An amateur RPG Maker game posted on Rpgrevolution.com. The basic premise involves a spunky, tomboyish beggar girl, who is called on a Mission from God to save the world by restoring balance... or something. Also, an evil demon is threatening the world and needs to be stopped. Along the way she meets an assorted group of characters starting with her potential love interest, an effeminate swordsman. Beyond the initial story however, there are numerous side tales that can be gleaned from romantic sidequests, and some random dark humor by exploring the world. Not to mention some hints about the nature of the hero herself, and the nature of the world.
And Nevras is likely a male Yamato Nadeshiko (he's has got the Silk Hiding Steel personality down pat, even though ostensibly he looks like Cloud. He's attractive enough for a guy, and has a the quiet nobility thing too) .
Admiring the Abomination: Subverted, though Azrael and Elias are often very surprised they got to see one legendary creature or another.
All Deaths Final: Subverted. There are "revival" spells, but certain deaths are not able to be remedied. There are graves, so understandably, old age is one of the constants. As are certain effects like disintegration or Cessation Of Existence. Or diseases, judging from the cause of death in many gravestones. Also, there are a vast number of war-related casualties, so resurrection probably only works on bodies before decay has set in. This is possibly due to some sort of Resurrection Sickness (in the case of disease, causing them too be too weak, and die again) or Destination Host Unreachable (in the case of old age).
Always Save the Girl: Inverted. Ambrosia seems to care little about her heroic quest, but has a mini-Heroic BSOD if something goes wrong in her relationship.
Ambition Is Evil: Neither Ambrosia, nor the crown prince Nevras, nor Tamashii, their daughter want the kingdom promised them. Instead, they want freedom and a house in the fantasy suburbs.
Amnesiac Hero: Ambrosia, although it is subverted. She can't remember her real parents or anything before age four.
Anatomy of the Soul: It's something along the lines of Body soul (that which animates everything), Heart (divided into Light and Dark, and ideally in balance), and Name (for this reason there is True Name magic).
Anchored Ship: Until the confronts and joins her evil half, she's too neurotic to embrace her feelings.
An Interior Designer Is You: Sort of. The party can add a bed, banker, and other features to your tent. Later morphs the tent into a house, mansion, and a portable town, if they get obscene amounts of money.
Apocalypse Maiden: Don't knock Ambrosia out. The universe will start to crumble when she's unconscious.
Ascended Glitch: Until recently, Aqorm's Limit Break didn't end before the battle if it instant killed the enemy party. Meaning that until she ran low enough on money that damage no longer instant kills enemies, she could reuse her Limit Break over and over.
Asian Rune Chant: The Kuji-in pops up at least once, as Azrael's special attack.
The game, being made without a corporation or outside input, but as a hobby game, is presumably entirely this (or else it wouldn't be included). On a more specific note, both the high number of MarathonBosses and RomanceSidequests are the author's main reason for liking the game.
The author also has a thing for Cerebus Endings, as most of the main game and one of the second game have extremely bleak, if not downright scary endings. This game literally has an Axe Crazy ending where the hero wipes out her own party.
There's obviously a fetish for crossdressing. It is possible to go through the game with three of the characters wearing women's clothes, and there are some side-references to it in some NPC lines. Not to mention the whole "angels are sexless" thing, where Michael is clearly wearing a skirt and appears to have breasts in his battlesets.
The author of the game is an actual user of tvtropes, so likely this entire page.
Awesome by Analysis: Elias can learn to summon (or several other magic types) just by reading books about various creatures (when usually this involves fighting monsters).
He can also learn how to do runecasting this way.
For that matter, if he browses through the libraries, he reads a four volume set called History of The World, memorizes it, and reprints it from memory in game.
Axe Crazy: Ambrosia, in one (or two) of the bad endings.
Battle Theme Music: Situational. Each battle has either a regional battle theme, a theme appropriate to the tone of the enemies (such as DomoArigatoMrRoboto for machine enemies), or in some cases a random song that may not even be suited for battles (such as romance songs of the 1980s).
One of the battle formulas is designed to deal random damage unaffected by armor, and immune to Reflect spells. It works, but the code is prone to do this sometimes, despite programming to do otherwise.
This is also the case with characters who have been turned to stone. Attacks still work on them, causing a petrified party member to then be killed.
Subverted with better coding, but certain effects still make this happen.
