History VideoGame / Reverse1999

* MillenniumBug: Implied to be the inciting incident of the first Storm.

* AnachronismStew: Chapter 5 takes place in 2007, in a island still living as Pitagoreans. They wear togas, have bizarre legal codes based on ancient Greek traditions, research math on all it's forms while also having an [[BlandNameProduct IDM]] super computer collecting dust in a cave.

** The ending of Chapter 2: [[spoiler: Despite Vertin's best efforts, and despite beating Forget Me Not, they're unable to resolve the fundamental causes of the Storm and it's doomed to arrive and erase the [=1920s=], all that Vertin can do is give the non-Arcanists doomed to be erased a last meal.]]

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Especially prominent in Chapter 2. Many times, the Timekeeper's team are separated from each other, and have to fight separate battles in different places, sometimes by themselves. However, because of the way the game's mechanics work, the fight may canonically include characters you don't have yet and thus can't deploy in combat (such as Sotheby), characters who are supposed to be elsewhere or indisposed (such as Sonetto during the Walden speakeasy fights or [=APPLe=] when he's [[spoiler:poisoned by a fungus]]), or doesn't even have a playable version on the field (such as Vertin during her 1v1 duel with [[spoiler:Schenider]] at the Walden).

* FantasticRacism: It's stated that Arcanists were heavily discriminated by humans, a discrimination that is most evident in the [=1920s=]. One of Vertin and Sonetto's first order of business is trying to prevent a brutal mass murder of arcanists, perpetuated by non-arcanist gangsters.

* DamageTyping: Three types - Reality damage (the game's equivalent to physical), Mental damage, and Genesis damage, which tends to bypass resistances.

* GratuitousItalian: Both Sonetto and Schneider tend to pepper their dialogue with Italian - Schneider in particular also drops Italian swear words like "Vaffanculo" (Go fuck yourself) in some scenes.

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Storm Syndrome, mass hallucinations and psychotic breaks caused by the Storm's arrival, tends to have ''dire'' effects on non-arcanists. Some of them become {{Doomsayer}}s that the Foundation tries to shunt away to their medical health facilities, others are driven to inadvertently harm or even kill themselves as they hallucinate [[spoiler:money and valuable are food, and try to eat them with predictable consequences]], and others still are driven to violent rages, lashing out at anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby.

But the truth she seeks is concealed between an ages long war between the St. Pavlov Foundation (a human-run institution that raises and indoctrinates Arcanists as tools to serve the peace of humanity) and the the Manus Vindictae (a group of Arcanists who are determined to restore Arcanists to their former glory, that being as rulers of the world).

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler:Schneider dies in Vertin's arms after Arcana forces Vertin to shoot her.]] [[spoiler:This is actually a fake out, but the trope sticks the next time it happens at the end of chapter 2.]]
* DitzyGenius: Sotheby tends to have her head in the clouds and acts rather childish, but is one of the best alchemists in the world.

* JealousRomanticWitness: [[spoiler: Sonetto watches as Schnedier kisses Vertin.]]

* FunctionalMagic: How Arcanum works, this being a GaslampFantasy world, it makes sense.

* ButchLesbian: Tennant has this aesthetic - while she has long hair and an obviously feminine face, she wears a {{Coat Cape}} that makes her frame look wider and high-waisted trousers, and the English dub gives her a very deep voice. She is also an evident womanizer and her Insight II art depicts her doing a WallPinOfLove to another woman. One of her chats even has her state that she would smoke cigars if it didn't stain her teeth.

* DamageTyping: Three types - Reality damage (the game's equivalent to physical), Mental damage and Genesis damage, which tends to bypass resistances.

* AerithAndBob: Character names are all over the place, from normal in some world culture (Matilda, Leilani, An-an Lee) to what are probably aliases or nicknames (Eternity, Sweetheart, Necrologist, The Fool), to what we call "Word Salad" (Balloon Party, Bunny Bunny, Medicine Pocket, Twins Sleep), to "that's a name?" (X, TTT, Зима). There are also some names with strange capitalization ([=APPLe=], [=aliEn=] T, [=ONiON=]).

* DownerEnding: The ending of Chapter 2: [[spoiler: Despite Vertin's best efforts, and despite beating Forget Me Not, they're unable to resolve the fundamental causes of the Storm and it's doomed to arrive and erase the [=1920s=], all that Vertin can do is give the non-Arcanists doomed to be erased a last meal.]]

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler:Schneider dies in Vertin's arms after Arcana forces Vertin to shoot her.]] [[spoiler:This is actually a fake out, but the trope sticks the next it happens at the end of chapter 2.]]

* GratuitousRussian: Enma peppers his quotes in untranslated Russian written in Cyrillic.

* ElementalRock-Paper-Scissors: A staple of the genre, though here the elements are called Afflatus and fight each other in this order: Mineral -> Beast -> Plant -> Star -> Mineral. The Light/Dark equivalents are good against one another, though they are respectively Intelligence and Spirit here.

* FantasticRacism: It's stated that Arcanists were heavily discriminated by humans, a discimination that is most evident in the [=1920s=].

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Especially prominent in Chapter 2. Many times, the Timekeeper's team are separated from each other, and have to fight separate battles in different places, sometimes by themselves. However, because of the way the game's mechanics work, the fight may canonically include characters you don't have yet and thus can't deploy in combat (such as Sotheby), characters who are supposed to be elsewhere or indisposed (such as Sonetto during the Walden speakeasy fights or [=APPLe=] when he's [[spoiler:poisoned by a fungus]]), or doesn't even have a playable version on the field (such as Vertin during her 1v1 duel with [[spoiler:Schenider]] at the Walden.