Outerplane (stylized as OUTERPLANE) is a turn-based RPG mobile gacha game, developed by South Korean game developer VA Games and published by Smilegate. It was released globally for Android and iOS on May 17, 2023.
There is a world called "Mirsha", a magical land filled with all manner of races with humans being one of many. In its present however, the demonic, all-powerful fiends wage war to dominate the world with the defending Kingdom of the White Falcon on the losing end. This prompted its ruling princess, Stella, to use her bloodline's magic to call on a hero from Earth: K, a hunter of parasitic "irregulars" who had just been moments away from death upon a betrayal. Beseeched by the princess, he obliges, fighting in the war against the fiends and becoming part of a dungeon expedition composed of Stella, his guardian knight Tanya, and fiend-turned-ally Francesca to retrieve a dungeon core, one with the power to turn the war around in their favor.
When the team does retrieve the core, Stella hugs K in gratefulness—only for her to fatally stab him in order to activate the dungeon core, followed by Tanya being cut down by Francesca. As the laughing princess's true colors were revealed, K swore vengeance as he fell into the dungeon's depths.
Three years of reconstructing his body and recuperation later, K was able to survive thanks to awakening and getting contracted to an automaton named Eva, who has the objective of destroying all dungeon cores in the world, though why, she does not know herself. Regardless, she will serve K in his revenge, no matter who or what gets in his way.
The combat gameplay shares much in common with previous Smilegate-published game Epic Seven; on the field, you control four heroes at a time from a roster of collectable characters rolled from the Recruit section, having the option to switch out heroes before battles according to the situation. Battles are conducted as Turn-Based Combat, where character initiative is dependent on a speed stat and is shown on a Visual Initiative Queue, and they take turns using a skill until one side is depleted of HP. Each hero has three skills, the first being a basic attack, the second a skill that can be either active or passive, and the third as a game-changing ultimate skill, the latter two having cooldowns after use. Of note are two systems that can be activated at the player's discretion: Skill Burst, which boosts a hero's skill up to three levels that requires proportional costs of Action Points to use, and Skill Chain, which causes all your heroes to attack all at once, causing effects that vary between heroes and is best used strategically to trigger timely boss staggers.
As a story setting, the game is, put simply, a mish-mash of whatever popular isekai tropes the game developers could get their hands on, compared to the likes of The Rising of the Shield Hero, Re:Zero, and other similar stories of the otherworld fantasy genre. Expect to see a lot of Cool vs. Awesome moments between representative genres.
Outerplane summons examples of these tropes:
- Adventure-Friendly World: Mirsha is not a safe place to live in. There's always some kind of person stirring up trouble, monsters are a threat everywhere, and Earthlings with their powerful Quirks are usually a sign something's going to happen, their fault or not. Of particular interest are dungeons which contain dungeon cores and advanced, unknown technology from ancient times called Scientific Inheritance, possessing power bordering on magic. All in all, such incidents are also opportunities for some kind of adventure, moreso for professional adventurers.
- Adventure Guild: The International Adventurers' Guild which the receptionist Cindy is a part of caters to adventurers that do all manner of jobs, often to delve into dungeons and highly dangerous places like the cryptid-ridden, freak weathers of Terminus Isle. It is accepting of anyone who can fight, which makes it convenient for Earthling Rin, who joined since she had no means of earning money upon her arrival.
- Alternate Universe: It's clear early on that K does not come from our Earth, his world being an apocalyptic place where hunters like him fight against body-snatching parasites, and other Earthlings coming from clearly different Earths. As a guard explains to him on his arrival, this idea is known as "Parallel Earths", where all Earthlings originate from a myriad of worlds that may or may not be in different time periods, if not different timelines altogether.
- The world where K comes from appears to be an Earth that has faced an apocalypse, where public order has broken down as humanity faces an alien threat called "irregulars", parasites that can take over people to mimic and infiltrate humans and mutate into building-sized monsters, forcing constant suspicion of whether a person has been taken over a necessity. From the sounds of it, it's like Rebuild World meets Parasyte.
