Video Game / Thousand Arms

The main Thousand Arms cast

Thousand Arms is a 1998 PlayStation RPG created by Takehito Ito and developed by Atlus and Red Entertainment, with a Dating Sim thrown in. An evil emperor wishes to use the Primordial Flame to become a god and destroy the world. Meis Triumph, Spirit Blacksmith, must journey to protect the Flame and defeat the emperor, as well as date as many ladies as possible (it actually does fit into the plot!) A hilarious game full of flirting, sexual innuendo, Lampshade Hanging, and of course some RPG adventure.

Play characters:

• Meis Triumph: Horny Spirit Blacksmith.
• Sodina Dawnfried: Knife-wielding White Magician Girl, main love interest out of a bushel of love interests for Meis. For some reason, she likes him back.
• Muza Grifford: Meis's BFS carrying best friend. Freezes up around women, but manages to fall for Wyna.
• Wyna Grapple: Stripperific pirate girl who wants to live her own life, and thus is often at odds with her father.
• Kyleen Nelphe: Jaded and money-loving, her personality warms up due to the Power of Friendship.
• Soushi Maharoba: Pretty samurai playboy.
• Nelsha Stylus: Desires to be a Dress Master. A little girl, but appears much older when dressed in her possessed clothing.

NPC:

• Cliff Triumph: Meis's father, typical comic Casanova. He's a head of Triumph noble family of spirit blacksmiths which rules and protects Kant town. Well, it supposed to, until Dark Acolytes attack...
• Jyabil Dawnfried: Spirit blacksmith of Boyzby, much more skillful than Triumphs. "Older brother" of Sodina. He takes care over Meis after the attack on Kant and became his Mentor, as well as Schmidt's.
• Grapple: father of Wyna, captain of giant pirate ship Langoud.
• Bandiger: weird sexy looking and talking comic Arch-Enemy. Encounters you several times, but basically harmless.
• Kanouha: Old samurai master, perverted as every old man in the game. He was a friend of Meis's granddad.
• Lavantis: rich and corrupted ruler of floating town Sharan.
• Smoochy: weird old geezer, extra hidden character and another Dirty Old Man. Trades kisses you collected from dates for items.

Extra date girls:

• Mil Wind: a girl who stalks Meis as a way to research his womanizing personality. She's from the same town as Meis, and you first meet her in the beginning of the game.
• Marion: A dorky young Gadget Master. She controls the CoolTrain called Mounthand.
• Palma Esterte: a priestess obsessed with cleanliness. She along with other priestesses provides the energy to Langoud.
• Kyoka Maharoba: Soushi's sister, a shy Japanese girl who detests her brother's lecherous personality, but is blind to Meis's.
• Metalia: mysterious woman from Myscatonia, keeper of the Holy Flame. She was a friend of Jyabil. She's over 200 years old, but ageless in fact.

Dark Acolytes:

• Schmidt: Another apprentice of the spirit blacksmith Jyabil, more experinced than Meis, but with the lack of light in his soul. Later he turn to the side of Dark Acolytes and become the Dark Master.
• Jeala: Dark Action Girl. She's a loyal servant of the Dark Master, fallen in love with him.
• Shaft: the head of Evil Mecha 5. General of Dark Acolytes Army and CoDragon of Dark Emperor along with Schmidt.
• Ratchet: Robot Girl of Evil Mecha 5. Talkative and cheerful, but still evil, albeit to a less destructive degree than the rest of her colleagues.
• Bearing: Ax-Crazy member of Evil Mecha 5.
• Bolt: The Brute of Evil Mecha 5.
• Wire: Monster Clown of Evil Mecha 5.
• Dark Emperor Medeus: the emperor of Dianova and the Big Bad. He's the ancient ruler of the Clan of Darkness which loose to the Clan of Light in the war of spirit blacksmiths many years ago. He transformed his body into a machine to live long enough to find the Holy Flames of the Light. He also created mechanical minions and mechanical empire.

This game provides examples of:

• Affably Evil: Ratchet, in comparison to the rest of Evil Mecha 5. Unlike her mass-murdering anti-human colleagues, she's more into harassing people with mean-spirited pranks and discord, not much more.
• Anime Theme Song: Ayumi Hamasaki performs the opening and ending themes.
• Battle Bikini: Wyna wears nothing but a leather bikini in battle.
• BFS: Muza wields a huge claymore as his weapon.
• Berserk Button: General Bolt. He's a nice guy, but he isn't very smart and hates big words. ("I DON'T LIKE DIFFICULT WORDS!!!") When a female junior officer accidentally trips, he forgives her, but after she mentions he is "chivalrous" and "sagacious", he expands his body and spews out bolts which kill every officer in the room.
• Bifauxnen: A cloaked figure attacked the party, and then Muza fights that figure using his wind sword specials, blowing the cloak and revealing a very Stripperiffic girl, Wyna.
• Blow You Away: ALL of Muza's skills are wind-based (Twister Blade, Storm Binder, Dynamic Cyclone, Tornado Voice)

• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Numerous examples; a Langoud NPC complains that he has no voiceover since he's not an important character, and if you anger Nelsha in a date, she'll turn into her dancer form.
  Nelsha: (dancer mode) WHAT DID YOU SAY!? YOUR INTIMACY LEVEL GOES DOWN WHEN YOU SAY THINGS LIKE THAT!

