In the past, the Evil Overlord Ry'jin annihilated all dragons after using their DNA to create an army of Super Soldiers. He then used this incredible power to rule Ildria with an iron fist. A rebel group has formed to stop him, but they are too little in number to make much progress. However, they have hope: one dragon survived Ry'jin's extermination, Az'uar. He hatches during the game's opening, his egg disguised as an ordinary rock. As a newborn, Az'uar is very confused and has little knowledge of the world around him. Fortunately, he is able to draw on the wisdom of his ancestors through the dragons' "Blood Memory" (a sort of collective Transferable Memory of all dragons who have ever lived), but it is clouded due to the near-extinction of the dragons. With the help of the rebels, he tries to seek out the seven dragon sages who formed the ruling body of dragon society in the past. He hopes that with their knowledge, he will be able to gain the power to combat Ry'jin's forces. However, he soon learns that not all of them are as helpful as he believes, and that his survival may cause more harm than good...
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This game provides examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: Averted, actually. The level cap is 60, which you're unlikely to hit through normal progression, but is very easy to reach if you do the optional sidequests.
- A.I. Breaker: The Final Boss will prioritize reviving his minion over offensive action, making him easy to loop if the minion is killed quickly.
- Anti-Frustration Feature: Even if Az'uar's Inhale is interrupted, the Rune still counts toward his evolution progress.
- Art Initiates Life: Inverted with Xandra, whose art seals creatures into runes.
- The Atoner: Many of the Saphirites were once Ry'jin's soldiers, who bought into his lies of a necessary coup. They rebel against him in order to atone for unwittingly helping the tyrant rise to power.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Breath Weapons tend to fall into this very quickly, since their ammunition is very limited at the beginning, they take far too long to set up, and the whole thing fails if an enemy so much as coughs on Az'uar while he's not protected by Catch Breath. Additionally, multi-Rune skills require Az'uar to inhale the Runes one at a time, which will force both him and Xandra to spend several turns preparing the skills. This lasts until Az'uar evolves enough to use triple Rune single-target breaths, which have a high enough damage multiplier to make up for the turns used.
- Bad Boss: Ry'jin uses synthetic dragon DNA to transform many of his soldiers into Reavers, who are stronger than normal DNA-enhanced soldiers, but are mentally unstable to the point where they can't distinguish friend and foe. After Gyle fails to secure Draslin, Ry'jin sends him to intercept the party at Fyradin, all while planning to blast them all with the Vulcan Cannon in the event that Gyle loses.
- Barrier Change Boss: The Final Boss can change his elemental weakness based on the color of the orb he's holding, but only if he's not wasting turns reviving his minion.
- Becoming the Mask: Kelburn was supposed to be The Mole for Ry'jin in order to keep an eye on the Saphirites, but grew to honestly believe in the rebels' ideas.
- Betrayal by Inaction:
- King Khytiel started concentrating all his country's resources into protecting the castle and keeping his daughter safe, but did nothing for the rest of his domain even as they faced bandit attacks. This caused many of his soldiers to become desperate enough to help Ry'jin overthrow him.
- The Great Seven eventually gave up on the war and sealed themselves away. Xandra holds them in contempt for leaving Ildrians behind to be oppressed by Ry'jin. However, they have a point in that if they stayed behind to fight, Ry'jin would probably just kill them and steal their DNA, becoming even more unstoppable.
- Big Bad: Ry'jin overthrew King Khytiel in order to take over Ildria. He also waged a war against dragons, harvesting their DNA, eggs, and souls to gain military power while wiping out the rest.
- Boring, but Practical: Xandra's offensive spells are overshadowed by triple rune skills in terms of overall DPS, but her spells require no preliminary setup and can be buffed by Chant. This means her spells are more useful in situations where the player needs to quickly eliminate an enemy from the field.