The Multi-Attack ability used to always be this way, dealing each attack with about a two second wait until done, and Beating A Dead Player regardless. (The two second wait is to prevent interruption for other attacks). It doesn't anymore, though.
(Simultaneously this, and Giant Space Flea from Nowhere). Much of the enemies are sort of mystical fantasy-themed, with dragons and the like. And then, if the party goes out of order in the plot, there are three distinct places where it can encounter Elder Gods.
Also a Cash Gate, though this one is more manageable. Just pay the toll, and cross the bridge.
Beneath the Mask: Both Ambrosia and Nevras have things they'd rather not show.
Beta Couple: Every character besides the main two (and one extra character, who stays single).
Better as Friends: One of the couples can be swapped out for another. Since it's borderline platonic, it may be a better choice.
Betty and Veronica: A couple of bisexual cases. For Aqorm, the resident thief, her "Betty" is Elias, the somewhat bookish type man, and her Veronica is Lilith, another girl and a succubus. Lilith's Betty is actually Aqorm, and her "Veronica" is Michael, a very effeminate-looking angel guy who is this because they are polar opposites.
Bottomless Magazines: Averted after an update. A long bow now uses up arrows from the inventory, unequipping your last arrow and getting rid of it when you fire the last one (small glitch of being able to unequip the last, makes 10 arrows really only give 9 shots).
Break Up Bonfire: Averted. She keeps his personal items, like his diary.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Ambrosia herself, in a moment of doubt (she later is talked into "realizing" she's real again).
The Butcher: Oddly subverted, and made into one of Acceptable Feminine Goals. Lilith being from a race of violent demons, wants to be a cook because she likes cutting things up.
Can't Get Away With Nuthin': Ambrosia's second mission is to stop the angel Estheriel. When she finally faces him, she's told that killing an angel that hasn't given its way to evil and become a demon, is like killing an innocent child and will probably drive her mad. It does.
Can't Have Sex, Ever: The not-so-evil wizard, Yazim Jianne. His wife dies during an experiment gone wrong, and although he joins the party, he's pretty much the only one that ends up couple-less at the end.
Capital Letters Are Magic: This seems to be the approach used with most of the magical effects in the game, named items, etc.
Cast from Hit Points: Nevras's Dragon Strike ability requires one turn extra, and this, in order to use. Well, it is strong enough to kill a dragon.
And its inverse, Mana Shield. Yazim Jianne can do this by transferring however much health is lost (divided by 10) from his magic points.
Cerebus Retcon: Double Subverted. Ambrosia has a sudden flashback where she thinks she was dead, and can't explain why she had no wounds after that. At the time, this turns out to be a test for her resolve, before gaining another Crest, so she denies it showing . It turns out this might have been true later, and she starts to again not exist, this time fading to nothing (that is, the original retcon was subverted, then retconned again as a symptom of another, more horrifying conclusion). Which is then subverted again, as she manages to force herself into existence. Which is then retconned again, this time, applying to everyone but her.
For that matter, Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: Immediately after a terrible point in a story where someone gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice you have three choices as to whether to finish them off, leave them, or kill them. Killing them makes the story head south, while either of the other options causes the ending to take a dramatic upswing.
Continuing Is Painful: Experience and 1/2 gold is lost each time the entire party dies. That said, it gets to keep some of the excess experience gained, and the items found.
Crapsaccharine World: The universe and everyone in it, beside the hero don't even exist. Unlike the typical Dream Apocalypse, where some people may have been there before the dream, it is kinda clear that the only option for the remaining person (who in fact turns out to be the avatar of God) is to either spend eternity alone once she awakes from this dream, or knowingly create every living thing, realizing that there's a change they still might not be real.
Crazy Homeless People: Ambrosia, although subverted later in the game, when she buys a house. She's still very much like a crazy person, though.
Curb-Stomp Battle: To its credit, the battle against the boss monster is fake. The real monster is the one who told them to climb the tower, and is standing outside it.
Cute and Psycho: Ambrosia is definitely crazy, but doesn't seem to have any Yandere tendencies. She's not The Fake Cutie either, she's just unstable.
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Dan Browned: The libraries are actually funny to read. Not only do they often have gaps in knowledge about certain subjects like Real Life history and math, but even some of the books about the more fantastic elements don't match up with other books. Either there are varying views of history, or a problem with the author's story, which is even more hilarious since it's all the same author writing it.
