History VideoGame / VictoryBelles

* ScratchDamage: Naval rifles have four damage stats - non-penetrating damage, penetrating damage, AA damage, and flak damage. A hit on a ship always does non-penetrating damage, and if it penetrates the enemy's armor (but doesn't overpenetrate the entire ship), it also does penetrating damage. Hits that inflict penetrating damage in a sensitive part of the ship can also inflict particularly devastating critical damage. The non-penetrating damage tends to be comparatively anemic and usually only inflicts minor critical hits at most. Similarly, in anti-air combat, guns will do their flak damage on a near-miss, which is generally minor, but only do their AA damage on a direct hit.

* CanadaEh: Saguenay is very much French-Canadian and peppers her speech with Quebecois. However, she's much more in the style of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Métis Métis]] hunter/fur trapper than the more modern stuck-up stereotype.

* BraggingRightsReward: Acquiring ''Gorizia'' without resorting to the facts is this - ''Gorizia'' is available to everyone via the Italian Diplomatic Channels shop, meaning she can be acquired without spending a single cent. The catch is that she is ''the'' most expensive diplomatic channel item in the game, clocking in at ''2 million diplomatic channels'' - more than ''ten times the the highest costing time for any faction''. Getting her by farming requires completing competing missions in the Mediterranean Sea several ''thousand'' times, and that's assuming you are using the most efficient maps for farming channels, and that is assuming you are using the best map to farm them. Due to how the leveling mechanics work, this means that by the time you have ''Gorizia'', she'll at best be spending time crushing with a training ship to get leveled up properly while the team you used to farm her is handling important missions.

** The in-universe results of the weekly war plans are posted not within the game itself, but on [[https://victorybelles.slab.com/public/posts/the-war-results-wolm6fnn a separate website]] linked to via the front page of the in-game "War" tab (specifically, by tapping the "War Reports" button). Additionally, several stories and reports related to said results can only be found on the semi-official Discord server.

** The in-universe results of the weekly war plans are posted not within the game itself, but on [[https://victorybelles.slab.com/public/posts/the-war-results-wolm6fnn a separate website]] linked to via the front page of the in-game "War" tab (specifically, by tapping the "War Reports" button).

* AlternateHistory: The backstory of the game is pretty much identical to real life all the way up until the sudden appearance of the Morgana and Belles on September 1, 1939.

* ExperienceBooster: Deploying a training ship like Recruit or Jeanne d'Arc with a cruising fleet will massively increase the experience gain of all lower-leveled Belles.

* BrutalHonesty: Émile Bertin has no filter when she offers criticism and thus even what she intends as constructive advices is often interpreted as simple berating, which in turn earns her few friends.

* TrashTalk: Almost all combatants, whether Belle or Morgana, will trade snark before each round of battle. Lines range from assurances of defeat for the enemy, to jabs against their capabilities, to straight-up personal insults. The only exceptions are Confusion (who's just trying to figure out what the hell's going on), Delusion (who blabs on about nothing in particular), or Cowardice (who's mostly just squealing in terror).

* AttackItsWeakpoint: Inverted - in order to maximize damage, it's not ideal to focus on weapons that can do damage to unarmored portions of Morgana, but rather to use those that can penetrate their heaviest armor, as the most devastating critical hits like full ammunition explosion, command crew loss, and large damage multipliers can be found behind heavy armor like the conning tower, citadel, barbette, and turret face. Meanwhile, less-armored areas can only generate things like 2x or 3x damage hits and reduced rate of fire.
* BadassNormal: The crew of the Soviet cruiser ''Aurora'' boasts the only human-on-Morgana kill as of October 1939.

* BrutalHonesty: Émile Bertin has no filter when she offers criticism and thus even what she intends to come off as constructive is often interpreted as simple berating, which in turn earns her few friends.
* CanadaEh: Saguenay is very much French Canadian and peppers her speech with Quebecois. However, she's much more in the style of a 19th century French Canadian fur trapper than the more modern stuck-up stereotype.

* DesignItYourselfEquipment: The game has an extensive R&D and construction system that can be used to fix flaws in gear, modify its characteristics, and create weapons and equipment that fits your needs.

* DiskOneNuke: Japanese Type 93 Pure Oxygen Torpedoes are easily acquired on most Japanese ships and are far more accurate and powerful than other torpedo options. So long as their considerable weight (and rather unsafe volatility) can be handled, they can significantly enhance the striking power of a destroyer fleet early on.

