History VideoGame / SakunaOfRiceAndRuin

''Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin'', a MarketBasedTitle, with the original being ''Tensui no Sakuna-hime'' (天穂のサクナヒメ), meaning "Heavenly Ears of Sakuna-hime", given the eventual TitleDrop, is a side-scrolling [[ActionGame action]]-[[PlatformGame platformer]] developed by Japanese independent game studio Creator/{{Edelweiss}}, and published by Creator/{{Marvelous|Entertainment}} in Japan and Europe and Creator/XSEEDGames in North America. The game has deep crafting and rice cultivation in a tale about finding one's place in the world. Its scheduled release date was on November 10, 2020 for PC via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and November 20, 2020 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

Spoiled harvest goddess Sakuna finds herself banished from her opulent celestial home to an island overrun with demons. In the untamed wilderness, she must rediscover her birthright as the daughter of a warrior god and harvest goddess by weathering the elements, fighting monsters, and cultivating rice, the source of her power. By her side in this foreboding place is her guardian Tama and a group of outcast humans. Together, these unlikely companions must join hands to tame both the soil and the demons of Hinoe Island.

* BonusBoss: The 100th floor of Amagaeshi Shrine houses [[spoiler: [[MirrorMatch a palette-swapped copy of Sakuna]], who fights using the same techniques as the real one.]]

''Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin'', a MarketBasedTitle, with the original being ''Tensui no Sakuna-hime'' (天穂のサクナヒメ), meaning "Heavenly Ears of Sakuna-hime", given the eventual TitleDrop, is a side-scrolling [[ActionGame action]]-[[PlatformGame platformer]] developed by Japanese independent game studio Creator/{{Edelweiss}}, and published by Creator/{{Marvelous}} in Japan and Europe and Creator/XSEEDGames in North America. The game has deep crafting and rice cultivation in a tale about finding one's place in the world. Its scheduled release date was on November 10, 2020 for PC via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and November 20, 2020 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

* {{Keigo}}: Sakuna, Tama, Kokorowa, Tauemon, and Kamuhitsuki's Japanese lines are spoken quite formally. Sakuna and Kokorowa are part of Kamuhitsuki's court (although Sakuna does still speak in a rude manner despite using polite forms of address), Tama's the OldRetainer who serves Sakuna, and Tauemon's the son of a samurai. The difference of speech patterns comes up during a dinner conversation in Hinoe where Sakuna and Tauemon comment about Kinta and Yui's rougher sentences and use of short forms, given that they're from the countryside.

* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: Sakuna's level maxes out at 50, but the game can quite easily be beaten when her level is in the low 40s.
* AlcoholHic: When Sakuna is drunk in the beginning, she ends a sentence with a *hic*.
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Tama remarks that real demons are always evil, they simply cannot comprehend nor feel gratitude or any form of goodwill, as they are pure manifestations of evil born from all the chaos in the Lowly Realm. [[spoiler:This comes to play when the humans save a wounded rabbit demon, Sakuna and Tama are flabbergasted that they would even try to aid such a being, but the group manages to convince Sakuna to spare it. Unfortunately, this decision comes back to bite them hard, [[TheFarmerAndTheViper as the demon rabbit pays back by revealing the location of their home]] to the other demons, who completely razed down their land on bypassing the disorientation spell Takeribi had cast to protect the pass. While the same rabbit demon who had revealed the pass was later thrown out by its peers, Tama hypothesizing due to its associating with the humans, Sakuna stays her hand and leaves a meal packet. Apparently it seems that demons can be purified, as the demon rabbit transformed back into a normal rabbit after eating the rice that Sakuna had left behind.]]
* AmbiguouslyAbsentParent: Sakuna's parents, Toyohana and Takeribi. Although they are widely revered in the lofty realm, they are not present during the story and are referred to in the past tense. For much of the story, it is unclear if they are dead or they disappeared at some point in the past. [[spoiler:When she faces off against the FinalBoss, Omizuchi reveals he devoured both of them.]]

* ArtificialStupidity: Enemies make absolutely no effort to avoid dangerous terrain - they just march blindly toward Sakuna regardless of what's in the way, which players can easily exploit.
* BearsAreBadNews: Bear demons start appearing late in the game. They're huge, hit like trucks, and can parry your attacks. Dealing with them usually requires debuffing them with your raiment, using smaller enemies for crash combos against them or using the your raiment to out maneuver them to their vastly more vulnerable back.

* CannibalismSuperpower: According to WordOfGod, [[spoiler: Omizuchi's extra heads are the result of him consuming Sakuna's parents and gaining their powers: the earth head came from Toyohana, while the fire head came from Takeribi.]]

