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The second SaGa game released on the PlayStation, SaGa Frontier 2 is markedly different from its predecessor. Set in the world of Sandail, the plotline is divided into two scenarios, revolving around the lives and adventures of two men:

  • Gustave XIII, heir to the throne of the Finney kingdom, is abruptly exiled at the tender age of seven after failing to manifest any Anima during the Firebrand Ceremony. His mother, Queen Sophie, attempts to defend him, only to be banished alongside him; his younger brother, Philippe, angrily blames him for tearing their family apart. Forced to live in the slums, Gustave grows up embittered, torn between half-believing the ignorant bile spewed by others and aching for a chance to prove them all wrong...
  • William Knights is an adventurer who was just out seeking his fortune, only to have his simple life turned upside down by sudden personal tragedy. Soon, he finds himself searching for the secrets of 'The Egg', a mysterious, soul-stealing entity. Wil's tale spans three generations of the Knights family line, as matters keep growing beyond the scope of anything they imagined...

The two scenarios are very distinct: Gustave's plot arc is filled with political intrigue, with several sequences that are pure Cutscenes start-to-finish, while Wil's tale starts out as a more personal affair that gradually expands over the years, as he and his family uncover more about the situation they've gotten embroiled in. Naturally, the two tales intertwine over the course of history...

Late-Arrival Spoiler warning: Nothing Is the Same Anymore after the Wham Episode, and tropes related to the second half of the game will necessarily refer back to that event. Read with caution.


SaGa Frontier 2 contains examples of:

  • All of the Other Reindeer: Gustave is constantly insulted and underestimated due to his inability to use Anima.
  • All There in the Manual: The Ultimania and Perfect Works books fill in a great deal of information about the world of Sandail, but they also spend quite a bit of time on the relationships between the characters, answering many questions left ambiguous in the game such as the relationship between Kelvin, Marie, Philippe III, and Gustaf.
  • Ancestral Weapon: Firebrand and Gustave's sword. Gustaf is the heir to both.
  • Anyone Can Die: Nearly everyone in the first generation die, though many of them simply die of old age. However, in the later generations main characters can be killed off with almost no warning.
  • Arranged Marriage: Marie, to Cantal. Doesn't work out, and she divorces him after her father dies.
  • Artifact of Doom:
    • The Egg, which is equal parts this, Sealed Evil in a Can, and Eldritch Abomination.
    • The Megaliths are this for the weak-minded, but they're more "dangerous" than evil, and those with strong enough Anima (such as Wil Knights) can control their power.
  • Badass Family: The Knights family definitely deserves a mention, as they span three generations worth of adventurers and heroes.
  • Badass Normal: Toyed with, as Everyone Is a Super, but magic is actually less effective than steel both in game terms and in-story. Gustave and the Egg are the only ones to realize this, and their steel soldiers completely curb stomp any army that gets in their way.
  • Bag of Sharing: An NPC in Wil's hometown will allow you to switch inventories between teams, even ones who's never met and are separated by decades. You can also share learned abilities across teams (and this is how you pick up one that would otherwise be lost for good).
  • Bag of Spilling: Variant: Wil Knights will lose most of his HP and Weapon Points due to being an old geezer, though you can grind his stats back up. This is the case for all characters, as their age directly dictate the amount of stat bonuses they get: younger people are healthier and have a lot of energy, with a peak in their forties (save for weapon point regeneration, which only applies from age 12 to 26), whereas the older ones will slowly lose their physical strenght with age. The only stat that never goes down is SP. This is also why Wil Knight suddenly loses a weapon point and becomes a much less effective fighter when he begins his journey to Weissland: he reaches an age beyond 26.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Only a few characters are able to use their fists in battle. In-Universe, those who fight with their fists aren't really viewed in high regards, and thus only a few choosen ones decide to use their fists and legs in battle, whereas anyone can equip any weapons (which are more effective most of the time). Among them are, interestingly, a lot of women, such as Cordelia, Primiera, Meythia and Ginny Knights (though only Primiera has an affinity with this battle-style). On the side of males, you can count Rich Knights, Cielmer (who is the only character able to fuses his punches with anima energy), Tyler, Johan, Raymond, and finally Gustave himself (though he doesn't need his fists, thanks to his legendary sword).
  • Being Good Sucks: During the 'Inflitrate! Alexei Gang' mission, if Cordelia was picked, she ends up blowing her cover because she feels too sympathetic on the kid in the mission, telling him to run away and calling out the gang that killing children would be too low. It gets her Killed Off for Real.
  • BFS:
    • Gustave's Sword, both in story and gameplay. A blacksmith considered the idea of such a weapon simply monstrous, and gameplay wise, it's one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Unfortunately, only Gustave and Gustaf get to use it.
    • To a lesser extent, the Cinderforge Sword, which is the most powerful weapon in the game that you get by defeating the Superboss, and the sprite is even larger than Gustave's Sword. In a similar fashion to Gustave's Sword, it too is steel, so anyone who uses it is going to take a big hit to their ability to cast magic. And Gustaf can't equip it.
