History VideoGame / SacredEarthSeries

* NintendoHard: Since playable characters have their own elemental weaknesses, it's easy for the enemies to KO them easily if they hit with the correct element. This requires the player to efficiently use EX Recover, buff skills, and Focus to keep themselves alive. While ''Promise'' and ''New Theory'' have difficulty settings, even the easiest setting will punish reckless gameplay, especially due to the lack of items.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sent_title.jpg]]

The first canon installment, ''Promise'' (VX Ace), is presented from the POV of Priel Aylin, a dragonkin Vanguard whose whimsical personality and talents cause her to chafe with her peers and her sister, Perrine. The Aylin sisters manage to put aside their differences long enough to win a local tournament, only to discover that their rivals are the Relic thieves and that their old friend is working with the villains. The sisters and their childhood friend, Relima, have to work together to stop the thieves from taking another Relic and convince their friend to rejoin them.

''Promise'' has a [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/938100/Sacred_Earth__Promise/ Steam page]] and an [[https://miragev.itch.io/sacred-earth-promise itch.io page]].

The next installment, ''Sacred Earth - New Theory'' (VX Ace), started development in 2018, with a short IGMC demo available on [[https://miragev.itch.io/sacred-earth-new-theory itch.io]]. This time, Veili and Gunnar are the protagonists, and they must contend with a curse that's causing the entire continent to crumble. When they attempt to approach a mysterious tower, they get teleported inside one of the floors. Now they have to climb the tower while surviving against the executives of Illuminate.

In 2022, Sacred Star Team released a demo for ''Sacred Earth - Alternative'' (MZ) on [[https://miragev.itch.io/sacred-earth-alternative itch.io]] for IGMC Rebirth, and later released the full version in 2023 on both itch and [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/2257360/Sacred_Earth__Alternative/ Steam]]. The protagonist, Konoe, is an amnesiac who wakes up in a ruined world. She must reclaim her memories by traveling to several dungeons, but a mysterious hooded figure mocks her with cryptic words. Worse yet, she finds that reclaiming her memories is going to be physically and emotionally painful due to the bosses of each dungeon.

