makes the AI do all the fighting for you, but it can't interact with objects like chests or altars. Those items must be tapped, and idling will only make the AI skip them.
  • Zig-zagged with the Pet/Repeat Battling update. It's subverted at first since pets automatically interact with objects upon passing them. But then it's played straight since pets can only repeat the same quest for a limited number of times or when certain conditions are triggered. These were added so that players can't just simply leave the game open to infinitely grind on its own.
• Anti Poop-Socking:
  • The game runs on an Energy/Stamina system which depletes every time stages are completed. Zig-zagged as the players can refill Energy by using Leifs or Skystones.
  • Some contents require certain entry resources or have limited attempts to prevent players from endlessly grinding them.
    • Players can have up to 5 Flags for PvP and up to 3 Abyss Guides and Labyrinth Compasses for the Abyss and Labyrinth respectively. These resources refresh everyday or are bought from the shop (the latter choice can also exceed the initial caps).
    • The World Boss mode can only be played up to twice a day.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: In most content, you can only have 4 units on your team at once, while Friend Supporters act as reserves. In the Guild Wars PVP mode, you can only have 3 members per team.
• Arc Number: Seven, it's in the title, and the current setting is the seventh incarnation of the world.
• Area of Effect: Some skills are these, mostly by damaging all of the opponent team at once.
• Armor Is Useless: Zig-zagged.
  • Played straight since the Defense and Health stats rely mostly on your equipment and artifacts, so, an Idol Singer like Tamarinne can be a Stone Wall if you make her extremely durable. Meanwhile, Heroes die easily if you don't have anything equipped.
  • Subverted with the "Knight" class Heroes. Appearance-wise, they are typically armor-clad warriors. Stat-wise, they usually have higher base HP and Defense stats than the other classes.
• Armor-Piercing Attack:
  • Some abilities and spells come with the Defense Break Damage-Increasing Debuff that lowers the target's defense.
  • Some other attacks naturally ignore a percentage of their target's Defense.
• Art Shift:
  • The Visual Novel-esque cutscenes and the Hero inventory screen use animated character portraits. But in battle, the characters are portrayed as sprites, while the HUD shows a static image of the character instead.
  • 4★, 5★ or Specialty Change characters have a full-screen animated sequence when they use their third/ultimate skill. These have additional lighting effects and can be more detailed than the sprites or animated portraits.
• Artificial Brilliance: There's one thing that the Auto Mode AI does well. In most situations, party members would always prioritize the "boss unit" in a final wave. This works in your favor since defeating the boss first would also defeat all extra enemies beside it.
• Artificial Stupidity: There are limitations to the Auto Mode AI:
  • The AI would usually prioritize the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, meaning they would always attack the enemy unit who has the weaker element. But if there's no "weaker" element, it would just prioritize those with the lowest health instead. There are times when it doesn't work to the players' favor, so tapping the enemy during this mode will force the AI to target it.
  • Most gacha characters are programmed to use their third skill/ultimate as soon as it's off-cooldown. The AI has a tendency to waste an ultimate skill on a target that has little HP left, especially when they could've been killed by a normal attack instead.
  • Some ultimate skills with situational damage modifiers will be used in the inappropriate scenarios. For example:
    • Lorina's ultimate deals more damage the lower her enemy's HP is, but the AI could prioritize Light-elemental targets with full HP even if other non-Light enemies would've taken more damage from her ultimate.
    • Krau's Ziegfried deals more damage the lower Krau's HP is. Players could choose to use the skill at around 20% HP or lower, but his AI is set to use it at around 40-50% HP, dealing lesser damage than what the player would have intended to.
  • It's likely a Player-Exclusive Mechanic, but the Auto Mode AI won't use Soul Burn on skills. This gets jarring in PvP.
• Auto-Revive: A few characters can revive themselves with a portion of HP restored. (e.g. Arbiter Vildred's "Dark Contract" passive). Some Support Party Members can also grant the Auto-Revive buff on their allies. However, this mechanic is rendered null by the Anti-Regeneration effect, "Extinction".

B

• Backtracking: Encouraged in some Labyrinth-type stages as alternate paths are unlocked after fulfilling certain conditions. Backtracking allows you to receive rare stuff from Gold chests, while unlocking alternate routes is the only way to play the Hidden Stories of that chapter.
• Balance Buff: Happens regularly as the developers watch over the game's ever-changing meta. Epic Seven has a fast schedule for rebalances due to the existence of direct PvP modes.
  • Direct buffs to Heroes and Artifacts add more utility, increase numbers, or replace and improve their niche and situational mechanics.
  • Some 3★ Heroes get buffed through the Specialty Change mechanic. It's not simply a direct buff, the player has to make an effort to earn them by promoting the Hero to 5★ and complete their tasks. Afterwards, the Hero gets a skill tree that requires a lot of elemental runes for upgrades.
  • Flat values on the main stats of right-side gears (necklaces, rings, boots) were retroactively multiplied to at least make them on par with percent-based main stats.
• Barrier Warrior: The Nocturne clan is known for their ability to create barriers.
• Beach Episode: Summer-themed events naturally take place on the beach.
• Behemoth Battle: The prologue set in the Sixth World has Zeaon facing off against the similarly-gigantic Anghraf.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The ending of Episode 1. The Archdemon is defeated but Mercedes' soul is tangled with it, and Ras has to live away from society (making everyone think he straight up disappeared) to try and save her. Also, Vildred dies without redemption.
  • The "Eulogy for a Saint" Side Story. The Archdemon has been sealed away and the world is saved once more, but Bask died after the final fight without being able to accept Diene's marriage proposal.
  • The ending of Episode 2. Fastus lost two vessels and the universe is saved from his malice (for now). Diche and Ilryos made peace, Ras dedicates his now-mortal existence to becoming a full-time adventurer with Meru and Arky, while Luluca takes Violet to Rekos while she works to restore it. However, Fastus is likely still out there biding his time, and the war against his puppet Straze resulted in many lives lost, including Kawerik, while Straze himself is reincarnated without any memories of his past self.
• Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Male Suins are of the furry humanoid creature kind, with full-body fur and beastly faces. Female Suins on the other hand are like your typical Cat Girl, humanlike girls with a few beastly traits like a tail or animal ears.
• Black Swords Are Better: Higher-leveled gear from the same Set/Hunt type will often have darker colors and are adorned with spikes. The Golem equipment for example, are ebony on Level 55 but have more intricate ivory counterparts on Level 85.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Barriers provide an extra temporary HP indicated by a white bar overlaying the right side of the default green Life Meter.
• Boring, but Practical: Promoting a Hero to 6★ requires some tedious Level Grinding. While Phantasmas can save time, they are rare or require Stigmas to be summoned. A more cost-efficient alternate is to level up and promote 2★ fodders and use them to promote higher-level fodders. This saves up a lot of Stigmas even thought it's more time-consuming than relying on Phantasmas.
• Boss-Only Level: Some Adventure stages and Specialty Change trials consist only of a boss fight.
• Boss Warning Siren: A warning pops up whenever the player encounters a boss or an elite enemy.
• Bowdlerise:
  • Luna used to have unarmored butt and larger breasts, but had to be censored later on.
  • Elphelt's third skill, "Magnum Wedding", has been censored in E7. The animation skips or speeds up some frames, leaving out the shot of Elphelt picking the bullet from her breasts (which she does in Guilty Gear Xrd).
• Boy Meets Girl: In Episode 1, Ras first met Mercedes in the gardens of Tirel Castle. She joins his adventuring party and quest afterwards. But due to a turn of events, Mercedes became the host of the Archdemon. In Episode 1.5, Ras secretly goes on a quest to save Mercedes by separating him from the Archdemon, and he succeeds.
• Bragging Rights Reward: For the PvP rewards:
  • Extra Profile Frames can be obtained by participating in the current Arena season and/or by purchasing them from the shop.
  • If you belong to the Top 3 players of the previous season, your username and featured unit will be displayed on the Arena Season Hall for the current season.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In Chapter 2, Yuna Woo was imprisoned because one of her machines went berserk. When she escaped thanks to the protagonist trio, they found out that the machine was acting weird because of a Dark Magic Stone that she placed on it, unaware of what said stone does.

