The Great War a decade ago saw Cirinthia and Tariq defeating Arkadya and stripping the country of territory and power. An Arkadyan veteran, Dimitri Noraskov, takes advantage of his people's discontent to overthrow the Arkadyan king and install himself as emperor. He now seeks to restore Arkadya to its former glory by conquering the rest of Rin and forcing his nationalist ideals on his people. A Resistance is formed to stop him and his war, and they'll do anything to accomplish this goal, including kidnapping Cirinthia's second princess, Arielle, before she can marry Arkadya's Prince Gage.
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This game contains examples of:
- Abandoned Mine: The mine to the left of the beach in Oceanvale. It has been populated by many large armored beetles and one Wolpertinger. It has several treasure chests and mine carts. The haunted cave you explore in a sidequest is also an abandoned mine, with a cart that you can actually ride.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Sewers of Evenheart, big enough for easy escapes and infiltrations. You can even find buy wares from Trepidanos the Travelling Merchant.
- Aesop Collateral Damage: The writing makes it clear that Rowan's alcoholism is ruining his life and causes him to be unreliable to others. Sparrow/Brooke gets him to talk about his party's movements while he's drunk, leading to Arkadya locating and wiping out his Resistance allies, with only Rowan and the rest of the party as the survivors. This is what convinces Rowan to empty his bottle and take life more seriously.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: While he isn't exactly bright when sober, Rowan tends to have loose lips when drunk, which Sparrow takes advantage of to get intel on the Resistance. When this gets the rest of the Resistance killed, Rowan gives up on alcohol for the rest of the game.
- Almighty Janitor: The Bell Ringer's job is just to ring a bell to wake up everyone in the castle on time. He's also a former soldier capable of taking on Rowan and Corrina at the same time, and he defeats the duo in the post-boss cutscene anyways.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: Aden states that he's a genderless lichspawn, but allows the party to refer to him with male pronouns.
- Ambiguously Evil: At the start of Natasha's grandmaster quest, she states that her mother Diana doesn't support Noraskov as strongly as her father did and that it might be possible to convince her to turn against Noraskov. Unfortunately, her mother doesn't recognize her and the party is forced to kill Diana, meaning there's no way to convince her or even discern her current opinion of Noraskov.
- Ambition Is Evil:
- Emperor Noraskov seeks the glory days of an old empire that was eventually split into the Kingdom of Cirinthia, the Republic of Tariq, the Kingdom of Arkadya, and many smaller territories. He overthrows the king of Arkadya, reforms the country into an empire, and tries to conquer Cirinthia and Tariq.
- Phillip wants to sell out Cirinthia to Noraskov for the sake of gaining political power. He plans on using Princess Rebecca as a puppet queen in order to gain popularity for himself before disposing of her and ruling Cirinthia directly.
- Animal Lover: The party can pet non-hostile domesticated animals. While Rowan is locked as the party leader, any time the party lead is changed due to the story, the current lead has their own animation for petting animals.
- Anti-Hero Team: Most party members are filled with less than ideal heroes who struggle to work together due to differing goals and values.
- Rowan is an alcoholic with a Hair-Trigger Temper against any authority figure who gets in his way and cannot negotiate his way out of a paper bag.
- Corrina is a Blood Knight who wants to die in the glory of battle.
- Arielle is a Classical Anti-Hero who spent most of her life as a sheltered princess with no political experience, making it hard for her to prove her legitimacy or convince Tariq to aid the Resistance.
- Reyna is so desperate to prevent a war that she's willing to take advantage of Rowan's feelings for her to get him to work for the Resistance.
- Aden has no interest in the Resistance's ideals and only works with the party to kill his sister.
- Although not to the same extent as Gage, Rashim has a self-righteous streak and looks down on other party members for their less heroic backgrounds.
- Natasha is a former Arkadyan spy who helped Noraskov take over Arkadya in the first place, which she admits that she can never redeem herself for. While she's with the Resistance now, she's still willing to resort to extreme measures to stop her former boss.
- Prince Gage is complicit in Noraskov's fascist purging of his own citizens, something that the party won't let him forget even after he joins.
- Apologetic Attacker: Sparrow has a habit of apologizing to the people they're about to kill and even says a prayer for them to find peace with Empyrea. Later encounters reveal that they're genuinely sorry about their misdeeds, but they feel trapped in serving Arkadya as a spy.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The active party can only have three members at a time. However, inactive party members lower their exhaustion percentage while active party members gain exhaustion.
- The Atoner:
- Indecisively deconstructed with Natasha. Natasha committed grave atrocities to put Noraskov on the throne. However, she notes that no amount of good she does in the Resistance will ever truly redeem her, and to some extent, Natasha does not seem like she particularly cares to even try; she even cracks a joke when she arrives at Peren Desh, the site of one of her worst crimes, about how odd it is to be there after all she's already done, only about-facing and apologizing when one of the survivors of her last visit speaks to her.
- In the third act, Rowan wants to redeem himself for leaking the Resistance's plans to Sparrow, resulting in most of the members being captured or killed. While he states that he believes in redemption, Gage can tell that he'll never truly forgive himself, which may explain why he took on the suicide mission to stall Noraskov's reinforcements.
- The Battle Didn't Count: The Bell Ringer boss defeats the party in the post-boss cutscene. However, he spares them out of respect for their strength, despite how capturing them and foiling their kidnapping plot would result in him becoming a hero to Cirinthia.