* EnemyMine: ''Heavily'' downplayed - while the various combatants in World War II did agree to form a Neutrality Fleet to deal with the Morgana, they still haven't put aside their grudges and are still fighting a land war with one another.

* EverythingIsBigInTexas: Houston is extremely stereotypically Texan; she dresses like a cowgirl, loves beer, gambling, and thrills, and of course speaks with a strong Texan accent.

* TheGadfly: Leningrad delights in provoking people, whether for a particular reason, or just to try to make them question their own positions, with Mahan being a particular favorite target.

** Dutch captains get British missions and are counted as part of the Allies, while Turkish and Spanish captains get German missions and are counted as part of the Axis, despite all three nations being officially neutral. This is because only a handful of Kickstarter backers can play for those nations in the first place, giving the developers little reason to create a entire set of unique missions just for them.

** Rawalpindi may be a mail carrier armed with a handful of badly outdated naval rifles and protected by not even half an inch of armor, but she's absolutely raring for a fight. Fitting given that the historical ship engaged in an absolutely hopeless naval action to even momentarily delay ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' from sinking Allied convoys rather than stand down and surrender as the German captains requested.

* LastChanceHitpoint: Belles function as one to their ship. So long as their ship doesn't begin a battle critically damaged and it isn't the Belle's death day (the date of her historical sinking), the ship cannot actually be sunk and will instead leave the battle with one hitpoint left. Attempting to go into battle with a fleet that contains a Belle who is critically damaged will prompt a warning that if you enter battle with this fleet, her hitpoints can be reduced to zero and she can thus be killed off for real, and give an option to perform an emergency withdrawal of that fleet.
* LethalJokeCharacter: Recruit is a wooden training battleship. For reasons that are not entirely apparent her guns, despite being little more than painted logs, fire as if they were real naval rifles. Similarly, Amerigo Vespucci is a sailing training ship, most of whose guns are wooden imitations, but she has an alarming amount of room for upgrades, on par with many light cruisers.

** Battlecruisers and Dunkerque are every bit as fast as the cruisers and destroyers around them while still carrying far more armor than any heavy cruiser and armament similar to battleships.

** Volta carries a terrifying amount of firepower for a destroyer and more than many of the lighter light crusiers, while also being one of the fastest destroyers in the game.

* ManOnFire: The Morgana Fire is called that for a reason. Not only does she love starting fires and wield some manner of FireBreathingWeapon, but she is herself constantly on fire (though mechanically speaking, her ship is not on fire unless ignited, just like any other ship)
* MechanicalEvolution: The Morgana are known to feed on ships, including damaged Morgana ships, and use materials from these ships to improve or repair themselves.
* MightyGlacier: Most battleships are significantly slower than the various smaller ships (except for armed merchant cruisers), resulting in worse map speed and worse evasion, but as might be expected, they generally have far more armor and firepower than any other ship and can do damage with their rifles that other ships could only hope to match with torpedoes.
* MiscarriageOfJustice: Injustice is infamous for her show trials and executions in a mockery of actual legal procedures.
* MoeAnthropomorphism: The eponymous Belles represent every aspect of their ship, including her namesake(s). However, unlike many other such games, the Belles do not replace their ships, nor can they operate them without a full crew. Instead, a Belle exists aboard her ship (or within a limited range around it) as a sort of spirit that gives her warship far greater combat capabilities, protection from sinking in all but the most extreme circumstances, and immunity to the disabling effects of the Morgana's mist.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The Morgana all have names like Corruption, Treason, Destruction, Starvation, Sedition, and Mistrust. Even the sole non-(overtly) malicious Morgana encountered is named False Hope.
* NonIndicativeName: Much like in real life, heavy cruisers are only really "heavy" in that their starting equipment is naval rifles over 6.1" (155mm) in bore diameter. While the smallest (and oldest) light cruisers are certainly "light" compared to their heavy sisters, more modern light cruisers often have at least as much armor, starting health, and design weight as most heavy cruisers. Some, like Boise, Nashville, and St. Louis actually have ''more'' design weight than any heavy cruiser.