- There is an Earth that at least matches our Earth in terms of timeline and normality, where there's no big threat or special feature, which is where Earthlings like Jihoon Kim, Naru Kang, and Hanbyul Lee come from.
- Vera comes from a world where pollution is so horrid it's common to stay indoors, but has the advanced technology to make a VRMMORPG one can immerse themselves in—a one-for-one premise of Overlord (2012).
- One Earth has been taken over by a cult. Finn the Shark came from this one.
- The world of Soulslayers Rin, Ame, and Akari is something the likes of Twin Star Exorcists and Jujutsu Kaisen, where Soulslayers are exorcists who have pledged themselves to a lord for power to defend society by slaying yokai and evil spirits.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only have up to four heroes in a squad. This is the same for most normal enemies and some bosses.
- Break Meter: All bosses have a Weakness Gauge that can be decreased through hero attacks, though the amount depends on the skill used and can be improved through upgrades. Once the gauge is depleted, the boss enters a break state where they cannot act until their next turn, receive more damage and are more vulnerable to debuffs; Skill Chains are intended for this, which can fit in more gauge damage in one turn compared to hero skills, and shut down the boss's Enrage state and its skill from being used.
- Character Class System: Heroes are classed into one of five Battle Types that not only determine team roles, but also how they gain AP for Burst Skills: Striker, Mage, Ranger, Defender and Healer. Each type is further divided into two sub-types that specify what their skills do.
- Strikers are your primary damage dealers; the Attacker variant focuses on dishing out damage through high attack power, and the Bruiser variant is suited for long battles with a balanced skillset of offense and defense. They generate 5 AP at the start of their turn as well as 20 AP from attacking enemies with any skill, and have a 5% increase in Critical Hit Chance.
- Mages have skills that tend to inflict debuffs and target multiple enemies; the Wizard variant boasts great offensive power, while the Enchanter variant specializes in debuffs. They generate 5 AP at the start of their turn in addition to earning AP by casting skills, the amount differing based on the skill usednote .
- Rangers boast a high Speed stat that lets them take initiative ahead of allies and enemies; the Vanguard has a far greater Speed stat to ensure their initiative, whereas the Tactician variant is a teamplayer who buffs their allies. Unlike the other types, they gain 20 AP upon their turn
- Defenders take the brunt of the damage all other types can't take, sometimes having a skill to taunt enemies, defensively buff their team, or hamstring enemy attack power; the Phalanx variant is the classic version who protects their team, though the Sweeper variant is an offensive counterpart that waits for an opportunity to deal damage. They generate 5 AP at the start of their turn and are given 35 more whenever they are hit by an enemy attack, as well as a 15% increase to their Defense stat.
- Healers help their teammates recover from damage, though the varied Healers specialize in different buffs and debuffs to provide team stability; the Reliever variant provides burst healing for moments when the entire team is in peril, while the supportive Sage variant prevents damage by hampering enemies with various effects. They generate 5 AP at the start of their turn and gain 25 AP whenever an ally takes damage, and have health increased by 10%.
- Combination Attack: The Dual Attack and the Skill Chain, both of the rapid succession style:
- Dual Attack is an effect that causes one Hero's attack to be followed up by the one with the strongest attack power in the team. One way it appears is being a passive effect, which usually comes with a percentage chance of activation (unless it has been upgraded); the other is through a Skill Burst, which guarantees a Dual Attack.
- A Skill Chain is an active ability that causes all four Heroes to attack at once the moment enough Chain Points are gathered for a charge, unleashing effects unique to each Hero. Chain Points are earned upon a Hero's turn, though the amount depends on the number of elements in the team (4 CP for one element in a team, 5 CP for two same elements, 7 CP for three, and 8 CP for four of the same element), and can only be performed if all four Heroes can act on their turn and are alive.