- Breath Weapon: Dragons and humans with dragon DNA can inhale runes to activate breath skills, and Az'uar's usage of this mechanic will always have him activate the skill from his mouth. The combinations of runes can result in all sorts of effects, such as AOE damage, power single-target damage, AOE ailment infliction, and recovery.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Ry'jin uses the Reaver process to corrupt one of Az'uar's brothers into a mindless berserker. He spitefully renames the dragon Az'golath, which means Cursed One.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Ry'jin is responsible for driving dragons to near extinction while extracting their DNA, stealing their eggs, and turning their souls into Rune Blades. Despite this, he doesn't make a serious effort to kill the protagonist, Az'uar. Ry'jin left Az'uar's egg behind in Ilisrei's cave in case his Reaver experiments fail to unseal the rest of the Great Seven, who can only be unsealed by a fellow dragon. He also allowed Xandra to live so that she'll help Az'uar unseal the Great Seven. Once Az'uar and Xandra obtain six of the Great Seven's Soul Gems, Ry'jin captures Az'uar so he can extract the dragon's DNA and intends to kill him afterwards.
- Cast from Hit Points: If Az'uar lacks runes, he can spend his own HP as "dragon essence" to substitute the missing runes. However, doing so is dangerous without the Essence Filter relic, which reduces the HP consumed.
- Charged Attack:
- Breath skills take several turns to set up because Az'uar has to inhale runes. While there are skills to allow Az'uar to inhale faster, these skills still take more time to pull off than normal skills.
- Kelburn's Rune Blade skills also rely on Az'uar inhaling runes, though his skills have a higher damage multiplier, even for triple element skills.
- Climax Boss: Gyle as a strategy board boss is fought right after a rather complex revelation. First, Kelburn betrays the party to Ry'jin and reveals that he was spying on the Saphirites for the villains' behalf. Then he frees Az'uar and reveals he had to play along with the villains in order to steal the sixth Soul Gem from under Ry'jin's nose. The two then have to rescue Xandra and team up with the remaining Saphirites to drive Gyle's forces out of town.
- Collection Sidequest: Collecting Dragon Shards will get you prizes at certain thresholds. You are very unlikely to find them all before completing the game, though you do get an item that can help you find them upon doing so. Unfortunately, this quest isn't as benign as it appears. The friendly merchant, Darius, who was enticing you to find the shards? Well, it turns out that they're the pieces of Saphira's stone, and he was manipulating you into finding them for him so he could harness her power for himself and Lord Nephron. Even if the player defeats Darius to claim Saphira's seal, this just enables Ry'jin to gain even more power in the True Final Boss battle.
- Combat Medic: Az'uar is a physically powerful unit, but he can also learn healing and support spells from the Great Sevens' soul gems or from class changes.
- Conlang: The dragons have their own language that translates glyphs to an English phrase. While Az'uar will usually automatically translate any glyph he examines, the player is required to memorize glyphs in order to solve an optional puzzle in the Borderlands, where the terrain will form glyphs.
- Contractual Boss Immunity:
- Subverted; bosses do have a higher resistance to status effects than normal, but they are still susceptible. None of them can be sealed by Xandra except for Az'golath, however.
- Inverted if Az'uar evolves into a Gaia Dragon, which grants him a passive skill that resists all ailments.
- Counter-Attack: Gyle will use a One-Hit Kill attack on Xandra if she uses Lung Crusher on him.Gyle: That's a nice trick, [Xandra]. Let's see you try it when you're dead.
- Defend Command: Focus, which restores MP as well. Xandra's Observe command also functions this way, but without MP recovery.
- Developer's Room: The reward for obtaining all the Soul Gems and beating the True Final Boss is access to the newly rebuilt throne room, where the NPCs will explain the development of the game, as well as hint towards a hidden tenth Rune Blade. Unusually for most examples of this trope, the room contains both dev NPCs and story NPCs, with the latter continuing to remark on plot-relevant events as if they were in a normal gameplay session rather than a dev room.
- Disc-One Nuke: If Az'uar gets his second evolution, he'll be able to use powerful single-target breaths that require runes of three different elements. If the player is willing to farm a lot of Runes, these single-target breaths can trivialize a lot of early and mid game bosses. By the endgame, bosses are balanced with a lot of HP with the expectation that the player is using triple runes.