C

• Cap:
  • Account/Profile level is capped at Level 65.
  • The Heroes' levels are indicated by stars equating to 10 levels each, but they can be promoted to increase their Level Cap for a maximum of Level 60 at 6★.
  • Gear enhancements are capped at +15, while artifact enhancements are capped at +30 depending on how many times the artifact has been limit-broken.
  • The Hero and Equipment/Artifact inventories are capped but can be raised by purchasing additional slots using Skystones. Equipment and Artifacts used to share the same cap, but was separated in a September 2020 update.
  • Souls for the Soul Burn mechanic cap at 80.
  • Critical Damage caps at 350%.
  • The boosts unlocked by completing a faction's Reputation Quests caps at Reputation Grade 12.
• Cast Herd: Every character is connected to a handful of others, or belongs to a faction. The Hero Journal groups the characters based on their geographical origins, and then sub-grouped by their factions.
• Chain Lethality Enabler: Several characters have mechanics which help them follow up a kill with another kill - the most notable example is Vildred, who has a passive skill completely dedicated to this.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: Early game, the focus is mostly on PVE - progressing through Adventure stages, collecting Breaths of Orbis, completing Labyrinth stages, Abyss Floors, etc... Once most of these modes are cleared, the remaining PVE objective is to grind equipment and crafting materials from Hunts, in preparation for the longer end-game content of Epic Seven - the PvP modes such as Arena, World Arena and Guild Wars.
• Character Development:
  • For Ras. He starts as a goddess avatar with no certain emotions, just wanting to fulfill his duty of destroying the Archdemon. But in the 7th World, he gains more humanly traits in each story chapter, thus he is able to come up with a satisfying answer to both Vildred and the goddess Diche.
  • Bask, the protagonist of the "Eulogy for a Saint". He starts out as an atheist, sour knight who only thinks of fame. During his long travel with Diene, he becomes a knight with a heart of gold and does the heroic thing that he used to hate from the start.
• Character Select Forcing:
  • Stages in limited-time Side Stories are scripted battles, the "NPC" or guest character's team is pre-determined until you clear the stage for the first time.
  • You need to bring a Hero of the required class or element to complete some optional side quests for that stage.
  • If a Hero dies in a Guild War attack phase, they are barred from any subsequent attack phases for that current Guild War.
• Church Militant: There's an insane number of well-armed members of faiths, with different sects such as the Order of the Blue Cross, The Rose Apostles, and the evil-aligned Chaos Sect and Church of Ilryos.
• The Church: Blue Cross Church is the biggest one, Apostles are the military kind, and their evil counterpart is the Ilryos Church.
• The Chosen One:
  • Any Heir qualifies, but especially Ras Elclare, the chosen one of the goddess Diche. He has privileges that other Heirs lack, such as reincarnation and being stronger than regular humans.
  • Champions are the chosen ones of the Spirit Lords. They gain a great deal of power in exchange for having to serve the interests of their respective Spirit Lords.
  • Luluca, shaman of the Rekos, is beloved by the spirits and the one who will save them.
• Cliffhanger: Chapter 3 ends with a cutscene of a priest sacrificing Suin children to create a dark magic stone.
• Corrupt Church: Order of the Blue Cross before the events of Episode 1. Archpriest Noard used the Church for his own gains and created artificially-enhanced mages only to leave them to die.
• Color-Coded Elements: Red (Fire), Blue (Ice), Green (Earth), Yellow (Light), Purple (Dark).
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Undispellable status effects are indicated by a red (if they are Status Effects) or blue (if they are status buffs) background in contrast to dispellable status effects having a black background.
• Color-Coded Item Tiers: The background color of a gear denotes its rarity. From the most common to the rarest, we have Gray —> Green —> Blue —> Pink —> Dark Red.
• Color Motif: The Color-Coded Elements usually match the color themes of some characters' outfits in one way or another. For example, the elves Iseria and Silk have white-green outfits and they are Earth-elemental (Green), Lorina has an overall dark purple motif as she is Dark-elemental (Purple), Sol Badguy and Cermia have red outfits for being Fire-Elementals (Red), Krau, Rose and Twyin have silver-blue armor for being Ice-Elementals (Blue), Guider Aither and Wanderer Silk have yellow outfits because they are Light-Elementals (Yellow).
• Combination Attack: The "Dual Attack" mechanic allows a team member to attack the enemy after a Hero finished their own attack. It occurs by chance, but some skills and items can guarantee this to happen.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The gacha Heroes may also appear as AI-controlled enemies in specific stages like the Abyss and Automaton Tower. However, they will have additional quirks that their playable versions do not have such as more passives, utility, or new conditional attacks or combos.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Almost every PVE boss resists one or more status ailments. These can be checked by long-pressing on the boss's portrait.
• Counter-Attack:
  • Some characters and enemies can passively counter if the opponent hits them.
  • There is a Banshee gear that gives a Counterattack set that gives the Hero a 20% chance of attacking back.
  • Some Artifacts can also provide this effect.
• Cover Version: "Promise" is originally performed by the YouTuber Raon Lee, but fellow YouTuber PelleK also had an officially-sponsored cover of it. There was also an official online contest to allow fans and players to submit their own covers of "Promise".
• Creating Life:
  • Taranor in general. King Alfred and Friedrich created lots of Homunculi and Wraiths.
  • Reingar also does this but ethically. Artificial Dolls (such as Lots and Maya) are some of their works.
• Creation Myth: The Goddess Diche created and tended the world using the corpse of her deceased beloved Orbis.
• Critical Hit: Comes in two stats (Chance and Damage) that can be boosted by certain factors.
  • The Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors give an increased critical chance for the stronger element against its weaker element.
  • These stats can be modified with gears, Awakenings and Artifacts.
  • For those struck with the Sleep debuff, the next attack against them is a guaranteed critical hit.
• Critical Hit Class:
  • Any character with a 100% Critical Hit Chance stat will become this.
  • Certain Zodiac signs have one or two nodes that boost either or both the chance or damage of Critical Hits.
• Critical Status Buff:
  • Some Artifacts passively increase specific stats the lower the wearer's HP becomes.
  • Krau's ultimate ability Ziegfried deals more damage the lower his HP is.
• Crossover: Epic Seven conducts collaborations with third-party franchises:
  • Guilty Gear (April-May 2019) featuring the Xrd REV versions of Sol Badguy (the free character), Baiken, Dizzy (the limited banner characters) and I-No (the event antagonist). It was rerun a year later, adding Elphelt as another limited-time character.
  • On early 2020, the Japanese server had a collab with the fast food chain Wendy's.
  • On June 2020, there's a collab with Kizuna Ai. But unlike the Guilty Gear collab, this doesn't have a side story content, just the playable character.
• Competitive Balance: Single-target attacks generally have higher damage outputs versus Area of Effect attacks on individual targets. Because AoE attacks hit the entire enemy team at once, it makes sense that their damage is evenly spread-out.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Some Heroes can reset, extend, or reduce the skill cooldowns of enemies, themselves and/or their allies.
• Cut and Paste Environments: Most backgrounds are reused in other content, whether they are for the stage, or as backgrounds of story cutscenes.
• Cutscene Boss: The World Boss mode is purely automated and can't be interacted with as the party members are AI-controlled. You could either watch the fight until it ends, or just skip the whole thing and claim your rewards. The boss would just simply cut to its ending sequence if you do the latter.

D - H

• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Defense Break reduces the targets' defense by 70%. Target increases damage dealt to the target by 15%.
• Damage Reduction: The Defense stat obviously reduces damage taken. It can be boosted by equipment, artifacts or status buffs.
  • The artifacts Sepulcrum and Proof of Valor reduce damage taken by a percentage, while the artifact Adamant Shield reduces damage taken from critical hits.
  • Certain characters, like Crimson Armin, Otille and Elena, have passives that provide damage reduction to their team, but only from certain attacks; Otille and Elena reduce Area of Effect damage, while Crimson Armin reduces damage from critical hits. Most of these effects don't stack with each other.