Dark Is Not Evil: Lilith uses dark powers, but is otherwise friendly.
Dead Little Sister: Yazim Jianne's reason for serving Belial (in this case, his wife).
Degraded Boss: Subverted. They aren't really degraded in difficulty, resulting in some Nintendo Hard moments when you have to beat a normal enemy with the full power of a boss.
Also, another version of this is going on in the villains' case, since the Big Bad is sealed inside a giant pot, and thirteen gems are needed to unseal the spell.
Divine Date: Nevras finds out Ambrosia is God, and shortly thereafter asks her on a date.
Divine Parentage: Tamashii's mom is literally God.
Double Consciousness: Ambrosia has this. As does Anideshi, due to her Sage trance ability.
Downtime Downgrade: Averted. During the downtime, not only do they not break up, but Ambrosia actually has a child.
Dramatic Shattering: It's not actually glass that's breaking... Ambrosia has an existential crisis, and the image on the screen is herself shattering into a million pieces, before she ceases to exist. She gets better, though.
Earth All Along: lampshaded from the very beginning of the game, along with a second world called the Void due to World Sundering. The Playable Epilogue omits the extra world, since the gate to this other world was presumably sealed.
Easter Egg: Not only are there a number of secrets, Pressing * allows you to enter a Cheat Code, and there are numerous hidden items and secret battles but there are some interesting scenes that are hard to find, to say nothing of pretty much every book in the library and every grave in the graveyard having something to say.
On the other end of the scale, you have a Mana Shield.
And then there's Elias's Alchemy, which aside from making cool items, has certain alchemy spells. But in order to learn each spell or make a super-rare item (like gold), you sacrifice anywhere from a level to 10 levels (and you can combine spells together, meaning there's a chance you might end up making the same spell more than two times).
The battle balance is a little... weird. Attacks in the early game barely hurt enemies, but then after the tenth epic weapon, and after beating enemies with magic, it's not really so.For Massive Damage is also a big part of this.
Fantastic Religious Weirdness: The world religions are greatly affected by a demonic upheaval that destroys most of the population. Churches, even Catholic ones, are referred to as "revival" churches, which takes on a new meaning entirely, since much of these religions are gone, along with their members. Instead of temples, most people in need of healing or worship, have to seek out wandering old priests. Also, many religions have become their endtimes equivalent (such as Miroku Buddhism, which is mainly composed of itinerant monks). That and the general state of the Earth is such that angels and demons are present in temples.
Fertile Feet: Ambrosia, after becoming the Oracle, grows massive amounts of some generic weed, most likely something called Houndstooth◊. Also, in flashbacks ( since this power was originally hers ), she as a kid grew tiny sprouts inside her shadow when she moved.
Also averted No Periods, Period: Uses the Lina Inverse rule of magic loss during the menstrual cycle. This is a balance to the above advantage for females.
Ambrosia's actual powers, and those she gets at the end of the game, are significantly different in scale (although she still has one skill that can bypass maximum damage, it's nowhere near her story powers).
Also, see the Never Say "Die" example below. Death mainly happens outside of battle.
Game-Breaking Bug: The random damage algorithm is extremely buggy (not the normal damage one, but the code for special attacks that were not reflectable). It used to have Beating A Dead Player as a fairly common effect, and when that was sorted out, there was a problem where if you tried to attack while it was doing this, it might jam all motion in the game. After this got fixed, it turned out that one of the characters didn't have the random number code at the end of their conditional, so if it happened to land on them, the code would stall if they weren't in the party. This might be fixed now, probably.
Even if you win, the ending depends on the ending party. That is, you can "win" with the wrong party and have most/all of the party die (since the final boss has a final attack scripted by the story).
If the party dies, but you have the right party, the characters just say some really strange words about the hero, and how she wasn't really a good person, not really a bad person, "she was a person." And then they walk off. If you don't have the right party, the universe explodes. It is explained why, and yet still doesn't totally make sense.
Even the best ending makes no sense, as it turns out the main hero was God all along (she's told this by God), and now has the choice while sitting in a White Void Room on whether to create the universe or not (and she can definitely choose to just become God and sit by herself for all eternity). What?!? It Gets Better, though.
The Playable Epilogue has three endings, none of which yield a rational conclusion.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There are sudden jarring changes from a fantasy setting monsters to robots and the like.
