Video Game / Sudeki

Sudeki is a Role-Playing Game by the Climax Group, made for the Xbox in 2004 and ported to the PC in 2005. Oddly, despite being made by Western game designers, is basically an Animesque Eastern RPG experience.

The plot is fairly simple. There are two worlds, one of Light, and one of Shadow. During the game, the worlds suffer a calamity and everything goes pear shaped as a result, and you and your party have to fix it.

The game itself was notable for being one of the few Eastern RPG-like games on the Xbox, and even though the Xbox version was released in the United States, the PC port never saw a US release, but due to PC games not being region locked and the fact it has an English dub, it is perfectly importable.

The game was released on Steam in 2014, and also on GOG (but has been removed from sale it seems).

This game provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Arlo is very emotionally abusive to Tal, outside of his duties as his son's commanding officer (and is apparently an alcoholic as well).
• Absurdly High Level Cap: Everyone in the game caps at Level 30. However, due to the way the game is set, the characters will be somewhere in the low 20s before you fight the final boss, not that most of these matter. It doesn't help that each level after 17th requires 5000XP to level up, for a total of 65k (22 is the midway point to 30). For comparision, the best yielding regular monster gives out 350XP per kill and the final boss gives 9999XP.
• Action Girl: Buki and Ailish.
• Adopted into Royalty: Although not revealed in the game, journals imply that Ailish isn't really Queen Lusica's daughter and was snatched from her biological family by Talos because of the emergence of her magic and Lusica wanted that kind of power under close watch.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Krenn system in Transentia. Elco pointed out he warned that something like this would happen.
• Animesque: Very. It's basically a Western game drawn in Japanese RPG style.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Elco really couldn't believe that supernatural powers were at play, even as he received Tetsu's blessing. This is the reason why he receives his blessing so late (after he and Tal rescued Ailish and Buki at Cyantine, which completes 3/4 of the main plot). Compare him to the more spiritual Buki who receives her blessing at Transentia and arguably Ailish, who received her second blessing before any of the other characters.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • Elco has had his entire left arm replaced with an artificial one after he lost it at some point prior to the game.
  • Lord Talos has had his right hand replaced with an artificial replacement, while his left hand was replaced with a Sinister Scythe blade.
• Badass Finger Snap: Ailish can open chests and smash breakable stuff this way.
• Beast Man: All anthropomorphs resemble humanoid animals to varying degrees. While some are basically just creatures like bulls or rabbits walking on two legs, others, like Buki, look mostly human apart from a few skin markings, claws instead of fingernails/toenails, and slit pupils.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Lord Talos has a Sinister Scythe in place of his left hand.
• Cain and Abel: Talos is the Cain to Kazel's Abel. This is a stark contrast of their lights counterparts, Tal's brother and Tal respectively, which implied in the dialogue that both have a good relationship.
• Cat Girl: Buki and her dark counterpart Nico. Compared to other anthropomorphs in the game they are really quite a mild case, with only their eyes, fangs around their hands and feet and tiger markings on their skin to indicate that they aren't human.
• Chaste Hero: Tal, especially in response to Ailish; he gets very nervous when she gets flirty. He also seems to be nervous when women get inside his personal space in general, as best demonstrated at the beginning of the game when Buki gets a little close for comfort. Later however, when he has to go to Transentia with Elco (and not knowing Ailish and Buki have preceded them there), he expresses appreciation for some female company, which may be a sign of him mellowing.
• Collection Sidequest: Many throughout the game. Most simply reward you with money or rare items, but the totem quests will ultimately net you the four strongest weapons in the game. In a couple of cases, you have to complete one of these sidequests in order to get a totem, making it a quest within a quest.