* PoirotSpeak: Most Belles whose first language isn't English will still speak fluent English, but throw in idioms in their native language and in particular, use whatever their native language's version of "Belle", "Morgana", and "Captain" are. In a few cases, even Belles whose first language ''is'' English get in on it, with Houston preferring to call the Morgana "Brujas".
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: To put it mildly, Belles tend to hold beliefs appropriate to the the time and their country of origin, including those from Germany, Italy, and Japan, meaning some of the German Belles like Nurnberg and Deutschland believe in Nazi racial pseudoscience, the Spanish Belles seen so far are supporters of Franco's Nationalists, and Italian Belles like Pola and Camicia Nera are very much believers in Italian fascism. They're still technically heroes in this conflict despite being from the Axis because they're fighting against the Morgana, who are an existential threat to humanity.

* RobotGirl: The Morgana all take the form of robotic humanoid women in various states of overt-robotness and disrepair.

* ScratchDamage: Weapons have four damage stats - non-penetrating damage, penetrating damage, AA damage, and flak damage. A hit on a ship always does non-penetrating damage, and if it penetrates the enemy's armor (but doesn't overpenetrate the entire ship), it also does the penetrating damage. Hits that do penetrating damage, especially on the citadel can also inflict particularly devastating critical hits. The non-penetrating damage tends to be comparatively anemic and usually only inflicts minor critical hits. Similarly, in anti-air combat, guns always do their flak damage, which is generally minor, but only do their AA damage on a direct hit.

* SnipingTheCockpit: While shots can't be deliberately aimed, a hit to the conning tower has a good chance of taking out a ship's command and control capabilities, doing massive damage and giving huge all-around debuffs.

* SubsystemDamage: Belles and Morgana suffer a wide variety of critical hits in addition to conventional hull damage, including (but hardly limited to) destruction of guns, magazine detonations, fires, flooding, and loss of gunnery directors.
* TheVoiceless: From a Doylist[=/=]RealLife perspective, most of the Belles lack voiceovers even though they have plenty of written lines in their stories. However, the developers are constantly searching for new actors and accept auditions.
* TrashTalk: All combatants, whether Belle or Morgana, engage in some sort of this before battle. Lines could range from assurances of defeat for the enemy, to jabs against their capabilities, to straight-up personal insults.
* VideogameCrueltyPunishment: Get a Belle KilledOffForReal? Hope she wasn't a battleship...because now you have to re-acquire however many Vestures were needed to recruit her in the first place. In addition, all gear on the Belle is lost too, requiring at a minimum reconstructing it from blueprints (if you have them). Finally, she spawns at level 1 once re-recruited!

* WeakButSkilled: Older ships of various types are generally less capable and have less room for upgrades than newer ships, but at the same time often have better tactics, such as Aurora who is a very old and slow light cruiser with only a handful of old 130mm rifles, but boasts a tactic that boosts evasion for all ships in the fleet right up until brawl range, at which they unleash torpedoes.

** Your flagship Belle cannot be permanently sunk, as the game will auto-retreat your fleet if it is engaged when the her HP is at zero. Since at least one ship in a fleet ''has'' to be the flagship, this prevents players from accidentally breaking the game if they only have one Belle left.

** Belles can survive having their HP depleted in a single battle, and if they are engaged by the enemy afterwards, you're given the option to emergency evacuate that fleet. Since Belles can be KilledOffForReal, this gives you a chance to save them for another day.
** To prevent the player from accidentally breaking the game by losing all of their Belles, your flagship Belle cannot be sunk - the game will auto-retreat your fleet if it is engaged when the flagship's HP is at zero. This even extends to that flagship being ''the player's last Belle''.

** Pola and Algerie are among the few heavy cruisers to have substantial armor, and do so without sacrificing speed or armament. Similarly, the heaviest light cruisers like the American Brooklyn-class and British Town-class have armor greater than most heavy cruisers and firepower that makes up what it lacks in caliber with dakka compared to those heavy cruisers.

* DirtyCoward: The Morgana Cowardice is, unsurprisingly, a cowardly villain. Befitting her nature as a coward, she tries to keep her distance at all range brackets and has very low reserves, meaning she flees after only few rounds of combat. Unless she can be forced into close range or engaged with powerful long-range weapons, she'll try to remain as far away and hard to hit as she can and run as soon as she can, even if it means leaving the rest of the Morgana battleline to get picked off by Belles.