• Dead All Along: In "The Archdemon's Kitchen" hidden story of Chapter 2S, the protagonists were accompanied by a female individual when they searched for a rafflesia in a cave, but she stayed behind when they accomplished their task. When Ras and co. returned to the village, a townsfolk explained that there was a female ghost in the cave where they came from. Arky fainted shortly afterwards when he heard this.
• Deader than Dead: The Extinction debuff ensures that the enemy won't be revived by the Auto-Revive buff.
• Department of Redundancy Department: There's an enemy (and a playable 2★ unit) named "The Sword Swordsman".
• Discard and Draw: Ego Fragments unlock the Imprint Concentration alternative to Memory Imprints, allowing players to choose whether imprints would boost stats for the entire party or only for that specific Hero.
• Double Unlock:
  • Specialty Changes are a "triple unlock" after you obtain the Hero. First, the Hero must be at Level 50 to unlock the Specialization Quests, then you have to complete the first three quests to unlock the fourth. Complete the fourth quest and you'll get your Specialty Changed Hero.
  • Episode 2's AP Exchange Shops. Like Episode 1, the shop is accessible once you clear a map's story nodes, but Episode 2 requires you to complete 4 map-specific tasks before you could actually trade AP for valuable items.
• Downer Beginning: Epic Seven begins with a great war with Ras and his friends trying to stop the archdemon Anghraf, But after you finish the tutorial, Anghraf wiped out some of his allies and their summoned Guardians. Ras was hit by its attacks, but got comatosed for 20 years. Thanks to Diene, the archdemon was defeated and the protagonists won.
• Dump Stat:
  • Effect Resistance. While it gives a chance of resisting status ailments, they aren't prioritized when min-maxing DPS builds that settle with Health and Defense for survivability. And if you have a unit who can dispel debuffs or grant debuff immunity, ER can just be redundant. It also doesn't help to note that there are some heroes who have soulburn effects that ignore effect resistance (i.e. Basar), making this stat relatively useless in PvP settings.
  • Effectiveness. It helps boost the chance to inflict debuffs on enemies. Unfortunately, this stat is useless if the Hero can't inflict any debuffs via their skills or Artifacts.
  • Some Heroes have skills that are guaranteed to land a critical hit, so their Critical Hit Chance takes lesser priority than Critical Hit Damage.
• Dungeon Shop: Hueche and the Goblin Merchant Goblicus can be found in some Labyrinth-type stages.
• Early Game Hell:
  • Typical for an RPG, characters deal less damage or have low HP at the start without proper equipment. Only if you equip stronger equipment can your parties succeed on harder content.
  • Early-game, your Sanctuary structures still lack upgrades since Breaths of Orbis are obtained in later or harder story maps. Sanctuary services costing gold, stigma and craft materials are expensive at first but eventually get cheaper once the structures are upgraded.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: During the early times of E7, there were odd placement decisions in the Journal which are fixed in later updates. For example, Nilgal was in the Hero Journal despite not being playable at that time, until he was later moved to the Monster Journal.
• Elemental Powers: Heroes usually wield the element that they represent under the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. There's Fire, Earth, Wind (under Earth), Ice, Water (under Ice), Light and Dark.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Heroes gain advantage over others depending on their element. Earth beats Ice, Ice beats Fire, and Fire beats Earth, while Light and Dark have Mutual Disadvantage. Having the stronger element against the enemy gives increased damage and critical chance. Inversely, the weaker element finds it more difficult to land critical hits, and there's a chance for attacks to deal less damage and debuffs to miss.
• Elite Mooks: Some enemy types include a stronger, larger variant that has more abilities than their regular counterparts. They have a Boss Warning Siren, a dedicated HP bar on top of the screen, and are usually treated like bosses despite having generic appearances.
• Equipment Upgrade:
  • Equipment and Artifacts can be enhanced up to +15 and +30 respectively by sacrificing others of the same type. Charms are alternatives that give more enhance EXP.
  • Reforging allows you to upgrade Lv.85 gear into Lv.90, increasing their stats.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Acolytes to the Spirit Lords. Both are based from the five elements in Orbis.
  • Anghraf to Ras; Both are avatar-like creations of their respective gods.
  • Kayron is a more suitable counterpart to Ras. Their color schemes are the reverse of each other, both are Fire heroes and are leaders of their respective teams.
• Evil Is Angular: The designs of the Golems. Those in the Golem Hunt stages are covered with spiky rocks, signifying that they are wild creatures. Meanwhile, golems who are docile and/or playable (such as the Reignar constructs, Kikirat v2 and Eaton) have more rounded shapes.
• Evolving Title Screen: The title screen changes depending on the current holiday, event or celebration. Outside of those, the screen would reflect the latest main story Episode.
• Experience Booster:
  • Some Reputation rewards, Guild-activated boosts or limited-time events increase the EXP gain rate.
  • Phantasmas have a passive that boosts the amount of EXP that they receive. Mega, Giga and Tera Phantasmas have bonuses of 3%, 5% and 10% respectively.
  • The 1st Birthday Artifact gives the party a boost to EXP gained.
• Expy: Some Epic Seven characters visually take inspirations from other existing video game or anime characters. For example, Charlotte has a strong resemblance to Charlotta, Yufine and Assassin Coli to Shuten-doji and Jack the Ripper respectively, Melissa to Jane, Iseria to Murakumo Units/Nu-13, Specter Tenebria to Remia, Martial Artist Ken to Akuma, Cermia to Mii, Aramintha references both Roy Mustang and Edward Elric, etc... The more detailed explanations are written in the respective folders of these Epic Seven characters.
• EX Special Attack: The Soul Burn mechanic enhances a Hero's certain skill at the cost of Souls. Benefits range from increased damage, more utility, new buffs or debuffs, an extra turn, or longer buff durations. Some even get a different animation, like Iseria's first skill.
• Extra Turn: Several skills or artifacts immediately grant an extra turn to the Hero.
• Faceless Mooks: Most of the nameless rank-and-file armored soldiers never take off their helmets.
• Fading Away: If someone is defeated in battle, they just vanish this way.
• Fake Longevity:
  • There's no way to speed up the in-game battles and animations.
  • Promoting a Hero to 6★. It takes a long amount of time especially if you are starting from a bunch of 2★ fodder units, then working your way from bottom-up. Good luck Level Grinding!
  • The RNG-based stats on equipment. Since a lot of factors are based on luck, no equipment is the same at max enhancement, thus making players grind more and more, hoping to replace their Hero's current items with a better one.
• Fanservice: Most female characters are actually well covered up. Those who aren't however, expose a lot of skin.
• Famed In-Story: The Heirs, since they are expected to save the world. Subverted at first with Ras since he was absent for some time in the 7th world and only woke up after a lot has already happened. This is why Iseria is initially bitter towards him. Played straight when he managed to prove his worth by defeating the Archdemon.
• Fast-Forward Mechanic:
  • You can use Stigmas to instantly complete your Penguin, Molagora, or Phantasma summons from the Sanctuary.
  • The battle in the World Boss mode can be skipped to proceed straight to the Rewards screen.
• Festival Episode: "Chaotic Moon Festival" takes place during one of Reingar's celebrations.
• Fighting Your Friend: In the last chapters of Episode 1, Ras fights Arbiter Vildred, but as the latter is about to reconcile with his friend, he gets killed by Mercedes from behind. Ras then fights Mercedes in an attempt to stop Anghraf's influence on her.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Episode 2's final stage takes place in the otherworldly dimension where you fight Faustus.
• Fish out of Water: The third-party Crossover characters aren't accustomed to the world of Orbis.
• Fission Mailed: Straze in Episode 2 Chapter 6 is too strong for you to defeat at that point. His ultimate skill deals massive damage that would lead to a Total Party Kill and he has tanky stats and buffs. The game requires you to lose, but the story will proceed normally. This is also a Wham Episode, so your defeat is necessary for storytelling purposes.
