Six years and counting
Merc Storia is a Fantasy RPG touch-and-go game made by Happy Elements, the creator of Ensemble Stars!.
A fantasy story featuring a boy and the water sprite Merc. The boy, Yuu, is a soother, a person capable with the ability of taming monsters. Merc meeting Yuu with the hopes that he could help her recover her memories is what starts the story of Merc Storia.
It is currently only available in Japan. There was once an English version but it had went out of service and had bugs.
The Anime aired in October 2018.
This game provides the examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: Several parts of the Anime episodes are watered down from how the story goes in the game. Due to this, a character or two that did get featured in said event adaptations got Adapted Out or relegated to Cameo's.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Phillia, a healer you can obtain in the main story, is an eleven year old girl. Alec too can count as he's the same age as she is. Some of the units are also very young and have not even reached their teen years.
- Amnesiac Heroine: Merc's quest in recovering her lost memories is what starts the story of Merc Storia.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: After sometime, you can unlock special models of Yuu and specific unit characters by trading medals in the medal trade shop. You can also trade medals for backgrounds and music from specific events, and revive an old event of Merc Storia (Albeit, for six hours by using rare medals, or about a week if there's a past event unit capable of being evolved and given an upgrade to their stats).
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: There's some of it in the event story. Yuu is literally saying Merc Storia game is going to be over if he were to die from falling in the sky in the sky country event.
- Caged Bird Metaphor: Serena aka Diva of the Birdcage is appropriately associated with this image. At the beginning of Episode 9 (Anime), she’s shown locked in a cage, surrounded by expectations and social pressure. It’s also a given that she is literally a bird.
- Childhood Friend: Antel is the friend Rupie would call his "partner-in-crime" since childhood, and they still have a good relationship up to now.
- Classy Cane: Rupie often wields one around. He also uses it as weapon.
- Cool Big Sis: Stella, she's also fittingly the oldest among the main characters in the main story.
- Costume Porn: Some of the unit's outfits. There are also alternate models consisting of a different attire for several units and they look appealing in the eyes too.
- Cowardly Lion: Alec, a young boy that you can obtain as a party unit member as you play the main story of Merc Storia.
- Crossover: What most of the collaboration's exclusive story are. There's currently Summons board, Dragon Poker, Rise of Mana, Tales of Asteria, The Battle Cats, and Kekkai Sensen. It also has a crossover with EnsembleStars, from the same company.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Merc's Anime Adaptation voice actor, Inori Minase, sung the ending theme, Bottle Ship.
- Friend to All Living Things: Or Monsters, rather. The soother's ability is to tame any monster that were hostile.
- Gingerbread House: Not literally, but the sweets country is made up of houses of many different confectioneries. Chocolate, jelly, cake, you name it. Due to this, the people in sweets country literally work as patisserie's and sweet hunters, a type of hunter that look around the sweets country for ingredients of deserts.
- He Cleans Up Nicely: Antel looks like a plain country boy with his messy hair and appearance. But when he appears on stage, hot damn.
- Head-Turning Beauty: The ladies in the audience blush furiously at the sight of on-stage Antel. Can’t blame them, though.
- High Fantasy: Merc Storia takes place in a world named Meftale Harney. And the CG's of the many countries are glorious and breath-taking. Some of the countries are also fantastic counterparts to the real world. For example, the country of the desert is inspired by Egypt and Arabian culture.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The protagonist's default name is Yuu. The player is free to name the protagonist however they please, but unlike Ensemble Stars, the name the players gave to Yuu sticks throughout the story and also used to contact other players. This is eventually changed in later updates where you're allowed to have a different player name and a name for the Player Character themselves.
- Gilded Cage: Poor, poor Orthos. He lived free from being ostracized because he was born without wings...But he was never able to leave the tower he lived in due to this very same reason.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The first Fairy Country event, the basis of the 3rd episode of the anime adaptation, starts with Salodeah breaking the seal that once sealed dark miasma and a black dragon that caused harm to the country.
- Lonely at the Top: Michella, who was born blessed with multiple wings, was placed in such a high pedestal by the locals that it stifles her so much. To a point that Pistia sold out Orthos and Yuu if it meant that Michella can still keep her position as "The Holy One".
- Meaningful Name: Yuu can mean courage and friendship in Japanese, depending on the Kanji. Fitting that Yuu's ability as a soother can make the monsters his friends, and he grew from a boy afraid of monsters to be much braver as the story goes. Also the arts of soothing in Japanese is called Yuu-jutsu, and the person using this is called Yuu-jutsu shi. There's also the meaning of YOU, when read in Katakana, is spelled as Yuu.
- The Musical: The second Animal country event, "King Of The Song Altar And The Caged Diva", in a nutshell. Justified though, since the setting of the event takes place in an Opera and the starring characters are working as Opera singers.
- Our Angels Are Different: Except for Michella who does play the role of being god's messenger but then again, none of the angels in the sky country have the power to be messengers for a god like Michella does.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The characters from the Land of the undead. The people there are alive and well but some characters and units from there had distinctive eye bags under their eyes to differentiate themselves from people outside the land. And there are at least some people that appreciates things holy.
- Permanently Missable Content: Averted. Merc Storia allows you to revive an event in exchange of medals for six hours in case you did not play an event and two of the event-exclusive units are capable to be obtained through medal trade while the rest are included to the gacha roll. This is played more straight with collaboration-exclusive units and events, however. Raid event monsters and medal exchange exclusive units can be obtained in the medal exchange store but you need a ticket to obtain them. At least for monsters. You can collect 500 medals to get 10 random rolls which includes units and materials such as an awakening book or ingredients that help upgrade and evolve an unit that can be upgraded.
- Now averted with a vengeance for the Summons Board collaboration and also the Dragon Poker collaboration.
- Proper Lady: From elegant poise to a radiant beauty, Serena is the one many girls of the Bird tribe hope to be one day. Her clothes, as well as the other possessions she owns are all cutting edge in terms of the latest styles.
- The Reveal: At the end of the first arc of the main story in the game. Merc is a vessel containing the spirit of princess Caracosya who sealed herself to stop the rampage of a monster destroying her kingdom. Her body is on comatose while her spirit found itself in the water bottle that contained Merc, but being a spirit, she lost her memories as the princess and became the Merc we know. Near the end of the arc, the spirit returned to the main body while Merc gained her own sentience as a result, becoming a separate person from the princess.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Toto. Some of the seed monsters can count.
- Time Travel: There's a collaboration event with Summons Board where you could meet and later receive the models of a child Yuu, Yuu as an old man, and Yuu in the hood who is presumed to be his future self.
- Tragic Monster: Voicia is a bird that had been stuck in stone and simply wants to be freed. But years of being stuck and slowly petrified took a toll on Voicia's state of mind that it resorted to stealing Serena's voice.
- Starcrossed Lovers: There are quiet a few of these in the event stories.
- Scenery Porn: The backdrop is gorgeous.
- Wild West: The Texas inspired Western country.
- Youthful Freckles: Folna noticeably has them on her nose, to the point it reflects on her titles ("Speckled Hammer User" and "Speckled Diva").