- Becoming the Mask: Despite using their civilian identity, Brooke, to spy on Rowan, Sparrow feels guilty for tricking him. Part of their reason for killing Selene is because they feared the latter would make further attempts on Rowan's life.
- BFG: Arielle wields a ship cannon because it happened to be the only other weapon Corrina had in her inventory.
- Big Bad: Emperor Dimitri Noraskov is responsible for turning Arkadya into a fascist state where people are purged for dissent and failing to uphold his lofty ideals of strength. He wants to start another world war in order to place all of Rin under his rule, and exploits tensions between Cirinthia and Tariq in order to do so. The protagonists are part of a resistance group, which formed in order to prevent the upcoming war or at least mitigate the damage.
- Bittersweet Ending: More Bitter than Sweet. Rowan seemingly dies in a Mutual Kill with Sparrow and Noraskov escapes after his defeat. Furthermore, most of the party have their plots unresolved; Corrina still wants to die in battle, Aden runs off on the party after his sister's death despite that kiling her was his sole goal throughout the story, and Arielle is trapped in her unhappy marriage to Gage, a man she no longer loves. The only real bright spot is that Gage successfully earns the approval of the Sages of Peren Desh, resulting in him gaining his own faction to oppose Noraskov in a civil war- but even this is tainted with the fact that while the rest of Rin is spared the hell of war, Arkadya itself will be devoured by a brutal civil war.
- Blackmail: When the pirate captain Selene orders the party's execution in Port Folio, Corrina threatens to read the former's diary in front of her crew. Selene reluctantly spares the party and allows them to use her ferry service.
- Blood Knight:
- The Bell Ringer accuses Rowan and Corrina of infiltrating Evenheart Castle under the guise of exterminators, and then attacks them. While he's correct about them being imposters, he uses faulty reasoning to determine this and it's clear that his real reason for fighting them is because he wants to relive his glory days in the military. After the battle, he chooses not to capture the duo despite defeating them and actually encourages them to kidnap Princess Arielle, implying that he resents the royal family for not appreciating his combat capabilities.
- Corrina always signs up for the Resistance's most dangerous missions, since she believes that dying in battle will allow her to reunite with her parents.
- Boomerang Bigot: Emperor Noraskov claims that those who come from humble backgrounds are inferior to those with heroic lineage and deserve to be dominated. He also claims to be a descendant of Arenithen as part of his propaganda campaign. However, he used to be a peasant before becoming famous from his exploits in the Great War, and Gage states that Noraskov likes to forget that part of himself.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Sparrow kills everyone in the Cirinthian royal family except for Arielle and Rebecca. Arielle escapes the castle with the party's help, but Rebecca is kidnapped so that Arkadya can use her as a hostage. Sparrow also tails the party without killing them, all to find the location of the Resistance HQ.
- Character Level: Unlike most games, the entire party shares an EXP bar, meaning it's impossible for anyone to be ahead or behind in levels.
- Church Militant: Averted. Not everyone in the Empyrean Church is a remember of the Resistance, despite High Priest Majerin and Reyna being members of both organizations.
- Combat Medic:
- Reyna leans more on the medic side, since she has healing magic, support spells, a normal attack that restores MP, and offensive magic that summons a pillar of light.
- Natasha leans more on the combat side, since she has a single-target healing skills, but the rest of her moveset focuses on weakening the enemies' defenses and dealing critical damage.
- Complexity Addiction: The Resistance falls into this with their plan to kidnap Arielle, convince her that Arkadya is feigning camraderie with Cirinthia, and have her report to King Horatio. Not only does this paint a target on their heads, they also have to risk Arielle's life by bringing her to the site of Arkadya's crimes to prove their point. However, they believe they have no choice because King Horatio won't listen to them. The Arkadyan Empire uses their bad rep against them by killing the Cirinthian royal family and framing them for it.
- Contractual Boss Immunity: Most bosses are immune to instant death, stun effects, and silence. These types of enemies are indicated by a brown stone in the status window. Strangely, there are some bosses like Selene and Noraskov, who are immune to instant death, but not stun and silence.
- Cosmic Deadline: Starting with the destruction of the Resistance HQ, the game's plot accelerates to freeing Prince Gage from Udingrad, taking back Cirinthia, and getting Prince Gage to Peren Desh, with little character development for the newly recruited prince. The Grandmaster sidequests also feel rushed compared to earlier ones, with all the bosses getting very abrupt introductions before getting being defeated.
- Critical Hit Class: Not only does Natasha the highest critical hit rate of all party members, she can inflict the Mark ailment, which makes an enemy more likely to receive critical hits. Her Assassinate skill can only be used on Marked enemies. While Rashim and Gage also have skills that can inflict Mark, they have a harder time exploiting it due to having lower crit rates than Natasha, though they can help set up enemies to be critted by the latter.
- Decapitated Army: Averted. Natasha states that even if they assassinated Emperor Noraskov, a like-minded person like Viktoriya would take control of Arkadya instead. This is why Natasha wants to install Gage as the next emperor instead.
- Democracy Is Flawed: One of the Resistance members in Republic of Tariq notes that the country's democratic system means it takes longer for the government to get anything done. This is shown in Nadim, where the commoners riot because the government fails to address their poverty. While part of this is due to the losses the country suffered in the Great War, some NPC dialogue indicates that the senators and other authority figures are beholden to the aristocrats rather than the masses as a whole. When the party arrives in Ishtala, they find that it'll take weeks for the senate to decide on whether or not to help Princess Arielle. However, Rashim believes that if it weren't for the democratic process, it would be easier for tyrants like Noraskov to take power. In Peren Desh, Gage acknowledges that Arkadya's theocratic system is even more flawed and it already allowed several despots to rise to power before Noraskov.