• Flavor Text: Additional lore and details are in the descriptions of Heroes and Artifacts. These can be revisited in the Journal.
• Foregone Conclusion: We know from the title and the loading screens that the setting is the seventh incarnation of the world. The prologue starts on the final battle of the sixth world. Therefore, the Heirs failed to defeat the Archdemon back then.
• Gameplay Automation:
  • Auto Mode automatically moves your party in the stage and casts Hero skills in combat (although the second and third skills can be toggled off). However, there's still some Artificial Stupidity as the AI follows a limited set of rules. While Auto Mode is active, skills can't be Soul Burned and Guardians can't be summoned.
  • An update enhances the Auto Mode by introducing pets that automatically interact with chests, Goddess statues or portals, replay the stage, and/or refill your Energy.
  • In the World Boss mode, all Heroes are controlled by the AI. You could just either watch the automated battle, or skip to the rewards screen.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The gacha aspect gives these:
  • Characters being playable in your team despite them being antagonists in the story.
  • Characters being playable in your team despite them dying in the story.
  • Ras is The Protagonist of the main story and you aren't forced to have him in your team, but he can still be involved in the cutscenes even if he didn't participate in the in-game fights.
• Gathering Steam: Some skills and Artifacts become stronger the longer a fight drags on:
  • Hell's Cutter increases the Hero's Attack and Critical Hit Chance while it is not yet their turn. It resets when they attack.
  • Some passives grant stackable effects like Lorina's second skill making her hit harder the more she attacks an enemy.
  • Luluca's third skill, "Wave of Vengeance", gets stronger the more it is cast on the same stage.
• God Is Flawed: Rekos, Ilryos and Diche:
  • While it's ambiguous, Rekos was slain by Faustus' Eye.
  • Ilryos created Anghraf and was revealed to be manipulated or corrupted by Faustus.
  • Diche's escapism from the Celestial War ruined a world so many times. It took seven worlds for her to understand it.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Red/Epic-tier equipment shine a golden light when they drop from Hunt stages.
• Golem:
  • The Golem Hunts are self-explanatory, making you fight giant stone golems as bosses.
  • The various humanoid machinery in Reingar, such as Kikirat V2 who becomes a playable unit.
  • From Cidonia, Eaton is a playable earthen golem.
• Gradual Regeneration: There are skills that grant continuous healing for several turns.
• Great Offscreen War:
  • The Celestial War. The fact that Diche didn't want to be involved in it infuriated the other gods, especially Ilryos.
  • The previous wars against the Archdemon. The current setting taking place in the seventh cycle, with the sixth on the prologue, the first cycles took offscreen before the main story.
• Guest Fighter: What the third-party crossover characters essentially are.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The damage formulas and skill multipliers aren't extensively revealed in-game, that players would most likely rely on wikis to know the numbers on a certain Hero, including skills that scale damage with a given stat.
  • Subverted with PVE contents like Hunts, Spirit Altars, Abyss Floors and Labyrinth Raid Bosses. These have built-in guides that explain the bosses' mechanics, as well as lists of the most popular Heroes used in beating them.
  • There are quick shortcuts and QoL that the game doesn't remind you, like being able to open the Team Formation menu just by tapping the table on the Lobby.
  • An update added Background Packs in the Journal for every completed chapter, but most players weren't aware of these at first.
• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • Scorpetra is a large scorpion whose tail is a humanoid female.
  • There are Harpies encountered as enemies.
• Happy Holidays Dress: Heroes may receive alternate outfits or versions on holidays like Christmas.
• Hard Mode Perks:
  • Episode 1.5 / "Unrecorded History" is a harder version of Episode 1's stages, but its AP shops contain Epic Catalysts that can't be bought at the normal difficulty.
  • In limited-time side stories, harder difficulties give more event currencies per run or per AP.
• Health/Damage Asymmetry: Applies to PvE contents. Playable Heroes can have 5 digits of HP while enemies can have 6 digits. Because of this trope, you deal more damage to enemies than what they can dish out to you.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: In "The Village Children's Request" hidden story of Chapter 2S, Ras, Arky, Mercedes and an NPC named Cynthia discuss the game's Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanics.
  Mercedes: Light element monsters definitely seem different to what we've faced before.
  Ras: I felt it too. Our attacks weren't as effective. We might need to recruit someone of the Dark element.
• Hidden Elf Village: Dun Blyraia is the home of the Elves.
• Hotter and Sexier: Summer-themed events feature characters wearing their swimwear.
• Human Resources: The Ilryos Church have been sacrificing kidnapped Suin to create Dark Magic Stones.

I - O

• Idle Animation: Heroes can have these when they're assigned in the Lobby tavern or Guild Hall.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests can be found randomly in any stage, including those that fell and became home to monsters.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Level 88 Epic Arena equipment. While they are of the highest rarity and are 3 levels above the Level 85 equipment (the end-game equipment of many), Arena items have pre-determined stats including Effect Resistance, which is a Dump Stat in most situations. On the other hand, they are simply bought using Conquest Points and Glory Quests, which are farmable from the Arena.
• Informed Attribute: As listed in the Hero Journal's Flavor Texts, all characters have points in descriptions like Command, Charm and Politics. However, these aren't used as gameplay mechanics nor are mentioned in story cutscenes. They are just lore tidbits.
• Injured Vulnerability: In the Hall of Trials, depleting the boss's HP stuns them and greatly boosts their received damage. This vulnerable state helps in getting a lot of points for that run.
• In Place of an Eye: Sira-Ren is described as a magical flower that grows from a corpse. The card it appears on shows a white flower blooming from the eye socket of a normal-looking man with white/grayish hair.
• Interquel: Episode 1.5 / "Unrecorded History" is set between Episodes 1 and 2, but is optional and categorized as a Side Story.
• It's All Upstairs From Here:
  • The Abyss is an upside-down tower. Each succeeding floor digs deeper underground.
  • Played straight with the Automaton Tower. You go higher with each new floor. Unlike Abyss, this dungeon resets, placing you back to Floor 1 every month.
• Item Crafting: The Steel Workshop of the Sanctuary allows you to choose the level of equipment using the crafting materials obtained from Hunts. The set, main stat, substats and rarity are still determined by RNG though.
• Item Farming:
  • You could farm equipment and Charms to upgrade other equipment.
  • 2★ Heroes and Phantasmas are farmed for Promoting other Heroes. Penguins also give a lot of EXP to them.
  • Crafting materials are farmed from Hunts to create new equipment from the Steel Workshop.
  • Runes are farmed from Spirit Altars to Awaken Heroes.
  • Catalysts are farmed from monsters or shops to Awaken Heroes or to enhance skills.
  • Stigma is farmed from PVE contents like Adventure, Hunts, Spirit Altars, or traded from the Abyss. They are used to speed up items in the Soul Forest, or to enhance the skills of 3★ Heroes.
  • Downplayed with MolaGoras, mandrake-like items used for enhancing skills. They can't be easily farmed, just bought from shops, either directly, or through seeds that are planted in the Soul Forest of the Sanctuary.
• Kill the God: "Godkiller", the subtitle for Episode 2 and also the title of Straze.
• Kill Enemies to Open: In Hell Labyrinths, you have to kill bosses in order to unlock more paths in the map.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Those in the Knight class, obviously. Crozet and Krau are even armor-clad and wield a sword and a shield. In terms of gameplay, the Knights are usually played as tanks or defensive Supports.
• Lady and Knight: The dynamic between Mercedes and Ras. The latter is even categorized as a Knight class in-game.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The Guilty Gear Xrd crossover event and Dizzy's Camp lines casually mention that Sol Badguy is her father.
• The Law of Conservation of Detail: Most minor NPCs and units who start as 2★ don't have animated portraits in story cutscenes or in the Hero inventory.
• Lethal Lava Land: Meldrec is a village in a lava land, with the Spirit Lord of Flames acting as their guardian. Its inhabitants, the Emberstorm tribe, are also fire-elemental.