- Covers Always Lie: Those promotional artworks of K and Stella together? All smiles and maybe set on a journey through a fantasy world? The former is actually a protagonist wanting to avenge himself for being betrayed by the latter, and it won't be long before you realize this fantasy world has darkness underneath.
- Damager, Healer, Tank: Strikers, Mages, and Rangers are the Damagers, Healers are Healers, and Defenders are Tanks.
- A Day in the Limelight: All Side Stories each focus on a single character, though they may feature other characters with equal relevance. Event stories tend to focus on a larger but specific cast by comparison.
- Defeat Means Playable: Stella and the Demiurge Heroes will not be available for recruitment until you complete Season 1's Normal Mode.
- Dungeon-Based Economy: Not to the point of nations being totally dependent on them, but a majority of Scientific Inheritance is found in dungeons, technology with the power to affect entire nations. Because of this, adventurers delve into them, fight their guardians, find the Inheritance and sell them as lucrative spoils. For the dungeons themselves, their cores most often allow delvers to kill them for their corpses, which can be transformed into antimatter that acts as a lifeblood for the cores; this tends to lead to a vicious cycle of adventurers being killed for antimatter until its fully conquered.
- A Dungeon Is You: Dungeon cores are the centerpieces of the dungeons they run, being highly advanced sentient AI that run dungeons to lure in adventurers and kill them with its guardians for their corpses (though the objectives may vary between cores), which can then be turned into antimatter, the resource that powers cores. Since these cores have a wide variety of uses that includes empowering individuals contracted to them, they are so highly coveted that White Falcon strictly places all dungeons in their territory as their property. Dungeons and their cores also have their own tiered classes based on their size and its core's performance, from lowest to highest: Cradle, Chamber, Crypt, and Ark (Magnolia Magic Academy is one example).
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Each hero has one of five elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Light, and Dark, where heroes with an elemental advantage over an enemy's element deals 20% more damage and takes less from said enemy—Fire beats Earth, Earth beats Water, and Water beats Fire; Light and Dark deal more damage to each other. Elements are identified by color, Fire being red, Water blue, Earth green, Light yellow, and Dark purple.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
- The Kingdom of the White Falcon is a classic European-style medieval nation, governed by a monarchy and protected by knights. It's relatively free compared to all the other nations, especially with the presence of adventurers and dungeons.
- Sacreed is a theocracy set in an archipelago, its citizens being believers in a pantheon known as the Twelve Divines. It's church is fairly reminiscent of The Papal States, though the location and pantheon are more closer to the Aegean Islands of Greece and their Twelve Olympians.
- Ful.Mi.NATION is a country set in a snowy land, boasting the most advanced science-based technology compared to White Falcon and Sacreed, being a blatant mirror of Russia with all the stereotypes associated with it, especially patriotism.
- The Golden Nation of Eseph is a mysterious isolationist nation founded in a desert across an ocean. It is ruled by Iota, who herself is an Egyptian reference to the god Anubis.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: It's very likely one can find a couple Light Novel substitutes in the characters and the various worlds they come from, Mirsha and parallel Earths alike that Anachronism Stew and culture clash is a common sight. For example, you can have a woman from an apocalyptic world toting high-tech firearms taking on a tough-as-nails woman with a mean sword arm, humans enslaving demibeasts, mages looking down on non-mages, and nature-loving elves hating industrial civilization, and science clashing and/or melding with magic.
- First-Episode Twist: Any unassuming newbie would probably see promotional artworks of Stella and K smiling together and think of the story they'll witness as a classic one: the all-loving princess, her aloof hero, and their companions together, saving the world. Any newbie who's at the prologue would likely see such expectations going as predicted. Then K mentions being betrayed—anyone with experience with flags would suspect. Then comes Stella backstabbing K, revealing herself as the villain, and setting K on his journey of revenge against her.