- Dual Wielding: Kelburn can equip two Rune Blades, which allows him to get different skills depending on the combinations.
- The Dragon: Gyle is Ry'jin's top soldier, capable of inhaling up to three Runes despite not being a dragon. He's in charge of commanding the Nether Garrison to defend his master's territory from the Saphirite rebels, but occasionally patrols Draslin to purge dissenters.
- Early Game Hell: The hardest part of the game is the beginning, when the party has few abilities or items, and the procedures to learn new skills are grindy. Az'uar's inhale mechanic is also hard to use because of how it's easily interrupted. However, endgame enemies and bosses generally don't stand a chance against the party once they have most of their skills. There are also late-game equipment and skills that remove the drawbacks of Az'uar's inhale system, allowing him and Kelburn to unleash their best attacks more frequently.
- Egomaniac Hunter: While Gyle's main purpose for killing dragons is to receive DNA enhancements from Ry'jin, he's also eager to be the one to personally drive dragons to extinction.
- Elemental Powers: Fire, Waternote , Earth, and Wind. Each of the dragon sages specializes in a certain element, as well.
- Illisrei: Light 'em Up
- Knoas: Dishing Out Dirt
- Unoquil: Making a Splash
- Xetoa: Blow You Away
- Tamanir: Playing with Fire
- Kadelej: Casting a Shadow (which is functionally Non-Elemental)
- Saphira: Non-Elemental
- Emperor Scientist: Ry'jin is a Mad Scientist who uses his dragon DNA research to rule Ildria with an iron fist, and hopes to conquer the rest of the world.
- Enemy Scan: Xandra's Observe command lists the enemies' elemental alignment and their current percentage of HP. She also learns enemy skills if the enemy uses those skills while her Observe state is active.
- Evil All Along:
- The leader of Draslin's chapter of the resistance, Faen, turns out to have been Ry'jin in disguise. He only guided the party to the dragon seals so he can later kill them and take the powers Az'uar acquired.
- Darius, the man who gives the Collection Sidequest, is actually just using you to get the Dragon Shards so he can gain power for himself and his master, Lord Nephron.
- Evil Old Folks: Combined with They Look Just Like Everyone Else!. When Ry'jin infiltrates the resistance as Faen, he's not wearing a disguise. He really is an ordinary-looking old man, which is why few would suspect him of being the Big Bad.
- Evil Overlord:
- Ry'jin rules Ildria with an iron fist, heavily taxing his subjects and hunting down any remaining dragons.
- The Dragon Shard sidequest reveals that Elsium has its own tyrant, Lord Nephron, who is also using dragon DNA to conquer the world.
- Evolutionary Levels: Combined with Prestige Class. Az'uar can evolve after inhaling a certain number of Runes, up to three times. His next dragon class is determined by the most inhaled Rune at the time of evolution, and there are many classes based on the combinations of elements.
- Excalibur: The strongest Rune Blade in the game is named "Excalibur" and like many examples of the sword in video games, it's light elemental. It's also a darker take on the sword, since it can only be obtained by Rune Sealing Az'uar's brainwashed and mutated brother, Az'golath.
- Exponential Potential: Not only is Xandra capable of learning several enemy skills, Az'uar can learn many skills from Soul Gems. He also has over 35 elemental combinations for his breath skills and his evolutionary classes. Kelburn also has many different skills available to him based on the combinations of two Rune Blades, and like Az'uar, can use many different skills based on active runes.
- Faux Affably Evil: Ry'jin compliments Az'uar for defeating Gyle and having strong dragon DNA, but he also plans on killing Az'uar and stealing his powers. As Faen, he acts fatherly towards Xandra and tries to encourage her and Az'uar to get along, but only so he can manipulate them.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the grotto dungeon, Kelburn mentions that Rune Blades are made by Rune Sealing dragons. This is a hint that the player can do the same, though the only dragon boss that can be converted this way is Az'golath.
- After the Saphirites capture the Nether Garrison, you can find notes from Gyle stating that he heard reports of Faen's rebellious activities, but he was never able to find the man. This contradicts a rebel's claim that Faen went to the Nether Garrison to attempt to rescue Xandra, since Gyle would have encountered him in that scenario. In reality, "Faen" is really Ry'jin and lied about his activities.
