The game takes place in Palatinus (north of Zenobia) and stars Magnus Gallant, a young nobleman who, instead of choosing to stick around the wealthy Central Division and live a life of ease in nobility, decides to make a name for himself by joining the military academy to eventually be recruited into the hazardous Southern Division army. What starts as Magnus merely trying to quell a lowborn rebellion erupts into a full-blown revolution across the Palatinus Kingdom, striking back against the hegemonic Lodis Empire, and even preventing the second Ogre Battle.
This game provides examples of:
- Actually Four Mooks: Or three, or five. Sometimes two, in the earlier missions.
- Aerith and Bob:
- The Name Generator can spit out some strange unit name pairs. For example, Baskirk and Dave.
- Named characters provide a nice example in Paul the Enchanter, summoner of demons, and the friend he turned to stone, Theokia. Presumably from the same town.
- All There in the Manual: Oodles of information about the setting of the story can be found in the in-game Hugo Report: Palatinus, Nirdam, Lodis, the Caliginous Order, various myths, the calendar the game uses, and so on.
- Ambiguously Gay: In-game dialogue between Magnus and Yumil would seem to indicate this.Yumil: "Magnus, I want you to be by my side. I want you to...be my knight."
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: In both size of a unit and number of characters in the army.
- Artificial Stupidity: The enemy unit design is very poor, often with formations that make no sense and are extremely inefficient. It turns out this may be intentional, though: the game crashes if more than 28 actions are taken during a single combat (normally the most the player can get is 15), so putting the enemy characters in suboptimal positions ensures that limit never gets reached.
- Badass Army: You'll make one throughout the game. Possibly counts as a Badass Normal Army as well, since you will be taking down armies of people who've succumbed to the Infernal Aura and are theoretically much more powerful than humans can naturally get.
- Bag of Sharing: Very slightly subverted, though, in that the amount of items a unit can hold is dependent upon the classes that compose it.
- Beat the Curse Out of Him: Both Yumil and Count Silvis, if you fight him regain their sanity after being defeated, though the latter dies from wounds shortly afterward.
- Big Bad Ensemble: A true big bad is hard to place in this game. The plot is set in motion by the rebellion against the Caliginous Order, but towards the end of the game they start getting usurped as a threat by Yumil before Danika finally becomes the main threat at the end.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- When it seems like the rebel leader is going to be executed by Rhade, two knights just show up out of nowhere to save him. It's an even bigger CMOA when you learn it's Destin and Debonair from the first Ogre Battle.
- Later happens again when Richard and Baldwin try to enter the Temple of Berthe's Chaos Gate and claim the ultimate power. Destin and Gilbert show up and duel them long enough for the Blue Knights to destroy the Gate.
- Boring, but Practical:
- The "Attack Leader" tactic setting, which causes all soldiers in a unit to focus fire on the enemy unit's leader (or whatever is in the way of targeting him or her first). While having all your forces viciously dog-pile some poor cleric or knight might be repetitive to watch, units that lose their leader have an AI that prioritizes running from player troops. Likewise, a unit with an injured leader prioritizes getting healed over fighting more often than not. This makes using Attack Leader as a default setting often ideal, because it lets you break assaults and mop up or ignore at your own pace.
- Paladins are likely the first human class you'll have access to with three front-row attacks, and while they're not necessarily optimal or interesting, they're so all-around decent you'll probably make lots of them and keep them for half the game. You'll probably have lots of Priests, too, due to their awesome healing ability.
- Matched trainer units (a pair of monsters with a relevant trainer in command, such as two golems with an enchanter) might be boring to manage, but benefit from being mostly just powerful and consistent without the need for constant upgrades beyond regular leveling.
- Boss in Mook's Clothing: The map that introduces Ogres features one in the boss' unit that is actually much stronger than him and anything else you've seen at this point. Thankfully, the game only requires you to kill bosses to win.
- Can't Drop the Hero: Magnus is mandatory.
- Captain Ersatz: Danika is very similar to Persephone of Classical Mythology. Both were daughters of a Earth Goddess (Demeter/Berthe) who were lured to the Underworld and made Queen of it by another God residing there (Hades/Diablo) and trapped there once they ate a fruit grown there. Only difference is while Hades is actually quite just by Ancient Greek standards, Diablo is evil, and Danika was corrupted by them, but gets better after you defeat her.
- Character Portrait: Even the messengers have a portrait.