Golden Ending: The game has multiple endings, but in order to unlock the best, you need to complete a romance event between the male and female leads, defeat the final boss, and fight the extra final boss forms (this unlocks the Playable Epilogue which has its own Golden Ending). It turns out Ambrosia is really God, and that her suspicion that she was dreaming is only half right, and that world itself doesn't exist. Ultimately, though, she can cause it to be born, making a Double Subversion of the notion that she was dreaming. She gets to live in the world with the brand new, Real Life versions of the characters. There's also an extra ending sequence by killing an optionalboss.
Actually no, that's not even the rarest ending. The rarest ending is actually after winning against Cthulhu rather than getting the loss ending, and talking to him, and choosing option 2. See Radar section for more details, as this is deeply hidden in the game.
Good Parents: There are several instances of this, listed below.
When the Ambrosia's and Nevras's child dies in battle, both of them buff up dramatically, and the Limit Break fills more easily.
Tamashii can also not drink any ales or other beverages. And one item, the Puffer Fish Sushi, which has a chance of killing party members as often as it heals them (it's nutritious), Ambrosia will forbid her from using because "it's dangerous."
Green Aesop: Two of these, actually. The nature of the Earth is split due to destruction of the environment and God's resulting intervention. And one whole town screwed up its air and water by using radioactive matter to power their city.
The entire Alchemy system. Through trial-and-error, it's solvable, but you end up buying a bunch of items that you'd never use to figure out a few formulas, and making the Philosopher's Stone uses a Level Root, as does the Ultimate Weapon. Add to this fact that many formulas don't really work until after the Philosopher's Stone is made, and you find a very difficult to understand system.
Nevras actually quotes from The Godfather when he hears of his new quest:
Nevras: Another one? Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Also Lilith, despite being a demon. She's locked her house until Ambrosia enters her life, then gets persuaded by her earnestness.
Heroic BSOD: Ambrosia can have one at about two or three different points, since she doesn't really want the quest in the first place.
Heroic RROD: Nevras learns a technique named Blossom at some point. It's basically a combo attack that can give him up to eight attacks. The ninth time this is used, though... he executes a single attack that drains enormous amounts of life, and then kills him.
Hidden Elf Village: The town of Ru'un is right smack in the middle of a forest maze.
The 15th week of the year is supposedly the fourth week of December, when Christmas week is. Around this time, Ambrosia's costume (inside the world map towns) changes to a Santa cap, as does her battle animation. Her cane weapon even changes to a candy cane!
There's a Christmas village (which has a Thomas Kinkade painting as its background, apparently), where Santa can give you some fairly nice presents. Or some shabby ones.
I Just Want to Have Friends: Ambrosia, since much of her quest doesn't seem to be directly related to her. Instead, she starts out alone in a town and gathers a party.
Interface Screw: mainly Ambrosia, when hit by confuse or blind (possibly justified, since she is the leader, after all).
Outside of controls however, the game functions are constantly tweaked (such as the day/night system being tweaked by the Void world so if you stay too long outside you die, or the weather system changing due to seasons, or some of the assumed game rules being bypassed by certain effects).
Jerkass Has a Point: The underlying theme of the series. The villains usually have a valid goal, even if they don't go about it correctly.
Jiggle Physics: Although the physics part is a bit weak, Lilith's clothing shifts a bit (and beneath the clothing) when she moves.
Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Many things are revealed in this game, spaced out all over the place. There is at the very opening, a World Sundering, of the New Earth and the Void which was the old Earth. Then Ambrosia gets a series of religious truths foisted on her, along which the revelation that she might not be real, and the realization that she has a Literal Split Personality causing chaos around her. This is to say nothing of the often conflicting (as viewed by histories, versus personal accounts, versus the demon's own account) versions of people getting raptured by a demon's coming, various personal plots scattered about the world, Ambrosia's quest to find her memories of her parents, and various secrets revealed at the end about her identity, the world, and everything in it. And it's not even truly over, so there is a second game to tie up loose ends, with an additional secret or two the Oracle's role is actually a replacement to extend the lifespan of God, since without someone to renew the cycle, God and everything else in existence is doomed to return to the Void they came from.
Jumped at the Call: Ambrosia, largely since she had nothing better to do (the second time, not so much).