* ChekhovsVolcano: Played with. The volcano is first mentioned as safe to ignore because there aren't any demons there. ''Why'' there are no demons there ends up becoming important, but despite [[spoiler:fighting a boss in the heart of the volcano]], there is no eruption. After confronting the ''next'' boss (who has a nice view of the volcano in the distance), however, [[spoiler:the volcano finally erupts and pollutes the hamlet, resulting in the loss of Sakuna's powers.]]

* FakeUltimateMook: The Pig Men Creeps are huge, with portly stomachs that either carry giant clubs the size of Sakuna, or shields the size of themselves. They're also the second enemy in the game and go down quite easily.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The game takes place in a fantasy Japan analog named Yanato. Other countries are mentioned -- Myrthe is from the Netherlands analogue Formos, and mentions a China analogue Ouka and an India analogue Nadith when talking about her travels.

** According to mythology, only the purest of white rice is tributed to the gods. Here, not only will Sakuna gain stat boosts only if you fully make White Rice, the better your rice, the better her gains.
** The game has [=UI=] elements that make the farming easier, but not initially, they get unlocked over time. Presumably, this represents Sakuna herself getting better at Rice Farming.
** Cutscenes which involve everyone, like Kinta [[spoiler:running away]], will retrieve everyone from their gathering tasks.

** After clearing all the five main areas, and beating the Fortress' boss [[spoiler: the farmhouse and all nearby buildings get destroyed, the land laid to waste, and everything that Sakuna and the Children of Men worked for is gone]]. In the meantime your supplies and inventory are unchanged, and you still have everything you've collected so far.

* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: In a several tiered circle, the gods of the Lofty Realm give praise to higher gods, and they all in turn do favours for the Children of Men (Mortal human beings) in the Lower realm. Which in turn would fuel them with praise. Sakuna starts the game off rather weak because she's banished to the Isle of Demons, but the more she works at the harvest and does favours for the humans she's on the island with, the stronger she becomes, and the more powerful demons she can vanquish.
* GrievousHarmWithABody: Striking an enemy hard enough will send it flying, causing crash damage to any other enemies in its path. Sakuna can also use her Raiment to grab one and fling them around depending on the Raiment skills equipped.

** The game functions on a day-night clock. Sakuna does not get tired and can move during both day and night (her abilities are instead limited by food) and the player can speed up the clock by resting. Monsters are stronger during the night but also drop rare items for equipment. The humans on the island can only be dispatched as gatherers during the day; during the night all except for Myrthe are asleep and Sakuna cannot ask Tauemon for rice planting advice or have Yui or Kinta make new items.
** Rice farming is based around four three-"day" seasons, with the crop being planted in the spring and harvested in the late summer or early autumn. Some items like ice are also seasonal.

* LethalJokeItem: Normally the Bamboo Broom is a pathetic two-hand weapon that although deals 50% more damage to enemies sent flying, has a base damage of ''one''. Give it the Broomstick Awakening Spirit Bough, and it now gains damage scaled to your Magic stat, quickly turning it into one of the more powerful Magic damage weapons.
* LethalLavaLand: Go deep enough into the volcano and you'll be walking among pools of and columns of lava. These will damage Sakuna if she steps in them, although she can mitigate it through clothing and food bonuses.

** [[spoiler:Yui eventually grows into a goddess of the loom, while Tauemon also becomes a harvest god]].
* PhysicalHeaven: Sakuna and her kind live in the Lofty Realm, connected to the Lowly Realm of mortals with a bridge that only appears intermittently to deliver tributes.
* PigMan: The bipedal boar demons. They're much larger than Sakuna and wield either huge stone hammers or massive wooden shields. They're resistant to being staggered or juggled by Sakuna's attacks unless parried.

* ProtectionMission: When Sakuna (and Kokorowa) approach Lady Kamuhitsuki for the Orb of Transformation [[spoiler:to help restore the ash-laden fields hampering the former's powers]], the latter tasks her with protecting a branch of the Tree of Creation which would bear the Orb. Sakuna has to endure 4 waves of huge aphids (around her size) that will approach and feed on the branch. The yellow ones walk towards the branch, the red ones do that faster, and the blue ones ''move away'' before shooting at it from afar, forcing Sakuna to move to them to wipe them out. It can be played again as a MiniGame.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: For accidentally blowing up the divine garner containing rice that was meant to be a tribute to Kamuhitsuki, Sakuna is tasked with colonizing Hinoe Island, where her parents met and fought against demons. As for the humans that she was trying to repel, since the celestial bridge has already vanished and they can't be sent home until it reappears, they're sentenced to serve as Sakuna's workers on replacing the rice that was destroyed.
* RescueRomance: Yui has a crush on Kinta because he saved her sometime in the past, not that he remembers.