• The Casanova: Meis. He flirts with every female he meets, pledges his eternal love to each of the nine girls he dates, and many NPC women yell at him for touching/looking at things he shouldn't. Most of the other males in the game fit this trope as well.
• Cool Boat: The Langoud. It's an entire pirate city!
• Clothes Make the Superman: Nelsha, being the Dress Master, carries a multitude of outfits which she can dress up in during battle, granting her different abilities as well as personalities.

• Dating Sim: When visiting towns, Meis can choose to go on dates with the female members of his party or with NPC girls native to the town.
• Difficulty by Region: In the original Japanese version it was fairly easy to defeat bosses before you could see the full range of their rather extensive combat quotes and animations. Atlus overcompensated for the US version, resulting in a game that, on top of the other issues with its combat system, is notorious for every boss being a tedious Marathon Damage-Sponge Boss.
• Dirty Old Man: Kanouha. He tries to do perverted things to Sodina and Kyouka while inebriated, only to get punched out by them.
• Distressed Damsel: Sodina has to be rescued on a couple different occasions.
• Doomed Hometown: Both Kant and Boyzby, Meis and Sodina's hometowns, respectively, are attacked by the Dark Acolytes early on, with the latter suffering tremendous damage and at least one civilian casualty, Jyabil. Subverted however, because both towns eventually recover. And in the case of Kant, none of the villagers actually died thanks to Cliff Triumph ordering everyone to evacuate early. The trope is played straight with Soushi and Kyoka's hometown of Wano, which was razed to the ground, leaving the survivors with no choice but to seek new homes elsewhere.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: The usual elemental spells, and weapons' elements can be changed depending on which girl is helping with the forging. There is also literal rock paper scissors.

• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Random NPCs have such names as Middle Aged Man and Sexy-Lipped Woman.

• Eyepatch of Power: Wyna. She admits to having two good eyes.
• First Girl Wins: Sodina. Though technically Mil was first...

• Goldfish Poop Gang: Bandiger. He's a petty thief with a flamboyant, over-the-top persona who causes trouble for the heroes time and time again, but is more of a recurring nuisance than anything.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The majority of main characters use blades.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Sodina. She gets better.
• Impoverished Patrician: Named after Meis in the list of RPG cliches.
• Improbable Weapon User: Meis uses a sword, Muza a greatsword, Sodina a knife, Wyna a hammer, Soushi a katana, and Kyleen a rapier. Nelsha, however, fights using a knitting needle.

• Item Crafting: Weapons aren't purchased. The blacksmith hero forges them (with the aid of girls he dates).

• Katanas Are Just Better: Soushi, being a samurai, wields the katana. Though it lacks the raw power of Muza's claymore, it hits faster and more gracefully.

• Last Disc Magic: Sodina becomes the Ultimate Summon for the final battle.
• Leitmotif: Each character gets their own theme tune.

• Medium Awareness: Characters are actually well-aware that they're in a videogame and make various comments about it, from a minor NPC lamenting her lack of voice acting to one of Meis' dates telling him to behave himself because "the game's not rated for that."
• Mentor Archetype: Jyabil. He looks about the right age to be a Big Brother Mentor, but he's much older, and acts like it.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Jyabil dies using the last of his powers to try and stop Shaft after his workshop is burned down.

• Neat Freak: Palma takes cleaning very seriously. Her mini-game involves cleaning an oily floor. She also says that one should brush their teeth ever four hours.
• Older Than They Look: Jyabil and Metalia. Jyabil appears to be in his late twenties, and it's not until well after he dies that Meis learns that he must have been decades older. Metalia appears to be about the same age, and as his senior under the same blacksmith master is probably a little older.

• Parental Bonus: The whole game is full of such jokes and innuendos, such as a little boy NPC innocently wondering where his father's 'resurrection' is, as his mother will kick him out if he doesn't have it.
• The Power of Love: The more Meis raises intimacy with all the ladies, the better he can forge weapons to be stronger and unlock innate abilities in them.

• Shout-Out: Ratchet, the pink and red clad jester girl, is modeled after Batman: The Animated Series character Harley Quinn. Her constant references to the Dark Master as "Mr. D," are reminiscent of Harley calling the Joker "Mr. J." Ratchet also has a high, squeaky voice, and thick Brooklyn accent.

• Small Name, Big Ego: Meis, of course. He is especially full of himself in some of the dating answers. ("Not many men are as good looking as I am!")

• Stripperific: Wyna. Strangely, she's the only female mistaken for a man at one point...
• Summon Magic: Meis has access to summoning elemental beasts as opposed to special moves like the rest of the cast.
• Third-Person Person: Most of the time, Nelsha speaks out her name rather than make use of pronouns.
• Token Mini-Moe: Nelsha. Unless she's wearing some of her possessed clothes. Yes, Meis can date her. It gets a bit creepy, when he gives teddy bears to a 12 year old to get a kiss.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Schmidt after joining the Dark Acolytes. He was already quite the egotistical prick before, but he only gets much worse upon embracing the role of Dark Master.
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: Wyna goes around and fights in her battle bikini everywhere.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Unlike the other Evil Mecha 5, Ratchet doesn't explode after being defeated. Instead, she merely pretends to "die" by using magic to change into an angelic figure and then flying away in an obvious theatrical display of Villain: Exit, Stage Left. The heroes never run into her again after this, leaving her fate unknown.
• White Magician Girl: Sodina fits this trope quite well, despite using a knife for her weapon.
• Wutai: Wano. The player never gets to visit there, as it's destroyed first.

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