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Kaizo Trap: The Final Boss has one if you have the wrong party. The boss in question would before dying and being removed from the field, as part of the plot blow up the surrounding area, killing off everyone who isn't somehow immortal. This includes Lilith, Michael, and Anideshi the Sage. It also includes Azrael, and Nevras as their presence triggers a different event. But if you have Ambrosia, Elias, Aqorm, Anideshi (normal, without a special item she gets), or Yazim Jiane, the blast will kill everyone off resulting in a bad ending (well, worse, considering the ending is already bad simply for choosing the wrong party).
Laser Blade: The futuristic land of Hotaru has a lightsaber in a chest.
Laser Hallway: One of the futuristic towns has this on several floors. The lasers deal damage (it stops damage at 1 hp), and knock the hero back, sometimes into enemies.
Lazy Backup: Rpg Maker has it designed this way, barring massive coding. Subverted in one bonus castle that actually requires teamwork from the multiple parties. But still, they won't actually help in battle if your party dies.
Lemony Narrator: Ambrosia is also the narrator. She goes on side topics about her family or personal history, glossing over what a normal narrator would consider the main story. It somehow manages to avoid Protagonist-Centered Morality, since Ambrosia has no real illusions of her own righteousness. But she talks a great deal about her personal interests in the story at hand (if she's interested in it), her failings in knowledge legends and history, and her overall skepticism in the story's plot.
Ambrosia mainly narrates in the opening parts of either the main game or the Playable Epilogue, and seems to care even less about the main story the second time, preferring to instead talk about her marriage and subsequent child.
Limit Break: The game uses a meter to the left of the character. Magic and skill use doesn't fill this, but the relatively useless (early game, anyway) attack command does. When it fills to the top, Attack is replaced by your Limit Break.
Little Miss Snarker: Tamashii to some extent. She says some pretty off-color things.
Magitek: To a really huge extent. Cellphones run on lightning magic, and emotional connections. Automatic Teller Machines run on some sort of magic. One town has an subversion of this, since it is an ancient city of lost technology.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Nevras definitely fits this side of the equation, and Ambrosia is both tough physically and has a fearsome temper.
Masquerade: Subverted. There is a lot of freaky stuff that goes on in this world, and for the most part the general populace (at least, the educated general populace, Ambrosia seems to need to be explained things) knows about them, and doesn't care. Except for the one big secret: that the world and everyone in it but Ambrosia, don't exist, at least not until after her help.
Medium Blending: There is everything from animated scenes, to color pictures and photographs, to black-and-white sketches, to normal sprites, to sprites from other games that don't match the game's sprites at all.
Played straight in that Ambrosia is God's daughter/God, and Nevras is the resident warrior.
Inverted, since Nevras is by default the crown prince and more or less a Non-Action Guy that doesn't even want the job, and manages to avert it mainly because he marries into poverty. The case for Ambrosia is based on her quest, that it something she has to do, to earn her birthright.
Might Makes Right: Regardless of what your character believes in, usually the way to "prove" it is to defeat the other in battle.
And oddly enough, its inverse. Although "right" is replaced with "love."
Averted (to an extent). You can get beyond the maximum amount actually held in the game, by putting it into your back past that amount (in which case your back tenders you the million dollar bill item, which can be used to buy stuff like houses). Still, you can get to the point where you technically have millions upon millions, and nothing to spend it on.
This does make a bit of Global Currency Exception when million dollar bills can't buy most stuff directly, and you have to use them as items (which puts $999,999 into your pocket).
Money Spider: Subverted. Killing enemies, except in the case of humans, dragons, and some humanoid ghosts, does not add to party gold. Selling excess crap (including furs and bones ) on the other hand, does.
Expect a few Piñata Enemy types to supplement this.
Mr. Exposition: Your priest, Elias is a bit of a brainiac, knowing just about everything about every subject in the game. Justified, in that he's spent about 2/3 of his life in a library.
Ms. Fanservice: Lilith, and to some extent, Ambrosia's dark half.
Murder Makes You Crazy: Ambrosia is more or less a little crazy already (being a Mood SwingerSugar and Ice Personality with a Literal Split Personality), but in a Bad Ending she goes noticeably over the edge after killing an angel. She starts talking about "balancing the scales" (which, since she created the universe from a Dream Apocalypse, means basically destroying everything), and goes on a homicidal rampage, even killing her own party.
