Priel Aylin is a dragonkin Vanguard whose whimsical personality and talents cause her to chafe with her peers and her sister, Perrine. The Aylin sisters manage to put aside their differences long enough to win a local tournament, only to discover that their rivals are the Relic thieves and that their old friend is working with the villains. The sisters and their childhood friend, Relima, have to work together to stop the thieves from taking another Relic and convince their friend to rejoin them.
Promise has a Steam page
and an itch.io page.
This game contains examples of:
- Adaptational Badass:
- Double subverted with the playable characters. The old free version of the game had no levels, meaning all characters have their skills from the start. In the commercial version, characters have to level up to learn all their skills, but they'll eventually gain EX Limits, putting them above their previous incarnations.
- In the free version, Forneus is just a standard boss with no unique mechanics. In the commercial version, Forneus will activate a barrier at low health and summon two minions to maintain the barrier.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The second-tier EX Arts cost 40 EX vs the first-tier at 25 EX, but they still only increase the Limit Index by 1, making them less EX-efficient when it comes to unleashing EX Limits.
- Block Puzzle: Subverted. In Icefall Labyrinth, the party enters a room full of ice blocks. Priel and Relima think they need to get through by pushing the ice blocks in a specific way, but Priel just melts the blocks.
- Disc-One Nuke: An update added the Master Core, Transcendence, to the Garenian Sewers. This MC gives balanced stat increases and is nearly as powerful as the starting MCs in their strongest stats, making it very useful in the first part of the game.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Isole, the ice harpy chief, despises all other races to the point where she attacks Perrine despite the latter healing her.
- Many of Priel's resenters bitterly claim that her dragonkin heritage gives her an unfair advantage.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Priel is a strong and slow physical fighter who focuses on single-target damage, Perrine is a fragile but magically inclined fighter who is the best at dealing group damage, and Relima is a speedster who is less powerful than the other two offensively while having better support skills.
- Final Boss: Forneus, a giant serpent, is the last story boss. Unlike most examples, it's not the Big Bad, but it is a significant enemy to the party due to them being affected by an incident where Priel and Perrine's father got injured protecting them from the beast.
- Guest Fighter: Reize, Lily, and Ivo are the main characters of Star Chaser Story, who make appearances in this game. Reize also appears in other games such as Shovel Knight and Valdis Story: Abyssal City.
- Guide Dangit: Some of the final sidequests in Garenia won't show up unless you talk to people other than the quest holder or unless you talk to the quest holder several times.
- Hard Mode Perks: Nightmare mode will multiply EXP gain by 1.5, allowing characters to level up and learn skills faster. However, enemies give less EXP to higher-leveled party members, making this perk less impressive than it sounds.
- Infinity -1 Sword: The Scion Custom I and the weaker Grand Elemental gems can be obtained without a fight in the final segment. These gems can boost all stats, but are all weaker than Grand Elemental V.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The reward for beating an unnamed shadowy version of Isole in Icefall Labyrinth is Grand Elemental V, an ether gem that boosts all stats.
- Limit Break: Exceed Limits are learned at level 15, and require the Limit Index to be filled before they can be chained from EX Arts. The Limit Index is filled when an EX Art is used.
- No Name Given: There is no indication of what each enemy's name is outside of story-related ones.
- Non-Malicious Monster: Forneus seems to have no other goal than attacking anyone who goes too deep into its lair in Icefall Cavern.
- Permanently Missable Content: Not only are all quests timed, the Fimbulvetir Forest dungeon cannot be revisited, meaning any enemies or items there are lost forever. Averted for Garenia Sewers, which actually have weaker Grand Elemental gems for those who revisit after the tournament and after the forest boss.
- Sequel Hook: The game ends with Balcruade and Zuleika on the run, which means the protagonists will have to stop their thievery in a future installment. The Stinger reveals that Relima is a Prophet and that she'll have a major role in shaping the world's future.
- Songs in the Key of Lock: The harpies in Fimbulvetir Forest set up doors that can only be opened by musical plants to play a specific sequence of notes. The forest also contains an underground ruin where the player has to go through the exits of a looping room in a specific order based on the notes that are made upon passing through.
- The Stinger: If the player manages to complete all the sidequests, they'll get an additional scene where Razhell, Aurelius, and Fiamme reveal that Relima is a Prophet.
- Super Move Portrait Attack: In older versions of Promise, EX Arts were accompanied by a cut-in image of the user. In the current version, only Exceed Limits have cut-in images due to these skills surpassing EX Arts.
- Superboss: After talking to Razhell and solving the final puzzle of Icefall Labyrinth, the player can fight a shadowy version of Isole.
- Video Game Remake: The commercial version is an improved version of the free one, with new mechanics and two new dungeons and bosses before Icefall Labyrinth.