- Color-Coded Armies: The enemy units always wear red no matter whether you're fighting for Palatinus or the Revolutionary Army. Even friendly units you fight during training are red.
- Combination Attack: With high enough morale and correct elemental typing, caster classes can do this. Soldiers in the same row attacking the same target can combine attacks too.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The computer has access to certain classes despite said characters never meeting the prerequisites of said classes. You'll see Paladins and Black Knights of a level WAY lower than that necessary to meet the class requirements. The computer is also not limited in the number of squads it can deploy the way you are.
- Continuity Nod:
- At the start of Chapter Four, Richard and Thamuz discuss the possibility of Valeria getting ultimate power before they do.
- Should you not have Saradin after defeating Prince Amrius, Hugo mentions Empress Endora gained her power by using the Infernal Aura to break the Creator's seal upon her potential, just like the Royal Family has done.
- Cool, but Inefficient: Legions look impressive on the map but have poor mobility and stamina, and the Legion Core's Supportive Attack is too weak to be worth the trouble.
- Critical Hit: In addition to dealing double damage, it also knocks the recipient back a row, if possible.
- Cliffhanger:
- No matter what alignment Palatinus and Magnus' story concludes with, Mari gives birth to a baby born from Yumil while he contained the Progenitor's godlike power, apparently possessed by Rashidi, the main villain of the very first Ogre Battle game.
- Should you complete the game with Vad, but not Destin or Europea, it's shown in an ending cutscene that apparently Palatinus, Zenobia, and Nirdam are about to stage a combined assault on the capitol of Lodis itself, Galius.
- Defeat Means Playable: True for a few characters, such as Liedel and Biske.
- Developer's Foresight:
- Since ultimately every character besides Magnus is expendable, cutscenes can have a huge amount of variation depending on who is still in your army.
- If for some reason you lost Dio before Volmus Mine II, a generic knight will take his place in the following cutscene and may even free Frederick himself. Magnus will wonder if the knight made it out okay, with Hugo assuring him he did.
- There is in fact an ending if your chaos frame tanks after recruiting Destin. And even an ending if Magnus loses to Destin in the secret final level, though it can be tricky to do. Should you manage to recruit Destin then dismiss him from your army (something a player would likely never do unintentionally), Magnus will have his final dialogue with Frederick instead.
- Quetzalcoatls have item drops, but as they're the only venerable dragon you absolutely can never find in the wild, you'd never be able to find out what those drops were unless you used a cheating device.
- Despite the fact that it is very difficult to actually see it, Richard has a special four-block-sized Infest spell in the back row.
- Since ultimately every character besides Magnus is expendable, cutscenes can have a huge amount of variation depending on who is still in your army.
- Disc-One Nuke:
- If you've got a ton of Goth for some reason, you can get the Annihilation spellbook as early as Chapter One.
- Hellhounds. With high speed, good HP, and three powerful attacks, in the early chapters a pair of them led by a Beast Tamer will absolutely outperform your measly Fighters and Amazons. As master classes become available, though, the greater numbers and versatility of human groups make Hellhounds and their evolved Cerberi forms irrelevant.
- The last two birthday presents, the Diadora's Song armor and Noish's Promise sword, aren't that great compared to endgame equipment but are still much better than what you start the game with. If you're willing to spend several hours grinding, you can get them as early as level two.
- Discretion Shot: The first time you see Ogres, the camera cuts away right as an Ogre's about to crush the knight that's discovered them.
- Do Not Drop Your Weapon: Defeated bosses topple over and let their weapon go.
- Duel Boss: In order to get a Sword of Tiamat required to make a Dragoon, one of your group leaders has to fight the dragon Grozz Nuy one on one.
- Endless Winter: The northern parts of the Central Region (Ptia, Argent, Barpheth, and Tybell) are all locked into a magical permanent winter because of a curse the Progenitor put on them.
- Enemy Mine: In Chapter Four, the influence of the Infernal Aura consolidates all three main enemy factions into one force, united against the Revolutionary Army.
- Escort Mission: You have one where you must protect Yumil, but thankfully he does have four Black Knights protecting him, a high level melee class that you won't get until much later in the game, so he's not in much danger unless you let his unit fight every battle on the map.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: It's one thing to summon denizens of the underworld to serve you, but to willingly give a person who doesn't like being used by you the powers of a demigod? The Holy Lodis empire ain't exactly run by geniuses.
- Fauxlosophic Narration: Magnus and Destin's conversation about fate in the better endings of the game. Bonus points for Destin saying Prince Yumil accepted his fate, then immediately saying he fought against it.