- Dirty Coward: Emperor Dimitri Noraskov likes to present himself as a brave ruler and holds contempt for any of his citizens who fail his ideal of strength. At the peak of Peren Desh, he makes a show of how he'll lead his soldiers by example and risk his life to stop Gage from taking the Arkadyan throne. When he loses, he has Viktoriya teleport him away while she puts her life on the line to keep the party at bay. As he flees, Gage calls him a coward, likely because he couldn't live up to the darwinist ideals that he oppressed his own people over.
- The Dragon: Duchess Viktoriya is Emperor Noraskov's chief subordinate and is the most likely person to replace him as Arkadya's ruler if he ever got killed.
- Draw Aggro:
- Rowan and Gage can inflict the Taunt status on enemies to draw their aggro. Rowan's version of the skill can be upgraded to have a longer duration while Gage's version of the skill also refills his Rage points. However, some enemies can overcome the Taunt mechanic by dispelling all debuffs on themselves or using Orders: Focus to grant Taunt immunity to the enemy party.
- Rashim has the Lure buff, which increases enemy aggro chance on himself by 20% for each stack. This means his aggro mechanic cannot be circumvented by anti-Taunt enemies.
- Drunken Master: Deconstructed. Rowan is addicted to his flask of booze and even uses it to buff himself in combat. His alcoholism caused him to be expelled from the Cirinthian navy and caused him to burn his bridges with Captain Selene. Sparrow, as Brooke, takes advantage of his alcoholism to wring information from him, ultimately leading the the Resistance HQ being exposed and wiped out. Afterwards, Rowan replaces his Booze skill with Valor, which does the same thing but without lowering his defense.
- Easily Forgiven:
- Averted with several of the party members. Natasha admits she can never be redeemed for bringing Noraskov to power and enabling his crimes, Rashim refuses to forgive Rowan for leaking information to Sparrow, and Arielle never fully forgives Gage for supporting his father's oppressive policies, though she admits that he's a victim of his father's madness. Despite their mistakes and misdeeds, Natasha, Rowan, and Gage are still in the party because their contribution is needed to stop Noraskov's ambitions.
- Also averted with the Sages of Peren Desh. They don't forgive Natasha for supporting Dimitri Noraskov in his slaughter of their order and they don't trust Dimitri's son, Gage. However, they support Gage's bid for the throne because they know he wouldn't be as bad as his father.
- Elite Mooks: Normal enemies have elite counterparts, which have higher stats, different color schemes, better skills, and better drops. However, they don't count as bosses, which means they are generally vulnerable to the same ailments as normal enemies.
- Enemy Mine:
- Although Arielle is understandably cross with the party for kidnapping her, she has no choice but to fight alongside them in order to to survive in Cirinthia's sewer dungeon. She becomes comitted to their cause after realizing that they're telling the truth about Arkadya.
- Lilly, Heavy Slim, and Ratface Jim despise Rowan for his transgressions against Selene, but during the infiltration of Udingrad, they work with the party because they despise Arkadya more, as it was an Arkadyan assassin who killed Selene. They team up with the party again in order to oppose Phillip, who is responsible for purging their Cirinthia base.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Emperor Dimitri Noraskov claims to consider Gage his favorite son and that he's willing to pardon the latter for criticizing his rule, though Gage refuses the pardon. He also claims to hold a grudge against the party for turning his son against him. Once Gage makes it clear that he wants to usurp him, Dimitri gives up on trying to win him over and considers him an enemy to be slain. It's ambiguous how genuine this sentiment is, since it's unknown if he gave his previous son as many chances to back down before executing him.
- Noraskov expresses some regret that his wife left him, but it's also stated earlier that he exiled his wife. Though the fact that he didn't outright execute her like with his first son implies that he still loved her enough to spare her.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Selene is a ruthless pirate captain, but she won't tolerate whoring in her territory.
- According to Rowan, even pirates would find it dishonorable to rig the gunpowder barrels on enemy ships to explode.
- Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Deconstructed. Emperor Dimitri Noraskov is a brutal dictator who raises his sons to value justice and honesty, but this causes his sons to realize that he follows none of these values, causing them to turn against him. By the present, he has already executed one of his sons for dissent while the other one, Gage, has enough of a conscience to join the Resistance.
- False Flag Operation: In Tarindor, the Arkadyans secretly build a harbor full of ships that fly the Tariq flag. They plan on attacking Cirinthia with these ships in order to frame Tariq and turn the two countries against each other.
- Faux Affably Evil: Emperor Dimitri Noraskov is a brutal dictator who is able to act noble and charismatic for the sake of publicity. He tries to act like a loving father to Gage and even offers to spare him if he recants his words of dissent, but this facade falls apart when Gage officially gains the approval of the sages to replace him. He acts respectful toward the party for holding out against his forces, but also insults them for their backgrounds and their countries' flawed politics.
- Final Boss: Although Emperor Dimitri Noraskov is the Big Bad, he flees from the final battle, leaving Viktoriya in her One-Winged Angel form to fight the party.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Dimitri Noraskov was onced a peasant who would go on to become a war hero. He eventually organized a coup against the previous Arkadyan king in order to become a tyrannical emperor.
- Glass Cannon:
- Corrina, Arielle, Reyna, Aden, and Natasha all have about the same HP growth, which is much lower than Rowan, Rashim, and Gage's growth. However, they all have much better offensive stat growth than the tank characters.
