Video Game / Yggdra Union

The Royal Army, prominently featuring the two leads, Yggdra and Milanor.

"Princess Yggdra bore the Gran Centurio
and fought to recapture Castle Paltina.
We'll never fight alone."

Opening stroll of Yggdra Union

Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone is a Turn-Based Strategy game which is part of Sting Entertainment's Dept. Heaven cycle. The Game Boy Advance and PSP Updated Re-release were both handled in North America by Atlus.

Chronologically the first of the Dept. Heaven games, Yggdra Union takes place during a war between the Kingdom of Fantasinia and the New Bronquian Empire. Gulcasa, the Emperor, has just defeated most of the Royal Army and slain the king, but Princess Yggdra (the only surviving member of the Royal Family) escapes her captured city with her family's Ancestral Weapon and goes about gathering allies to take her country back—and get revenge. It doesn't hurt that said Ancestral Weapon, the Gran Centurio, is a national symbol of justice. Whatever Yggdra and her army do, it's obviously the right thing.

Isn't it?

Except that our heroes slowly discover that Emperor Gulcasa and his villainous minions are a bit more morally ambiguous than they first bargained for, and that everyone they fight seems to be fighting for the justice they believe in. And that maybe there's more going on across the continent than they could have imagined.

Yggdra Union, in short, is a deconstructionist game about war, ideals, and the true nature of "justice".

An interview with the game director and artists can be found here; be warned that there are spoilers up through the end of the PSP version. See also Yggdra Unison, the Alternate Universe cellphone/DS spinoff.

An updated port of the PSP version was released in 2019 for iOS and Android devices and 2020 for Nintendo Switch with the Switch version getting an English release in 2023. The port would later be released worldwide on PC via Steam on February 6, 2023 in Early Access. It hit full release on July 27, 2023.

A prequel called Blaze Union concerning the events of the Bronquian revolution was released in May 2010. Gloria Union is spin-off set in another continuity, sporting a story more light-hearted in tone.

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Yggdra Union utilizes these tropes:

• Advertised Extra: Milanor's Flunky, who has some artworks despite only being playable for a single chapter.

• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Gulcasa not only pulls it off in the prologue, he flattens the former Royal Army doing it. This is what essentially sets the main storyline in motion.
• Almighty Janitor: Remake-exclusive character Mistel is a simple farmer who repeatedly refers to herself as a mere peaceful housewife, but is the only playable unit who has permanent access to scythes. Despite starting with low stats, she can be one of the army's most fearsome fighters due to having no weaknesses to any weapon and an advantage against all other melee weapons.

• Ancestral Weapon: Yggdra's BFS, the Gran Centurio, which has been passed down through the royal family of Fantasinia ever since Nessiah granted it to them hundreds of years ago.
• Anyone Can Die: And the majority of the cast does.
• Arc Words: "Justice lies with the Holy Sword", chapters 1-3. "A ruler's duty to his/her people" and "There is no single absolute justice", chapters 7-8.
• Art-Style Dissonance: A dark, broody, death-laden storyline about the nature of war, with a cast of adorable anime characters!
• Artificial Stupidity: The enemy cannot read the unit's immunity to certain elements. For example, an Undine will try to use their Ice attack when possible, even when the enemy they are targetting is Nietzsche, an Undine that is immune to ice.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Yggdra has hers before the game actually ends, and thus spends the last third of it ridiculously overpowered.
• Badass Adorable: Just about everyone, due to the majority of characters having the appearance of cutesy anime characters, like they mixed several serious characters from the game with Sugar Bowl physics.
• Badass Army: The Imperial Army is what every Ragtag Bunch of Misfits wants to be when it grows up. By the end of the game, the Royal Army is on its way to becoming one, too.
• Betty and Veronica: Yggdra and Kylier, in regards to Milanor. Reversed in that Kylier, despite being the character with darker coloring, is the Betty (she's Milanor's childhood friend) and Yggdra, despite being the fair-haired character (and the heroine!), is the Veronica. Also subverted in that it's all in Kylier's head—Milanor doesn't have feelings for Yggdra.

• Big "NO!": There are quite a few of them, but the most notable are Luciana or Aegina screaming iyaaaaaaa when their sister dies and Milanor screaming Kylier's name until his voice cracks both prior to her Heroic Sacrifice and after the Shoot the Dog incident in Battlefield 46.
  • Say what you like about the English voice acting, but they were wise to cast an actor for Milanor who knows how to scream.