• Cosmic Deadline: The game appears to have run short of time and money for development at some point, because after meeting the Shadow Party, it rushes to the final chapters without fleshing each of the Shadow Party out as opposed to their counterparts, to the point Elco gets his second upgrade just before the final battles. Even the ending itself is very rushed.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Aklorian inhabitants, especially the Shadow Party (Kazel, Alexine, Nico and Cafu). The Aklorian soldiers you fight are revealed to be renegades in their own realm, driven desperate if not outright mad by the loss of the light. One character, however, plays this straight: Talos, the counterpart of Tal's brother. And the latter was killed by him, as Talos (now host of Heigou) reveals to Tal before the Final Battle.
• Deadpan Snarker: Elco starts off as a bit of a nervous, Absent-Minded Professor, but the more insane the plot becomes, the snarkier he gets.
  Elco: This is my care face.
• Degraded Boss: The first boss in the game appears in Aklorian Stronghold as regular enemy.
• Distressed Dude: Zig-Zagged. Tal and Elco fall prey to the chanting of a siren, and it's up to Ailish and Buki to save them. Just after the girls have killed the siren, however, they are captured by the Shadow Party and the guys go to their rescue.
• The Dragon: Lord Talos for Queen Lusica, but he kills her after becoming Heigou's host.
• Dub Name Change: When the game was released in Japan, some characters' names are changed. In particular: Tal becomes Nash, Ailish becomes Shalish and Buki becomes Lini. The angelic figure Tetsu is renamed Odin, while the demonic figure Heigou is renamed Heimdall.
• Duel Boss: All four Main Characters encounter at least one boss that they must defeat without help from any of the other three. The Final Boss is one of them, being fought by Tal alone. In fact, the only boss battle that is fought by all four characters is Farex Lore in the Realm of Shadows.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: General Arlo, who also happens to be Tal's father.
• Escort Mission:
  • During the penultimate part of the story, Elco must go solo and escort Tilly, his wife, back to her home in Brightwater before going back to Akloria to reunite with the group. While she is not immortal, she has much more HP than Elco and can actually take quite the beating, despite not being able to fight back. But like any escort missions, failing to protect Tilly will result in Non-Standard Game Over.
  • Inverted just before Elco's own escort mission when Lord Talos comes to the Cyantine Citadel to escort Elco back to Illumina Castle.
• Evil Costume Switch: Inverted. Comparing Alexine to Ailish's (initial) costume, the "evil" one is more conservative.
• Evil Counterpart: Subverted. The Shadow Party members are not evil, they simply seek to restore the light that has gone missing in Akloria and will happily make a show of diplomacy with Haskilia by talking with their counterparts. It is played straight by Talos, the dark counterpart of Tal's brother. He even killed his counterpart in order to avoid fulfilling the prophecy by raising another descendant of Kariston and is heavily implied that he will kill his own brother, Kazel, or his younger brother's light counterpart, Tal. Or better yet, everyone.
• Eyepatch of Power: Worn by General Arlo.
• Fantastic Racism: Many of the citizens of Illumina are insulting and distrustful of the anthropomorphs of Shadani-Mo, forcing refugees of their war to camp outside Brightwater rather than give them shelter in the town itself. Even Queen Lusica can barely hide her disdain, acidly referring to Buki as "that animal".
• Fartillery: An early boss uses his farts as a weapon, which not only do damage but also poison you.
• Fire-Forged Friends: All four of them, but particular attention is given to the developing Odd Friendship between Ailish and Buki, polar opposites who come to respect one another after serving in battle together.
• First-Person Shooter: When playing as Ailish or Elco in combat mode.
• Foil: Three out of four pairs between the Haskilian and Aklorian counterparts have blatant differences despite their similarities:
  • Tal and Kazel: Both are descendants of Kariston, the unofficial leaders of their respective groups, have swords as their weapon and being fancied by the resident magic user of their respective groups. However, Tal is a calm redhead while Kazel is hot-tempered white-haired man. Tal holds a low position at Haskilian army, while Kazel is the head captain of Cyantine forces. Their relationships with their older brothers are vastly different as well, with Tal and his brother implied to have a good relationship while Kazel and Talos are implied to have strained relationship due to Talos' treachery and treason to Akloria. On the flipside, Tal has bad relations with his father Arlo, while Kazel and his father Carlos are shown to be good.
