Much like previous games in the series, Emerald Beyond tells several seemingly-unrelated stories, each of which follows a different protagonist (or pair of protagonists, in Bonnie and Formina's case). The heroes are: Tsunanori Mido, a protector of Miyako City, sent to restore order to the spiritual realm; Ameya Aisling, a young witch who has lost her powers; Siugnas, an immortal vampire king who finds himself in the land of the dead; Diva No. 5, a mechanical songstress who has lost her voice and memory; and Bonnie Blair and Formina Franklyn, a pair of newly recruited cops on an investigation of an assassination attempt. These characters will venture across seventeen distinct dimensions over the course of the game.
Trailers: Announcement
; Tsunanori; Ameya; Bonnie & Formina; Siugnas; Diva No. 5.
SaGa: Emerald Beyond provides examples of:
- All Witches Have Cats: Ameya has a talking cat familiar, Lolo. Who's, in fact, a party member, as seen in Ameya's character trailer.
- Another Dimension: Traveling between worlds is an important part of the story, of which there are seventeen.
- Another Side, Another Story: Every playable protagonist can appear in another character's story when their home world is visited, such as Ameya overseeing the training of other witches in Pulchra, or Siugnas ruling over Yomi.
- Buddy Cop Show: Bonnie and Formina are police officers, who are touted as being equally important in their shared story. They are certainly an Odd Couple appearance-wise, with Blair being Cowboy-themed and Formina wearing a realistic hijab.
- The Bus Came Back: Mr. S, who originally appeared in Final Fantasy Legend II and later reappeared in spinoff material, returns in a mainline game as a combat trainer that improves the skills of benched units and offers challenges to complete during battles.
- Color Motif: Much like the previous game, Scarlet Grace, was very red, Emerald Beyond is very green. This is evoked by the game's name, as well as names of certain features and gameplay elements, such as "Emerald Vision", seen in the announcement trailer.
- Crutch Character: Robots, whether on a first playthrough or (even more so) on New Game Plus, come in with equipment boosting their stats far above what your humanoid party members have at that point in time. However, due to not gaining the same stat boosts from combat as humans do, they eventually fall in line with the rest of your retinue.
- Cute Witch: Ameya is a young witch who comes into Miyako City from another world, and assumes the guise of a schoolgirl. In her true form she wears a pink flower-themed dress, and her staff has a pink heart on it, for maximum Magical Girl points.
- Elemental Powers: There are five rivaling tribes of witches in Pulchra, each of which is associated with a color and a Chinese elemental affinity; the White witches are Metal, the Red witches are Fire, and so on.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Siugnas' companions are called by their professions - Champion, Hero, Philosopher, Warrior, Lifetaker, and General.
- False Friend: In Diva No. 5's story, Constantine turns out to be her former manager that originally helped her learn the forbidden song, supported her memory sealing so he could take her out of Avalon and into the Junction, and then set up the search to explore worlds and regain her memories in order to recover the song, ditching the party when he obtains it so he can use it to summon a greater power and fuse all of the Conjoined Worlds into one "perfect" world.
- Henpecked Husband: In the underground world of Cordycep, the protagonist immediately runs into a mole from the Kuhl tribe who's gathering worms for his family. And every time said family appears, his wife will berate him for not bringing enough food home for their growing boy, even when their tribe is under attack by the others and her husband is helping to save their lives.
- Hub Level: Between each world, the protagonist will return to "The Junction", a space between worlds with sprawling paths leading to each world's door.
- Master-Apprentice Chain: Between worlds, units that are not currently in the active party can train with Mr. S in order to improve their parameters, such as HP or weapon skill. Once they've received enough training, they become masters that can then tutor other benched units alongside Mr. S.
- Meaningful Name:
- The three stray cats that Bonnie and Formina team up with at the start of their story are named Meow, Purr, and Hiss, all of which are noises cats tend to make.
- Bláth is Old Irish for "flower", and she is a Plant Person.
- Multinational Team:
- While the souls that Siugnas initially recruits were all sent to Brighthome after their natural deaths, they all originate from different Conjoined Worlds, and are unable to be fully enthralled until their regrets have been dealt with. Philosopher is from Delta Base, Hero is from Mare Nostrum, General is from Grelon, Lifetaker is from Miyako City, Warrior is from Crowrealm, and Champion is from Avalon.
- The National Extradimensional Exploratory Task Force formed in Diva No. 5's story is an organization of people from various Conjoined Worlds seeking artifacts to help bridge the worlds together as a cover for Constantine trying to merge them into one perfect world. Diva No. 5 and Constantine are from Avalon, Imakoo is from Yomi, and Bláth is from Kamala.