• Level Grinding: While there's a level cap tied to a Hero's stars, they can be promoted to increase it. Even then, reaching levels 51-60 encourages grinding as the EXP required can be huge. Penguins help speed up this process. Reaching Lv.60 is helpful for endgame content as the increased base stats mean much when paired with percent-based stat boosts from equipment.
• Level-Locked Loot: Subverted with Exclusive Equipment as they can only be equipped on 5★ Awakened Heroes, which in the first place, requires them to be Level 50.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Leveling-up in the middle of a battle instantly refills a Hero's HP.
• Life Drain:
  • The Lifesteal Set passively provides this for any Hero.
  • Some Heroes have this on their skills, like Blood Blade Karin.
  • It's also an effect of some Artifacts like Bloodstone.
• Limit Break:
  • The third skill of playable Heroes are their ultimate moves, and usually have the highest cooldown among their skills. Natural 4★, 5★ and Specialty Changed 3★ Heroes even have full-screen animations for them.
  • Enemies can unleash a powerful move after filling up a bar.
• Limited Loadout:
  • Heroes can only have one of each equipment type (weapon, helmet, armor, necklace, ring, boots).
  • Exclusive Equipment can only be worn by the specific Hero that they represent, and only one can be equipped at a time.
• Loads and Loads of Sidequests:
  • The Reputation Quests are like an Achievement System that rewards you for completing repetitive, accumulative quests.
  • Weekly Guild Missions are similar to Reputation Quests, but are only available for those who joined guilds.
  • Getting 3 stars in Adventure stages require completing optional requirements.
  • Side Stories have Reputation quests ranging from killing enemies to farming currency.
  • Specialty Change questlines improve some 3★ to make them on par with 5★ characters, visually and mechanically.
  • Episode 2 requires completing related tasks before you can access an area's AP Shop.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Labyrinth Compasses are only consumed after you exit through a portal gate, and with the Anti-Frustration Feature that allows players to yield while having their entry item refunded, there's an exploit regarding the Dungeon Shops. For example, buying an item from Hueche and yielding from the Labyrinth still allows you to keep the purchased item while the Labyrinth Compass gets refunded.
  • Yielding from a Guild War fight saves the party members who are about to die. This comes in handy since Heroes who die in this mode can no longer participate in the next fights for that war. You may have lost the previous fight, but you can still use the Hero on the next one.
• Love Chart: Heroes have Connection graphs that show their perceptions toward other characters (e.g. Friendly, Trust, Longing, Hostile, Rival and Grudge) and any shared backstories. These can be accessed from the Journal or the Specialty button in the Hero Inventory menu.
• Luck-Based Mission: Two Heroes have Specialty Change tasks that rely on luck:
  • Commander Lorina has a task of completing 50 Urgent Missions, those that randomly pop up when you finish Adventure stages.
  • Chaos Inquisitor has a task of acquiring 1 Mercenary's Medicine catalyst in battle, an item that must be dropped by an enemy.
• Magikarp Power: Heroes, Equipment and Artifacts may start off weak, but they become stronger with enough investment:
  • Enhancing Equipment relies on RNG, so it's possible that a blue-rarity gear can have better substats than a red-rarity gear even if both are enhanced at +15.
  • Skills may have increased damage, effectiveness, and reduced cooldowns if enhanced, for up to +15 per Hero.
  • 3★ Heroes are weaker than the 4★-5★ when it comes to stats, but Specialty Change Heroes can be on par with the 5★ Heroes thanks to an expansive Skill Tree giving them buffs. However, fully upgrading a Specialty Change Hero takes a long time and a stockpile of Runes.
• Magitek: Magic and Machinery are both used by some areas like Reingar.
• Manservice: Some guys show off their abs, like Sven with his exposed torso, and Sez with his shirtless summer outfit.
• MacGuffin:
  • The Archdemon's Might. When Ras woke up in the Seventh World, the quest given by Queen Diene is to destroy the parts of the Archdemon that were scattered in Ritania. Even the villains sought it too, such as Vildred when he betrayed the heroes. During "Unrecorded History", Ras kept a fragment of the Archdemon's Might hoping that it would resurrect Mercedes.
  • Dark Magic Stones. These caused Yuna's machines to go berserk in Chapter 2, and are used to summon Acolytes. Ras, Arky and Mercedes went to Savara in Chapter 3 to investigate the trading of said stones. The quest later sent them to other areas like Solayu in order to investigate the stones' origins.
• Male Gaze: Some of the female Heroes' third skill animations focus on a body part for fanservice, such as Iseria's back, Karin's bouncing chest, or Tenebria's belly.
• Mana Meter: "Soul" is obtained when your Heroes use their skills. It can be used to enhance a Hero's specific skill, or to summon a Guardian. In some stages, Blue Goddess Statues give 10 free Soul when interacted with.
• Marathon Boss:
  • Abyss Floor 86. Ken transforms into his Martial Artist version when his first HP bar is depleted.
  • Bosses in the Hall of Trials mode cannot be defeated. Instead, the objective is to score as much points as you can.
• Mass Monster-Slaughter Sidequest: Some Specialty Change, Connection or Guild tasks require you to kill a number of certain enemy types.
• Mecha-Mooks: There are robots and machines that can be fought, such as Golem constructs and bizarre mini-cannons.
• Metagame: The game tracks which Heroes are commonly used in quests like Hunts and Abyss Floors. PVP modes also have a meta revolving around the strongest Heroes and tactics.
• Metal Slime: Bounty targets in Urgent Missions drop plenty of gold or a rare catalyst when killed.
• Mini-Game: Most of the limited-time, daily web events. After completing certain tasks, players are given tokens or attempts at a minigame that rewards more prizes. For example, Whack-An-Arky, is a whack-a-mole where players Arky's head using Chloe's hammer.
• Mirror Match: You can use Heroes against their PVE boss counterparts, or when both players have them in PVP matches.
• Missing Secret: Some menu and interface elements were left intact even if they aren't fully functional yet:
  • Zooming out of Adventure stages shows other continents/regions even if there's no content for them yet.
  • Nixied Sanctum 4 was in the Labyrinth list for a long time until it was finally released in a later update.
  • The Reputation quests include a task of collecting 4 Guardians when there are still just 3 Guardians that can be obtained. There's also a tab for Dagger Sicar quests even if it's inaccessible.
  • Alchemist's Steeple was in the Sanctuary at the start, even if it was only functional since a later update.
  • Guardians have a number in their icons and an Enhance button that does nothing for years. These teased that they may be levelled-up in future updates.
  • There are placeholder slots for future story Episodes even if they haven't been released yet.
  • There's a non-functional "Great Achievement" tab in the Guild screen's sidebar.
• Money Multiplier: Some Reputation rewards, Guild-activated boosts or limited-time events increase the Gold gain rate.
• Money Sink: Some end-game modes and features drain a lot of your Gold:
  • Upgrading structures in the Sanctuary, with each Level 3 upgrade costing 100,000. Multiply that by 3 since each structure has 3 upgrade branches. While you can refund Breaths of Orbis to reallocate upgrades, you have to pay 100,000 gold upfront. Fortunately, Sanctuary upgrades become a one-time process when more Breaths of Orbis can be obtained.
  • Unequipping items cost gold, and they become expensive end-game. For example, a Level 70 Gear needs 25,000, while a Level 85 needs 50,000. There are Free Unequip events that temporarily remove these costs.
  • The Dungeon Shop of Hueche and the Goblin have expensive items, especially for the latter, whose wares can reach up to hundreds of millions for just a single item.
  • Garo Rils sets a handful of goods for thousands of gold.
  • Crafting high-level Equipment (e.g. Lv.70 and Lv.85) in the Steel Workshop. Even at max Sanctuary upgrades, each Lv.85 gear costs 40-50 thousand.
  • Enhancing items have fees that rack up depending on the fodders used. Greater or Epic Charms can reach hundreds of thousands.
  • Equipment Conversion and Reforging require huge amounts of gold per item crafted/upgraded.
  • Pet Tickets cost 100,000 gold each.
• Money Spider: During special story events like "Reingar's Chaos Moon Festival", there are Goblin stages that can only be played once, but reward a fat sum of gold.