- Foreshadowing:
- Stella's Quirk and the true mastermind behind K and Tanya's betrayal. There are several times during Season 1 (Normal) when her capabilities are remarked on, most notably Laplace mentioning the many times the princess dodged dozens of assassinations and made decisions that bordered on foresight, and Veronica's suspicions about the drastic change in her personality from a loving princess to a sadistic tyrant. Stella's Quirk is revealed in the end to be precognition, but it's not until Hard Mode, where more damning clues such as Lisha seeing two different types of mana in "Stella" that it's confirmed that an Earthling spirit has taken over her body.
- The truth of K's Quirk. Upon arriving in Magnolia, Maxwell informs him that contrary to his belief, K does have a Quirk; it's active, though its function is still not known. But the "coincidences" have been laid throughout Season 1: When Lisha met K, she was just an amateur mage and yet was able to keep up with experienced fighters like K and Snow, take on multiple mages and her own teacher Maxwell during her trial in Magnolia, and even manage the feat of redirecting the mana of an entire kingdom, all this growth in at least a month of journeying; Flamberge awakened his Archdemon power conveniently right after meeting K; Eva lacked the functions to repair K or go beyond that as she'd like, but like Lisha, channeled a kingdom's worth of antimatter on top of returning them back to their original states; Idith in the new timeline is a budding knight officer who was easily beaten by K and Eva just as in the previous timeline, and yet could block Veronica's attack after joining K, have the reflexes to pilot a ship with a bit of Eva's help, then beat her mother in a spar, feats which have been commented on by her opponents surprised by this new strength in just a few days. These things could be explained by some maturing through hardship, allies helping, opponents holding back for various reasons, hidden talent, or raiding dungeons for gear and cores offscreen—but so many similar incidents in such short time happening around K? Hard Mode Episode 10 finally reveals K's Quirk: the ability to permanently open up the possibilities of anyone he is connected to.
- In a meta sense for both the main story and gameplay, K's team grows to have himself (a Fire Defender), Eva (Light Healer), Lisha (Fire Mage), Snow (Water Ranger), and Proxxon, a pitch-black cat who could stand in for a Dark Hero. His boss Archdemon self is in fact Dark-elemental. Now if only there was an Earth Striker, then there'd be a complete set. In Season 1's Hard Mode, Idith joins in place of Lisha.
- Gainaxing: The bouncing physics apply to almost every girl with a noticeable bust in their animations, even in some idle stances, becoming more notable the larger the size.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- Assuming that K is the stand-in for the player, there's a lot of cases where recruited heroes wouldn't make sense being around him, let alone being there in person chronologically. Francesca and Maxwell for example are unforgivable antagonists, and busy people like Maxwell, the dean of Magnolia, or Knight Commander Veronica would have to had inexplicably free time tagging along with K. Of course, for the sake of gameplay, these are Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
- A number of playable Heroes in the main story die by the end of Season 1's Normal Mode, the death toll counting Tanya, Iris, Francesca, Maxwell, and Stella. It's excused when the time regression happens in Hard Mode, not only bringing back everyone to life but keeping them alive after it's end (though in Tanya's case, she was already alive as seen in the Skyward Tower storyline), but Francesca still dies and remains playable.
- It's possible to pit Heroes against themselves in battles, no restrictions whatsoever (unless you count Skyward Tower where you fight clones).
- Great Offscreen War: The "war against the fiends", in which the White Falcon was the leader of the forces allied against said fiends—Sacreed, Magnolia, and some demibeasts—and K had fought in as the kingdom's hero. After Stella sacrificed K to the dungeon core, she managed to find an Ark-class core to summon a titanic golem that defeated the fiends and pushed them back to their territory, giving victory to the alliance, though the scars of the war remain fresh for everyone involved, moreso Sacreed. Alpha reveals that that was actually the second war. There was a first war one thousand years ago, during the time of Ivanez I, when the fiends fought to destroy the Scientific Inheritance the non-fiends had because of some unknown threat it posed to Mirsha.