[[folder:Tropes in ''Sacred Earth - Promise'']]
* AdaptationalBadass:
** Double subverted with the playable characters. The old free version of the game had no levels, meaning all characters have their skills from the start. In the commercial version, characters have to level up to learn all their skills, but they'll eventually gain EX Limits, putting them above their previous incarnations.
** In the free version, [[spoiler:Forneus]] is just a standard boss with no unique mechanics. In the commercial version, [[spoiler:Forneus]] will activate a barrier at low health and summon two minions to maintain the barrier.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The second-tier EX Arts cost 40 EX vs the first-tier at 25 EX, but they still only increase the Limit Index by 1, making them less EX-efficient when it comes to unleashing EX Limits.
* BlockPuzzle: Subverted. In Icefall Labyrinth, the party enters a room full of ice blocks. Priel and Relima think they need to get through by pushing the ice blocks in a specific way, but Priel just melts the blocks.
* BonusBoss: After talking to Razhell and solving the final puzzle of Icefall Labyrinth, the player can fight [[spoiler:a shadowy version of Isole]].
* DiscOneNuke: An update added the Master Core, Transcendence, to the Garenian Sewers. This MC gives balanced stat increases and is nearly as powerful as the starting [=MCs=] in their strongest stats, making it very useful in the first part of the game.
* FantasticRacism:
** Isole, the ice harpy chief, despises all other races to the point where she attacks Perrine [[UngratefulBitch despite the latter healing her]].
** Many of Priel's [[TallPoppySyndrome resenters]] bitterly claim that her dragonkin heritage gives her an unfair advantage.
* FighterMageThief: Priel is a [[MightyGlacier strong and slow physical fighter]] who focuses on single-target damage, Perrine is a [[SquishyWizard fragile but magically inclined fighter]] who is the best at dealing group damage, and Relima is a speedster who is less powerful than the other two offensively while having better [[SupportPartyMember support skills]].
* FinalBoss: [[spoiler:Forneus, a giant serpent,]] is the last story boss. Unlike most examples, it's not the BigBad, but it is a significant enemy to the party [[spoiler:due to them being affected by an incident where Priel and Perrine's father got injured protecting them from the beast.]]
* GuestFighter: Reize, Lily, and Ivo are the main characters of ''Star Chaser Story'', who make appearances in this game. Reize also appears in other games such as ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight'' and ''VideoGame/ValdisStoryAbyssalCity''.
* GuideDangit: Some of the final sidequests in Garenia won't show up unless you talk to people other than the quest holder or unless you talk to the quest holder several times.
* HardModePerks: Nightmare mode will multiply EXP gain by 1.5, allowing characters to level up and learn skills faster. However, enemies give less EXP to higher-leveled party members, making this perk less impressive than it sounds.
* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Scion Custom I and the weaker Grand Elemental gems can be obtained without a fight in the final segment. These gems can boost all stats, but are all weaker than Grand Elemental V.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: The reward for beating the BonusBoss is Grand Elemental V, an ether gem that boosts all stats.
* LimitBreak: Exceed Limits are learned at level 15, and require the Limit Index to be filled before they can be chained from EX Arts. The Limit Index is filled when an EX Art is used.
* NoNameGiven: There is no indication of what each enemy's name is outside of story-related ones.
* NonMaliciousMonster: [[spoiler:Forneus]] seems to have no other goal than attacking anyone who goes too deep into its lair in Icefall Cavern.
* PermanentlyMissableContent: Not only are all quests timed, the Fimbulvetir Forest dungeon cannot be revisited, meaning any enemies or items there are lost forever. Averted for Garenia Sewers, which actually have weaker Grand Elemental gems for those who revisit after the tournament and after the forest boss.
* SequelHook: The game ends with Balcruade and Zuleika on the run, which means the protagonists will have to stop their thievery in a future installment. [[spoiler:TheStinger reveals that Relima is a Prophet and that she'll have a major role in shaping the world's future.]]
* SongsInTheKeyOfLock: The harpies in Fimbulvetir Forest set up doors that can only be opened by musical plants to play a specific sequence of notes. The forest also contains an underground ruin where the player has to go through the exits of a looping room in a specific order based on the notes that are made upon passing through.
* TheStinger: If the player manages to complete all the sidequests, they'll get an additional scene [[spoiler:where Razhell, Aurelius, and Fiamme reveal that Relima is a Prophet]].
* SuperMovePortraitAttack: In older versions of ''Promise'', EX Arts were accompanied by a cut-in image of the user. In the current version, only Exceed Limits have cut-in images due to these skills surpassing EX Arts.
* VideoGameRemake: The commercial version is an improved version of the free one, with new mechanics and two new dungeons and bosses before Icefall Labyrinth.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tropes in ''Sacred Earth - Alternative'']]
* AfterTheEnd: The world has apparently been reduced to a husk by some kind of "despair." [[spoiler:As a twist, it turns out this is one of many worlds in a multiverse setting, and True Konoe's activation of the Celestial Tree is endangering the other worlds too.]]
* AmbiguouslyEvil:
** The hooded man speaks cryptically about Konoe's past and wants her to succeed in her quest to restore her memories, but his reasons for helping her are unknown. He refers to himself and Camellia as Par Mythos and states that they need to observe Konoe's journey for the sake of their ambitions. [[spoiler:It's revealed that he created the replica Konoe in order to usurp the True Konoe's power and steal the Scarlet Lifestone.]]
** Although Camellia is friendly to Konoe, she seems to be working towards the same goal as the hooded man.
* AmbiguousSituation: The "despair" that ravaged the world sounds eerily similar to the curse from ''New Theory'', but it's unknown if they're related. It's ambiguous if this game takes place after ''New Theory'' or if it's actually a prequel describing the world below Miltiades. [[spoiler:The ending doesn't confirm where in the timeline this game takes place, but it does reveal that the game takes place in a different universe.]]