• Bowdlerise : Yggdra's "Crusade" attack was originally called "Jihad."
• Breakable Weapons: Unless you're playing on easy mode, every piece of equipment in the game can only be used for a finite number of stages, and there is no way to repair them or obtain additional copies of the same item.

• Chained by Fashion: Nessiah, whose mask is attached to the extremely large Chains of Conviction that weigh him down and do not permit him to die no matter how much he may wish it.
• Continuing is Painful: Thanks to the Retry option keeping the zero reset^note Any experience towards the next level is lost on death for any characters that died.
• Crapsack World: The land is defined by war and bloodshed, racism and genocide is commonplace, and everyone is an Unwitting Pawn to Nessiah.

• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: As the tutorial on enemy skill activation states, the enemy doesn't care about the Ace Type (the weapon type of the unit that initiated the Union) that is required on the Card Skill, they can use it when it is available.

• Curb-Stomp Battle: Of the extremely depressing variety and delivered by the player, where the Royal Army is forced to trounce a militia army of untrained civilians that refuse to surrender to the death upon commencing the invasion of Bronquia.

• Deadly Upgrade: Gulcasa and #367 each get one.
  • For Gulcasa, once he has become Brongaa's receptacle, overusing Brongaa's power can tax his body to a state of collapse. He puts himself in this condition towards the end of Battlefield 32, causing mass panic amongst his men as they try to defend him. Emilia eventually comes to rescue him just as he passes out.
  • And in #367's case, having her synchronization with her artificial Diviner enhanced demands more than her body is capable of, and so her Morale drops drastically every turn. She also starts speaking in a strained voice and is constantly panting heavily.
    • Mistel calls her on the deadliness of the upgrade, though #367 doesn't seem to care.
      Mistel: Oh dear! I don't think your body can handle so much rage...

• Decoy Protagonist: You start off playing as Milanor, who is set up as the hero with Yggdra in a traditional Distressed Damsel role. Two and a half battlefields later, Yggdra becomes the player character, and Milanor is firmly established as her sidekick, losing nearly all plot significance except the ability to attract Kylier when the Royal Army has dug itself into a hole and the default commander seat when Yggdra is somewhere else. The game is explicitly about Yggdra's Character Development and growth as a ruler as she learns to balance hot-blooded idealism with compassion and an understanding of how the world works. Then the universe of episode II started expanding, a certain antagonist's backstory and true motivations got lots more attention, and Gulcasa made off with Yggdra's hero seat. On top of all this, the character in the episode II games who is the most important to the 'verse is none of the above—it's actually Nessiah, the antagonist, about which Word of God and the side materials are very clear.
• Deadpan Snarker: Nessiah. He tends to get away with it in the Japanese because he's just so darn polite. The English script... not so much.
  • Mistel, who is polite about it. She's also a lot crueler in her comments, which leads to her opponents being confused between what she just said and how she said it.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The battles against Marietta and #367.
  • In Marietta's case, this is a matter of letting your units endure one turn of vicious beating after another, until Marietta exhausts herself and she can be finished off with one hit from Crusade.
  • For #367, this is similar but more dangerous—her Morale decreases with every turn, but she actively attacks you. Then again, you can use (overpowered) Fanelia in this fight...
• Dramatic Irony: Nessiah wants revenge on the gods, who disappeared at the end of Ragnarok. As said character wasn't around for the end of Ragnarok, there's no way for him to know this.
• Dressing as the Enemy: In one chapter. Said character cannot participate in unions, and going next to an enemy counts as an auto failure for the map.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Gulcasa's title was changed from "Blazing Emperor" to "Emperor of Carnage" for the English version for whatever reason. This still makes some degree of sense—Fantasinia doesn't like him, so they wouldn't be calling him anything that sounds friendly—until you hear his people, who wholeheartedly adore him, calling him the same thing... and Theme Naming starts to show up when Imperial landmarks turn out to have fire-based names, which are also altered ("Gates of Carnage"^note The name is even left as "Asura Gate" on the translated map, anyone?). Then it just starts sounding rather awkward. It will probably become a much bigger problem if Atlus ever localizes Blaze Union, where Gulcasa's fire motif is even more important.
  • Additionally, the alternate ending refers to an upcoming war against the gods the localizers called "Ragnarok", not knowing that the name had already been used for a different conflict in the original series backstory.