    • These are notably downplayed compared to other JRPG examples. The concept of Gustave's Sword is described as "monstrous" by a blacksmith in a world where most weapons are made of stone and wood for the magical benefit, and unless they are Quells can't be made with a large edge. As shown in the official artwork, Gustave's Sword, aside from being broader, is not much bigger than a real life longsword.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family:
    • The Finney Royal Family is a downplayed example, with one king, three sons and a daughter. The patriarch exiles his firstborn son (Gustave XIII) and treats his second (Philippe) like crap. Gustave later kills the youngest just to see how far he could go in life (this is not portrayed as anything particularly evil in-game), and Philippe never forgives him for Daddy's neglect (which he believes that he caused). Later on, Philippe's son is murdered, and Philippe turns into a dragon using magic in an attempt to avenge him, leaving the Finney Kingdom effectively leaderless.
    • Cantal of Otto has over eighty children, and when he dies, his kingdom is divided among them. It rapidly becomes a political nonentity.
  • Black Mage:
    • Some characters with high anima mastery (and often no weapon mastery) can be considered as such. This is the case of Narcisse (an experienced adventurer who even comes with the "Heavy Spell" battle style), Eleanor (who comes with an insanely high Fire anima mastery and the Fire Storm spell) and Roberto (who is the master of every anima except for stone). Once he reaches his eighties, Wil Knights, should you use him, will have little choice but to be played as a mage, as his old age prevents him from regenerating his weapon points easily. Overall, Wil is best played as a mage, joining with several anima types already leveled and only being proficient with anima and staves.
    • Philippe, Gustave XIII's brother, is known as a fantastic spellcaster, with Gustave himself acknowledging that Philippe could easily incinerate him on the spot should he choose to. His strong anima leads to his downfall, as it prevents him from succeeding the Firebrand Ceremony (being an adult doesn't help, as one's anima grows stronger with age, thus why no adult should attempt the ceremony).
  • Bonus Dungeon: Laubholz Ghoul Tower is a bonus scenario that isn't numbered and dated as part of the in-game timeline, but exists as a way to obtain useful pieces of equipment. All of the enemies are undead and if you're willing to fight the Lich, you'll obtain the Cinderforge Sword which is the strongest sword in the gamenote .
  • Boring, but Practical: The various elemental attacks attached to weapons are excellent for level-grinding, since they allow you to level up the relevant weapon skill, relevant element, WP, and SP, all at the cost of a mere 2 SP, which a number of characters capable of using them can regenerate in a single turn (and since they don't cost any WP, those who can't can alternate between standard attacks and the elemental ones to maintain stamina). However, they aren't particularly powerful, especially compared to the unlockable Hybrid Arts, thus restricting their potential in difficult battles, and there are none for Water or Beast, thus requiring the player to train those skills by other means.
  • Boss-Altering Consequence: Once the player makes it to the Star Megalith, they will need to make it The Egg. On the way to destroy it, they will encounter the Anima Lords, optional fights that can be avoided and consist of Water, Fire, Tone, Tree, Beast and Stone Lords. However, defeating each Anima Lord weakens the final boss by removing its associated elemental form and by extension its worst attacks.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: During the "Alexei! Showdown" mission, you will meet flying enemies. These monsters are Griffons, and are harder than most of the game's bosses, sporting nearly 23,000 health points and devastating attacks able to one-shot with ease even your toughest party members. Notably, Heavy Gale will severily cripple or outright kill your whole party is everyone isn't fully healed. For these reasons, they should be avoided at all cost, as Wil's team has no chance to kill them.
  • Brown Note: Some spells work that way, such as Sonic Poison (easily learned by Cordelia and already learned by Ginny) and Howling Heaven.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Primiera does this to her stepmother Nicolette for engineering mistrust behind the scenes out of her hatred for Jade (caused by Charles' dickery), leading to several wars and the loss of many lives.
  • Carry a Big Stick: Most spellcasters will prefer to use staff as their weapons, since most staffs enhances the maximum amount of spell points one character can have, and some of them even enhance spell regeneration (despite not being Quells). Also, few are the staffs which possess enough attack power to be really useful in combat (two of the most powerful ones are very hard to find, one being a very rare random drop, and the other can't be unlocked without grinding both staff and water masteries). Despite this, Wil Knights and his granddaughter, Ginny, are great staff users (though only Ginny will be able to wield one with great efficiency, since Wil will quickly lose his strength, with his weapon point regeneration dropping from 2 to 1 right after meeting Labelle), and so is Patrick.
  • The Casanova: Rich Knights is alluded to be this by Eleanor, who flat out asks him why he is with a new woman, Julia, while he is supposed to be with Diana. In return, Rich coldly asks Eleanor if she likes them young, referring to Sargon who is 15 years old at the time. Both character fall silent before agreeing to drop the subject and help each other. Later, when Rich is chasing after Misty because of the Egg, Diana immediately suspects that Rich may be interested in another woman, although she quickly realizes that there is more going on and she shares her worries with him. Rich's official art depicts him as a very handsome man, so it isn't surprising that he is successful with the ladies.
  • Cast from Hit Points:
    • If your Weapon or Spell scores aren't sufficient to use a skill or cast a spell, you have the possibility to use said skill or spell, at the expense of your Life Points.
    • It's implied that the spells that aunt Nina used in order to save your party are the reasons for her death afterwards.
  • Changing of the Guard: The game lasts for three generations. The only one from the original generation who's left to fight against the Egg is Wil Knights himself, and he's not the main character when it happens.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Rich is first introduced as hired muscle on another digger's mission, and there's no indication that he's a particularly special party member. It isn't until the next mission that he's revealed to be Rich Knights, Wil's son and the second-generation Knights protagonist.