* AmnesiacHero: Konoe wakes up with no memories or even her own name. Progressing through each area and meeting her friends restores some of her memories, though she still hasn't regained all her memories by the end of the demo.
* AutoRevive: When the final dungeon unlocks, Konoe can learn a passive skill, One Last Gift, which lets her automatically revive once per battle.
* TheBadGuyWins: Subverted in the ending, where no one, including the villains, wins. [[spoiler:Konoe is killed by the BigBad, her original self, who absorbs her soul and finishes destroying the world. However, True Konoe tries to use the Celestial Tree to bring back her family, only to fail and summon two people from Miltiades instead. The Keeper and Camellia, despite their manipulation of the replica Konoe, fail to obtain the Scarlet Lifestone and are forced to come up with a new plan.]]
* TheBattleDidntCount: If the player wins the FinalBoss battle against [[spoiler:True Konoe, she kills the replica in the following cutscene and absorbs the latter's soul and power.]]
* DarkerAndEdgier: While ''Promise'' is a mostly optimistic and light-hearted game where no one dies, this game's demo starts with Konoe fighting her corrupted friends as a form of MercyKill. It also takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where the majority of the world was destroyed through a mysterious "despair." While ''Promise'' ended fairly happily, [[spoiler:''Alternative'' ends with the True Konoe killing and absorbing the replica Konoe, and then destroying the world in a failed attempt to revive her family.]]
* DownerEnding: Despite the demo implying that things will eventually get better for Konoe as she discovers her past, [[spoiler:she discovers that the memories she saw belong to the original Konoe, and then True Konoe kills her, rendering all the pain she went through moot. Then True Konoe fails in her own objective to revive her family, making the destruction of the world AllForNothing. Worse yet, the Celestial Tree that she summoned has the potential to destroy the rest of the multiverse.]]
* DuelBoss: Konoe gets no party members, which means she has to fight the Envoys of the Beginning, Present, and End in one-on-one duels. She continues to fight alone in the final dungeon against [[spoiler:the Phantom of the Past and the original Konoe.]]
* EvenEvilCanBeLoved: In the flashback cutscenes, Konoe knows that she's hated by her sister and major antagonist, Kagura, but seeks to reconcile with her. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it's implied the reconciliation failed and Konoe's party had to kill her, leading to Konoe destroying the world in a mad attempt to bring Kagura and their family back.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In all the flashback cutscenes, Konoe's portrait art is different from her present portrait art. [[spoiler:It turns out the playable Konoe is actually a replica of the past Konoe, and the latter is the BigBad of the game.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: Konoe's friends stayed in the ruined world in order to keep it from being completely destroyed, but this doomed them to eventually transform into monsters. By the time Konoe wakes up, her friends are on the verge of transforming.
* {{Nerf}}: EX Heal now has a one turn cooldown to prevent the player from spamming it every round.
* NoNameGiven: The hooded man is never called by name, even by his associate Camellia. Even his image assets merely refer to him as the "Keeper."
* OneWingedAngel: All of Konoe's friends transform into boss monsters.
** Wynne transforms into the Envoy of the Beginning, a minotaur.
** Ryuna transforms into the Envoy of the Present, a black dragon.
** Kell transforms into the Envoy of the End, a more ethereal looking version of her original beastkin form.
* OpenEndedBossBattle: The FinalBoss fight [[spoiler:with True Konoe]] can be won or lost, but the cutscene afterwards is exactly the same, [[spoiler:with True Konoe killing the replica and absorbing her.]]
* RayOfHopeEnding: In the IGMC demo, although Konoe ends up killing all of her friends in their monster forms by the end of the demo, they believe that as long as she survives, she can save whatever is left of the world. [[spoiler:This hope is quickly dashed by the ending of the full version, where Konoe turns out to be a replica of the real Konoe, who kills her and destroys the world.]]
* RedHerring: The flashbacks indicate that Konoe's party opposed her sister, Kagura. This makes it seem like Kagura is the BigBad of the game, [[spoiler:but it actually turns out to be the original Konoe, who seeks to destroy the world to bring her family back.]]
* SealedEvilInACan: As each Envoy boss is defeated, Konoe regains some of her memories and a mysterious being in the final dungeon is slowly unsealed. [[spoiler:This being turns out to be the original Konoe, who is responsible for the world becoming a husk.]]
* SequelHook: In the ending, [[spoiler:True Konoe fails to revive her family members and instead summons Daphnel and Alan, two people from Miltiades. The Storyteller states that the Celestial Tree that Konoe summoned could spell disaster for the rest of the multiverse.]]
* ShaggyDogStory: Konoe goes through hell by fighting all of her friends-turned-monsters, but believes that doing so will allow her to regain her memories and prevent the end of the world. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Konoe turns out to be a replica, and all of those memories never truly belonged to her. Worse yet, True Konoe kills her and absorbs her, allowing the former to destroy the world anyways. True Konoe's villainy is also an example of this trope, since her reason for destroying the world is to revive her family, but despite her newfound power, she fails to bring them back.]]
* SkillScoresAndPerks: Instead of learning new skills upon leveling up, characters learn skills by allocating AP.
* StatusBuff: In addition to their own EP Art buffs, characters can use EX Boost, which spends 25 EX to buff all stats except speed.
* TomatoInTheMirror: Right before the FinalBoss fight, [[spoiler:it turns out the protagonist is actually a replica of the real Konoe, who made a FaceHeelTurn and decided to destroy the world in order to bring back her family.]]
* TrueFinalBoss: If the player defeats the {{Superboss}}, the Phantom of the Past, [[spoiler:True Konoe decides that she needs to use her full power and gets a permanent buff during her fight.]]
[[/folder]]