• Monster Compendium: The Monster Journal lists the enemy creatures you've encountered so far.
• Mythology Gag: Crossover events usually reference something from the third-party IP's original media.
• Nerf: Aside from buffs, rebalance patches also nerf some of the overpowered Heroes or Artifacts.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Re-animated skeletons are some of the most common enemy types.
• Non-Combat EXP:
  • You can send Heroes to Dispatch Missions to earn rewards and EXP without having to fight enemies.
  • Heroes can be fed to others for EXP.
• Non-Indicative Name: "Heroes" is the general term for playable characters, including the villains who don't have heroic traits (i.e. Kayron) or generic monsters (i.e. Phantasmas) that don't have plot relevance.
• No Ontological Inertia: Defeating the "boss" monster in the final wave clears the stage, regardless of the other minions or extras' remaining health.
• No-Sell: Some buffs provide this:
  • Invincibility makes you immune to damage while it's active.
  • Skill Nullifier makes the Hero immune to the next enemy skill's damage and status ailments.
• Notice This:
  • Treasure chests and altars are labeled on the map using icons.
  • Goblin Treasure and Dimensional Gates are surrounded by distinct colors when they appear in stages.
• Oddly Shaped Sword:
  • High-level weapons have intricate designs or irregular shapes, like the Lv.85 Wyvern Sword.
  • Some Heroes also wield these, like Chaos Inquisitor's BFS having a curved blade on its tip, looking like an axe.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Speed is the most-sought stat in equipment because a higher speed means more turns and faster skill cooldowns. This is why Speed sets are highly valued by most players.
• One-Steve Limit: Regarding the playable Heroes:
  • Played straight if you own multiple copies of the exact same Hero, you can't have duplicates in the same party.
  • Averted when you borrow a Friend Supporter, you can have duplicates in the same party.
• One-Winged Angel: Harder PVE content may include bosses that can transform into a more powerful form after they reach critical HP levels. In most cases, they gain an Extra Turn and new abilities.
• Orwellian Retcon:
  • Some Heroes were moved between categories in the Hero Journal on certain updates, either to reflect the main story, or to fix any lore inconsistencies that were present in the game's early days.
    • Individual cases are the following: Nilgal (Hero Journal - Acolytes —> Monster Journal - Acolytes), Krau (Hero Journal - Taranor —> Hero Journal - Star Genealogy), Blood Blade Karin (Moonlight - Alternate —> Moonlight - Past or Future) and Specter Tenebria (Moonlight - Acolyte —> Moonlight - Past or Future).
    • On mid-2020, Yufine, Luna, Alencia and Holiday Yufine were moved to a "Dragon Valley" section in the Eureka tab. Previously, they were listed under the "Wintenberg" section.
    • Judge Kise and Ruele of Light were initially listed under the "Old World Heirs" section of the Moonlight tab, but were moved into the "Past or Future" section, while their previous category had been erased.
    • Rin and Lots were initially listed under Ritania, but were later moved into the Land of Death tab under the "Phantom CIC" section.
  • The interquel Episode 1.5 was previous labeled as the "World" difficulty in the main story, but was moved to the Side Story menu and labeled as "Unrecorded History" instead. It was done to avoid confusion on what the "World" difficulty meant when Episode 2 was about to be released.
  • An update on August 20, 2020 retroactively added new story artworks for Episode 2.
• Out of Focus: Not everyone gets a major role in the main plot nor in side story events. If they do appear, some Heroes have lesser screen time than others.

P - S

• Palette Swap:
  • Since a Moonlight Hero is usually an Alternate Self, it shares the same sprite animations as the original but with a different color or outfit.
  • Overlaps with Underground Monkey. An enemy type can have different versions and colors to represent other elements.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Cracks of the World are 40 AP maps with 5 enemy waves giving a decent amount of Hero EXP, and the chance to obtain Charms that give higher Equipment EXP than typical fodder.
• Player-Exclusive Mechanic: In the Arena and Guild Wars, only the player can use the Soul Burn mechanic. The AI-controlled enemy team cannot use this at all.
• Player Nudge: When you haven't cleared the story in a Labyrinth stage yet, crossroads will mark where you're supposed to go using a red highlight.
• Play Every Day:
  • Things to do regularly each day include the daily Reputation quests, log-in rewards, web events, free daily Covenant Draws, Guild Check-ins, etc...
  • The Friendship Points that you receive from players borrowing your support units are capped if you haven't logged in for a while.
  • Free Energy can be obtained from the Mail if the player logs in during specific periods of the day.
• Player Versus Player: Comes in three modes - Arena, Guild Wars, and World Arena. In the first two, you don't fight the opponent in real-time, just their AI-controlled team.
  • Arena is a straightforward match against another player's 4-Hero team.
  • Guild War is a larger-scale Arena-like mode but with 3 Heroes per team and 2 teams per player. You fight the defense of the opposing guild's members, earning points for every victory or buildings demolished. The Guild with the highest points wins.
  • World Arena is a real-time Arena with a preparation phase and the ability to ban Heroes from the opponent's team.
• Point-and-Click Map: Adventure-type stages are represented as nodes in a map.
• Power Creep:
  • Lv. 85-88 (and unique Lv. 70+) equipment were enough for end-game stuff, but Reforging pushed the ceiling up with Lv. 90 equipment. Even if the Lv. 70+ Epic items from events and shops are strong, they won't catch up with Reforged items.
  • This can happen to Artifacts. Exorcist's Tonfa and Portrait of the Saviors both increase damage to enemies with more than 50% health. Tonfa's numbers range from 8-16%, while Portrait's numbers range from 10-20%, power creeping the former.
  • Sage Baal and Sezan was so PVP-dominant when he was released, that he had to be nerfed. To avoid more instances of overtuned characters on release, the devs seem to do a "reverse powercreep" where new Heroes from 2020 onwards may start out niche but eventually get stronger with rebalance patches.
  • While the devs have been releasing Specialty Changes, rebalance patches and Exclusive Equipment to improve older Heroes, those who aren't receiving any of these may remain outdated. For a long time, fans requested Haste for buffs or a rework to make him relevant once more. Meanwhile, Mercedes is replaced with any 5★ AoE Hero in most content since her kit is considered simplistic.
  • The existence of Heroes who are made to "Counter" a PVP-dominant Hero. Eventually, that one dominant Hero may fall from PVP matches when their counter Hero trumps over them.
    • Zig-zagged because the counter unit may shine in PVP but not in PVE, making them a one-trick pony.
    • If more Heroes get released to counter one target, they get compared. Lilibet is perhaps the first Arbiter Vildred counter thanks to her Extinction debuff. Then more "Arbiter Vilred Counters" arrived, like Specimen Sez, Sigret, Blood Moon Haste and Sinful Angelica. This also happened when Holiday Yufine is seen as a better "Basar Counter" than Lilias.
• Power Equals Rarity:
  • 5★ Heroes and Artifacts have higher base stats at max level compared to the lower-rarity.
  • Zig-zagged with 3★ Heroes who are fully-upgraded through Specialty Change. Despite their lesser base stats, their skill tree upgrades can make them on par with 5★ heroes.
  • Higher-leveled/tiered equipment is very rare. Those with Red backgrounds start with four substats compared to the lower-rarity.
• Power Levels: The CP stat, which is a total of several factors that gauge Heroes.
  • However, it mostly favors offensive stats like Attack, Speed, Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage. As a result, CP can be misleading for determining the strength of tanks, supports and healers.
  • In teams, Total CP is the sum of all Heroes' CP values.
  • The formula may be tweaked depending on the devs, like on 2019 when it included more factors, thus inflating the CP values of everyone.
• Prolonged Prologue: There's a second animated video that plays on Chapter 2, and shows the title of the game. This meant that the entire Chapter 1 was also a part of the prologue.
• Promoted to Playable: Some playable characters started as NPCs, villains or monsters.
• The Prophecy: In the Seventh World, Diche gave a revelation to Diene regarding the Heir of the Covenant, Ras, and the time when he wakes up:
  Diche: "In twenty years, on this day, the light will return. This light shall be my final authority and hope..."