  • Clingy MacGuffin: The Egg always seems to come back and mess with people every so often. Hopefully, this time it's gone for good, as Gustaf used Gustave's steel sword to destroy it.
  • Cold Iron: Steel items dampen Anima in their vicinity; this makes them good at defending against enemy spells at the cost of weakening the user's own magical abilities.
  • Combat Medic: Aunt Nina qualifies, as she joins your group with the Life Water spell, her unique role "Recover" boosts the healing effects of the spell, and she is far stronger than your others characters at this point of the game, thanks to her high HP count (and Life Points count) and high mastery of Anima.
  • Combination Attack: If you get it right, this you can get all the members of the part, AND THE ENEMIES, joining in.
  • Contemplate Our Navels: Occurs a fair amount in Gustave's storyline.
  • Crutch Character:
    • Narcisse and Nina in Wil's story. Narcisse in particular is an experienced adventurer who joins with great stats overall, including 14 in Bow mastery and 12 in Stone, whereas your other characters are far from reaching double-digits in anything. His growth rates are, however, fairly low, and he will leave Wil's party right before his last adventure. As for Nina, she has no growth whatsoever, and is only available for two scenarios before leaving permanently.
    • Named units and steel soldiers in war battles. In the battle of Bucket Hill, you have no less than 3 named characters commanding an army unit each, and Gustave's army full of steel soldiers. Should you give Kelvin a spell targeting all enemies, he can destroy every single army unit by himself, as enemy units don't have much health points and will be killed by pretty much any spell with an aera of effect (if Kelvin knows the Firestorm spell, you can relax and enjoy the massacre). Even without Kelvin, you also have Gustave's army, which is all but invincible, and Nebelstern whose war unit is the only one able to move 3 spaces in one turn, and who already knows a few decent spells. The battle of Hahn Nova is easy for the same reasons, as you control 2 named characters (including Sargon, who you can equip with useful weapon arts and spells) and 2 steel soldier units (including Fake Gustave's). Despite being outnumbered, those two battles are made easy by giving you units able to crush the enemy with ease. And then you have the Battle of South Moundtop, in which you have no named character and no steel soldier unit, while the enemy's army has 4 steel soldier units and Sargon's, whose unit is tougher than average.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Gustave's inability to use Anima. It just encourages him to become the greatest fighter of his time.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: There is no way that Gustave would lose the fight against the monsters who kill him if the game allowed the player to control him in that fight.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Some of the sub-scenarios, especially on Gustave's side, focus on the supporting cast.
  • Dead Guy Junior: Given that Gustave was born of nobility, he's the thirteenth of his line, and a few other characters share his name. To clarify: Gustave XIV was his younger half-brother and died without children. Gustaf is the son of Philippe III, who is the son of Kelvin and Marie, after the latter divorced Cantal.
  • Decapitated Kingdom: When Cantal of Otto dies (of old age), his kingdom is divided among his children. Over eighty of them, including his bastards. The various petty kingdoms immediately become completely irrelevant to the struggle for Hahn Nova.
  • Demoted to Satellite Love Interest: The Knights family gets a bad case of this. Cordelia (assuming she marries Wil Knights) and Diana are both exceptional fighters (in Diana's case, more than exceptional), but once they get pregnant, both retire from the battlefield, settle down and raise their children. Even when Wil Knights returns to the battlefield (with his granddaughter as the party leader!), neither his wife nor Diana is there with him.
  • Die for Our Ship: Oddly, an Official Couple can fall victim to a form of this in-game: if Wil sends Cordelia to complete the 'Inflitrate! Alexei Gang' scenario, she winds up Killed Off for Real, and Wil ends up with Labelle instead. invoked All There in the Manual has this option as canon; the family trees in the Perfect Works book have Wil married to Labelle/Lavelle. Word of God mentioned that Labelle was originally intended to be Wil's canonical wife, but because she was given too little development throughout the game it was deemed unacceptable.
  • Disk One Nuke: If you are lucky enough to learn the Fire Storm spell from Wil Knights early in the game (oddly enough, Narcisse, the experienced mage, can't learn that spell), his generation's battles are going to be a breeze (technically, Kelvin can also learn it, but he won't face any enemy with a high enough skill level to make that possible).
  • Duel Boss: You can potentially turn almost any regular battle into a one-on-one match where you input up to four commands, and some of the boss battles are fought like this.
  • Egg MacGuffin: The Egg.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: Gustave's death creates a rare Good Power Vacuum. Kelvin's death just exacerbates it further.
  • Face of a Thug: Tyler sports a kind of mohawk/punk hair, and doesn't look like your average adventurer. At first, Wil thought that he was a thief. In the end, Tyler is an incredibly nice fellow, who will become one of Wil's best friend, and a longtime companion in his adventures.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: On a grand scale! When the fake Gustave seizes Hahn Nova, forcing an alliance between every other power in the world to defeat him, David of Jade takes the opportunity to establish the terms of a worldwide peace treaty, which lasts for over fifty years.
  • Flaming Sword: This is the whole point of the Firebrand Ceremony: channeling one's Anima through it to make the blade flare up proves that you're a worthy ruler. This is taken very seriously.
