Video Game: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable aka: The Battle Of Aces
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces is a Fighting Game, developed by Witchcraft (composed of the people who made Wild ARMs) and released for the Playstation Portable by Namco Bandai in 2010.As the name suggests, it's based on the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, specifically the second season Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. It is set in an Alternate Timeline where Reinforce was not deleted at the end of the series. Because of this, the corrupted defence program of the Book of Darkness soon returns, shedding "Dark Fragments" that take the form of Evil Knockoffs of the main cast. At the head of this clone army are the "Materials": three super-powerful clones of Nanoha, Fate and Hayate who have gained sentience.A sequel, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, was released for PSP on December 22, 2011. It takes place three months after The Battle of Aces, starting when two mysterious warriors arrive from the future. One of them is searching for the revived Materials, whose personalities have grown from the one-dimensional Omnicidal Maniacs they were in the first game. The other is trying to stop her.Meanwhile, the Materials are searching for something called the "Unbreakable Darkness", which seems to be linked to a whole new outbreak of Dark Fragments. Not only are these new Dark Fragments twisting time and space, pulling people from the past and future to the present age, but they are capable of copying long-dead people from the memories of the mages involved.
Dream People: The non-Material Dark Pieces, which are copies of Nanoha and crew based on their memories, thoughts, and wishes during A's. They fade away upon losing.
Hayate is opposed by Material-D, the Ruler of Darkness, whose Barrier Jacket has dark grey where Hayate's is white, along with purple for the inner layer and shoes, as well as being platinum blonde-ish. She also lacks the original's Nice Hat.
Nanoha is opposed by Material-S, the Starlight Destroyer, whose Barrier Jacket is mainly black/dark purple and crimson, with Luciferion, her version of Raising Heart, being red with a blue crystal.
Fate is opposed by Material-L, the Thunderblade Assailant, who has light blue hair instead of blonde, her Barrier Jacket has blue where Fate's was red and her version of Bardiche has a blue crystal.
Humanoid Abomination: The Materials, which are remnants of the Darkness of the Book of Darkness taken human form.
In Spite of a Nail: In the original Reinforce's ending in Battle of Aces, she and Hayate discuss how she can't maintain Hayate's magic anymore, and they'd have to create a new Unison Device. I.e. Zwei will exist in this Alternate Continuity too. The Wolkenritter also note late in Hayate's story mode that Hayate and Reinforce both know (but won't admit to each other) that Reinforce will fade away relatively soon.
Invulnerable Attack: Using Full Drive makes you invulnerable to any attack during its initial activation.
Mirror Match: Justified in Story Mode by the existence of the Dark Pieces, which are copies from the heroes based on their memories and wishes during the time of A's.
Omnicidal Maniac: The Materials, who exist to bring forth the tranquil darkness and the chaos of destruction.
Secret Character: The Materials, which are unlocked by completing the Story Modes (including the two "Warning" stages) of three specific characters per Material.
Sound Test: Available in the Character Viewer under Archive.
Super Mode: Full Drive, which temporarily gives you infinite mana and unlocks your Limit Break. If you equip the Drive EX (Critical) skill, it will also increase your attack damage while active.
Title Drop: Fate's story path ends with her saying the title of her chapter ("When the cherry blossoms are in bloom") in response to Arf asking her when she will tell Lindy her decision regarding her offer to adopt her.
You Are Better than You Think You Are: Nanoha says this when Arf suggests that Fate might have turned out like Material-L if she hadn't met Nanoha, saying that Fate is a stronger person than that and with Arf, she is not alone. Both Fate and Arf are quite grateful to hear this.
The Gears of Destiny additionally provides examples of:
Adaptational Badass: While most of the characters are just as badass as they are in canon, Yuuno's surprising combat ability comes as a shock. During his story mode, he manages to not only defeat the Lieze twins (who were able to steal Fate's Linker Core, and tie up Nanoha, Fate and the Wolkenritter in canon), but also Material-S, Vivio and Amita (who manages to pull off an attack even stronger than the Triple Breaker in the game.), not bad for someone who was Demoted to Extra in the series proper.
Alternate Character Reading: The Materials from Battle of Aces were originally saddled with kanji that seemed to describe what they are rather than serve as proper names. When they were announced to return in Gears of Destiny, these kanji were given katakana to show that, yes, those are their actual names: Stern the Destructor (星光の殲滅者), Levi the Slasher (雷刃の襲撃者), and Lord Dearche (闇統べる王).