- Freudian Excuse: The original ruler of Ildria, King Khytiel, lost his wife, and the trauma caused him to focus the country's resources into protecting his daughter rather than all the citizens as a whole. This left the rest of the country vulnerable to bandit attacks from the Borderlands, creating enough discontent for Ry'jin to organize a coup.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: There is no explanation about how a Monster Whale got into Mythra Falls or where it came from. It also has the unexplained ability to instantly invoke a water-elemental breath attack, despite that ability being limited to dragons and humans with dragon DNA.
- Godhood Seeker: Ry'jin wants the DNA or Soul Gems of the Great Seven so he can gain godlike power over the elements.
- Guide Dang It!: The Rune combinations can result in all kinds of varied effects, but there is no in-game reference as to what each combination does. The only way the player can figure all the combinations out is through a guide or trial-and-error.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Ry'jin's overall plot involves manipulating the party into getting the Soul Gems for him, and then stealing that power when they confront him. He didn't expect that this would allow Az'uar to gain the power of the Tiamat Sacrament, allowing the dragon to surpass him and kill him.
- Improbable Age: Az'uar is capable of becoming a powerful combatant not long after he hatches. While he does have the advantage of Blood Memory to make himself more skilled and intelligent, he's still somehow able to take down the strongest adult dragons with nothing but a few humans on his side. Xetoa acknowledges that if every dragon had Az'uar's growth rate, they probably would have won the war against Ry'jin. By the Final Boss fight, Az'uar is only a week old.
- Infinity +1 Sword:
- Most of party's ultimate armor and accessories can be obtained from either Armscross or from the Ring of Fire battles. Armscross shops can only be accessed after beating a powerful Superboss.
- Az'uar's best claws, the Sacred Claws, can be obtained by unlocking Saphira's door in Fyradin.
- Xandra's best brush, Rune Render, can be obtained by finding a secret chest in Armscross. Her best palette can be obtained by collecting enough dyes and speaking to the artists in Alden and Jardan's house.
- Kelburn's best Rune Blade, Excalibur, can be obtained by using Rune Seal on Az'golath.
- Karma Houdini: In the true ending, Lord Nephron and Darius are still at large and are preparing for war with the newly reformed Ildria.
- Kid Hero: Az'uar is the protagonist of this game, and he's a newly hatched whelp. This is deconstructed in that while he has Blood Memory to make himself intelligent, his lack of experience causes him to be reckless and his more experienced allies have to remind him to choose his battles more wisely. After his siblings are hatched, he trains in preparation for fighting Lord Nephron and Darius.
- King Incognito: Xandra is the rightful heir to the throne. Because of her lineage, Ry'jin wants to either capture or kill her to destroy the morale of the rebels.
- Luck-Based Mission:
- Rune sealing. Xandra is the only one who can perform it, in the first place, and the chance of the technique succeeding is a coin toss. To make matters worse, the chances of it succeeding are incredibly low during the early to mid-game, and the spell takes a fixed percentage of Xandra's Mana. The only way to increase the chance to 100% is with Palette equipment.
- Getting S-Rank on the strategy board scenarios can be difficult depending on what enemies try to do or if your ranged attacks hit. Even if you make the same steps in a replay of the scenario, the RNG can give many different outcomes.
- Magic Knight:
- Az'uar is capable of decent melee damage and can learn elemental spells as he evolves with Runes, which are separate from his breath skills. He can also use Soul Gems to learn support and healing skills.
- Kelburn has the ability to use the unique skills of Rune Blades and can temporarily learn single-target versions of Az'uar's breath skills.
- Magikarp Power:
- Xandra starts with no skills, but after learning all the skills the game's enemies have to offer, she can cure any ailment, fully revive party members, speed up Az'uar's inhalation, target any elemental weakness, and cast the most practical AOE spell in the game.