  • Four-Star Badass: General Nebelstern. His army unit is the only one in the game to be able to move 3 squares away, and he's a pretty good fighter to boot.
  • Gambit Pileup: Pretty much the entire game after Gustave's death.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: If the player does Wil's scenarios that chronologically take place after Infiltrate! Alexei's Gang first before tackling that scenario, Cordelia will decline coming with Wil claiming that she's sick. Cordelia would die if she's picked in this scenario, and since she has been recorded to be seen in future events in that playthrough, her dying there would cause a time paradox.
    • Characters' stat growths will level off and point regenerations will decrease as they age, reflecting them peaking physically and mentally and no longer having the stamina they may have had in their younger years. In the most extreme example, Wil Knights, who rejoins the story as an old man, suffers permanent HP and WP losses (which still leaves him with respectable abilities, to be fair)
  • Johan is a former assassin and as part of his initiation into the Red Scorpion assassin group, he is given a symbol that will give him more power, but also will poison and eventually kill him if he ever betrays the group. Naturally he does by joining forces with Gustave XIII and during his last stand in The Southern Fort, the poison will take 1 LP at the end of every battle till Johan eventually dies.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • In The Southern Fort, Gustave and Johan are left alone as the titular fort is attacked by endless swarms of monsters. However, you are only able to control Johan during this time and because he's dying of being poisoned during it, you will only get about a few battles in before he dies. This is no doubt because there is no way a player controlled Gustave would lose to just monsters and his death needs to happen to kick off the rest of the plot.
    • Mechanically, Diana is the most powerful swordsman in the game, but in story terms she's a minor character who's only of importance because she's one of Rich's many women (and the one who he manages to knock up), and her ability as a fighter is only brought up in the context of Rich teaching her to sword-fight.
  • Gender Equals Breed: Cordelia (called Cody by Wil) is Wil's initial love interest and the mother of Wil's son, Rich. Depending on the player's choice, though, Cordelia can die, leaving Wil to marry Labelle instead. However, despite obviously not being Cordelia, Labelle still gives birth to the exact same son. This is probably done to avoid complicated story and game mechanics.
  • Generational Saga: The tale follows three generations of the Knights family, and two generations of the Finney and Jade families (along with other nobility). Some third-generation characters from the Gustave storyline make it into the Knights storyline, though not vice versa (at least publically).
  • Government Conspiracy: The ties between the two stories are tenuous, and most of the lords don't have a clue what's really going on behind the scenes. Their senior advisers, however, do; they're the ones providing most of the support for the Knights heroes in the later part of the game.
  • Gray-and-Grey Morality: The wars between the aristocrats are fought for perfectly good political reasons. Eventually, it leads to a The Good, the Bad, and the Evil situation: The Egg is an Eldritch Abomination Artifact of Doom. When it gets involved in the wars, the other nobles form a worldwide alliance to defeat the Fake Gustave's army.
  • Guide Dang It!: Good luck finding the best items and/or unlocking the best abilities without a walkthrough:
    • Some items are very well hidden, and unless you happen to check the environment closely, you will never grab them in a normal playthrough. A notorious example is the trunk of a tree inside a tower while leading Eleanor's party: if you examine it, you will launch a boss battle, which will grant you a powerful Tree Quell at the end. The problem is that there isn't anything out of the ordinary with that trunk, and players will probably never try to press X on it. Same could be said about an another tree while leading Ginny's party. And let's not talk about the hidden Beast Lance inside the frozen Megalith, hidden by rooms of teleports which all look exactly the same...
    • Others are rare item drops, including from bosses!
    • It's almost impossible to unlock the Hybrid Arts without a guide, since it requires you to use both weapon and spell commands in the right order in a duel: it's the only way to unlock them, and players won't mix up these commands in duels, since they will prefer to use the right combinations of commands in order to unleash Arts, and absolutely no Arts beside the Hybrid ones require the player to mix both Weapon and Spell commands. Heck, you could do the entire game without ever knowing that they exist, if not for the "Tornado Blade" Art, gifted to you by Johan (which, ironically, is the only Hybrid Art which you can't unlock or use in duels).
    • Martial Arts do more damage when your WP is low and all spells do more damage when SP is low. This means that a large number of players try spells at full SP, see their poor damage, and dismiss them entirely, focusing on weapons instead. Or, alternatively, they use the dozen Ark Stones the game gives you just before boss fighters, making their mages or martial artists comparatively useless.
  • Headbutting Heroes: Gustave and Kelvin's relationship during their youth. Gustave can't stand Kelvin's stuck up act, while Kelvin only views Gustave as a problem child. They eventually grow out of this and learn to respect eachother.
  • Heroic Bastard: Downplayed. Ginny Knights is technically illegitimate, as Rich and Diana were never married (Diana was just the girl Rich happened to get pregnant). However, Diana moves to Wide to live with Wil and his wife, and Ginny is treated as a full member of the family; the fact that her parents were never married is simply ignored.
  • Heroic RRoD: The lower your weapon or spell points are, the stronger your weapon skills and spells will get. However, if you happen to not have enough points to use a skill/spell, you will need to sacrifice Life Points, which will slowly but certainly lead to your characters's death.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: There are numerous occasions where one character will sacrify his life in order to save others:
    • The first example is without a doubt aunt Nina, who sacrifies herself in order to kill 2 dragons and revive her fallen nephew and companions.