  • Ailish and Alexine: Both are descendants of Olivetess, are certified Rebellious Princess (while Alexine is only a daughter of a wealthy and influential family, Ailish is literally a princess) and utilize magic to help their allies and inflict damage to their enemies. But while Ailish is Ms. Fanservice, Alexine is more conservative. Their appearance extends as well, with Ailish possesses blue hair and slightly tanned skin, Alexine possesses black hair and pale skin. Their relationship with the queen regnants of Haskilia and Cyantine are different: Ailish and Lusica have distant relationship and her mother forbids her to go outside the kingdom, and while Alexine and Caprine aren't family, Caprine shows respect towards Alexine as a person and allows her to take part of the kingdom's operations.
  • Elco and Cafu: Both are descendants of Lebius, Gadgeeter Genius, but their ideologies are vastly different with Elco being realistic and grounded by facts, while Cafu is more idealistic and is more willing to entertain abstract ideas. Elco is more in science, while Cafu is more inclined in art. While Elco struggles to show his emotions, Cafu has no problems wearing his heart on his sleeve.
• Fusion Dance: Done prior to the final battle, with every one of the heroes merging with their Aklorian counterparts.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Two in the pulling puzzle in Aklorian Stronghold. Nico's pathing may get buggy and get you stuck as the script never ends. The second one causes Tal to freeze in a cutscene upon finishing the puzzle if there's a block in the first gap.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In cutscenes, Elco is able to use his jetpack at will, scale great heights and even carry passengers. In actual gameplay, he can only fly when he has charged his jetpack with golden crystals, and he can only fly horizontally, not vertically.
• Gibbering Genius: Elco, lampshaded by Ailish.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Three of them, in fact. Kazel, Alexine and Nico, who are Tal, Ailish and Buki's respective Aklorian counterparts join your party into eradicating the renegade Aklorian faction who was responsible for the attacks at Haskilia during the early stages of the game.
  • A straighter example is Lord Talos, aka the eventual Final Boss, accompanying Elco back from Akloria to Haskilia. He has maxed out stats, but cannot be controlled directly.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Queen Lusica wanted to summon the demon Heigou to make her immortal, allowing her to rule forever. This stems from the fact that she lost her parents in such young age that left her embittered and developed her fear towards death.
• Good Morning, Crono: This crossed with Sleepyhead is how the game starts.
• Gratuitous Japanese:
  • The mistranslated title was going to be "Suteki", which means "excellent", according to the official developers.
  • Buki, in Japanese, simply means "weapon".
• Happily Married: Elco and Tilly.
• Heroic Lineage: The four playable characters are descended from Tetsu's champions, with Tal being descended from Kariston the Wolf, Ailish being descended from Olivitess the Eagle, Buki descended from Mo the Great Cat and Elco being descended from Lebius the Dragon.
• HP to One: When the Final Boss is nearly dead, he will inflict this on Tal with an Unblockable Attack.
• Hypocritical Humor: Before launching their mission to rescue Ailish and Buki from Cyantine Citadel, Tal warns Elco against doing anything "clever", while Elco pleads with Tal not to do anything "stupid". Tal immediately frees the girls by striking his sword against their chains, echoing so loudly that it calls every guard in the area over to them. Elco is extremely annoyed, as he had just robbed another guard of the key for those same chains.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Each of the four heroes can access a powerful weapon by completing a Collection Sidequest to offer totems to the various gods they are descended from. In Ailish and Elco's case, they can find other weapons that are stronger in terms of damage output, but much slower to reload, making these weapons more versatile and effective.
• Jerkass: Arlo, in spades. He finally realizes his mistakes though and slowly makes an effort to reconcile with Tal after he thought that his son might not go back after his journey at Shadani-Mo.
• Jet Pack: Elco wears his wherever he goes, powered by crystal clusters that are always conveniently located in areas where he needs to fly.