Bad Boss: The Unbreakable Darkness, who after exchanging pleasantries, promptly kills the loyal Materials after they successfully revived her. Not that it's really her fault. As an Eldritch Abomination, she can't control the death and destruction she causes.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Lord Dearche always wished for power. When she finally got it due to her loyal retainers sacrificing their physical forms and transferring their entire being into her so she will have a fighting chance against the Unbreakable Darkness, she responds by screaming in anguish.
Boisterous Bruiser: Levi the Slasher, in contrast to Fate, is loud and loves nothing more than having fun with her life, may it be from adventures or from fighting strong enemies.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: Justified with the Materials, since when there's only one of them, she gets to horde all the overflowing energy. This annoyed Lord Dearche since she was winning against the protagonists when her subordinates got revived, causing her Power Levels to decrease by a lot.
The Nanoha games are being developed by the people who made Wild ARMs. With that in mind, Amitie Florian◊ is practically a mish-mash of Wild ARMs protagonists Rudy, Virginia, Jude, and Dean. As part of the story she even have the move, Accelerator.
In addition, the dying world of Eltria is Filgaia in all but name.
For Want of a Nail: The first time fighting U-D her percentage to full power is different depending on who you picked to fight her. 5% for Hayate, 6% for Reinforce.
Idiots Cannot Catch Colds: Kyrie references this after Amita tells her that she resisted the virus through Guts and Hot Blood!
Idiot Hero: Amita, who seems to have watched a little too many Toku shows and believes that Hot Blood and Guts are all you need. Her idiocy actually causes causes a good amount of Poor Communication Kills, delaying what should have been an easy alliance with the old heroes.
Original Generation: The Florian sisters, Kyrie and Amitie. Kudakeenu Yami - The Unbreakable Darkness.
Playable Epilogue: Chapter X, a Dénouement Episode that could only be accessed after winning all of the pre-climax fights against the Unbreakable Darkness in all routes.
Power Creep, Power Seep: The travel through time is causing Tohma's Tome of the Silver Cross to malfunction, which conveniently shuts down the Anti-Magic and other abilities that would make him broken in the A's timeline. Reinforce returns, but is slowly dying, which explains the Nerfing she got here. On the other end of the spectrum, Kris and Asteon turned out to be capable of helping Vivio and Einhart gain limited flight capabilities, explaining why they're able to fight in mid-air here when they couldn't in Vivid.
Robotic Reveal: The Florian sisters, first by a character recognizing them as not human, then by Amita losing her arm while confronting the Big Bad, revealing circuitry.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Remember the Book of Darkness? Turns out, it was being used to seal an even bigger Eldritch Abomination than the Darkness of the Book of Darkness.
SNK Boss: U-D in her Final Boss battle. Her attacks has ridiculous priority, more reach than the staff-using characters, does serious damage, and are fast. Combine this with invulnerability to normal attacks*
except Traps, but good luck getting a connect to the aforementioned ludicrous attacks
, and you have a sudden and overwhelming urge to introduce your PSP to the floor the hard way.
Survive the first round, and then the next character you choose is basically the SNK boss against U-D, as she no longer has her god armor and most everyone has a powered-up form*
Hayate unisons with Reinforce, Dearche has Levi and Stern powering her up, Fate gets a massive speed boost, if you used Kyrie to beat U-D the first round, then Amitie has a power boost. Nanoha, Vivio and Touma don't get one, then again, they're the main characters of each of their seasons, they don't need one.
to fight against U-D, turning the SNK boss battle into a fairly easy slug-fest.
Token Evil Teammate: Lord Dearche, who unlike the other Materials, was still planning to go all Omnicidal Maniac once she gained the unlimited powers of the Unbreakable Darkness.
Trailers Always Spoil: Black Knight Touma was reveal in the second trailer before it happened in Force.
Throw the Book at Them: Inverted, In the current Promo Video Hayate used her book to block a sword strike from Kyrie.
Kinda funny how in Magical Battle Arena had her using the book to attack.
Was Once a Man: The Unbreakable Darkness is revealed to have once been a human named Yuri Evelvine.
"With Our Swords" Scene: If you choose Kyrie for the first stage of the final battle against the Unbreakable Darkness then choose Amita for the second round, you'll get a scene where Kyrie hands Amita her Variant Zapper, which she had recharged using her own remaining energy.
The Worf Barrage: Amitie uses a Desperation Attack that surpasses the Triple Breaker from the finale of A's ... and dealt practically no damage to the Unbreakable Darkness
alternative title(s): The Battle Of Aces; The Gears Of Destiny; Battle Of Aces; Gears Of Destiny; Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha; Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As Portable
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