- Multiple Endings: There are multiple ways a story can end, not just due to who's the main protagonist, but also due to actions taken during the story. For example, Tsunanori has access to two endings from his very first run, dependent on whether he mainly brings home weak spirits that fail to maintain Miyako's barrier or strong spirits that can, with successive runs allowing him to instead choose whether to seal Miyako off permanently, betray Miyako City by destroying the barrier, or treat the Conjoined Worlds as potential friends they should reach out to.
- Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Your decisions in each world can affect which character from it, if any, join your party.
- In Cinq, the people are split into four tribes, each worshipping a different element: Flame, Gale, Water, and Wood. Regardless of whether a storyline ends with only one tribe remaining or all four reaching a truce, only one of their representatives will be able to join the protagonists afterwards.
- In Kosmos, if the world's plot is caused by parasites, Byaku will join the party, whereas if it's caused by the cancerous Canker, Erytheia will volunteer to throw Canker's body into The Junction before it revives and join instead.
- In Mare Nostrum, either Ivar or Azure will join the protagonists, though both are unable to before the world's "default" story is completed by at least one character.
- In Pulchra, Ameya can be recruited in another protagonist's story by helping her stop the Calamity, but completing the Yellow Witch event chain leads to Wilma the Yellow Witch joining while Ameya refuses to accept any help and sacrifices herself.
- In Yomi, Dolores the Maid will ask to join you at the end unless Imakoo the werewolf provided assistance in both the Lust and Sloth events, in which case he can join instead. Both characters can only be in the same party in Diva No. 5's route, as Imakoo is a part of her mandatory retinue.
- New Game Plus: One of the notable features of Emerald Beyond is how much changes after you complete a story and choose to go through it again; in addition to carrying over learned abilities and supplies, the plots of the visited worlds are all altered, blocking off some options and enabling new ones.
- On the Next: Parodied in Ameya's character trailer, as a reference to anime series her story takes inspiration from.Ameya: Next time on SaGa: Emerald Beyond: Mr. President, get down!
- Plant Person: Bláth and the other denizens of her world are Ephemerals that take the form of humanoid plants born from seeds.
- Power at a Price:
- In Siugnas' story, any humans that he's turned into Thralls and drained LP from can then be converted into Knights by bequeathing sanguine equipment, boosting their stats and LP cap to higher than they were as humans. However, they can no longer access their original list of Techs, and if the equipment is ever removed, they will permanently become an undead Wastrel with 1 LP and unable to glimmer any new Techs.
- In Ameya's story, she can shortcut regaining her magical potential by forming pacts with cats across the Conjoined Worlds, but it will lead to an abrupt ending to her story and prevent the Cataclysm from truly being defeated.
- Rapid Aging:
- One of the traits of Ephemerals, like Bláth and Erytheia, is this. They progress from "Juvenile" class to "Young", "Mature", and then "Elder" within the span of a few combat encounters, gaining higher stats overall but lowering their LP cap until it's just 1. When an Ephemeral dies, their next generation will rise as soon as the battle's over, returning to a Juvenile state but retaining all of their learned techniques and regular stat increases.
- The main quest of Bláth's world to help a chosen maiden mature into a giant flower that purifies the land. This has already gone through over 400,000 cycles by the time the player arrives, and starts its next cycle before they leave.
- Red Baron: Siugnas is dubbed "The Dismal King" in his character trailer, and he even refers to himself as such.
- Sword and Gun: Tsunanori is depicted with a gun and a short sword in his main artwork.
- Tin-Can Robot: In the announcement trailer, Diva No. 5 is shown in a robotic body that is literally tin can-shaped, with only a screen for the "face". The official website clarifies that she discarded her human-looking body. During her story, she unlocks new body "Frames" after completing areas in search of her heart, with her human-looking body being available towards the end.
- Two Girls to a Team: Inverted. Only two of the six protagonists (Tsunanori and Siugnas) are male; there are twice as many who are female.
- Unperson:
- In Diva No. 5's backstory, she was an entertainer whose functionality, memories, and identity were sealed away by higher authorities after she attempted to sing a forbidden song.
- After completing the Delta Base world, Administrator Gold will choose to accompany the protagonist on a journey of self-discovery, leading to higher authorities expunging all records of them from the base to prevent anyone else from leaving.
- Vampires Sleep in Coffins: In his trailer, when Siugnas awakens, he is seen in a coffin.
- Version-Exclusive Content: While the full game is the same across platforms, each console had a different demo: Playstation 4 and 5 had the start of Tsunanori's story, Nintendo Switch had the start of Ameya's, and Steam had the start of Diva No. 5's.
- Vicious Cycle: Most of the various worlds have some form of constantly repeating pattern of actions, and in the more bleak settings, this trope is in full force. Whether that be a war destined to repeat, a tragedy fated to happen again and again, or a sealed foe reintroduced to the world, oftentimes there's little the player can do but stop the current problem and hope the next major conflict is just as easily resolved when they are gone.