Mushroom Samba: If you lose a Bounty Hunt battle with a mushroom, instead of game over, you get some multi-hued fun.
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: The monsters don't have to abide the long term effects of status effects. Not to mention many of the effects simply aren't programmed to work on enemies the way they are to party members, and vice versa. Stone, for instance means party gameover if all allies are hit with it. It usually just stops enemies cold for the rest of the battle.
Necessarily Evil: The demon, Belial. It turns out he knows that he is doing evil, but not for any discernible benefit of anyone on Earth. He's coerced by his fellow demons to find them a homeland, even though this likely means the destruction of most current life on Earth. Likewise, he destroyed a huge number of people on Earth because he was treated like a monster and sealed into an urn.
Never Say "Die": Similar to Earthbound, there is an altered enemy defeat caption. It says something about how the enemies were defeated in "bloodless" combat. This is done less because the characters have an aversion to killing, and more to prevent a Broken Aesop.
The game does have actual bloodshed in it, at least in the form of the NPCs. It's just mostly outside of battle.
No Body Left Behind: Usually the case will various creatures dying or running away. Occasionally, you might get bones or mild 2d gore. This is more to not clutter up the screen than any censorship concerns though.
No Such Thing As Wizard Jesus: There is some overlap between various characters and what religious characters can do (notably Fertile Feet). This trend is actually lampshaded, as Ambrosia is worried that if there's Heaven and Hell on Earth, she has doubts about an afterlife.
Nothing Is Scarier: In one town, there's an upstairs room that people nearby say "don't go upstairs, there's nothing up there." If you do it anyway, there really is nothing there (you get trapped in the room, which fades to black, until it swallows you up). Making it literally nothing is scarier.
Our Demons Are Different: Demons are supposedly the same initial breed as angels, just more inclined toward evil. They've somehow bred differently than angels, becoming more the Horny Devils variety, those there are several subspecies of demons. Children of angels and demons appear human.
Our Dragons Are Different: Everything from Eastern, to Western, to Dungeons & Dragons style chrmoatic, metal, and jewel dragons.
Our Elves Are Better: Elves are essentially human, but even half-elves have abnormal lifespans and centuries of youth.
Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The idea was based from the movie Ghouls. They keep coming back, unless somehow sealed away, and come from another dimension.
Our Monsters Are Weird: You fight everything from Elder Gods, to robots, to Stonehenge. Super-cute anime style sirens, Shout Out enemies, and truly freakish monsters populate the game.
Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are subject to silver and holy effects, and vampire lords can only be killed by destroying their coffin. Vampires protect one of the towns, in exchange for their food. Stakes are never mentioned, and vampires actually like garlic. Vampires are more like some wild beast than true undead, and can probably mate.
Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Anideshi and Azrael. Sort of an odd example though, since it's not the parents that arranged it, but destiny (that and it's a two-woman relationship). In a book she reads, there's some prophecy that Anideshi is doomed to be reincarnated over and over again, until the last time where she's reborn to save the world with an exorcist, and finalize the relationship. She struggles with this and doesn't want to see anyone for fear her life would get written for her, but actually pairs up with Azrael, who just happens to be an exorcist.
Person of Mass Destruction: Ambrosia can, in the story, at least, destroy the entire universe with nothing more than a whim. She only has it for brief periods, though.
Platonic Cave: It turns out the entire world is an illusion.
Posthumous Narration: Subverted, in that it's never clear exactly when she starts narrating. She may start at the beginning in fact, but by the end of the game she is dead and in Heaven of sorts.
Polluted Wasteland: Hotaru, which has air so toxic you can't even stay outside for more than about 5 minutes.
Power of Love: Several of the endgame speeches are along these lines, most notably the last boss, where Tamashii plays a big role in their defeat with her Empathy technique.
Power Born of Madness: A special ending, where the hero crosses her Moral Event Horizon by choosing to murder an angel. She then decides to become a sort of moral balance, since there's too much good (or something), and tries to destroy everything. When they try to stop her, it turns out her madness has given her Reality Warper powers, not to mention Nigh Invulnerability, so she slaughters the entire party.
Pre-Climax Climax. Blacked out, but there are sound effects to indicate what's going on.
Puzzle Reset: Normally, this happens when you exit a dungeon.
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Quickly Demoted Woman: Inverted. Within 10 minutes of the game, Ambrosia goes from beggar to middle class, possibly with a bank account.