- There's an accessory named Glass Cannon, which increases damage dealt and taken by the wearer.
- Griping About Gremlins: A community of Gremlins live in the sewers of Evenheart. They have soldiers and even magic casters. Their patrols attack the party thinking they are being invaded but the party is just running away with the kidnapped princess.
- Hammerspace: When Corrina offers adventuring gear and a weapon for Arielle, she brings out a carronade (a flippin’ ship’s cannon!) to the astonished princess. She asks where she was keeping it to which Corrina simply says: “Deep pockets.”
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Selene holds a grudge against Rowan for stealing one of her ships and breaking her heart, to the point where she's willing to kill his Resistance allies for associating with him. After her second boss fight, Selene almost seems ready to reconcile with Rowan. Sparrow kills her, ironically because she feared that Selene would still try to kill Rowan in the future.
- Heel–Face Turn: After realizing how twisted Emperor Noraskov's ideology really is, Prince Gage joins the party and swears to fix his father's mistakes. He also manages to convince his personal squad to join him in opposing the emperor.
- Hero Antagonist: Commander Rashim tries to maintain order in Nadim in the midst of a riot by the commoners, and orders his soldiers to suppress them non-lethally. Unfortunately, he puts the entire city under lockdown, putting him at odds with the Resistance, who need to go through Nadim in order to reach Ishtala. Once he is defeated and hears out the Resistance, he joins them in their mission.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Rowan and Corrina are left on the verge of death by Sparrow, and when Sparrow tries to finish off Corrina, Rowan pushes Corrina away. Rowan and Sparrow end up fatally wounding each other, but neither of their bodies can be found when the rest of the party returns to the spot where they died, making it ambiguous if they really died.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Emperor Noraskov raised his son, Gage, to believe that the Arkadyan Empire embodies heroic ideals. While this is merely a tactic to prevent Gage from questioning the emperor, it causes Gage to save Arielle from Sparrow, since in this moment, Gage would obviously see this as a heroic act against an evil assassin. This eventually leads to Gage realizing that the empire is only preaching an empty virtue to justify the oppression of their people. At the end of the game, Gage earns the right to the throne, dividing Arkadya's military power in a civil war between the two of them. This means Noraskov is now unable to wage a world war and is now unlikely to ever succeed in his ambitions of taking over Rin.
- Honey Trap: Sparrow takes on a civilian identity, Brooke, in order to get close to Rowan and trick him into leaking intel. While she did gain affection for him to some extent, she still reports this information back to the Arkadyan Empire, resulting in the Resistance HQ being destroyed.
- Hopeless Boss Fight:
- At Telindra, Gage, Viktoriya, and Sparrow will ambush the party. Each one of them individually is already stronger than previous bosses, making it clear that this battle is not meant to be won.
- During the first phase of the final battle, Rowan and Corrina hold off Noraskov's reinforcements while Sparrow seals the duo's item usage and decreases their Max HP every round. The waves of battles aren't meant to be won, but if the duo lasts long enough, Sparrow will just spam Assassinate to deal 9999 damage to them until they fall. Rowan ends up having to sacrifice himself to take down Sparrow in the following cutscene.
- Humanoid Abomination: Aden claims to be a lichspawn hatched from an egg, and despite his usual sarcasm, he isn't kidding, since his father is actually a lich. His sister, Viktoriya, shares the same origins, which may explain why she transforms into a demon for the Final Boss fight.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: Emperor Norasokv points out that the Sages of Peren Desh aren't all knowing, which the sages themselves admit. He uses this point to reject Gage's legitimacy as ruler after the Kingsflame is lit for him, but one of his soldiers points out that if they were to ignore the Kingsflame validating Gage, they should ignore the previous Kingsflame that validated him.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Rashim criticizes Reyna for taking advantage of Rowan's crush on her to get him to take the Resistance's suicide missions. Reyna is ashamed of having to do so, but states that this is necessary to stop Emperor Noraskov's ambitions.
- Idiot Hero: Rowan has a limited vocabulary and refuses to negotiate with any authority figure, even though doing so would be safer for the party. He also has no problem getting drunk while knowing confidential information, resulting in the Arkadyan Empire finding and purging the Resistance base.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Noraskov survived the Great War, but at the top of Peren Desh, he claims that failing to bring his country to victory was one of his greatest failures. This, combined with his shame over his peasant background, implies that he cultivates a strongman image to compensate for his own inferiority complex.
- Interface Spoiler: During the prologue, Prince Gage briefly joins Arielle to return to the castle. Unlike Phillip, he's shown in the menu as a playable character, despite being aligned with the Obviously Evil Arkadyan Empire. He ends up joining the party in order to oppose Emperor Noraskov.
- Karma Houdini: Subverted. After the final battle on Peren Desh, Noraskov escapes and organizes his remaining loyalists in preparation for a civil war with Gage, who recently received the sage's approval to become king. However, Noraskov is overall much weaker than at the start of the story, since he lost his two strongest enforcers and his people will be split on whether or not to support Gage, meaning he'll likely have too little military power to fight a world war even if he wins the civil war. Adding to that, Gage is being backed by Cirinthia and Tariq, making it much harder for Noraskov to win the civil war.