    • Rich Knights, Wil's son, throws himself into a chasm in a Megalith clutching the Egg so that it can't harm others; of course the Egg comes back anyway.
    • Johan, ex-assassin, sacrifies his life in order to protect Gustave XIII, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to survive, since he's slowly dying from poison anyway.
    • Cordelia, if you happen to use her in a specefic scenario.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: The Scorpion Assassin's Guild actually relies on this; to quote Johan, "people will look for things they can't see", when the aforementioned assassins use Anima to an effect not unlike a Somebody Else's Problem Field.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Several:
    • The fight against the two dragons controlled by Alexei: the fight is unwinnable. Once the dragons beat the crap out of you, Nina will execute an Heroic Sacrifice and dispose of the dragons for you, on top of healing all of your party members back to their feets. However, if you happen to not take her into your team, keeping her in the sub-party, you will suffer a Game Over.
    • The fight against the bandits in the city of night, if you happen to have chosen Cordelia for the investigation. Even if you manage to beat them, new groups of bandits will show up and a new battle will take place, until Cordelia is finally defeated. This will lead to her death.
    • The "Tycoon Wil" scenario in which your only recourse is to survive long enough to run away from the Megalith Monster each time until you can trigger a cutscene.
    • Johan's last stand.
  • Hope Spot: Kelvin's victory at Salisbury shows everyone in Sandail that he's still got what it takes, but it's not enough to stop his alliance from breaking apart and the wars from starting up again.
  • Improbable Hairstyle: One can only wonder how much hair gel Gustaf needs in order to shape his hair into shapes evocative of ram's horns.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Gustave goes looking for a way to discredit General Nebelstern in one scenario to weaken Wide's defenses. He fails; there isn't even a whisper of anything Gustave can use against him. However, this trait still works against the General: Gustave discredits one of Nebelstern's friends instead, on very flimsy grounds, and Nebelstern resigns in protest.
  • Infinity -1 Sword: Gustave's sword. Gustaf inherits Gustave's sword and Firebrand, an another Infinity -1 Sword (though this sword is less powerful than Gustave's sword, so Firebrand is in fact utterly useless to Gustaf, except for providing Fire Anima and balancing the negative effects of having a steel weapon equiped, since Firebrand remains a very powerful Quell, the only weapon actually to provide a bonus of +2 to SP Regen, which cancels the -2 SP Regen Malus of Gustave's sword). Actually, with his two weapons slots occupied, Gustaf can't equip the Infinity +1 Sword of the game, or any other weapons for that matter, which prevents him, an already very powerful character in his own right, from achieving Game-Breaker status.invoked
  • Infinity +1 Sword: Cinderforge Sword and Seven-Star Blade (that last one requires the use of the Pocket Station in order to obtain it).
  • In Harm's Way: Gustave XIII easily gets bored with ruling after conquering half the world, which is why he keeps going out adventuring and kicking ass.
  • It's All My Fault: Wil laments this if he assigned Cordelia to the solo mission in 'Inflitrate! Alexei Gang', which inadvertently leads to her death.
  • Jerkass: Charles, Kelvin's son, is unabashedly an haughty and despicable person with little care for others. It is a miracle that his own son, David, turned into a wise and kind ruler, as those two couldn't be more opposite.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Narcisse. While he is an arrogant prick, he feels enough concern for Wil to accompany him partway on his last expedition. He remains a friend of the Knights afterwards, becoming a teaching figure for Rich.
  • Killed Off for Real: With the game taking place over 3 generations, some characters are fated to expire from old age, or illness, such as Narcisse and Kelvin. But not all of them will survive that long: Aunt Nina, potentially Cordelia, the other Wil, Johan and Gustave all bite the dust in rather dramatic circumstances.
  • Lamarck Was Right: Ginny inherited her grandfather's mastery of the wand and of the tree, water, rock and flame anima and her father's mastery of the sword. And she must thanks her mother for her impressive Weapon Points regeneration of 4 (by the way, her mother had a regeneration of 5).
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted. Early on, magic spells will deal much more damage than weapon arts. However, once you learn powerful weapon arts and have access to much more potent weapons, your warriors will out-damage your wizards, even more so if their weapon of choice mastery reaches an high level. It is very easy to transform a physical attacker into a killing machine by giving them a powerful weapon, good weapon arts and buffing their damage with the Berserk spell.
  • Logical Weakness: The Scorpion Assassins' ability allows them to hide by blending in with other people's Anima. Gustave can't sense Anima at all, so he can see Johan just fine.
  • Long Song, Short Scene:
    • One of the most notable example is without a doubt Interludium, a song which is played only once in the entire game, during Ginny's birth. The scene in question only consists of 5 or 6 dialogue boxes, which take roughly 10 seconds or so to read, before cutting out to the scenario map, ending a 3:31 song abruptly.
    • Rosenkranz, which can only be heard after you defeat the final boss (if you ever manage to defeat it). The player will only hear about 30 seconds of the whole thing (1:56), before the song is cut for narrating reasons. Please note that this song had a Piano version (for the Piano Collection Album : Rhapsody on a theme of SaGa Frontier 2), under the name "β 1", which is magistral.
    • The Freudenbezeigung (I, II, III and IV) songs are almost never heard in their entirety by the players: these are the battle ending songs, and in cases you don't level-up anything, the players will only hear the 4 first seconds before the game skip to exploration mode. Even if you happen to level-up some characteristics, it's very easy to glance through these, and to end the battle. Unless players stop intentionally to hear the full rendition of the songs, most won't discover what lie after the first seconds.