• The Empire: Subverted with Bronquia, which originally seems to fit this description to the letter. And then you find out that this is exactly what Fantasinia did. Bly specifically says at the end of Battlefield 14-II that Bronquia was the only independent country left—and he once advised Yggdra's father and grandfather to go ahead and conquer it while the people would still be grateful for having their dictator gotten rid of. Too bad Gulcasa beat Fantasinia to the punch. Not.
• Establishing Character Moment: The barely-two-minute-long scene at the start of Battlefield 42 hands you everything you need to know to understand what kind of person Gulcasa really is.

• Eye Scream: Elena snipes Aegina in the eye with a crossbow bolt in Battlefield 28. Becomes a plot point when they seemingly show up again later with no sign of their previous eye wound.
• Fantastic Nuke: The Ankh Cannon. The Ankhs themselves could possibly render an area uninhabitable for many years, as discussed by some of the cast.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: There are a few countries like Embellia and Nyllard that don't have a distinct one, but most of the others do—
  • Fantasinia is representative of western Europe and America.
  • Verlaine is specifically tied to France—"Verlaine" comes from the name of a French poet, and Roswell's name is explicitly French.
  • The Vanir are reminiscent of Native Americans, particularly considering their relation to Fantasinia (and the name of their race). Most of them are dark-skinned (Milanor being an exception) to make it even more obvious.
  • Lombardia strongly resembles the historical role of the Holy Roman Empire.
  • As for Bronquia, their counterpart is Japan.
• Fetish: Rosary and Pamela are the only characters to get a Morale boost from being given such items as shackles and blindfolds.
  • And then there's Roswell and his thing with bananas...
• Field of Blades: The pictures on the Dragon Killer and Oblivious Dawn cards.
• Foreshadowing: As it's part of Dept. Heaven (and is thus far the chronologically earliest game in The 'Verse) this is to be expected for the Metaplot. Additionally, ties very neatly into the Arc Words; in at least one case, some things that look like other tropes turn out to be rather excellent Foreshadowing.
  • Example: During the conquest of Embellia, Emeleone pulls a What the Hell, Hero? when she accuses Yggdra of using "justice" as a means to follow her own ends. As Yggdra has thus far spent the entire game alternately running for her life and saving townspeople from being murdered by raiders, and since Emeleone has been prosecuting a genocidal war against all neighboring human settlements to harvest their blood in retribution for one of the Undines being seduced into stealing the Transmigragem, this accusation doesn't yet have any reason to stick particularly well. Had Emeleone's taunt come later it would have been disturbingly apt, however, since the invasion of Bronquia is like a larger, more tragic version of the Embellia arc.
• Gag Dub: Quite a lot of Atlus' infamous script changes involve relatively neutral dialogue being changed into characters cracking lots and lots of wise.
• Giggling Villain: This is the sound of Nessiah's sanity being strained beyond its bounds. It manages to be both creepy as hell and pity-inspiring.

• Guide Dang It!: Just try to get all bonus items in each stage without a guide.