- Fetch Quest: Getting the Dream Tiara for the Princess class requires going on an extended hunt all over the country to give a letter to an old man's former love.
- First-Name Basis: General Godeslas. Godeslas is his FIRST name. As one LP says, "It's like if he went around getting called General Gary".
- Flash of Pain: The color is different depending on the element of the attack, too.
- Gambit Pileup: The main plot of the game is the Revolutionary Army trying to win freedom from Lodis. Simple enough. Around this main plot, though, you have: the Royal Family trying to preserve their positions by stopping the Revolution while also finding the Ultimate Power to beat Lodis; nobles like Rhade, Godeslas, and Kerikov, trying to get on top by working for the Royal Family and secretly with Lodis; Lodis itself, playing both royals and nobles against each other while working with netherworlders and trying to find the Ultimate Power themselves; Zeda, working with both Lodis and the Royal Family as suits her needs to ultimately awaken Danika; and Yumil, a peaceful solution. Lots of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, Motive Decay, Sanity Slippage, and Enemy Mine ensue, with the Last Plan Standing technically being Zeda's. (Though it's less a matter of things going All According to Plan and more a case of everyone else dying first.) Even the Netherworlders' plan to resurrect Danika is part of an even bigger gambit by Rashidi, the Big Bad of the first game.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- "Capturing" and "liberating" isn't just flavor text, but a reflection of whether in-universe your army is viewed as benevolent rescuers or oppressive invaders, and the main thing that determines what ending you get.
- Most magical effects in cutscenes can't be reproduced in gameplay, but Saradin uses Ray of Paralysis in the prologue, Richard uses Infest against Gilbert, and Mari uses the Dark Quest and Nightmare spells against Baldwin.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- It appears the only part of the Revolutionary Army that does any fighting is your own battalion.
- The Infernal Aura is supposedly Super-Empowering, but other than Amrius none of the people affected by it seem any stronger or better than your own troops.
- A big deal is made about the "ultimate power" but this roughly translates into "can caste combination magic alone".
- Gender Is No Object: Zig-zagged. Both men and women serve in every army depicted in a wide variety of combat roles including melee fighters, ranged attackers, magic users, and creature tamers. However, the only class that both men and women can promote is the Centurion; men and women otherwise get separate class trees, with male classes tilted more toward armored frontliners and female classes heavier on ranged attackers.
- Geo Effects: Certain units fight better and move quicker through different terrain, and a unit occupying a stronghold gets a defensive bonus.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: In the level "No Man's Land", Magnus' army gets ambushed by netherworlders. Since the previous encounters with demons either had them summoned through a specific ritual or else defending a place they've presumably guarded for centuries—and considering how a big deal is made just a level or two later how opening the Chaos Gate at the Temple of Berthe allows the Ogres to come and go freely, when they couldn't before—how an entire army of them just so happens to run into Magnus in the middle of nowhere is anyone's guess.
- Guest-Star Party Member:
- In an early mission, an uncontrollable Yumil leads a unit with four Black Knights across Mylesia.
- Ankiseth also. He can cast combo magic (by himself) and comes with two Cataphracts. Ankiseth's squad can then join your army after this mission.
- Similar things happen with both Europea and Carth.
- Guide Dang It!: Multiple times over, for everything from unlocking specific classes to the difference between "Capturing" and "Liberating" a city isn't well-explained.
- To make Black Knights, you need Valiant Mantles. They can only be found in the Sable Lowlands, there are only three maximum, and two of those aren't guaranteed to spawn.
- Many of the best items in the game are rewarded from destroying enemy groups entirely, and the drops don't always happen. You'd never know what you missed without help.
- To recruit Debonair, it's not enough to meet his Chaos Frame requirement and liberate his town: you must also send Magnus to meet him at Ibu Deli. Miss Debonair and you can say goodbye to Destin and Gilbert.
- Dragoons, Princesses, Angel Knights, and Vampires all require special items to create, which you can only find in certain towns (and sometimes only at certain times of day.) The Vampire's Bloody Emblem requires taking a quiz where the answers change by the hour, meaning what might be a correct answer at 1:00 AM may not be right at 2:00 AM. Good luck passing the quiz without help.
- Nowhere is it explained centurions require a character to promote a certain amount of soldiers to unlock the class.
- Oddly enough, the trigger which determines whether you fight Knights of Danika at Latium or generic Paladins is whether you've completed Argent—something the story certainly doesn't indicate.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The base male class is a Fighter, that uses swords. The base female class is an Amazon, that uses bows.