The Quiet One: Azrael can be this at times. She rarely speaks, except to note some supernatural or magical event.
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Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A dwarf and a Bishonen seem to have teamed up as mercenaries. They end up being the game's recurring Worthy Opponent equivalent for the party, ultimately helping them when faced with the fact that their employer will destroy not only the world but the economy.
Reality Warper: The end of the game, she gains the power to create/destroy pretty much the entire universe. Still, due to Gameplay and Story Segregation, she never uses these in battle.
Religious Edutainment: The game is a strange mix of several different religions to teach the author's personal beliefs.
Repurposed Pop Song: As opening, ending, and insert songs. Songs from the 1970s, 1980s, and some Korean Dramas (the game sorta justifies this by making no money).
Respawn Point: You die, and you end up in a tent (unless you don't have the tent yet, or make the choice to give up, in which case it's gameover).
Resurrection Sickness: You start at 1 hp, and are unable to cast most spells, for one battle.
Romance Sidequest: for basically all characters (except Yazim Jianne).
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Scarecrow Solution: When Ambrosia goes Ax Crazy, she uses the party's dead bodies as scarecrows to keep the voices in her head at bay.
Scenery Porn: Just about every background scene is either a shot taken on a camera, or a wall painting, or some sort of fanart, with everything from gorge overlooks to pictures of fields or forests, to Alien Sky or even The End of the World as We Know It.
Often it works after the battle, getting you the MacGuffin, or interesting the monster enough with your responses that they join your party.
Schrödinger's Cast: Ambrosia at one point is unsure whether she's alive or dead. She's given a choice whether she decides she's alive or dead, based on various flashbacks. It can go either way. The rest of the cast is either alive, or doesn't exist, depending upon whether Ambrosia decides to create them.
Schrödinger's Question: Pretty much the ending options you choose can determine whether the entire universe exists or not. Among other things...
Self-Disposing Villain: On a Mook scale. Some of the lesser creatures, notably goblins/kobolds, would rather kill themselves than let you take them alive, and may do so after about 1/2 their life is gone.
Sequel Reset: Game's all wrapped up, but then we have a sequel. Why? Just to show Ambrosia as an Action Mom. In fact, since Ambrosia is God's incarnation, it's heavily implied she manufactured the problem leading to the sequel. Also a Sequel Hook, as the antagonist is introduced in the first game (but other than that, the story is more or less resolved).
Shock Value Relationship: Michael and Lilith. The two characters make out in a bar, wrecking the place while they bang into stuff with passionate kissing. Not to mention it's relationship that's sort of taboo anyway, since it's an angel/demon pairing. Subverted in that unlike most relationships of this sort, they actually like each other.
If Lilith pairs up with Aqorm, it's still counts, because before that she hung out casually with Elias, and suddenly she's ditching him to choose a woman, while he is two feet away from her in a bar.
Don't hurt living things. It has no side effect on you, but they tend to take it out on weaker things, who in turn take it out on weaker things, until that single action causes some chain reaction that kills off the mice (possibly causing an insect infestation).
Standard Status Effects: Everything including from Poison, Silence, Sleep, and Death, to less common ones like Berserk, Confuse, Petrify, and Curse, to rare effects like Burn, Frozen, and X-Zone (can retrieve by changing party). There's even two extra effects: Seal, which is a curse type effect and heals fully after each turn, but otherwise like petrify, to Soulless which is a Deader than Dead status.
Sudden Downer Ending: May or may not be. Depending on the circumstances at the end of the game, and choices you make, the otherwise cheery story can end on several different bad notes. Sorry, notgivingitaway.
Taken for Granite: Anideshi has a Naruto-style Sage transformation, complete with the risk of turning into stone if things don't work out right.
Taste the Rainbow: Especially in racial variation, but this is typical in-game.
Taxidermy Is Creepy: An Easter Egg. Reading through one of the libraries has books on necromancy, then taxidermy, and finally stitching together animals and corpses.
The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: An attack called Attack Player targets the screen. Considering this is a sidescroll RPG, rather than vertical format (as is true of Rpg Maker XP), this is pretty interesting. If the player dies, the game is over.
The Hero Dies: Although, less a sudden death or murder, and more of simple old age. It's actually a good ending.