• Heroic Resolve: Every deployed unit gets this in Battlefield 42 after Kylier sacrifices herself to save them. Milanor is probably the best example of it, though.
  • He does it again after she dies the second time, swearing vengeance on Nessiah. Ironically, this is after she talks about how sorry she feels for him and how despite what he did to her, she can't hate him for it. Even though, you know, she still wants them to stop him anyway.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Gulcasa might also be considered to have one, as his actions from Battlefield 18 are geared towards ensuring that he'll be able to call down Brongaa on the Royal Army's heads (BY KILLING HIMSELF) if the situation gets desperate enough. And boy does he try to.
  • Kylier attacks the Imperial Army's Ankh Cannon alone to blow it up so the Royal Army can advance, at the cost of her own life.
  • Almost everyone in the Imperial Army lays down their lives to defend their homeland against Yggdra's army, starting with Baldus.
• Hide Your Lesbians: There's a fair amount of subtext between Zilva and Elena, none of which amounts to much due to Zilva dying. In addition to this, there was definitely something going on between Gulcasa and Nessiah according to Yggdra Unison and Blaze Union.
• Hot Springs Episode: One of the rare cases the North American version shows more than the Japanese.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Almost every Embellian Undine subscribes to this viewpoint, mainly because some jerk human(Nessiah) stole their means of survival. They use this as their justification for attacking completely unrelated humans to try to use their blood for eternal youth potion. ...Which turns out to be exactly how Nessiah, who set up the theft and fed them information about said potion, was hoping they'd react.
• Idiot Ball: The entire cast spends Battlefield 18 passing it around. (See also the Just Bugs Me page.)
  Royal Army: Yeah, so Yggdra's raring to kill Gulcasa and all, but she'll be fine, let's let her do her own thing for a while!
  Messenger: We found Gulcasa! I think we should tell the person who wants revenge the most, instead of everyone together!
  Yggdra: SCREW ASKING EVERYONE FOR BACKUP I CAN DO THIS BY MYSELF BRAAAAH
  Royal Army: OH NOES GULCASA BLEW UP THE BRIDGE. WHATEVER SHALL WE DO, THERE'S A RIVER IN THE WAY, IT'S NOT AS IF WE HAVE ANY UNITS THAT CAN SWIM!
  Gulcasa: Sure it's weird for Nessiah to request to handle his plans by himself, but there's nothing suspicious about this, nope! I can totes trust him, we're tight like that. Let's go home, guys!
  Nessiah: You all exist to make my life more difficult and I hate you. Instead of joining up with you lot so that you'll trust me and hand my sword over nicely when I ask at the end of the game, I think I shall kill myself so I don't have to deal with it. Have fun rescuing the princess, see you later!
  • Some of the forced-upon-you conflicts involve at least a minor game of Idiot Ball, such as the whole Snafu with Embellia.
  Undines: Someone took our Ancient Artifact without which our race will die! Screw looking for it! Some dude, who couldn't possibly under any circumstances have anything to do with its disappearance, said we should go pillage our neighbors so we can use their blood to solve the problem... somehow.
  Yggdra: The Undines are burning that city, and we just killed a bunch of them. Surely they'll still honor their treaty obligations to join me in my fight against The Empire!
  Emeleone: YOUR DESIRE TO RESOLVE OUR CONFLICTS THROUGH MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION IS SILLY!
  Durant: We don't need to travel through their base and the whole reason we came here was to find allies, there's no real reason why we can't just leave, we must kill them. We must kill them all until they are dead.

• Idiot Hero: Subverted a bit with Milanor. He's actually quite intelligent tactically, but incredibly dumb about people. Especially girls.
• Immortality Seeker: Pamela. Ironically, her quest for Immortality seems to have been inspired by her people's memories of Nessiah, the poster boy for Who Wants to Live Forever?.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Gulcasa is a Hero Antagonist until he goes and gets possessed, and by that point there is no making him unsympathetic. As Yggdra Union is intensely anti-war, this is kind of the point.
• Interface Spoiler: Sometimes you'll obtain items that are only usable by characters who have yet to join your party, such as a Stell Persona mask for Elena or the sword that Russell carries during his first appearance.

• Kill It with Fire: Gulcasa loves doing this. For the Royal Army's version, there's the Flame card (which actually gets you Grilled Griffon and Dragon Steak if you kill a unit that rides each creature with said card).
• Kick the Dog: Its Heavily implied Nessiah was the one who seduced Nietzsche's sister, stole the Transmigragem and drove her to suicide. Its also implied he gave the ankhs to Roswell and Rosary starting their war.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Milanor. He is a thief. And goes around "liberating" goods from enemies and villagers alike...

• Also Emperor Gulcasa; it's revealed in Battlefield 45 that he is the dragon Brongaa's last surviving descendant.

• Leitmotif: Every character in the Royal Army has his or her own battle theme, as do Gulcasa, Nessiah, Aegina and Luciana, and Nana-chan. Other enemies just have generic music according to their rank. Averted with Marietta, since she never attacks first (and doesn't have a battle theme to begin with). As of Blaze Union, pretty much everyone in the Imperial Army has their own battle theme as well, leaving Inzaghi as pretty much the only recurring character without his own theme.
• Lethal Joke Character: Mizer becomes this in the PSP version, repeatedly showing up without warning to hound the player. He's never taken very seriously, but now he's packing a nasty special attack that will paralyze anyone it hits, preventing them from moving for two turns and making strategies much more difficult to execute.
  • Mistel. She's an airheaded "housewife" that has very low base stats, leaving her with terrible stats at level 20... unless you give her a few stat boosting items early on, allowing her to reach a full six stars in all stats with no trouble due to her high stat gain per level. Combined with her weapon being the scythe, which beats all melee weapons.
• Long-Lost Relative: Aegina and Luciana are Yggdra's half-sisters she never knew she had, having been abandoned and left to die by their homeland.