- Az'uar's breath ability is initially very cumbersome to use, since it requires Az'uar and Xandra to spend a turn inhaling a rune and casting Catch Breath respectively. The starting breath skills all deal AOE damage and are inefficient for singular bosses. Once Az'uar evolves twice, he can use triple element rune combos, which have high enough damage multipliers to justify their cost. And this is before accounting for late-game skills and equipment that can make the process of inhaling runes faster and safer.
- Kelburn's strongest skills depend on Az'uar's currently inhaled runes, which means Kelburn's damage progression relies on the player grinding Az'uar's evolution and completing events to make Az'uar inhale more efficiently.
- Meaningful Name: In-universe, Az'uar's name is dragon for "only hope," and he is dragonkind's last hope of defeating Ry'jin. Ry'jin corrupts one of Az'uar's brothers and renames him Az'golath, which means "cursed one."
- Mighty Glacier: Az'uar has the lowest Agility growth of the party, but grows quickly in his other three stats. Though the low Agility growth is hard to notice because Az'uar is in the party more often than the other party members, allowing him to stay ahead of them in speed if the level gap is wide enough. He can later learn a party-wide speed buff, which makes up for his slowness.
- Nonstandard Skill Learning: Unlike most of her Lore skills, Xandra's Catch Breath skill is only learned after Az'uar's Inhale is interrupted while she's in the party.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ry'jin started his coup promising to overthrow King Khytiel and put an end to the latter's mismanagement of the country. While he has a point about the original king, Ry'jin really just wants to rule the country as a dictator and kill all dragons in order to monopolize their power.
- One-Hit Kill: Gyle's Counter-Attack to Lung Crusher will instantly kill Xandra.
- One Stat to Rule Them All: The game uses an ATB system, which means Agility is the most important stat for getting turns.
- One-Winged Angel: After fighting Ry'jin normally, he copies Az'uar's Soul Gems and turns into a monster from Final Fantasy VI before trying to kill you again. He'll be even stronger if Az'uar has Saphira's gem as well.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The dragons of this game follow the eastern style more, since they're generally benevolent and get along with humans, who they depend on to create Runes. However, some of the Great Seven are antagonistic towards Az'uar despite technically being good, since they think his journey has a high risk of failing and giving Ry'jin more power.
- Parting-Words Regret: Az'uar calls out his father, Tamanir, for voting alongside the majority of the Great Seven to seal themselves away and betraying Ilisrei. When he gets Tamanir's Soul Gem, he learns that Tamanir only did so to add a clause that allows the seal to be broken by another dragon, allowing Tamanir and Ilisrei's children to undo the seals and gain the Great Seven's soul gems. Az'uar then regrets lashing out at Tamanir and laments that he can't make up with his father now that the latter is a soul gem.
- Permanently Missable Content: While most items can be obtained by revisiting old areas, there is only one chance to get the tenth Rune Blade, since it involves Rune Sealing the boss, Az'golath.
- Power at a Price: The titular Tiamat Sacrament is a ritual that can grant a dragon great power, but it requires the consent of six of the Great Seven, and most of them are reluctant to allow this ritual. The ritual causes dragonkind's Blood Memory to be reset, preventing new dragons from accessing the wisdom of their oldest members.
- Power Copying: Xandra starts with no skills other than the ability to observe the enemy, but if any enemy uses a skill while observe is active, she can learn that skill. Unlike in Final Fantasy V, where the Blue Mage can learn a skill after seeing it once, it takes Xandra several observations to learn a skill.
- Punctuation Shaker: Both The Hero Az'uar and the Big Bad Ry'jin have apostrophes in their names.
- Puzzle Boss: As the Final Boss, Ry'jin destroys all the runes in the party's inventory. However, the game intends for the player to use Xandra's ultimate palette to turn his respawning minions into three Omni Runes each, and then use those runes to activate devastating rune combos.
- Random Encounters: The random encounter rate is fairly high and can occur even in areas that have puzzles. In Mount Mythra, the dialogue advises the player to use the ice sliding mechanic to cover more distance with fewer encounters.