- Kick the Morality Pet: Prince Gage initially gets along well with his fiancée, Princess Arielle, but when he ambushes the party at Telindra, he orders his soldiers to execute the party and restrain Arielle despite her insistence on staying with the party. While he seems to be doing this because he believes the party is lying to Arielle, it shows that the trust between the two is not as strong as it first appeared. Once Arielle shoots him with a cannon to get her point across, he has his soldiers spare the party and leave Arielle to her devices, indicating that he realizes he went too far. That said, this event causes Arielle to fall out of love with Gage, since it shows that he prioritizes his country's interests over her own intentions. Though later, he chooses to defy Arkadya by saving Arielle from the assassin, Sparrow.
- Knight Templar:
- Gage is indoctrinated into believing that his father's rule over the Arkadyan Empire is just, that the purging of society's dissenters and weaklings is necessary to improve the country, and that the party should be executed for kidnapping Arielle and "lying" to her. He also looks down on those with morally grey backgrounds, due to his father's teachings about how there are those with worthy and unworthy fates. He eventually realizes that the empire merely preaches a hollow virtue and joins the party to overthrow his father. After Rowan, an ex-pirate, saves Arielle from Sparrow while taking a major wound in the process, Gage revises his opinion on people with shady backgrounds.
- Phillip claims that he wants to depose King Horatio because of the latter's mismanagement of Cirinthia, and that he and Noraskov will manage Cirinthia more efficiently.
- Late Character Syndrome: Defied in the game's mechanics. The party as a whole shares their level and EXP bar, meaning no one can fall behind in levels. When a new character joins the party, the game will grant the party extra Talent points to quickly unlock the new character's basic skills and grants them basic crafted items if the player is far enough into the game. Finally, the game's exhaustion system makes it so that reserve party members lower their exhaustion, encouraging the player to swap out party members to manage their exhaustion.
- Leaked Experience: Averted due to the fact that the entire party shares an EXP bar, eliminating the need for EXP to be shared the traditional way.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Downplayed with Prince Gage. He's aware and complicit in Emperor Noraskov's purge of Arkadya's "undesirables," but isn't aware of actions such as starting a false flag operation against Cirinthia or the backup plan to kill the Cirinthian royal family.
- Loose Lips: The two times he goes on a date with Brooke, Rowan gets drunk and talks about his party's activities. Since Brooke is the Arkadyan spy, Sparrow, this leads to Arkadya always being one step ahead of the party.
- Love Redeems: Prince Gage is initially loyal to the Arkadyan Empire and follows the country's twisted darwinist ideology, but he falls in love with Arielle and turns against his country to protect her. This leads to him realizing that his country isn't practicing the virtues that they claim to preach, so he openly protests against the government and is jailed for it. Played with in that while his love for Arielle makes him change sides, she and the party don't fully forgive him for being complicit in Arkadya's atrocities.
- Magic Knight: Gage wields a spear and has decent HP growth, but mainly fights using storm magic.
- Manly Gay:
- Rashim, a hardened Tariqqi commander, once had a relationship with Reyna, but this fell apart because Reyna gave up on romance in favor of focusing on her Resistance duties. In the present, Rashim has a husband, Maliq. Since his romance with Reyna was genuine, he qualifies as either this trope or as Manly Bi.
- The pirate captain, Fire Eyes, is as cutthroat as one would expect from an outlaw of the sea. However, he had a secret relationship with a male crew member, but was forced to cancel the relationship because the pirate's code forbids romance of any kind between captains and crew members.
- Marriage of Convenience: Princess Arielle and Prince Gage's marriage is for the sake of strengthening the alliance between their home countries, Cirinthia and Arkadya respectively. The Resistance kidnaps Arielle to prevent this alliance, since will eventually result in Tariq being set upon by both countries. Later on, Arielle and Gage get married for real, but for the sake of proving Arielle's legitimacy to Cirinthia so she can oust Lord Phillip. Downplayed on Gage's end, since he genuinely loves Arielle, though Arielle admits that she has mixed feelings due to Gage's past misdeeds.
- Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Gage mainly uses magic-based attacks, yet he generates Rage points instead of MP like the other mages. This means he can't open a battle with his best spells and instead has to use tanking skills to generate Rage.
- The Millstone: Rowan manages to get literally everyone killed in the Rebellion except the party, mostly because when he drinks, he talks, and his pillow talk with Brooke/Sparrow told her everything about where the rebels' main base was. What makes it this instead of some other trope is not just that his actions destroy the group he's ostensibly part of, but that he fails to tell the party who Brooke is after figuring it out, and doing so would have stopped her from reaching the rebel's main base when she did.
- Mirror Boss:
- Viktoriya uses similar skills to Aden, such as Plague, Detonate, and Drain, due to practicing the same kind of magic. However, she has some skills unique to herself, such as Ruination.
- Dimitri Noraskov uses the same storm magic as his son, Gage. However, his physical weapon is a rifle instead of a spear.
- Misplaced Retribution: In her final encounter, Selene sics her crew on the town and allows them to harass the townsfolk just to hunt down Rowan, who destroyed her ships.
- The Mole: One of the Cirinthian royal retainers, Phillip, is a spy for Arkadya. He uses his position to frame the party for assassinating the Cirinthian royal family, allowing him to become the acting regent.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Noraskov took advantage of social and economic unrest after the Great War in order to sell himself as a leader and the game description states that the setting is based on Europe in the late 1930s, making it clear that Arkadya is meant to represent Nazi Germany. Under his rule, the Arkadyan Empire preaches nationalist loyalty and strength while condemning disloyalty and weakness. This gets to the point where people are purged not only for political dissent, but also for being impoverished or disabled, which is seen as a sign of weakness unbefitting of a "true" Arkadyan. Of note is the Arkadyan scouts organization, which both spreads propaganda to kids and gives them military training to prime them to serve Noraskov, which is eerily similar to Hitler Youth.