• Puzzle Boss: Overlaps with The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard. Heroes who become bosses in Adventure or Abyss stages have gimmicky abilities and passives that may require players to change strategies. For example, fighting Sez encourages you not to bring debuffers, otherwise he will counter-attack a lot.
• The Quest: At the start of Episode 1, Queen Diene gives Ras the quest of destroying the Archdemon's Might scattered in Ritania, starting with the one stored in the Ezeran Sanctum.
• Random Encounters: Whenever you start an Adventure or Labyrinth stage, enemies may get randomly positioned on the map, appearing only when you step on their tile. Sometimes, the mini-map reveals that the next tile contains enemies, sometimes it doesn't, playing this trope straight. But this is also downplayed as no other enemies would occupy the same tile again after you defeat the previous enemies.
• Random Event: Urgent Missions are limited-time quests that randomly pop-up as you finish Adventure stages. Fortunately, there's a notification icon and a dedicated tab that lists them in Adventure Mode as long as they haven't expired yet.
• Random Number God:
  • Like other gachas, this determines how you obtain characters.
  • Like other RPGs, items dropped in a stage (e.g. equipment, catalysts, etc...) are determined by chance.
  • A lot of Hero skills and Artifact/Exclusive Equipment effects are chance-based.
  • The Counterattack Set gives a 20% chance to counter when attacked.
  • The game has an RNG-based equipment system:
    • Aside from the chance of dropping from a stage, the other RNG-determined layers in equipment include: The rarity and number of initial sub-stats, the level, the main stat and its value, the sub-stats and their values, the equipment set.
    • Enhancing equipment also adds other RNG layers: The chance of getting Good or Great enhancements, what sub-stats are buffed for every +3 threshold. If the equipment receives a new sub-stat at these +3 thresholds, the sub-stat and its initial value are still up to RNG.
    • Exclusive Equipment have two RNG layers - The main stat's value from a given range, and the skill upgrade out of three possibilities. EE that are given as event rewards have fixed main stat values.
    • Crafting from the Steel Workshop eases one RNG factor as the player can choose the level of the equipment.
    • Equipment Conversion eases 3 RNG layers: The equipment's level is fixed, while players can choose the main stat and set.
  • Critical hits and debuffs are determined by percentage-based stats.
  • Pet Synthesis has an RNG-based mechanic that determines if the Pet's rarity goes up or not. Fortunately, the player can sacrifice unwanted pets to boost the chance to 100%, ensuring an increase to the pet's rarity.
  • Dual Attacks are chance-based. Some skills or artifacts increase the chance or guarantee a dual attack, while Unity Sets increase it by 4%.
• Rank Inflation: D to SSS rankings are used here:
  • For indicating the level of Memory Imprints. Natural 3★ Heroes start with D as the first level, while natural 4★ and above heroes start with C.
  • Game modes like Hall of Trials and World Boss use these rankings to gauge the player's damage output, and to determine the quality/amount of rewards.
• Rare Candy:
  • Phantasmas are rare fodders mainly used for Promoting other Heroes since they come max-uncapped, save time for uncapping higher-rarities, and gain more EXP than usual when used in stages.
  • Penguins provide huge amounts of EXP when sacrificed to other Heroes.
• Rare Random Drop:
  • Epic/Red-tier item drops are the rarest of their kind.
  • Higher-level Hunt stages can also drop currencies like Skystones, Covenant Bookmarks, Mystic Medals, Powders of Knowledge, and Energy.
  • Moonlight Heroes are hard to obtain as they require rare or extremely valuable currencies like 5 Galaxy Bookmarks, or 6 Gold Transmit Stones, or 50 Mystic Medals for each attempt at getting one. As an alternative method and a QoL that subverted this trope, Moonlight Heroes were later included in the Covenant Banner, which uses the regular gacha currency, Covenant Bookmarks.
• Redemption Demotion: Some antagonists can be recruited from the gacha. But no matter how strong they are in the story, their playable versions are still subjected to the game's mechanics. Like the other Heroes, they start from Level 1 and require investments on Equipment, Artifacts, Awakening, Promotion, etc...
• Religion of Evil:
  • The Church of Ilryos worships the Archdemon that's supposed to destroy the world.
  • The Chaos Sect feeds on Chaos itself.
• Required Party Member: Some optional quests in Adventure stages require a Hero of a specified element or class.
• Retaliation Mode: Azimanus has the Juleeve Council, who split into three bosses when under 70% and 40% health. They partially count because only the "core" Juleeve Council actually progresses the boss fight.
• Reward for Removal: Selling allies can earn the player gold, transmit stones, stigma, and flowers that increase the target's star rank.
• Rewards Pass: Epic Passes give rewards for every milestone reached. Additional tiers of rewards can be unlocked by paying Skystones.
• Scratch Damage: You only deal 1 point of damage per attack against MolaGora enemies.
• Scunthorpe Problem: The profanity filter in custom messages replaces certain strings of text with asterisks.
• Set Bonus: Equipping a number of items having the same set provides further stat boosts or passive secondary effects like Life Drain or Counter-Attack.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Some female characters have outfits that expose their back.
• Shifting Sand Land: As they take place in Savara, Chapters 3 and 3S are set in a desert.
• Ship Tease:
  • Ras is shipped with Mercedes (the first girl and most likely the Official Couple), Yuna (she has a crush on him) and Iseria (has grown to "like him" as he proved his worth as an Heir).
  • Violet and Luluca are heavily shipped in Episode 2, which turns into an Official Couple stats by the end of it.
  • The "Reignar's Chaotic Full Moon Festival" event has this with Adlay and Tenebria.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Starting out but lack any strong 4★ and 5★ Heroes? No problem. A good number of 3★s can help in the early game. In fact, some of them (e.g. Lorina and Montmorancy) can actually be stronger their 4★ and 5★ counterparts thanks to the Specialty Change mechanic. Back then, some 3★ Heroes were so strong in PvP that they had to be nerfed.
  • Things that scale their damage proportional to the enemy's max HP (e.g. Sol's "Tyrant Rave ver. Beta", or the Daydream Joker artifact) are good at shredding bosses with huge amounts of HP. Inversely, those that scale proportionally to the enemy's lost HP (e.g. Lorina's third skill) are strong against enemies that took a beating.
• Significant Double Casting: Moonlight Heroes share the same voice actor as their original counterparts because most of them are alternate selves, or are the same person. Uniquely, Ruele and Destina are both voiced by Erica Lindbeck and Ami Koshimizu because Destina took on the appearance of Ruele out of respect.
• Situational Damage Attack:
  • Some skills scale their damage with the Hero's HP or stats. Others scale with the enemy's HP instead.
  • This also applies to Artifacts like Daydream Joker scaling damage based on the enemy's max HP.
• Situational Sword:
  • While some Artifacts can be equipped by anyone, most Artifacts are restricted to specific classes.
  • Rage Set increases damage by 30% against debuffed enemies.
• Skill Point Reset: Skill Trees of Specialty Changed Heroes can be reset by paying Skystones.
• Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: Ultimate abilities may look fancy or destructive, but they can deal laughable damage if the Hero has low stats or doesn't have anything equipped.
• Socialization Bonus:
  • Friend Supporters are Heroes that can be borrowed by other players. Using them rewards Friendship Points for both sides.
  • There are lots of benefits in joining Guilds, from the chance to earn Mystic Medals, participate in weekly quests, additional modes and shops, trade items with guildmates, etc...
• Spell Levels: Skills can be enhanced for higher multipliers or reduced cooldowns. Enhancements are denoted by a number on the skill icon.
• Sphere of Destruction: Many Heroes like Bellona, Tenebria or Kayron conjure an expanding orb of energy for their ultimate moves.
• Spoiler Opening: The animated prologue video from Chapter 2 shows Krau and Sigret fighting each other, hinting at their rivalry.
• Starter Mon:
  • Ras is the player's starting 3★ Hero for being the protagonist.
  • Mercedes is the first 4★ Fire Hero that everyone obtains.