- Though partially averted, unlike in the first Ogre Battle. Female units can become competent if suboptimal front-liners by promoting to Dragon Trainer or Valkyrie class lines. The fully promoted Archer line, though, grants 3 attacks versus the 2 attacks the other lines offer.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Not just Magnus, but Ankiseth, Dio, Destin, and Debonair too.
- Informed Equipment: Weapons change, but no matter what headgear or armor you put on, a character's clothing remains the same.
- In-Universe Game Clock: Night and day. Some events can be triggered only during certain times of the day, too.
- Invisible Wall: Even though some maps are linked (where the final fortress of one mission will become the starting point of the next one), you can't go from region to region without accessing the overworld. This actually proves beneficial for hunting down leaderless units.
- Job System: As long as a character fulfills the statistical and alignment requirements, they can change classes between missions or while not deployed. Though a couple classes also require specific equipment.
- Last Disc Magic: The Drakonite spellbooks found late in the game are powerful enough to obliterate most enemy units in a single encounter.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Through use of Drakonite books and combination spells, by the end of the game magic users end up being far more powerful than melee warriors or archers in most situations. Something similar applies to large characters, where the melee-oriented ones (such as golems and hellhounds) end up being far weaker than the magic-oriented ones (such as venerable dragons and especially sphinxes.)
- Luck Stat: Affects dodge and critical hits... probably. For females, also affects the chances of becoming an Angel Knight upon death, though even with high luck
you'll still probably just get a zombie. - Mechanically Unusual Class: Grozz Nuy is the only character in the game who switches attacks during combat, alternating between biting, Sacred Breath, and Dark Blaze.
- Missing Mom: It's brought up in the very first scene that Magnus doesn't know where his mother is, and she comes up in potential later conversations between Magnus and Ankiseth, but where exactly she went or why, along with what happened to her, is never explained.
- Monster Allies: Wyverns, dragons, hellhounds, and plenty more.
- Mook Debut Cutscene: When you fight your first Ogre, immediately beforehand you see a short scene of a pair of them killing a few redshirts.
- Multiple Endings: There are many different endings, with scenes depending on which characters you recruited throughout the game. The Golden Ending depends upon having a middling to high Chaos Frame.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Godeslas, but Baldwin comes in right after, and gets rid of any sympathy you might have for him.
- Magnus has a moment like this in low Chaos Frame endings, provided you either have Destin, or lost to Destin in the "Caliber" level.
- No Bulk Discounts: You'll end up buying a lot of Heal Leaves and Power Fruits for your army, and though you may have saved the entire region from a cruel and tyrannical oppression, you won't be getting a price cut.
- No Campaign for the Wicked: Like it or not, you're going to join the rebellion. Averted, though, in that you can make Magnus chaotic or play with a low chaos frame, capturing cities instead of liberating them.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If Magnus dies in combat against Destin, you don't receive a Game Over but instead a slightly better bad ending.
- No Points for Neutrality: Averted. Many classes won't be able to promote to their respective upgrades if their alignments are too far to either end of the scale.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Several.
- When Dio fights Rhade so Magnus can rescue Frederick and then safely escapes back to the Blue Knights (assuming you haven't made the plot choices that make you lose him at this point.)
- Destin's group fighting Godeslas' Ogres so the Revolutionary Army can attack Alba.
- Destin and Gilbert stalling Richard, Baldwin, and their Mooks so that the Blue Knights can destroy the Chaos Gate at the Temple of Berthe.
- Leia's father Count Silvis dying to Reucharle the lich instead of succumbing to the Infernal Aura. Provided, of course, that you didn't go to Latium first, in which case you'll kill Silvis yourself.
- Optional Character Scene: Bosses all have an introduction when you first encounter them. If you engage them using a character with which they have a relationship (usually Magnus), you'll be treated to a special scene between the two.
- Optional Party Member: Many characters depend upon having a high or low Chaos Frame, visiting certain places with certain characters, or having certain other characters in your army in order to be recruited.
- Palette Swap: The middle forms of the four elemental dragons are identical in appearance save for coloration. Platinum and Black Dragons have a superficially different head design but are still basically recolors.
- To a lesser extent, Grapplers to Ninjas and Knights of Danika to Dragoons.
- People of Hair Color: Palatinus was formed when the blonde-haired Aurics conquered the blue- and black-haired Indigans. Both races are light-skinned. Avoided with the Bolmaukans, who are dark-skinned.