  • Lost Technology: Quells are lost relics of the Monolith-building civilization. In the modern era, only Wil Knights ever creates a new Quell, and that only happens once.
  • Master Swordsman: Gustave is the most famous one, but anyone specializing in Sword-based Weapon Arts can also fit the bill. Diana is potentially the strongest swordswoman in the game, but she never takes part in any major fights.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: Anima cannot be channeled through metal, so most weapons are made of materials that can channel it, such as wood or rock. Since he can't use Anima anyway, Gustave forges a metal blade for himself, and it becomes his trademark.
  • Magic Knight:
    • Most fighters are trained in using both Spell Arts and Weapon Arts, to a greater or lesser extent. The biggest exceptions are steel warriors, who go all-in on Weapon Arts (and completely overmatch magic users).
    • Gustaf is pretty much guaranteed to be this, as the wielder of both Firebrand (the ultimate Fire Quell) and Gustave's Sword (the most powerful steel weapon). He also can use all 6 types or anima with ease, something only a few others characters could achieve: Rich Knights, Cielmer, Ventarbre and Johan.
    • Rich Knights and Johan are similar to Gustaf in that they are swordsmen first and foremost, but have a natural gift for all six anima types, something that even specialized wizards normally lack.
  • Magic Music: Through the Tone Anima, spellcasters can use sound to protect allies or harm foes. Cordelia in particular has an innate affinity with the Tone Anima and can learn Tone spells easily.
  • Magikarp Power: Diana. She starts out with no skills or abilities to speak of, but has a Weapon Point regeneration of 5. If you grind with her (which is somewhat pointless, as she's only in your party for one adventure), she has the potential to become the ultimate steel warrior.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Invoked. The Marquis Cantal of Otto is referred to as "the Mephistophelian hero" for his ruthless cunning.
  • Marathon Boss: The final boss of the game, The Egg, and the whole last dungeon. The final boss doesn't have a lot of HP (~60 000), but is empowered by his henchmen, the Anima Masters, which grants him special powers (such as healing or an OHKO move that can turn everyone to stone) and extra HP (which can more than double his initial HP) if you didn't defeat them earlier in the very last dungeon. The catch? They are skippable, in a dungeon where you can't go back to fight them once they have been skipped (something a player can't possibly guess before reaching the final boss). Only 4 of them can be challenged to a fight (technically, all 6 can be fought, but at the cost of having only 2 remaining party members for the final boss, something which isn't recommended), and among them are Duel Boss, which lead to the loss of the character who stay behind, in what seems to be Heroic Sacrifice. On top of that, your party grows weaker and weaker after each fight, losing Mana Points which are difficult to resplenish if you don't have in your inventory the correct items (which are useless for 99% of the game: you may have tossed them because of inventory limits, and you can't use them during a battle) which can lead them to be forced to use their own life force in order to continue on fighting. True, your characters do more damage the lower ManaPoints they have, but doing so will kill them once they run of Life Points (LPs). Now, take into account that unless you are Crazy-Prepared, you probably won't do more than 2000 damages to the final boss per turn, and that this boss loves to depletes your characters of their LPs. Oh, and your main character only have 14 LPs, which means that unless you looted from one of the final boss's henchmen one of the only two items of the game which prevents you from losing LPs when taking a hit, you'll hit a game over once she runs out of these (mind you, all others characters may die in battle, you won't get a game over). So, basically, you're stuck in a very long battle, where you must take down the final boss before it takes you down, and in which some party members may die permanently if they run out of LPs.
  • Master of All: Ginny Knights, in theory; she is a preeminent master of both Anima arts (like her grandfather), and the sword (like her parents). She can be developed into a spellcaster, a Magic Knight, or even a Steel if you so choose, and she'll usually outmatch dedicated practitioners of any of these.
  • Men Get Old, Women Get Replaced: Wil Knights is a digger to the end. His wife, whoever she may be? Doesn't get any lines after she's Demoted to Satellite Love Interest. Likewise, Diana retires from adventuring to become a full-time mother after Rich dies.
  • Muggles Do It Better: Steel beats magic.
  • Never a Self-Made Woman: While Ginny Knights is the party leader to the end, it's clear that this is because she's the descendant of Tycoon Wil.
  • Never Found the Body: Gustave XIII.
  • New Game Plus: Once you complete the game, you can start a new save file in which you can keep every single weapon art and spell you learned, and you will have full access to every scenario/mission of the game right off the bat, allowing you to play the game without having to follow the planned timeline. You also gain access to a unique scenario which immediately starts the final battle against the Egg (although it is not recommended that you do so, as the Egg will be at full power, and unless you managed Ginny's team beforehand you will start the battle with only Ginny and Wil, the latter being severely underpowered without a playthrough worth of level-ups).
  • Nintendo Hard: Partly because of the Guide Dang It! nature of some elements of the game, the game itself can be very difficult and unforgiving. The last dungeon has a huge difficulty spike, and most players won't be prepared enough to fight against the final boss. This can lead to an Unintentionally Unwinnable situation.
  • No MacGuffin, No Winner: The Succession Crisis is resolved with the peaceful dissolution of Gustave's empire and the independence of Hahn Nova.