- Schizo Tech: Ry'jin rebuilt an otherwise normal medieval castle into a laboratory that matches the aesthetic of the Gestahlian Empire. It looks out of place compared to the standard RPG Maker 2003 RTP, but it's also a sign that Ry'jin spends the nation's resources on himself than improving the citizens' standard of living.
- Squishy Wizard: Xandra has low physical attack and defense and doesn't even have a basic attack command. However, she can learn a large variety of spells and has the best Mystic and Agility growth.
- Status Buff: All characters can learn buff skills, but each character has their own style of targeting. Az'uar mainly casts group buffs, Xandra can only cast single-target buffs, and Kelburn can only cast self-buffs depending on his current weapon.
- Taking You with Me: During the battle with Gyle at Fyradin, he's aware that if he loses, Ry'jin will fire the Vulcan Cannon at his location in order to take out the party. He spends his dying moments initially thinking he slowed down the party long enough to get them killed by the cannon, but Az'uar flies off with the rest of the party.
- Took a Level in Idealism:
- Az'uar originally started his journey solely to save his siblings, but when he realizes how much Ry'jin's rule hurt the people of Ildria, he decides to fight Ry'jin not just for his family, but to help both humans and dragons.
- Some of the Great Seven aren't on board with Ilisrei's plan to use the Tiamat Sacrament to empower Az'uar, since that would mean resetting their Blood Memory. They change their mind when they see Xandra risking her life for Az'uar, realizing that it would be selfish if they didn't take the same risk for humans.
- Tragic Bigot: Xandra is initially distrustful of dragons because she believes the Great Seven abandoned humanity in their time of need, including the royal court she was a part of. She changes her mind when she realizes their decision actually has some reason to it, since their unsealing could result in Ry'jin gaining more power.
- Tragic Monster: One of Az'uar's brothers is driven insane by synthetic dragon DNA, essentially turning him into a dragon Reaver. All the party can do is Mercy Kill him.
- Transferable Memory: While dragons don't have a Hive Mind, they can share memories with each other through Blood Memory, allowing young dragons to quickly copy the knowledge of old ones. Unfortunately for Az'uar, most dragons are dead and he can only access a few memories and skills of the Soul Gems he acquires.
- Treacherous Advisor: Ry'jin was once a scholar and adviser to King Khytiel, but eventually formed a coup against him. As Faen, he acts as an advisor to Az'uar and Xandra in the first half of the game and helps them find the Soul Gems of the Great Seven Dragons. This is all a plot for him to steal the power of the Great Seven from Az'uar.
- Treacherous Quest Giver: Darius, the merchant who asks you to find dragon shards, is actually an agent for Lord Nephron. He and Nephron want to reassemble the shards into Saphira's seal, allowing them to steal her power.
- The Unfought: Ilisrei and Saphira are the only Great Dragons that don't have boss fights. In the former's case, she was already killed by Gyle. In the latter's case, she decides Az'uar is already worthy of her power and gives up her Soul Gem.
- Unwitting Pawn:
- Ry'jin never considers Xandra's endorsement a high priority, and only led Gyle to believe this endorsement is necessary so that he'll antagonize the party, thus increasing their motivation to unseal the dragons.
- Az'uar and Xandra are told by Faen to gather the Great Seven Dragons' Soul Gems to obtain the power to defeat Ry'jin. Faen actually is Ry'jin, who wants them to get the Soul Gems for his own use.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist:
- The Great Seven Dragons sealed themselves away to prevent Ry'jin from taking their DNA and souls and becoming too strong for humanity to stop. However, Ilisrei notes this is a Morton's Fork, since the rebels stand little chance against Ry'jin without the dragons' help. They're also willing to kill Az'uar to prevent his DNA from falling into Ry'jin's hands.
- One of the Saphirite officers, Rast, attempts to kill Az'uar to prevent the empire from harvesting his DNA. He also wants to turn Az'uar's soul into a Rune Blade.
- Would Hurt a Child: Ry'jin and Gyle slaughtered all residents of Ildria's castle, including the children.
- You Killed My Father: Gyle personally killed Az'uar's mother Ilisrei and Xandra's father King Khytiel.