• Magi Babble: The most notable example is the tutorial sequence where Roswell explains how Ankhs work, although it comes up a few other times in the game.
• Magikarp Power: The remake-exclusive characters Mistel and Pamela both qualify, but moreso the former. Mistel starts with low stats across the board, and Pamela starts with very low attack and defense, which due to the way stat gain works (it takes more points to increase a lower stat than it does to increase a higher one) will leave them with low final stats. They gain a lot of stat points as they level up, however, so giving them stat-boosting consumables early on will see them easily cap out and make up for their weaknesses later on.
• Meaningful Name: Lost Aries. It was where Nessiah (then the angel Aries) was sent down to end the Great Sorcery War by obliterating every living thing there. This seems to have been a major part of his punishment. So named by the human world because [[spoiler:Aries was supposed to have died there.
• Mermaid Problem: Solved. The Undines live forever until killed and do not reproduce. How they came to be is a mystery. What actually happens is that they are immortal due to a magic gem that revives them whenever they are killed for real.
• Mirror Character:
  • Yggdra and Gulcasa. Or Yggdra and Nessiah, for endings C and D. This becomes clearer when the heroes end up slaughtering an untrained civilian militia or raging against the heavens.
  • Also, Nessiah and the Magi from Asgard. In his attempt to gain vengeance, Nessiah becomes a lot like the Magi, manipulating countless people's lives for his own perception of justice.
  • Lampshaded in Battlefield 49. A lot, with irony, by multiple people.
    Milanor: Lowly humans!? I don't think I like your attitude. What makes you so different from us?
• Multiple Endings: A Bittersweet Ending (canon), two variations of a Here We Go Again! Downer Ending, and a Nonstandard Game Over.
  • Trading Power for Wisdom: Yggdra realizes that Gran Centurio's status as an all powerful weapon means it will propagate an eternal cycle of warfare as various factions and nations vie to claim it for themselves. She ultimately decides to seal Gran Centurio away permanently, and Marietta rewards her with a Holy Staff, which Yggdra uses to usher in an age of peace.
  • The Dark Ages Reborn: The Royal Army fails to stop Gulcasa and he successfully awakens Brongaa, which destroys the entire world and ends human civilization.
  • The Advent of Ragnarok: Blaming the gods for all of their problems, Yggdra refuses to give up Gran Centurio and openly declares war on the gods. She then rallies the Royal Army to pursue her ideal of justice and judge or destroy the gods as she leads them through the gates of Heaven.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Gulcasa, the Emperor of Carnage? What a charming name! I wonder if he'll be my friend.
  • Worth noting is that his title in the Japanese script, 焔帝 ("Blazing Emperor"), is not quite as overtly sinister.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Ironically, the female mermaid named "Nietzsche" is the only one who isn't this trope at all. In fact, the only insane people in the game are also the people who act sane.
• Nintendo Hard: The game will PUNISH the player for playing poorly. To the point of becoming Unwinnable.
• Old Maid: Mistel. Lampshaded—she's only 28, but gets furious when Milanor calls her "Obasan" (she technically won't qualify for two more years!), and she flirts heavily with Durant and Roswell. (Though, the last is likely due to the fact that her fiancé left her, and she's looking for a new one.)
• Omake: The character designer, Kiyudzuki Satoko, wrote a series of fifteen 4koma entitled "Yggdra Universe" that are considered canon extras. There's a lot of Lampshade Hanging, and the 4koma also deal with a few series details that aren't brought up in-game.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Gulcasa, who tries to awaken the dragon Brongaa and burn everything to ashes.
  • Could also be just Brongaa, as he was possessing Gulcasa at the time.
• One-Gender Race: Undines. They can't reproduce, although they can reincarnate through magic.
• People Puppets: Nessiah's favorite way to mind-screw the Royal Army. The fact that it only works with people who have already died—i.e., Roswell or Rosary (whoever you killed) and Kylier—makes it all the more traumatic.