• Leotard of Power:
  • Ailish's original outfit is called a "silk dress", but as the page image shows it's really one of these with a metal brassiere. It's later replaced by a purple bodysuit.
  • Buki is also a fan of wading into bloody battle in a swimsuit. Unlike Ailish, her power up outfits show progressively more skin, with her final costume "Coelacanth Scale" going into full Thong of Shielding territory.
• Light Is Not Good: Queen Lusica rules over the candy-coloured kingdom of Illumina and dresses herself in bright clothes, but she is definitely not on the side of good.
• Limit Break: After charging up a special bar, the playable characters can unleash an attack that either kills all normal enemies in the current battle (100% of the bar) or one that buffs the playable characters and debuffs the enemies (50% of the bar). The ability to unleash the first attack is unlocked when each character receives their second armor, while the buff/debuff ability is unlocked when they are given their third armor.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Ranged characters like Ailish and Elco can be nigh on Game-Breaker useful since they can use First-Person Shooter tactics to circle strafe enemies to death, thus allowing them to One-Man Army everything on the battlefield while avoiding damage as long as they keep moving. Melee fighters like Tal and Buki, while they get to deal far more damage, they have very few means of consistently avoiding getting dogpiled by enemies.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Tal and Buki killing an enemy often means that enemy explodes into gore. Any kill by special attack.
• Mad Scientist: Milly Lupa, stargazer, believer in aliens, and a Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter has a 'family' of cloned children. And a book about making a Child Clone army to take over the world.
• Magic Enhancement: Weapons and armors can be enhanced with runes.
  • Armor upgrades are far more costly and transfer once your armor upgrades; you start with three runes which grant you immunity to Weaken and Curse, Poison and Slow, and one reflects back some damage onto enemies. Later in the game you will find 3 runes that will autocast either a defense, damage or regeneration buff on entering battle.
  • Weapons can have either round or square slots; round runes are stronger but are only awarded at certain points of the plot. Runes give a flat +5/10 damage increase (for Tal and Buki) or a percentage damage increase for Elco and Ailish (as such, slow but powerful weapons like Batholith receive the most from them while fast firing weapons like Proton Phaser are better suited for non-damage buffs^NoteThis goes to the point that if you stuff Ailish's or Elco's Infinity +1 Sword with Mana Drain buffs, they'll be able to recover SP at a fast rate, allowing you spam their Skills.) +5%/10% critical rate increase, 10%/20% HP steal, 1/2% SP steal and 25%/50% buff dispelling on hit.
• Magitek: Though magic and science in the game's world generally operate independently from one another, Elco's research specifically looks into combining the power of various magic crystals with his technology to create powerful defensive shields. It also applies to his jetpack, which is fairly standard apart from being charged by standing near crystal clusters.
• Menu Time Lockout: Averted. Opening the menu in combat to use a healing item slows the action down, but does not stop it completely. If the character you're trying to heal is hit before you can do so, they become unable to use said healing item until you close the menu and open it once more.
• Mineral MacGuffin: Much of the game is dedicated to hunting down various energy-channeling crystals for Elco's tower, to be used to create a giant energy barrier that will protect all of Illumina. Its actual use, however, is much more sinister.
• Momma's Boy: Tal was much closer to his mother than his absent father, General Arlo. Her death affected him deeply and drove him and Arlo even further apart.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Tal is very much a slim Bishōnen type, but he is somehow able to wield giant swords, often in one hand. His special ability showcases his strength, as he is the only one able to drag heavy objects out of the way.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Elco when discovering that his invention, the Crystal Tower, is the one responsible for draining the light from the Akloria, confirming what the Shadow Party and Caprine claimed. To be fair, he doesn't know since Lusica hides the truth about the research.
• Obviously Evil: Lord Talos, adviser to Queen Lusica, is sickly pale and deformed, with one of his arms replaced by a blade. He lives in a dark and dreary tower through which he spies on the royal courtroom and stalks around muttering about killing everybody in two worlds. Unsurprisingly, he is the game's true Big Bad.