- Never Found the Body: For the first phase of the final battle, Rowan and Sparrow seemingly die in a Mutual Kill. However, neither of their bodies are found when the party returns to the site of their battle. All that's left is Rowan's sword and Sparrow's cloak, along with a trail of blood leading down the mountain. It's unclear if one or both of them survived.
- Never My Fault:
- At Peren Desh, Noraskov claims that the upcoming world war is going to be bloodier because the party wrested Cirinthia from his control, meaning he will go to war with both Cirinthia and Tariq. He ignores that it's his choice to start the war in the first place.
- He accuses the rest of the party for turning his son Gage against him, but Rashim makes it clear that this is entirely Gage's choice. Even before the party made plans to recruit Gage, it's clear that Noraskov's twisted ideology and hypocrisy caused Gage to doubt him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- The Resistance kidnaps Arielle in order to show her evidence of the Arkadyan Empire's treachery and have her report back to Cirinthia. This makes it easier for the Arkadyan Empire to frame them for the Cirinthian royal family's assassination.
- Arielle rarely appears in public and just does the bare minimum for her royal duties, which makes it harder to her to reclaim the throne after Arkadya has most of her family assassinated.
- Natasha and Aden insist on blowing up Selene's ships to secure their escape, despite Rowan insisting that doing so goes against the pirate code. This causes Selene to escalate her own tactics to the point of threatening to bombard Angelico just to force Rowan to confront her.
- No Place for a Warrior:
- Rowan was once in the Cirinthian Navy, but was kicked out for his alcoholism. Afterwards, he became a pirate, only for him to betray his captain's trust during another drunken stupor, leaving him with nowhere to turn to. Now he works for the Resistance in order to pay back his debt to Reyna and to find a purpose in life.
- The Company of the Free Peoples is a group of Tariqqi veterans who oppose the government because they weren't paid after the Great War. However, all the benevolent people left, leaving nothing but brigands who use the company's old ideals as a cover to rob innocent travelers. That said, they're all fairly competent warriors, since they have the same moveset as their non-traitorous counterparts in the Tariqqi army.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Aden joins the party only so he can get a chance to kill Viktoriya, and not because he cares about stopping the Arkadyan Empire. In Tarindor, he has no problem trying to kill everyone in the room, including himself, just to bring Viktoriya down with him.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- Noraskov enacted a coup against the previous king of Arkadya because the latter made too many concessions in the aftermath of the Great War, and he claimed that overthrowing the weak king is necessary to restore Arkadya to its former glory. However, he tortures, purges, and enslaves anyone who speaks against him or is considered "undesirable." His definition of undesirable includes society's most vulnerable, such as the impoverish and disabled, simply because they don't fit his image of strength. Adding to that, he later writes a book where he outright calls himself a dictator who wants everyone to submit to him, making it clear that he only cares about power. Natasha originally helped him rise to the throne because she believed in his rhetoric, only to defect to the Resistance once she realized his true intentions.
- Played with in Lord Phillip's case. Although Phillip has a point about King Horatio being an incompetent king, he colludes with Noraskov to assassinate Horatio and become the interim regent of Cirinthia. While he claims that he'll be a more efficient and mindful ruler than Horatio, a soldier mentions that he's enacting purges of dissendents, implying he shares Noraskov's belief that dissenters and weaklings should be persecuted, calling his supposed good intentions into question. However, when he's defeated, he claims that the party doomed Cirinthia to being attacked by Arkadya, implying that at least part of his reason for siding with Noraskov is because he believed Cirinthia would be spared.
- Offing the Offspring: Viktoriya mentions that Emperor Noraskov executed one of his sons for defying him. He plans on doing the same to Gage, who saved the Cirinthian Princess Arielle from being killed by Sparrow. However, he hesitates on doing so because he wants to convince Gage to side with him.
- Original Position Fallacy: Prince Gage initially bought into Emperor Noraskov's rhetoric of how some people are chosen as fate and others are disfavored by fate, and that the former group is morally superior to the latter regardless of circumstances. As a result, he's complicit in Noraskov's purge of dissenters and undesirables. He is eventually labeled a traitor for stopping the assassination of his fiancée, Princess Arielle, making him disfavored by fate according to this ideology.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Emperor Dimitri Noraskov orders the purge of the poor, lowborn, and disabled for failing to conform to the Arkadyan Empire's image of strength.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- After the assassination of most of the Cirinthian royal family, Gage confronts Rowan and angrily demands to know what the Resistance told Arielle. At this point, Rowan doesn't trust Gage, who could be complicit with the Arkadyan top brass's schemes for all he knows, so he refuses to tell Gage anything. In response, Gage attacks Rowan and threatens to torture the Resistance for information. Only after that event does Rowan learn that Gage actually saved Arielle from the assassin, meaning he was one step away from being recruited. As a result, it takes much more effort for the party to recruit him later, since Gage ends up in prison for treason.
- After realizing Sparrow is Brooke, Rowan is too emotionally worn out to tell the party about her. This leads to them going into Resistance HQ without realizing they are being followed, leading to most of the Resistance being wiped out.
- Pragmatic Villainy: As much as Phillip despises King Horatio, he believes Arkadya was too hasty in assassinating him, since doing so could complicate the process of solidifying their power over Cirinthia.