  • No-Sell: Gustave is immune to the Assassin's anima-based invisibility because he has none to manipulate.
  • Non-Indicative Name: His name is Narcisse and he's... not at all narcissistic.
  • Non-Standard Skill Learning: You can enter one-on-one battle mode and enter your commands manually (i.e. "Slash + Backslash = Cross Slash", rather than selecting the "Cross Slash" skill from your menu), triggering new skills that way.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted, there are multiple Gustaves and Philippes, and even two Williams!
  • One-Time Dungeon: Most places can only be visited once. While it is possible to come back to a few dungeons for story reasons and explore a few selected areas to your own leisure after completing a scenario, most won't be accessible after you complete the mission in which they take place.
  • Our Souls Are Different: Anima is viewed as a manifestation of the user's soul; thus, those who cannot visibly summon said energy are seen as hopelessly crippled spiritually, to the point where the very existence of their soul is questioned by the ignorant. It is a common occurrence for the Anima to visibly depart after someone dies. Gustave's Anima eventually releases years after his death.
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling:
    • In Wil's first scenario, inside the Ruins of Hahn, you can fight Land Urchins in the room in which you can pick the Pocket Dragon quell. Compared to other monsters in the area, they are not too strong nor too weak, and you can easily spark good weapon arts against them (their Skill Level is 23, a rather high level considering they are available in Wil's first scenario, making them ideal to spark new arts). You can also fight them in a duel for an easier time unlocking arts and spells. They also have good drops, such as the Green Glass (Fire-Tree tool which comes with the Recovery Breath spell) and the Dew axe (Axe tool with an attack power of 19, making it one of the most powerful weapon you can gain access early-on).
    • Weissland. Your party can easily train against decently leveled monsters, there is an inn nearby, access to common tools, and you can choose to fight the Megalith Beast whenever you want in order to try to spark new weapon arts. Once you have access to Ginny's party, a quick trip to Weissland is highly recommended to level-up everyone before going after the final boss.
  • Permanently Missable Content: It is advised to always look for items in every nook and cranny in each scenario, as more often than not you will not be able to come back to previously visited places.
  • Playing with Fire: Every character (except Gustave) can use fire anima, but some of them stand out, thanks to their high fire affinity and spells they join with. Such characters are Narcisse and Eleanor. Eleanor stands out the most, thanks to her very high fire affinity (20, which is, by the game standarts, an insanely high starting affinity).
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: King Gustave XIII and General Nebelstern.
  • Red Shirt: Your generic units in the game's war battles. The fact that the other William uses this same sprite gives an early warning to his fate...
  • Resignations Not Accepted: The entire assassin's group Johan belongs to is engraved with a magical tattoo that would slowly poison them to death should they attempt to forsake the organization. Johan has one last stand attempting to keep monsters at bay while said poison is chipping away at his life points each turn.
  • Retired Badass: Most of the surviving previous-generation heroes in the second and third generation.
  • Rightful King Returns: The fake Gustave tries to play this trope to give him a foot in the door of the ongoing Succession Crisis, pretending to be an illegitimate grandson of Gustave. The actual heir to the Gustave family never claims the throne.
  • Rite of Passage: The Flame Ceremony. Gustave being unable to complete it kicks off his plot.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Philippe II is assassinated during his Firebrand ceremony, his father grabs the Firebrand in an attempt to use it on his son's murderers, and is transformed into a giant red dragon.
  • Shout-Out: The Knights Family is a multi-generational family that fights a sinister artifact that occasionally manifests as a blonde guy? The patriarch has a climactic battle against the entity on a boat? It’s very similar to Jojos Bizarre Adventure.
  • Sinister Scimitar: Rich Knights' starting weapon is a Fossil Sword, whose in-game sprite is a scimitar. Official artwork depicts him with one too.
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Averted, as you can trade inventory between parties, even ones that are not active for the present scenario (although you can only do it during some limited occasions); you can even equip abilities that other parties have learned.
  • Spell Blade: Ubiquitous. A majority of non-steel weapons can have their basic attack enhanced by imbuing them with magical power even if you don't specifically equip the character with weapon-appropriate Hybrid Arts, though the element of this power depends on the weapon. Gustave is the only playable character who is incapable of doing this, due to his Un-Sorcerer status.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Narsus/Narcisse, Tylor/Tyler, Labelle/Lavelle, Meteor/Methya, Vantarber/Ventarbre, Flin/Flyn/Flynn. Gustaf in Ginny's era is an odd example since he's really Gustave XV - Marie and Kelvin's grandson, thus Gustave XIII's great-nephew.
  • Spider-Sense: Wil Knights is pretty good at guessing when something might go wrong. Twice, when he worked in a mine, he had an ominous feeling and guessed accurately that something wrong was going to happen (even lampshaded by a NPC, who said "Again ?!" during the second occasion). Also, Wil and all his descendants are able to feel the presence of the Egg.
  • Stuck Items: Gustave's sword is unequippable. Same thing for both weapon slots of Gustaf, which prevents him to use any other weapons other than swords (which makes his spear affinity completly useless...).
  • Succession Crisis: Three of them. The first occurs when Gustave XII dies, and Gustave XIII returns to Finney to overthrow his younger brother and claim the throne. The second happens when Gustave dies without an heir, leading to a period of global warfare. The third happens when Cantal dies; this one isn't a crisis because there's no heir, but because there's too many heirs, and the division of Otto wrecks the kingdom.