• Poor Communication Kills: This is what you get when you have a pair of ultimately kind and idealistic but very stubborn people leading opposing armies. Everything would have been settled much more quickly and with a lot less death if Gulcasa and Yggdra had just been willing to sit down and negotiate, but they're both too busy assuming that the other side is evil. In the end, this is just one of many ways that the whole world plays right into Nessiah's hands.
• Position of Literal Power: Yggdra's Awesome Moment of Crowning also grants her holy power from the Gran Centurio and Miracle Tiara, conferring multiple stat increases and an exclusive special attack that instantly defeats any opponent she uses it on.
• Posthumous Character: King Ordene, who was murdered prior the game's story. We wouldn't get to see what he looked like until the release of Blaze Union.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Gulcasa gives us the antiheroic version of this trope, in spades. His first confrontation with Milanor is nearly Moment of Awesome status, and definitely his Funny Moment.
  Milanor: So you're the big man around here, huh? Get ready!
  Gulcasa: We haven't been introduced, so I'll think of you as "Prey".
  • Not to mention this line from the rereleases when he is about to unleash Genocide.
  Gulcasa: ARE YOU READY?!

• Puni Plush: Every single character looks like they're in their teens, but most of them (in the rereleases) have clearly adult voices.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Nessiah's ultimate goal is to exact revenge upon the gods that betrayed him, and he will engulf the entire land below in centuries of bloodshed to accomplish it.
  • Yggdra can also choose to raise her sword against the gods, in endings C and D.
• Really 700 Years Old: Nessiah, who despite looking nineteen has been around for several centuries.
• The Reveal: Battlefield 47, which is where Nessiah explains that everything the Royal Army has done has been part of his elaborate revenge plot, right down to the Gran Centurio.
• Sadly Mythtaken : Nietzsche. To quote Hardcore Gaming 101
  Most Japanese games that are based on some kind of mythology usually end up getting it wrong, but this is one of the most hilarious I've ever seen. Nietzsche (in real life) was a German philosopher who introduced the concept of nihilism. Nietzsche (in the game) is a cutesy little girl undine (mermaid) who pokes gently with her spear.
• Sanity Slippage: Poor Nessiah is left with a rather tenuous grip on sanity after being forced to live in suffering for hundreds of years.
• Save the Princess: The plotline of Chapter 4 is about saving Yggdra from the clutches of the Imperial Army after she gets way in over her head and captured.
• Ship Tease: The game has two pairs of characters who are actually shown to be in love with each other. Two. It gets away with this by liberally dropping mild-to-moderate hints as to who the others may or may not have affections for.
• Shoot the Dog: Battlefield 46 forces Yggdra and Milanor to put down Kylier's reanimated corpse, forced to fight them against her will after giving her life to save them.

• Sinister Scythe: Gulcasa and Mistel, along with the Imperial Knights, use them. The impracticality is justified in Gulcasa's case; he wears padded gauntlets (take a good look at his art) and wields it from dragonback in order to get more force behind the blows. Mistel is a rare case of a farmer actually using a scythe rather than a pitchfork in combat; however, the design of her default scythe is very impractical for doing anything more than bludgeoning people and cutting grass.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Yggdra Union is one of those rare examples that starts out looking idealistic and then takes a turn for the cynical, plausibly.

• Spoiler Opening: All the characters who join the Royal Army in Chapter 2 are shown, as are Cruz, Elena having shot Aegina's eye out, all the Dragon Generals, the sacking of Bardot, and even Nessiah's clearly angelic anima superimposed over him. It also rather blatantly hints at Nessiah's importance to the plot.
  • Subverted, though, in that there is an event portrayed inaccurately (in the OP, Marietta crowns Yggdra; Joachim does this in-game) and that the new characters in the PSP Version do not appear.
• Staying Alive: Nessiah's particular brand of Immortality. Although he would really rather not.
• The Stinger: Only in the PSP version's Battlefield 49. The game can end at Battlefield 48 with the Royal Army certain that Nessiah was the villain and the world is saved, but if the Royal Army progresses, it's shown that Asgard is indeed up to no good, and is exploiting nameless test subjects to boot. Basically, Light Is Not Good.
  • Then there are the extra books Sting released on the game after the Updated Re-release, which explain that half the reason Nessiah was thrown out of Asgard in the first place was for being a pacifist, of all things.

• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors:
  • A rather complex one. There's the Fire Emblem-standard sword-axe-lance triangle, and those weapons beat bows, which beat magic, which beat the sword-axe-lance triangle again.
  • Then there're scythes, which are strong against the sword-axe-lance triangle, and have no weakness. Guess what is Gulcasa's preferred weapon?
  • Characters of the same element even exhibit stalemates - units with elemental attacks are also immune to that element, making aggressive attacks completely ineffective in mirror matches.
• Thematic Theme Tune: "Hahen" and "patria", which are technically the game's themes though they're only actually used for the radio show. Both are commonly considered to be Nessiah's Image Songs due to their content, and "Hahen" was also used to advertise Baroque.
• Third-Person Person: Nietzsche exclusively refers to herself in the third person to highlight her childishness compared to the rest of the army.
• Tsundere: Kylier comes to admire Yggdra's aspirations to build a world without war, but just cannot bring herself to say anything positive about Fantasinia and its royals. Eventually deconstructed, when she finally gives Yggdra honest encouragement to make her world a reality before sacrificing herself.
• Twin Switch: Subverted with Luciana and Aegina, as everyone but the Royal Army always knows which is which. And that they're even twins in the first place.
• Unholy Holy Sword: The Gran Centurio is revealed to be Nessiah's creation, a weapon of unmatched power bestowed upon mankind specifically for the purpose of inciting war and bloodshed under the pretense of exacting the nebulous ideal of "justice".
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Kylier initially appears to be this (perhaps because Milanor is the Idiot Hero and doesn't seem to know the first thing about women). Ironically—and tragically—Milanor realizes that he has feelings for her after she dies to save him. She'd have been the Victorious Childhood Friend if she'd only lived...
• Useless Useful Spell: Item Break in the GBA version. Finding a time where you want to break a foe's item is incredibly rare, since the two ways to get them are very consistent and reliable. Having your items broken, on the other hand...
• Unstoppable Rage: Yggdra displays this while chasing after and trying to kill the (already-injured!) Gulcasa in Battlefield 18. Of course, the Imperial Army uses the fact that she's not thinking to trap her and subdue her by force, so it can be considered subverted...
• Unusual Ears: Gulcasa has pointed ears, revealed in Battlefield 44 when he loses his helmet. Not surprisingly, we learn shortly after that he's the last living descendant of the dragon Brongaa. Made infinitely creepier because Brongaa is possessing him at the time.

• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Medusa's Eye. You technically win the clash by petrifying the opponent, but you get no card bonuses, items, or experience and the units just get in your way.
  • Every ailment except curse and sleep is this, albeit to a lesser extent than petrification. Anything they provide is mediocre at best and doesn't provide any noteworthy battle bonuses. Curse, on the other hand, neuters even Gulcasa, and sleep is an automatic victory but doesn't work on bosses.
• Waif-Fu: Compared to stronger-looking magicians with accurately low attack value, tiny, apparently frail Nessiah has a disproportionately high set of statistics and a overpowered weapon type and Skill, making him a rare male example. Of course, his excuse is that he's a fallen Grim Angel...
• War Is Hell: The overarching theme of the entire game. War is consistently shown to have countless tragic casualties no matter which side you stand on and what your ideals may be.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Transmigragem is never brought up again except in Nietzsche's battle dialogue unless you find it.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The heroes call themselves out on this when during the counter-invasion of Bronquia, the Royal Army massacres an untrained civilian militia, wiping out most of a town's population.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Nessiah. Even if he dies, he is painfully resurrected shortly after, depending on the power level of the Gran Centurio at the time—he actually introduces himself to the Royal Army by running himself through to remove himself from the war, only to show up eight battlefields later to tell them to get a move on. The Chains of Conviction do not allow him to die permanently, and we all know how much he wants them off.
  • As quoted in his special Skill, Reincarnation: Unable to live, unable to die... thy punishment is to repeat life eternally. Ouch.
• Why Won't You Die?: The Royal Army's reaction to the way Gulcasa simply refuses to fall even after taking two to three severe beatings in rapid succession. Milanor in particular frustratedly demands to know how he's even still standing after so much blood loss and so many mortal wounds. The answer? Sheer willpower, though Gulcasa's abusing his demon blood can't have hurt.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: #367 and her camera-shy fellow test subjects. At least according to the High Servant. The scary part? The High Servant mentions that ''this is the sanest any test subject has ever been after having their synchronization rate forced above 100%.
  • Gulcasa also seems to get a little... genocidal, to say the least, after being possessed by Brongaa.

• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Nessiah seems fond of this. When he's introduced in Battlefield 18, right before he kills himself to end his own Catch-22, he thanks his division for their service up until then, tells them apologetically that he doesn't need their help anymore, says "goodbye", and proceeds to wipe them from existence. He also says the exact quote in battle against several characters, among their ranks the mages of Verlaine and Yggdra.

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