  • Heroes from Connections are obtained by completing quests. Most of them can be obtained very early on, making them good for beginners:
    • Yuna is the only 5★ Collection Hero so far, So if the player is extremely unlucky with the gacha, Yuna can be their first 5★ Hero.
    • An update on June 11, 2020 added Free Spirit Tieria to the Connections, and only requires clearing stage 2-10. She can be the first 4★ Moonlight Hero for players who are extremely unlucky with Moonlight summons.
• Status-Buff Dispel: Some Allies and enemies can strip off the opponent's buffs. This is visually indicated by a fading green mist.
• Status Effects: Typical for an RPG, we have Bleed, Burn, Poison, Sleep, Silence, Stun, Provoke, etc...
• Story Breadcrumbs: Additional lore for the characters can be found on the Journal via simple paragraphs, Connection graphs, or Flavor Text of Artifacts.
• Sword Plant: Invoked in the title screen background and chapter intros for Episode 2, where the Eye of Faustus (Straze's sword) stabs the ground.
• Superboss: Hell Raid bosses require a unique entry item purchasable for 1200 Ancient Coins. Naturally, they are much harder than their Normal Labyrinth raids but offer generally better rewards.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: 4★,5★, and Specialty Changed 3★ Heroes have full-screen animations for their ultimate skills.

T - Z

• Tagline: "The Playable Animation".
• Tears from a Stone: In the animated prologue video from Chapter 2, a statue is shown bleeding from its eyes.
• Tech-Demo Game: Unlike most mobile games that use the Unity Engine, Epic Seven uses an in-house/proprietary "Yuna Engine" which boasts fast loading times and almost non-existent screen transitions under stable network conditions.
• Temporary Online Content: Events and collabs are only available for a limited time, unless they have a rerun.
• Thinking Up Portals: Portals help in traveling between dimensions and are prominently used to exit Labyrinth-type stages.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman:
  • Some Heroes work well against PVE content, like the Hunt bosses:
    • Bringing Heroes with a lot of debuffs to fight Wyvern, or those that can deal with its shield.
    • Bringing Heroes with "Unhealable", "Poison", or "Cannot be Buffed" status effects to soften the Golem or gradually chip at its massive health pool.
    • Bringing Heroes with Area of Effect attacks against Azmakalis.
  • The Abyss Floors have AI-controlled Heroes with tricky mechanics that make them Puzzle Bosses. Fortunately, certain playable Heroes, strategies or team compositions can make them easy. It's all about knowing what makes an Abyss Floor hard and how to counter it.
  • Some Heroes are just tailored to counter an existing Hero's mechanics, especially in PVP.
• Timed Mission: Urgent Missions are only available for a limited time.
• Time to Unlock More True Potential: 3★ Heroes who undergo a Specialty Change upgrade also have cutscenes detailing how they become stronger.
• Trapped in Another World: There's a concept of parallel worlds or dimensions in Epic Seven, which justifies the Anachronism Stew as to why we have 21st-century machines courtesy of Yuna, and an Idol Singer like Tamarinne. The Dimension Cracks in Orbis also brought the Unknown creatures.
• Too Awesome to Use:
  • There are so many uses of Skystones - To exchange Bookmarks for summoning in the gacha, to refresh the shop at the tavern, refill Energy, trade for Gold, reset a Specialty Changed Hero's skill tree, or revive the party in Labyrinths.
  • Mercedes requires a unique item for her Memory Imprints. That item is only obtainable in certain stages and thus come with a limited amount, but players are more likely using it on Celestial Mercedes instead since she's a Moonlight Hero.
  • Especially for the F2P, any scarce resource has this effect:
    • Tera Phantasmas are reserved until the player has enough to uncap a 5★ Hero to 6★.
    • MolaGoras are rare outside of special events, are limited on the shops, or require a considerable amount of patience to get and stockpile. Because of their scarcity, the F2P are mostly just using them to fully upgrade the Skills of their most favorite, or most used Heroes.
    • Gold Transmit Stones can be traded for a choice from two rare resources at 6 stones each - A 4-5★ Hero Summon ticket, or 5 Galaxy Bookmarks (for 1 Moonlight Hero summon). Players would easily choose the latter because Moonlight Heroes are extremely rare, and in the game's early years, weren't available in the Covenant Summons.
  • Breaths of Orbis are used to upgrade Sanctuary structures. However, the Level 3 upgrades can be costly (100,000 gold each). There's a trade-off that refunding the item also costs a lot of gold. Because of these, a Breath of Orbis is mostly reserved on the most beneficial structures first.
• Took a Level in Badass: Speciality Changed 3★ Heroes after completing their quests, having improved skills, stats and a visual upgrade.
• The Tower:
  • The Abyss is an upside-down tower. The progression here is one-time or permanent.
  • The Automaton Tower is a right-side-up tower. The progression here is time-limited and resets back to Floor 1 every month.
• Turn-Based Combat: A variant. Instead of restricting turns in typical JRPG fashion, there are factors that determine turns, like Speed and Combat Readiness. If those two are high enough, a unit can have multiple turns even before the enemy gets their first!
• Underground Monkey: Monsters can have alternate versions representing other elements, along with a palette swap of that element's color theme.
• Underwater Ruins: An area of the 2019 Summer event takes place underwater. There's even a unique status effect exclusive to its underwater levels.
• Unlockable Content:
  • Sanctuary structures provide more gameplay features. However, Breaths of Orbis are needed to unlock and upgrade them.
  • Some contents are gated by requirements, most require completing Adventure stages.
  • You can only unlock the next difficulty for Abyss, Automaton Tower, Labyrinth, Altar and Hunts after you complete their previous stages.
  • In Episode 2, AP Exchange Shops are unlocked once you've completed all four map-specific quests.
• Unmoving Plaid: The Unknown creatures have an unmoving pattern on most of their bodies to highlight their alien nature.
• Vampire Episode: Because they are vampires, Haste's and Melissa's side stories are this.
• Variable Mix: Some background musics get their tone more dramatic during an enemy encounter.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Epic Pass rewards include alternate outfits for some characters.
• Visual Initiative Queue: A line on the left HUD indicates everyone's turn. However, it's only an estimate since the unit's Speed and Combat Readiness can manipulate turns in real-time.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In Episode 1, Arbiter Vildred's final boss fight encourages players to hit hard and survive long enough because he can revive himself after his first death, followed by his Area of Effect Limit Break that can decimate your team if you're left unprepared.
• We Don't Suck Anymore: The "Re:Birth" campaign was advertised as a something like a "Brand New Epic Seven", aiming to fix some of the developers' past mistakes and add more Quality-Of-Life features. It also came with "Returning Player" rewards, or free items to help those who want to catch up with the new content.
• Weird Moon: In Episode 1 Chapter 2, Specter Tenebria turns the moon red, covered with several eyes.
• Western Zodiac: The twelve zodiac signs aren't just for lore, they're also used as a stat-seed: Those with the same class, rarity and zodiac sign have the exact same base stats. A Hero's zodiac sign also has a relation to their catalyst materials and Awakening stats.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 1, Act 10. This is where Vildred betrayed the Heroes by killing Diene. The day that was meant to celebrate the Heir of the Covenant's arrival became a funeral for the Queen. As the cutscene plays, there's even a monologue from Ras foreshadowing that this episode has a dramatic turn of events.
    Ras: I still think about it from time to time. If I had answered Vildred differently then... Could I have prevented all the tragedies that followed?
  • Episode 2, Chapter 6: "Trial of Lamentation". Straze fatally impales Ras, leaving him in a bloody state as Mercedes cries for help. Fortunately, his death doesn't stick permanently as he is aided and recovered.
• When Trees Attack: There are living tree enemies. One accompanies the Golem in its Hunt stages.
• Wight in a Wedding Dress: Banshee Queen Rubellite and her Palette Swaps have this design. With some variants, her outfit closely resembles a bridal gown. To an extent, the same goes for her playable Banshee underlings.
• You All Look Familiar: Some generic NPCs have re-used artworks, especially soldiers who wear helmets and full-body armor.

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