----

* CastFromHP: If a character tries to continue their Strike Chain with less than 5 EP, the next strike will still activate, but the character will lose HP instead. This can be used to end battles slightly faster, but can also leave the character vulnerable to being knocked out.
* {{Combos}}: Normal attacks can be chained into more normal attacks (5 total) or an EX Art if the character has enough EX. Each normal attack consumes 5 EP, and while the game allows characters to continue attacking with 0 EP, doing so will consume their LF instead. Similarly, offensive EP Arts can be chained into an EX Art, an AOE spell, or a strong single-target spell, though this requires the character to learn prerequisite skills. Finally, characters can learn Exceed Limits that chain from EX Arts.
* {{Cooldown}}: Most EP Arts and Focus have cooldown times, though EX Recover will reduce cooldowns by a certain amount. This is to balance how support EP Arts don't eat up a character's turn.
* DefendCommand: The Focus command reduces damage and heals LF, EP, and EX, but has a one turn cooldown to prevent the player from spamming it.
* DifficultyLevels: There are Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare difficulties, with all of them [[NumericalHard modifying enemy stats]] and the last one giving enemies exclusive skills.

* HarderThanHard: Hard mode multiplies enemy stats by 1.25 while Nightmare mode multiplies enemy stats by 1.5 on top of giving them additional skills. Considering enemies are fairly strong even on normal difficulty, that 1.5 multiplier is no joke. The description for that difficulty also recommends saving a lot because the player is probably going to die a lot.

* NintendoHard: The game has a steep learning curve due to the absence of healing items, forcing the player to rely on EX Recover, buff skills, and Focus to keep themselves alive. All playable characters have their own elemental weaknesses as well, which means the player cannot afford to be careless with their LF. The endgame requires the player to be good at quickly manipulating their EP and EX to keep themselves alive and force the Focus command to cool down faster. While difficult gameplay is to be expected on Hard and Nightmare, Normal can still wreck players who blindly focus on offense or fail to take advantage of all mechanics.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to ''Promise'', ''New Theory'' starts out with higher stakes due to a Curse that is causing Miltiades to crumble.

* BonusBoss: The Champion monsters are set encounters in a map that feature a buffed version of an already powerful enemy. In the demo, the only champion monster is the Champion Lamia.
* BossInMookClothing: In the demo, the only monster to fight alone is the Lamia, which is so strong that the developer recommends being at Rank 4 to fight her.

