Aldo is a young man, living a secluded life as a magitool repairman. One day, one of his assignments goes awry, as the village gets attacked by monsters. Meanwhile a strange figure is seen in the village, turning people into weapons, known as Magiswords. In an attempt to defeat the monster Aldo accidentally blows up a house of a little girl, Alice, who lives there all by herself. In order to make up for it, Aldo offers to help her find a new home, and the duo starts travelling together. On they journey they will uncover the true purpose of Magiswords and the plans behind their creation.
The game has an official website
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Sword of Elpisia contains examples of:
- Amplified Animal Aptitude: So-called "partner animals" are random wild animals, who happen be far smarter than other animals, and are able to understand speech. Aldo can contract them for use in combat as summons, in exchange for them getting shelter in the Guild.
- Asshole Victim: The entire starting village is full of people who treat Aldo like dirt and deny him shopping. It's hard to feel sorry for them when monsters slaughter some of them, and Yado turns the mayor into a Magisword.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: An organisation-wide example. The Guild is an international, highly trusted organisation that's in charge of several critical duties, such as mail delivery and monster population control. Their official uniform is a Goofy Suit of a cartoon chicken. Then again, it was Enah's idea.
- Character in the Logo: The logo has Alice's portrait on its left side. Meanwhile the sword on the right side is her Magisword form, making it a double example.
- Chores Without Powers: More like work, but mining of magic ore has to be done in an old-fashioned way, without any magic, because it may change properties of the ore, or even react with it and cause an accident.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Water -> Fire -> Earth -> Water. Hitting a foe with an element they're weak to makes the attacker automatically launch a follow-up with a random skill. The same does apply to you, so you're better off equipping some Void Bangles to avoid it. You can also permanently change an enemy's element with certain skills, although it doesn't affect element of their attacks.
- The Empire: Nereid Dominion is an aggressive power, that threatens the rest of the world with war.
- Equippable Ally: Averted for normal Magiswords, which, while made from people, can't change back into human form. Played straight with Alice, who can freely switch between human and Magisword forms.
- Evolving Title Screen: Following The Reveal, the title screen changes to display Mainbelt Citizen as an Evil Overlooker.
- Exact Words: Yado appears when people are in danger, and offers them power. Should they accept, he turns them into Magiswords. Sure, now they have the power, but can't use it, being an inanimate weapon.
- Forced Transformation: Played with. Yado turns people into Magiswords only when they ask for power. When the victim realizes what's happening, it's already too late.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: Many skills can hit several squares at once. Certain weapons also grant this trait to their user's normal attack.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Aldo can equip swords and broadswords as his weapon. He also can use "hatchets", but they are actually closer to Machetes.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Sometimes, you can encounter enormous crates or treasure chests in battles. "Enormous" as in taking several spaces on the field and being two times as tall as the party's sprites. If you break it, the contents are yours, but if the enemies are dead before it, it's lost forever.
- Magitek: Magitools, the technology of the game's world, use "magic ore" as a main component, and are used everywhere from water purification, to protection of towns from monsters, to mind control. Some lines of dialogue even imply that magitools are used to amplify physical abilities, but apparently it's so commonplace, it isn't further commented upon.
- Morph Weapon: Magiswords can fuse with normal weapons and change between them and their true form as needed. For the party it means that they can equip up to three weapons at once, getting stat boosts from all of them, and being able to use any of their associated skills.
- No Blood for Phlebotinum: Discussed. Prometheus Dominion is the leading power in the magic ore mining industry, while Calpo Dominion leads in magitool manufacturing, and imports magic ore from Prometheus. As such, leaders of Prometheus are afraid that Calpo might betray them and ally with the aggressive Nereid Dominion for Prometheus' resources. The whole matter forces Stefana Prometheus to investigate Calpo's production, and team up with the party for a common goal.
- Thriving Ghost Town: Downplayed. While towns are still a bit too small for their supposed status, there are plenty of houses that you simply can't enter. Some towns also have several specialized stores, such as a book shop, that you can enter, but can't buy anything.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Enah from Alphadia shows up as the Guild's (substitute) chief.
- Status-Buff Dispel: Some moves, mainly used by bosses, can remove party members' buffs. The "Pale Reverse" skill outright inverts them, turning buffs into debuffs.
- Useless Useful Spell: Thoroughly Averted. Most skills have some sort of special effect, and they will work on almost all enemies. Even bosses can be poisoned, paralyzed, etc., but they usually recover from it faster than normal enemies. Status Buffs and debuffs are especially useful, as they often mean the difference between a party member surviving an attack or dropping dead.
- Utility Party Member: Alice doesn't fight in battles, but supports the party by healing and strengthening them with magic. Justified, because she's only ten years old, and not trained in combat at all. If you look on her status screen, her stats are a fraction of a percent of other party members.
- Wham Episode: The summit of Charist mountain is one. Mainbelt Citizen, who has guided you for the last several hours, turns out to have been lying to you the whole time. Alice's transformation into Elpisia will most likely be permanent, so Mainbelt can use her to avert a greater threat to his race. What's more, Nate turns out to be an alien with his own goals, although he's ultimately on your side. Needless to say, everyone is shocked, and Ariel even turns uncharacteristically cruel when interrogating Nate. The whole affair shifts the journey's goals from strengthening Alice's Magisword abilities to learning the truth about Mainbelt and the aforementioned greater threat - Tournoire.