• Off with His Head!: Happens to the professor in Transentia soon after the heroes have gone through the newly-activated portal, and to Queen Lusica at the end. Both are killed by Talos.
• Our Angels Are Different: Tetsu is actually Sudeki's God, but looks and functions similarly to a messenger angel to proclaim that each hero is The Chosen One since they are the descendants of the ancient heroes mentioned in the backstory, and also hands out each character's Take a Level in Badass power.
• Portal Network: Once the characters find the Navigation Stone they are able to travel into the Shadow Realm and, from there, to many different locations both in Illumina and the parallel world of Akloria.
• Plot Tailored to the Party: No matter how often the main characters are separated or which configurations they travel in, they always conveniently end up in an area perfectly suited to their unique abilities. Before the Transentia mission, Ailish and Buki make a point of arriving there before Tal and Elco, which is just as well since without their abilities to open the pathways, the boys would have been completely stuck.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Ailish is not content to sit on her ass all day and stay out of trouble. At all.
  • A dark example would be her mother, Queen Lusica.
• Sexy Packaging: Played straight with the US and EU cover◊, and interestingly averted with the Japanese cover◊.
• Sex Sells: With advert slogans such as "Prepare for a full-frontal assault", it is really hard to speak in favor for this game without incurring weird stares.
• Stripperiffic: The playable female cast. Interestingly, Ailish's more advanced armors progressively covers her up even though she's the Staff Chick of the party. Likewise, Alexine, Ailish's Aklorian counterpart has a comparatively conservative costume. Buki and her Aklorian counterpart Nico, on the other hand, is the opposite.
  • Lampshaded by a Robot in Transentia. Only Tal is supposed to fight the Robot in the area. If you try to do this as Ailish the Robot rejects her and advises her to "put some more clothes on". Buki is rejected for being a half-beast, and Elco isn't allowed because of his cybernetics.
• Sinister Scythe: The weapon for Lord Talos, the Big Bad and Final Boss. Unlike most examples, he has had his left hand replaced with the blade.
• Straw Feminist: Buki has a few moments along these lines. She is unimpressed with humans in general, and with human men in particular. She gets over with it however.
  Buki: Men are like fish: easy to catch, briefly satisfying, then just a bag of bones that stink up the tent.
• Stripperiffic: Ailish's first outfit features a huge hole in the stomach, as well as cutouts on the thighs.
• Superboss: In Transentia, Tal can fight a killer robot. You can fight as soon as you get here, but he's no joke. His regular attacks will probably wipe of a good portion of your health bar unless you put up a shield, he has enough HP to tank several Spirit Strikes, and he has a ranged attack that takes you down instantly and covers a good portion of the arena. Defeating him gives 2000XP, a Huge Gold Bar and a Wolf Totem. In the research center there are similar, but far more manageable enemies.
• Tempting Fate: Buki claimed that the Transentium Processing Facility in Transentia is a "godless place", moments before she encountered Tetsu inside said facility. Unlike other examples, this isn't treated as a bad thing as Buki is a devout follower of Tetsu just like her ancestor Mo.
• The High Queen: Ailish's mother Lusica, the Queen of the realm of Haskilla, is a subversion. Caprine, the Queen of Cyantine, is a straight example.
• Title Drop: The world that once contained Haskilia and Akloria were once one and the same, called Sudeki.
• Walking Spoiler: The Aklorian counterparts of the main characters, which their appearance will reveal most of the plot's lore such as the divide of Sudeki.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Tal, at the very least, would greatly enjoy not having General Arlo (his father) treat him like a screwup every five minutes, especially towards the beginning of the game where the plot screws him over independently of his actions.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: How Ailish and Tal get along when they first meet.
• Wolverine Claws: Buki's weapon of choice. She gains access to many different versions throughout the game with different bonuses and abilities.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Queen Lusica's fate. Although she helps Talos into bringing Heigou back to life in exchange for immortality, it seems that neither of the two wanted to fulfill their part of the bargain and killed her right on the spot.

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