- Hyperactive Sprite: All 3D character models subtly move to a beat.
- Improbably Female Cast: There are a handful of male heroes available since launch: K, Bleu, Pesketh, Orox, Flamberge, Guizam, Maxwell, and Leo. Meanwhile, the number of women is far greater by dozens compared to males. And the newest heroes so far are all women...
- Isekai Bonus: All Earthlings transported to Mirsha gain a "Quirk", a power unique to them that often puts them on the level of national heroes. K appears to be a subversion until Maxwell reveals that he does have one and it's already active, though Maxwell doesn't know what it is. In Season 1's Hard Mode, K and Eva surmise that the regression he went through must be his Quirk, though it's later revealed that it was actually Stella's power boosted by K's true Quirk: unlocking the potential of anyone he is connected to.
- Item Crafting: Gaining access to Kate's Workshop (which costs five Antimatter) allows for crafting armor, weapons, accessories, and consumables. Crafting equipment requires materials from Special Requests, and there are various upgrades you have to go through before you can begin crafting high-starred equipment, improving the chances of gaining high-tier equipment, and reducing costs.
- Lore Codex: There is an archive section that keeps track of all the heroes, story scenarios (except event stories for the moment), CGs, unique equipment, and so on. Heroes in particular have their skills revealed but their profile hidden until they are recruited; these profiles are notably written by Eva, though others are filled in for by another unnamed writer. That writer is Alpha, seeing as Eva has been deactivated and these characters are introduced around the time of Season 2.
- Lost Technology: "Scientific Inheritance" is a catchall term for technology that is beyond Mirsha's level, often found in dungeons where its cores create monsters called "guardians", who slay any intruders to be converted into antimatter that go into powering said cores; dungeon cores themselves have broad uses in order to grant a person's wishes the best they can, including empowerment, conjuring matter (and cloning), and full-body transformation. Application of this technology so far has been limited, such as people contracted to dungeon cores like Jihoon and Veronica, Magnolia Magic Academy having been built on a dungeon and reconfiguring a portal network to use mana, and Maxwell Libragear turning himself into a cyborg. Regardless, no one really knows how or why they're there, let alone who made them.
- One-Word Title: Outerplane, natch.
- Panty Fighter: A few female Heroes wear skirts that flutter about while fighting in close combat, Veronica being one example whose skirt is so short that her Finisher Chain Burst always finishes with her posing, side facing the missiles exploding—and exposing her black undies. Special mention goes to Kanon, a brawler who wears a short skirt and doesn't seem to mind doing high kicks that reveal her white fundoshi, Ikki Tousen-style.
- Relationship Values: All Heroes have a trust level (including K) that can be raised by giving them gifts, with their preferred types offering the most points. For every level achieved, you gain a reward, and new voice lines and expressions, up until the tenth where the Hero's Exclusive Equipment is given.
- Saintly Church: Based in Sacreed is the Church of Nepos, a church worshipping a pantheon based on the sky known as the Twelve Divines. The believers actually uphold the Cloud God as the most important because all the other Divines are essentially extensions of Their power (like how lightning can come from thunderclouds and the sun's rays can be blocked by clouds). While their teachings promote goodness to all, a majority of believers are closer to fanatics who use their teachings as excuses for wrongdoing, brainwash children to uphold their beliefs and nothing else, and there have been cases of corruption and abuse of power. And that's not getting into their hate for fiends, having taken the worst of the fiends' invasion during the war.
- Shout-Out:
- In Season 1 (Hard), Vera gets the bombshell that K and Flamberge regressed through time. Her mind haywires from this, making her spout some references:"Am I erased from the Annihilation Sect? Is the handshake the trigger for revenge? Are you the boy who leapt through time? Do I have to kill the Mimic Nexus? How about starting life in another world from zero?"
- Christina's "Idle Monologue" has her talk about some Earthling culture she heard about: "Gian, Big G; Love is War; Tigrex; Fus ro..."