* SequelHook: A few plot threads brought in main game are never explored further.

* SpinAttack: Sakuna gets two special abilities that let her spin. First is Furious Furrow, which causes her to perform a forward spin with her two-handed weapon. This lets her strike repeatedly while reducing the amount of damage she takes while performing the attack. It's also uninterruptible. The second one is Wild Top, which causes her to perform a spinning kick that sends enemies flying.
* StealthSequel: Sakuna may be part of the ''VideoGame/FairyBloom'' series, as Lady Kamuhitsuki is secretly revealed (by a mere little item description) to be [[spoiler:Freesia from ''VideoGame/FairyBloomFreesia'' all grown up and ascended to godhood]]. Adding to this implication is the fact that the minigame that gives the item, "Sakuna the Efflorescent," involves protecting a giant plant from waves of invaders (and the premise of ''VideoGame/FairyBloom1'' involved a fairy protecting a flower from invaders). In addition to this, Myrthe explicitly mentions meeting [[spoiler:King Listine "and a beautiful fairy"]] during her travels in a dinner cutscene.
* StuffBlowingUp: The game begins with Sakuna attempting to chase off the humans that has broken into the Lofty Realm, only for her attack to knock a torch into barrels of ceremonial oils inside the divine garner, blowing up the entire tribute.

* TellMeAboutMyFather: Sakuna asks Tama about how her parents met, as one of the possible dinner conversations.
* ThatsNoMoon: At the end of the forest region, Sakuna marvels at some flowering camellia trees. Then they move, revealing them to be growing on [[AmphibianAtLarge a giant frog demon]] and the forest's master.
* TitleDrop: The original title, 天穂のサクナヒメ, is referring to the name of the rice that Sakuna eventually sells at the capital, dropped when deciding what to name it.

* WorldTree: Called the Tree of Creation, whom Kamuhitsuki is apparently a manifestation[=/=]representation of, and whom most other gods are descended from.

* BilingualBonus: Myrthe is from a fictional European country, but speaks PoirotSpeak Dutch. All words she uses are the correct terminology for their English/Japanese counterparts. And sometimes she scolds or apologizes or just drops a few words without context. Like when naming the rice Sakuna farms, she suggests "Sakuna Ontembaar" which means Sakuna Untamed.

* NiceHat: Sakuna has a variety of different hats she can find or have crafted by Yui and most of them give nifty bonuses when worn. The one that most closely adheres to the trope, though, is probably the Classy Hat, which is a very fancy looking Japanese noblewoman's hat.

''Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin'', a MarketBasedTitle, with the original being ''Tensui no Sakuna-hime'' (天穂のサクナヒメ) is a side-scrolling [[ActionGame action]]-[[PlatformGame platformer]] developed by Japanese independent game studio Creator/{{Edelweiss}}, and published by Creator/{{Marvelous}} in Japan and Europe and Creator/XSEEDGames in North America. The game has deep crafting and rice cultivation in a tale about finding one's place in the world. Its scheduled release date was on November 10, 2020 for PC via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and November 20, 2020 for UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.

* EverythingsBetterWithCows: After [[spoiler: you rebuild the chicken coop following the farm's destruction by the demons]], Kaimaru finds a cow, which you can get [[spoiler: Kokorowa]] to design a plow for. The resulting contraption looks more like some sort of war cow, but it is useful for quickly and thoroughly tilling the rice field.

* ChekhovsVolcano: Played with. The volcano is first mentioned as safe to ignore because there aren't any demons there. ''Why'' there are no demons there ends up becoming important, but despite [[spoiler:fighting a boss in the heart of the volcano]], there is no eruption. After confronting the ''next'' boss, however, [[spoiler:the volcano finally erupts and pollutes the hamlet, resulting in the loss of Sakuna's powers.]]

* ChekhovsVolcano: On the island, there's a volcano that Sakuna investigates near the middle of the story. [[spoiler:It later erupts and pollutes the hamlet, resulting in the loss of her powers.]]

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: After clearing all the five main areas, and beating the Fortress' boss [[spoiler: the farmhouse and all nearby buildings get destroyed, the land laid to waste, and everything that Sakuna and the Children of Men worked for is gone]]. In the meantime your supplies and inventory are unchanged, and you still have everything you've collected so far.

* FakeUltimateMook: The Pig Men Creeps are huge, with portly stomachs that either carry giant clubs the size of Sakuna, or shields the size of themselves. They're also the second enemy in the game and go down quit easily.