- Permanently Missable Content: Sable Lowlands is the only place in the game where you can get Valiant Mantles. If you miss getting all three, you'll never get another shot.
- Player Personality Quiz: A series of questions asked in the beginning of the game will determine the composition of your starting army, as well as your first Elem Pedra.
- Plunder: Most enemies drop stuff after they die. Some items are rare weapons or components to unlock special classes.
- Point of No Return: Happens temporarily several times, though you can usually return much later in the game.
- Power Glows:
- Grozz Nuy the Death Bahamut noticeably pulses with light during combat, especially compared to a regular Bahamut.
- Whenever Yumil activates his inherent "ultimate power", he gets surrounded by a glowing blue aura.
- Power-Up Letdown: Several things in the game take a long time to get for little payoff:
- In Chapter Four Magnus gets the "blast" ability in the back row. Since blasts are only single-target and cannot combo with magic spells, they end up Cool, but Inefficient due to being weaker than the Magic+ ability Magnus had in Chapter Three.
- To get a Legion, a generic character must promote six soldiers to become a Centurion and then wait until Legions get unlocked in Chapter Three. Both the Legion and the Centurion are mostly useless.
- Vampires require finding a super-rare Count's Garment and taking a complicated Player Personality Quiz to get a Bloody Emblem. Vampires themselves can only fight during nighttime and aren't that strong anyway.
- Rhade's Sword of Firedrake is the first elemental weapon seen in the game and used notably in the prologue. By the time you get it, you'll already have a Sum Mannus and likely a Blessed Sword, which are both much better.
- To a lesser extent Angel Knights, who take so much effort and luck to get "fairly" that their actual combat ability seems underwhelming.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Destin shows up briefly in the first half of the game, and can later be recruited if you have a high Chaos Frame.
- Prestige Class: Most classes have an advancement that gives them better statistical upgrades during level ups, access to more gear, and more frequent or different attacks. Subverted, though, in that a character can change to any class whose prerequisite they match, even if it is not the improved version of their current class. The prestige classes are:
- Knight -> Paladin
- Valkyrie -> Freya
- Phalanx -> Cataphract
- Fencer -> Swordmaster
- Wizard -> Archmage
- Sorceress -> Siren
- Doll Master -> Enchanter
- Angel Knight -> Seraph
- Cleric -> Priest
- Archer -> Diana
- Ninja -> Ninja Master
- Beast Tamer -> Beast Master
- Dragon Tamer -> Dragon Master
- Berserker -> Black Knight
- And that's not counting the various monster evolutions.
- Puzzle Pan: Not a perfect example, but the game will show you the stronghold you need to liberate at the beginning of each mission.
- Random Encounters: They're a bit uncommon, but they're the only way to get nonhuman characters into your army.
- Recurring Extra: The unnamed Valkyrie that serves as Frederick's aide from Chapter Two onward. She apparently survives a triple Saturos ambush during the Chapter Four introduction, since she's back in the meeting room a few scenes later. Or maybe it's just another unnamed Valkyrie.
- Relationship Values: A hidden morale meter helps determine magical combination attacks.
- Rival Turned Evil: Dio, but only if you choose to stay silent at Frederick's execution. Dio will be thought to be dead, but then a chapter later, you see him take out Rhade, and then you finally meet him face to face two chapters after!
- Save the Princess: A gender inversion with Yumil during the second mission.
- Shout-Out: The high alignment version of the Hawkman is called the Vultan, after a certain Prince. All the other games of the series are named after songs from Queen. Except this one. But who provided the theme song to the 80s Flash Gordon film? Queen. Who appears in the movie? Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
- The story has its moments, but basically as the player you can choose either one, and you will be right either way!
- This is shown in canon with Xevec, who argues with Magnus over whether they should work with defectors or kill 'em all.
- Soft Reset: Z + Start + A + B. It doesn't save a lot of time, though.
- Status Effects: Sleep, Paralysis, and Petrification all appear here in fairly typical forms. Poison is also present but doesn't do damage, instead reducing the enemy's combat effectiveness. Power Down does the same thing as Poison, but can stack.
- Straw Hypocrite: The Holy Lodis Empire. These guys secretly give Godeslas the ability to summon Ogres just to test out how much power he could attain. This comes to bite Palatinus in the butt later, as they come back and take away the kingdom's power of nobility under the claim they were using ogres, and they are to step in to take care of a land of "heretics". This gets even more hypocritical as right after that, as they search the Eastern division for the gate to the underworld to summon MORE Ogres.