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- The Blue-Gems White Ring accessory's name is a very close parallel to Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
- In her "Recent Worries" voice line, Iota talks about a card game that has been spreading amongst her people who have managed to settle minor disputes with them. Given that she comes from an Egyptian analogue of Mirsha, the connection is pretty close.
- In Season 1 (Hard), Vera gets the bombshell that K and Flamberge regressed through time. Her mind haywires from this, making her spout some references:
- Standard Fantasy Races: So far, there's humans, elves (with sub-races based on different environments), demibeasts, fiends, automatons, and long-extinct dragons (save for one turned humanoid).
- Humans are average by comparison to all the other races. They are the most common race living throughout Mirsha, and though without special features like a demibeast's physical strength or an elf's high mana and longevity, they often make up for it with numbers and craftiness.
- Elves are long-lived people whose lifespans vary depending on the race, of which so far there have been frost and forest sub-races. They prefer to stay within environments suiting their bodies and create isolated tribes, and have much mana to cast spells with.
- Demibeastsnote are a crossing between humans and animals, having sub-races based on their animal side. They typically boast raw physical strength, though the sheep tribe are noted to let out pheromones when they sleep that stymie any aggressor's will to fight.
- Fiends are horned humanoids who have the greatest mana of all the Mirshian races, though they are viewed with great notoriety ever since the recent war they launched and, with their defeat, have signed a treaty to remain confined to a territory for themselves. This is due to an unknown hate for Scientific Inheritance, such that it was the cause for a previous, similar war they launched one thousand years ago. The greatest among them are known as Archdemons, their seats numbering thirteen; a fiend only becomes an Archdemon once they are acknowledged by another.
- Automatons are a sentient form of Scientific Inheritance, taking the form of humans while hiding advanced circuitry and technology within their bodies. It is known that there are twenty-four automatons who have descended onto Mirsha over a thousand years ago with likewise untold objectives.
- Story Breadcrumbs: The main story only covers the immediate situation surrounding K, with other tidbits about the setting and its characters only found in Side Stories and events.
- Trapped in Another World: A common, though unexplained phenomenon observed by Mirshians is the appearance of Earthlings, people who are transported over from their worlds through mysterious means. These methods known so far are summoning (an intentional act like Stella summoning K), transference (a random transportation), reincarnation (rebirth in another form with memories intact, Vera and Valentine being examples) and dispossession (the Earthling's soul replacing that of a deceased Mirshian or sharing it like in Stella's case). Earthlings also gain a power called a "Quirk" as part of the transportation process.
- Wham Episode: Iota's side story answers a number of mysteries surrounding the Scientific Inheritance, especially why dungeons seem closer to sci-fi labs and why White Falcon has numerous dungeons; in Season 2's Normal Mode, Alpha hints at the dungeons being something else. The "dungeons" are actually ships that had fallen during the war between Alpha's and Iota's fleets when the former sided with Ivanez I and humanity, with Terminus Isle being a result of their final battle.
- Wham Line:
- There was never a given reason why fiends suddenly attacked White Falcon and its alliance. In Season 1's Hard Mode, Eliza mentions that there is a reason: Scientific Inheritance, such that all fiends have an instinctive aversion towards it. Eliza's side story shows that the fiends attacked for the sake of destroying Scientific Inheritance, though the why of it remains unknown.
- In Season 2, Alpha casually mentions that the recent fiend war is actually the second war fiends have waged, the first having happened during Ivanez I's time.
- Wizarding School: Magnolia Magic Academy is an academy city made by mages and for mages, having been built on an Ark-class dungeon that floats up somewhere in the stratosphere. The curriculum there is essentially no different from colleges and universities, only with a lot more magic and its associated dangers, a prevalent sense of superiority over non-mages, and the amoral obsession of those deep in their research.
- You Don't Look Like You: As part of an update, Heroes Eva, Tanya, and Idith have their appearances revamped.