The Sacred Darkness: The Earth is made of two halves, the New Earth (which is completely different from Earth in its history), and the Void (which is made of some kind of all-consuming darkness with No Ontological Inertia). This Void is sort of the inverse of the stable energy of Light, but not associated with normal darkness or dark energy.
Time Limit Boss: Some bosses need to be beaten in about 30 turns, or they use a killer breath attack on you.
Title Drop: Several times, as it's Ambrosia's goal.
Too Awesome to Use: Reconstructed. The Puffer Sushi is a great item which gets rid of all status effects (including death) and restores hp/mp. But rather than simply being a very rare item, it is available in some stores for about 9000 gp, when monsters usually don't hold money and you have to make it selling Vendor Trash. Even when you actually manage to find it for free, it carries a pretty terrible risk. It can heal the party member fully, or it can kill them. The risk of use makes it something that you have to save for when you're really desperate, or the party member is already dead.
Also, we have the Philosopher's Stone, which is absurdly difficult to buy, so the sell price is extremely tempting. Not to mention that although you can make it with alchemy to do so, requires giving up an equally rare levelup item.
Trauma Inn: Defied. Inns heal hp/mp only, priests and hospitals heal certain status effects (usually at a high cost that gets worse as you level up). You need to travel a long way before you find an area where someone will heal you fully, no questions asked.
Truly Single Parent: God. Has a child with Manna Leaven, Ambrosia's mother, but it's later revealed that nobody really exists aside from Ambrosia, so God effectively created a clone.
Unreliable Narrator: Ambrosia, mainly due to Innocent Inaccurate. Ambrosia tells the history of the world, as she knows it, but lacks knowledge of history, or trust in legends. And some of her knowledge is lacking certain details that come up later.
Unusual Euphemism: Nevras talks about "meeting attacks with equal force" and "revenge" with Ambrosia ...they're kissing.
Voice Actors. According to Word Of God, the game is currently being voice casted for a few opening and ending sequences (casting was done on starnow.com):
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Ambrosia in the early game, before experimenting with her own ideas, believes unquestioningly in the justice of her cause. The first Oracle she meets is careful to snap her out of this.
What You Are in the Dark: Ambrosia's choice in the Universe Egg is witnessed by the party, but other than this, nobody can see her choice. The "villain" isn't really a villain, but although she isn't really egged on, she can definitely make a very off choice (to murder an angel who has already been run through by a rather large spear). Or a very good one (to heal it, although given that this same angel was trying to take over the world), or a very apathetic one, but somewhat understandable one given a no-win situation.
With This Herring. And oddly, once you have money, Adam Smith Hates Your Guts, Continuing Is Painful, and No Hero Discount comes into play (everything is priced about like the Japanese economy with basic items starting at about 100 gold and going up to about 500000 gold). Good luck making your first million without a bank.
Working Class People Are Morons: Used largely as an exposition device. Elias usually has to explain something abstract to Ambrosia (who, while not stupid, is Book Dumb), and thus to anyone in the audience who happens not to know about the subject. What the Hell, Hero? version of this as one of the villains gives the mangled stock quote, "Who are you gonna trust? Me, who you've just met, or your friends that you've known several months?" And Ambrosia can actually choose to say, "You."
Yet Another Stupid Death: If you want to you can... run into some spikes, fall to your doom in a pit, jump staight into the middle of the ocean and drown, and other such fates. You can also challenge an Eldritch Abomination to a battle, usually involving something seriously wrong happening to you if you lose.
You All Look Familiar: Played straight with guards and certain merchants, and subverted in the case of maids and police.
Z
Zen Survivor: A few of them, including some literal Zen types. Most notably though, the Aiken Master, and Ambrosia herself, after the first story.
Zeroth Law Rebellion: Subverted, since the Three Laws of Aasimov are never explicitly referred to. Offensive robots are basically set to guard areas that may be of threat to humanity, by killing humans that intrude into the area.
. The basic premise involves a spunky, tomboyish beggar girl, who is called on a Mission from God to save the world by restoring balance... or something. Also, an evil demon is threatening the world and needs to be stopped. Along the way she meets an assorted group of characters starting with her potential love interest, an effeminate swordsman. Beyond the initial story however, there are numerous side tales that can be gleaned from romantic sidequests, and some random dark humor by exploring the world. Not to mention some hints about the nature of the hero herself, and the nature of the world.
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