  • Superboss: The Lich is a powerful foe accompanied by two High Disciples, and can only be found in the Laubholz Ghoul Tower. Upon death, it leaves behind the Cinderforge Sword
  • Supporting Leader: Gustave to Wil, though he's the hero of his own story as well. David, Count of Jade, to Ginny.
  • Taking You with Me: Rich again. Johan also tries to take as many monsters with him as possible as he is slowly dying from poison.
  • Tangled Family Tree: You need the artbooks to get the full picture of the Finney and Jade royal houses. Philippe of Jade is not Leslie's son, either by Kelvin or Gustave. He's actually the son of Kelvin and Marie, making him the heir to Finney as Gustave's nephew. Cantal of Otto also qualifies, having over eighty children by various wives and mistresses.
  • Technophobia: The majority of the characters, except Gustav and his army who use it and Iron Armour to make up for their lack of magic.
  • Tech Tree: The more awesome skills (and magic) are learned from other skills or a combination of abilities during one-on-one combat. You can also occasionally spark / learn new skills during regular combat, but you have to be pretty lucky. And then you have the Hybrid Arts...
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: Gustave's story and Wil's story are mostly separate, though Wil later receives backing from the senior advisers of the Gustave faction to go after the Egg. Gustave himself also takes the field alongside Wil's allies at one point.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: In both Gustave and Will's scenarios, you often end up playing a completely different party.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: Players can end up so unprepared in the final dungeon that they risk not being able to defeat the final boss at all (and that's assuming they are able to defeat the Anima Lords before him), since once you begin the scenarios leading to the final dungeon, you can't go back to the world map, preventing you from accessing shops, inns, and opportunities to level up. Indeed, leveling up inside the final dungeon can be almost impossible if your characters are too weak, since some monsters can one-shot your characters with ease (even with good equipment), and others can take a long time to kill. In fact, it's highly recommended to only fight the bosses, since fighting normal monsters saps your party's strength (you need a fully healed party in order to face some bosses without too much risk), and some of their attacks can diminish your Life Points (which are different from Health Points), a resource that you can't restore in the final dungeon: using 1 Life Point restores all of your character's Health Points, but if a character reaches 0 Life Points, he will be considered dead, which means he can't be resurrected, and if your main character happens to reach 0 Life Points, it's Game Over (please note that your main character has the lowest amount of Life Points of your whole party). So, unless you have a save allowing you to go back and train your party before heading out to the final dungeon, you will have no choice but to restart the entire game.
  • Un-Sorcerer: Gustave XIII has no Anima and is exiled from his home kingdom because of it. However, this has a serious upside - most people don't use steel weapons and armor because metal can't conduct Anima; instead, they use wood and stone. Since Gustave doesn't have Anima, he can use steel without any drawbacks.
  • Warrior Prince: Gustave XIII, Charles of Jade, Philippe III, and Gustaf.
  • Weak, but Skilled: Gustave XIII, sort of. He can't use Anima, so instead he masters the use of steel weapons. Subverted in that, really, a Steel Soldier is usually far stronger than an Anima user, particularly when using Weapon Arts.
  • Wham Episode: The death of Gustave XIII.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Many characters, even plot-important playable ones, just disappear into the background. In particular, Tyler, Patrick, Raymond and Eleanor just fade away after their time in the digging business is over. One could assume that they retired (and Tyler, and possibly Patrick and Raymond, died of old age), but this doesn't get nearly as much focus as Narcisse's retirement, and the latter becomes a quest-giver in his elder years.
  • The Wise Prince: Count David of Jade, the great peacemaker.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Stage one of prolonged contact with the Egg. Stage two is usually transformation into a mindless monster.
  • Won the War, Lost the Peace: Kelvin manages to outlast Cantal and claim Hahn Nova for himself, but two years after his victory, his alliance starts crumbling. Kelvin defeats the first rebellion on the battlefield, but it doesn't stop other lords from breaking out of the alliance, leading to a period of global war.
  • Worthy Opponent: Cantal to Gustave XII, and later to Kelvin.
  • Younger Than They Look:
    • Roberto could easily be mistaken for an old, experienced adventurer, considering his in-game sprite with grey colored hair. In fact, he is not even in his thirties, being 27 years old when he joins your party, making him only slightly older than his companion Gustaf, who is 25.
    • Sargon, for the same reason as Roberto: his natural hair color is grey, as evidenced when he briefly joins Rich's party along Eleanor at the tender age of 15.
  • You Shall Not Pass!:
    • The hardest war battle in the game is surviving for eight turns against steel troops with an army full of Red Shirts. In Wil's scenario, you find out that Gustaf eventually showed up to reinforce your side, but you never get to use him as a unit in that particular battle.
    • Inverted: One of the early boss battles in Wil's scenarios is a group of slimes attempting to stop him from charging into the breach where they're infiltrating a mine (the battle ends instantly if you can get a party member past them).
    • Also, Johan the Assassin's last stand. He plants himself in front of the room Gustave is in and single-handedly holds off an entire army before succumbing to the deadly poison he was infected with.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Johan is slowly dying from a poison inflicted by his former fellow assassins.
  • Zerg Rush: Gustave's death is implicitly this, with him and Johan being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

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