* StandardEvilOrganizationSquad: Balcruade and Zuleika's relic stealing group is revealed to be called "Illuminate," with all of its important members being called "Pillars."

* DownerEnding: Despite the demo implying that things will eventually get better for Konoe as she discovers her past, [[spoiler:she discovers that the memories she saw belong to the original Konoe, and then True Konoe kills her, rendering all the pain she went through moot.]]

* DuelBoss: Konoe gets no party members in the demo, which means she has to fight the Envoys of the Beginning, Present, and End in one-on-one duels. She continues to fight alone in the final dungeon against [[spoiler:the Phantom of the Past and the original Konoe.]]

** The hooded man speaks cryptically about Konoe's past and wants her to succeed in her quest to restore her memories, but his reasons for helping her are unknown. He refers to himself and Camellia as Par Mythos and states that they need to observe Konoe's journey for the sake of their ambitions. [[spoiler:It's revealed that he created the replica Konoe in order to usurp the True Konoe's power.]]

* ThatBattleDidntCount: If the player wins the FinalBoss battle against [[spoiler:True Konoe, she kills the replica in the following cutscene and absorbs the latter's soul and power.]]

* AfterTheEnd: The world has apparently been reduced to a husk by some kind of "despair."

** The hooded man speaks cryptically about Konoe's past and wants her to succeed in her quest to restore her memories, but his reasons for helping her are unknown. He refers to himself and Camellia as Par Mythos and states that they need to observe Konoe's journey for the sake of their ambitions.

* AmbiguousSituation: The "despair" that ravaged the world sounds eerily similar to the curse from ''New Theory'', but it's unknown if they're related. It's ambiguous if this game takes place after ''New Theory'' or if it's actually a prequel describing the world below Miltiades.

* DarkerAndEdgier: While ''Promise'' is a mostly optimistic and light-hearted game where no one dies, this game's demo starts with Konoe fighting her corrupted friends as a form of MercyKill. It also takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting where the majority of the world was destroyed through a mysterious "despair."
* DuelBoss: Konoe gets no party members in the demo, which means she has to fight the Envoys of the Beginning, Present, and End in one-on-one duels.

* RayOfHopeEnding: Although Konoe ends up killing all of her friends in their monster forms by the end of the demo, they believe that as long as she survives, she can save whatever is left of the world.

In 2022, Sacred Star Team released a demo for ''Sacred Earth - Alternative'' (MZ), which has an IGMC demo on [[https://miragev.itch.io/sacred-earth-alternative itch.io]]. The protagonist, Konoe, is an amnesiac who wakes up in a ruined world. She must reclaim her memories by traveling to several dungeons, but a mysterious hooded figure mocks her with cryptic words. Worse yet, she finds that reclaiming her memories is going to be physically and emotionally painful due to the bosses of each dungeon.

* DuelBoss: Konoe gets no party members in the demo, which means she has to fight the Envoy of the Beginning, Present, and End in one-on-one duels.

The first canon installment, ''Promise'', is presented from the POV of Priel Aylin, a dragonkin Vanguard whose whimsical personality and talents cause her to chafe with her peers and her sister, Perrine. The Aylin sisters manage to put aside their differences long enough to win a local tournament, only to discover that their rivals are the Relic thieves and that their old friend is working with the villains. The sisters and their childhood friend, Relima, have to work together to stop the thieves from taking another Relic and convince their friend to rejoin them.

The next installment, ''Sacred Earth - New Theory'', is still in development, though with a short demo available on [[https://miragev.itch.io/sacred-earth-new-theory itch.io]]

Steam page for ''Sacred Earth - Promise'' [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/938100/Sacred_Earth__Promise/ here]].

* ContrastingSequelProtagonist: In the demo at least, Veili and Gunnar show a lot less friction in their relationship than Priel and Perrine, despite being PolarOppositeTwins. Gameplay-wise, the Myrrine siblings cover the other four elements that the Aylin siblings don't have and their buffs focus on their partner's primary offensive stats rather than their own.