- A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Inverted because the teacher pulled a Heel–Face Turn, but not the student. As an agent of Arkadya, Natasha taught Sparrow the art of spying and assassination. However, Natasha eventually defected from Arkadya while Sparrow remained loyal.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Subverted in the Final Boss fight. Although Noraskov is stronger than the average grunt, he's not as strong as Viktoriya and Sparrow. He doesn't even get the stun and silence protection that most bosses have by default.
- Real Politik:
- Many in the Tariqqi senate are reluctant to back Princess Arielle's claim to the Cirinthian throne because they can't confirm her identity and they risk a war with Arkadya if they do so. While President Ihsan is sympathetic to Arielle's cause, she admits the naysayers in the senate have valid concerns and that she can't override the slow democratic process.
- After Gage is rescued, Arielle can't completely forgive him for his complicity in Noraskov's crimes. She still marries him because doing so is the only way for her to be seen as legitimate as the eldest surviving princess of Cirinthia.
- Redemption Demotion: Downplayed with Commander Rashim, who is a Hero Antagonist during the Nadim segment. When he joins the party, he lacks his boss stats and his ability to move twice a turn.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Emperor Noraskov of Arkadya organized a false flag operation against Cirinthia and had King Horatio assassinated because the latter was about to discover his plans. He claims that Horatio came to him for an alliance despite the latter's previous alliance with Tariq, which shows Horatio isn't a trustworthy ruler. Therefore, Noraskov claims that he's justified in betraying Horatio first. It's ambiguous how much Horatio's treachery factored into Noraskov's actions, since the latter already wanted to conquer all of Rin in the first place, making this come off as a Dog-Kicking Excuse.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: The Bell Ringer correctly determines that Rowan and Corrina aren't actually the exterminators hired to take out the giant toads. His reasoning is that the real exterminators wouldn't use pistols and daggers, which is faulty reasoning because the toads are threats on par with the Evenheart Castle guards.
- Save the Villain:
- After the party defeats Corrina's old rival, Sabir, Taku shows up and tries to kill Sabir for her bounty. Corrina wants to convince Sabir to go legit instead, so the party ends up fighting Taku.
- After Gage joins the party, he insists that the party spares all his former Arkadyan comrades. Unfortunately, this includes Viktoriya, who is the most fanatical about serving Noraskov and therefore won't repay their mercy.
- Scoundrel Code: The pirate's code forbids certain things, such as dishonorable use of explosives or starting relationships between captains and crew members.
- Self-Made Orphan: In Natasha's Grandmaster recipe sidequest, the party infiltrates her family's manor in an attempt to convince her mother, Diana Rezkov, to stop supporting Noraskov. However, Diana doesn't recognize Natasha, leading to a boss battle. In the end, Natasha decides to kill Diana because she deemed trying to convince the latter impractical.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Gio, a member of the Great and Honorable Esteemed Veterans of the Great War club, stopped attending because he was traumatized by the horrors of the war and losing his comrades, and worries that he can't open up to the others about his trauma when they're all talking about their achievements in the war. At the end of the club's quest, the other members reveal that they were also hurt by the war and are willing to talk about it.
- Shot at Dawn: Prince Gage ambushes the party when they arrive at Telindra, quickly defeating them in an unwinnable battle and sentencing them to death by firing squad. They are saved from sure death thanks to one last shield spell from Reyna and the angry intervention from Arielle. Corrina later bemoans that she was cheated out from a cool death.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Arkadyan Empire sends dissenters and otherwise "undesirable" citizens to work camps, and that's if they decide not to exile or execute them. In this case, "undesirable" also includes people that the empire deems to be weak. This disgusts the Cirinthian and Tariqqi party members, since their countries recognize that slavery is a violation of human rights.
- The Social Darwinist: Under Emperor Noraskov's rule, the Arkadyan Empire prioritizes strength above all else. Crown Prince Gage states that his father would punish him if he ever admitted any kind of weakness or doubt. Worse yet, this means the empire can arrest anyone not just for dissent, but also for failing to conform to Noraskov's ideals of strength.
- Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Arielle’s wedding gets interrupted at this moment by Rowan, who buys time for Corrina to rappel down and kidnap the princess.
- Stealth Expert:
- Sparrow tails the party for the first two chapters without them noticing, allowing the Arkadyans to intercept them at Telindra. Sparrow later follows the party to Evenheart so she can assassinate the royal family and pin the crime on the party. Natasha reveals that she taught Sparrow how to be a spy and that the latter surpassed her.
- Natasha, a Resistance spy, is skilled enough at stealth to eavesdrop on a conversation between Viktoriya and Phillip. She's so good at her job that most Resistance members have no idea she exists.
- Stone Wall:
- Rowan's damage isn't that high compared to his allies, but he has high HP and can draw enemy aggro. While he has a decent offensive skill, Fury, it takes a while to accumulate enough Rage to activate it unless Rowan's natural Rage generation is increased through passive skills.
- Rashim has a similar mechanic where he applies Lure stacks to himself, which increases his chance of drawing enemy attacks. He has access to weak AOE skills and counterattacks, though his strongest skill can temporarily weaken the enemy party's defense. Fortunately, he has higher physical defense than Rowan, making him ideal for baiting physical enemies.
- Sword and Gun: Rowan wields a sword and a pistol in each hand, though his weapon in the equipment screen only shows his current sword. His Fury skill has him throw a molotov cocktail at the enemy, shoot the cocktail, and then slash the enemy.