- Stupid mistake or deliberate plan?
- Talk to Everyone: Each stage has multiple towns. Entering them allows you to listen to villagers, who say different things depending on whether you visit them during the battle or after. A lot of information not given in the story or Hugo Report can be picked up from doing this. Very, very rarely, you'll pick up a sidequest.
- Terrain Sculpting: There's an inland sea on the northern border of Palatinus, supposedly caused by the Progenitor chopping the land in two.
- The Six Stats: Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Mentality, Agility, Dexterity.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Legions are useless in battle, but they are handy for searching for hidden items and Neutral Encounters.
- Title Drop: Delivered at the very end of the game in the Bonus Level by Destin:"People want a just leader... a person of lordly caliber."
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: You can spend years traveling from region to region between missions, and nothing in the plot will change. In fact, since Magnus receives rare items for every birthday that's a multiple of 10, it's beneficial to wander around until Magnus is 99 years old.
- True Final Boss: Only for low Chaos Frame playthroughs under certain conditions: Destin.
- 24-Hour Armor: If you catch an enemy in a tent, they will start the battle sleeping, but wearing full gear and in formation.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable:
- One training battle features a cleric/faerie/wyrm group. Normally this formation is no trouble at all, but since training battles continue until one side is completely defeated and all Power Up/Power Down effects stack and never go away, this group can be impossible to defeat with the wrong party early in the game. The faerie's Blow Kiss ability means it quickly becomes impossible to hit anyone while the cleric heals all damage in a single spell. If you have a healer yourself, the battle quickly becomes a stalemate.
- Similar problems occur in the Elem Pedra training battles with venerable dragons, particularly the Flarebrass and Ahzi Dahaka fights.
- Unique Enemy: Princesses are the only generic class in the game you will never encounter in battle, though one can be fought in training at Latium. Since it's not a real fight her leadership special doesn't come into play, meaning you can never experience what it's like to face enemies with an extra action.
- Units Not to Scale: Towns are like little sandboxes for your units to wade in.
- Useless Useful Spell: Mostly averted. Paralysis and Sleep are handy against powerful opponents, and Power Down can be devastating, especially in Training. Poison, though, is useless—better hope the Random Number God doesn't give you Earth-element witches!
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- Leaderless enemy groups are usually harmless, running away from potential battles. The player can still hunt them down and slaughter them to the last man if they wish. This is the only way to get most of the best equipment in the game.
- At one point the Palatinean Army sends Bolmaukan slaves against the player. The player can kill all of the slaves even as they're fighting to free them...and still get the Bolmaukans' full support afterward.
- Quite a lot of recruitable characters can be actively killed by the player during the course of the story: Dio, Vad, Biske, and Carth, as well as all five Zenobians in the absolute worst ending. Killing Vad is especially notable because recruiting him doesn't require a specific Chaos Frame, he's never a stage boss, and he's easily avoidable.
- It's possible to save Ankiseth earlier in the story and then leave him to be killed by Yumil later on, even though there's no benefit to doing this.
- Visible Silence: Magnus does this often.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: You lose the battle if Magnus dies, despite the availability of witch's dens and altars of resurrection. On a lesser scale, defeating a unit's leader causes the unit to attempt to head back to base and retreat from enemies, though you can assign a new unit leader to regain control of them (the AI units never think of doing this).
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Qad, the Beast Tamer leader of the rebels in the prologue who chews out Rhade and who Destin, Debonair, Aisha, and Saradin go to a lot of trouble rescuing from execution, is never seen or referenced again.
- Similar happens with Ariosh, Godeslas' right-hand man. Magnus doesn't kill him but he's never seen again after his interrogation at Dardunnelles.
- Happens in-universe with Magnus, should you have lost Dio before Volmus Mine II: he asks what happened to the knight who covered his escape. (See Developer's Foresight above.)
- Worthy Opponent: Richard sees Destin as this when they meet and duel each other in Chapter Three.
- Xanatos Gambit: The Caliginous Order pulls one in the first chapter when they give Godeslas the fruit of the netherworld. If he wins, the Revolutionary Army is taken care of. If he loses, they have an excuse to invade because Palatinus is consorting with demons.
- You ALL Look Familiar: Somewhat justified, in that there are only so many classes available.
- Doubly so for soldiers. You can have 200 of the pintsized fighters in your army base, but good luck telling one from another. Some of them are apparently even female.