- Taking You with Me:
- At Tarindor, Aden attempts to cave in the entire room just for a shot at killing Viktoriya. This puts him and the rest of the party at risk, so Rowan stops him, much to his annoyance.
- After her second defeat, Selene attempts to light several barrels of gunpowder in her ship, all to take Rowan down with her. Rowan nearly talks her out of it, but Sparrow kills Selene anyways, not wanting to take a chance that she'll go through with it.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- Rashim sympathizes with the Resistance's cause, but chafes at the idea of working with Rowan, Corrina, and Aden. He's even more cross when Natasha joins, since she's a a former agent of Noraskov.
- Downplayed with Aden. He doesn't care about the Resistance's goals and is only working with them to kill Viktoriya, to the point where he's willing to get everyone in the party killed just to take Viktoriya down with him. However, he's equally grumpy towards all party members regardless of their background. He seems to take no real joy in Viktoriya's death at the games' end, either.
- Tempting Fate: After Arielle is returned to Cirinthia, Rebecca states that she wants to go on adventures too, albeit without getting kidnapped. Early next morning, Sparrow kidnaps her so that Arkadya can use her as a pawn.
- Third Act Stupidity: While Rowan himself is an Idiot Hero, the party as a whole makes a fatal mistake after landing in Arkadya. Despite knowing that they're being followed by Sparrow, the party continues toward their destination without coming up with any countermeasures, leading to the entire Resistance HQ being exposed to the Arkadyans and destroyed. As a result, most of their allies are dead or imprisoned, rendering much of the game up to that point moot. It's quite glaring given that Natasha supposedly taught the Sparrow; apparently the teacher wasn't very smart compared to the student.
- Token Good Teammate: Deconstructed. Prince Gage is relatively more ethical than most of the other Arkadyan authority figures, which is why Arielle thinks the Resistance can convince him to cooperate with them. However, he turns out to be complicit in Arkadya's purge of dissenters and undesirables, which permanently lowers Arielle's respect for him even after he joins the Resistance. Despite his attempts to live a moral life, he is influenced by Arkadyan propaganda and is underneath the emperor in the chain of command, making it inevitable that he'd be complicit in atrocities.
- Villain Has a Point: During the final confrontation, Emperor Noraskov of Arkadya makes several valid points about the other world powers, even though he's the nastiest authority figure around.
- Noraskov points out that Tariq's democracy is slow and full of corruption, which is why they'll take too long to respond to his acts of aggression. This is something the party had to experience firsthand when Arielle tried and failed to convince the Tariqqi senate to act.
- He also points out that King Horatio was treacherous for wanting to annex Telindra into Cirinthia, betraying Tariq's trust. This is something a lot of NPCs thought was a boneheaded move on Horatio's part.
- The Sages of Peren Desh admit that he's correct about them not being omniscient.
- We Can Rule Together: After Prince Gage is imprisoned for stopping Sparrow's assassination of Arielle, Emperor Noraskov offers to pardon him and restore his position as Crown Prince of Arkadya if he publicly apologizes. Gage refuses and joins the party to continue opposing Noraskov.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- Downplayed. The Resistance seeks to kidnap Princess Arielle to prevent her wedding with Prince Gage of Arkadya, since they know that Arkadya plans on using this alliance to conquer Tariq and backstab Cirinthia. However, they plan on eventually returning Arielle to Cirinthia unharmed after they have her listen to their side of the story.
- Natasha used to believe that Arkadya's previous king was too ineffectual to lead and that Noraskov should take over, which is why she helped him in his coup. She changed her mind and joined the Resistance once she realized that Noraskov doesn't care about making Arkadya better and that all his rhetoric is a cover for his lust for power and contempt for the weak. Her current plan is to have Prince Gage overthrow Noraskov, knowing that this will result in a civil war, albeit one that will be less devastating than the world war that Noraskov is planning.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Rashim calls out Reyna for using Rowan's feelings for her to make him loyal to the Resistance. To be fair to Reyna, she tells Rowan that he doesn't owe her anything, making it clear that she wants him to reconsider his reasons for joining. The next morning, Rashim subtly calls out Rowan for serving the Resistance for the sake of romance. When Rowan's loose lips causes the location of the Resistance HQ to be leaked to Sparrow, who seduced him, Rashim uses this as an example of why Reyna is in the wrong for recruiting Rowan with false promises of romance, since recruiting someone who is lovesick makes them a liability for the Resistance.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Rashim is often away from home because of his military duties. His husband, Maliq, and their kids are understandably upset that he doesn't spend enough time with them, though he promises to retire soon.
- White Magician Girl: Reyna is a kindhearted priestess and the main healer of the party. While she's technically on the wrong side of the law as a Resistance member, she only does so because she wants to avert the bloodshed of a second Great War. She turns out to be a deconstruction, since her care for others causes her to resort to questionable actions, such as falsely leading Rowan into thinking he can romance her, if she thinks it's for the sake of world peace.
- Woman Scorned: The pirate captain, Selene, used to be a couple with Rowan, but one day, he took off her one of her ships while drunk. The next time she sees him, she immediately offers a large bounty to any pirate who kills him. She only relents when Corrina uses her diary to blackmail her. Later on, she refuses to form an Enemy Mine with Rowan against Arkadya and continues to attack him even after the party spares her life. She's also willing to sic her crew on the citizens of Angelico and cause damage to the city if it means killing Rowan. After her defeat, she attempts to blow up her own ship and tearfully states how hurt she was by his betrayal.
