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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/508799_deracine_playstation_4_front_cover.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350:"Every new faerie gets a little gift."]]
3
4''Déraciné'' is an EnvironmentalNarrativeGame with light [[PuzzleGame puzzle]] elements, developed by Creator/FromSoftware and SIE Japan Studio, and released by Sony Entertainment in November 2018 for Platform/Playstation4 VR. It is directed by Creator/HidetakaMiyazaki, of ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' fame.
5
6You are the Kind Faerie, recently arrived at an old boarding school in the countryside that is inhabited by several children and their headmaster. One of these children, a girl named Yuliya, can talk to faeries. The Kind Faerie goes around the school, helping and playing with the children, but it soon becomes apparent that you're not the only thing unusual about this school. The headmaster seems obsessed with the past, trying to undo some mistake he made, and one of the children has a wound on her leg that apparently will not heal.
7
8!!''Déraciné'' provides examples of the following tropes
9* AmbiguousTimePeriod: The game gives months, days, and times, but never years. [[spoiler:This helps to disguise that the September at the beginning of the game does not take place right before the October that a good chunk of the game takes place, but the previous year, and that the February and ''especially'' June in between are crucial]].
10* ArcWords: "Every new faerie gets a little gift."
11* BackFromTheDead: Using their red ring of life, a Faerie can drain Time from someone and give it to someone else of roughly similar size. By draining a snake, the Kind Faerie can resurrect a mouse. [[spoiler: The Kind Faerie can also resurrect Yuliya, but... See CameBackWrong.]]
12* BittersweetEnding: The game's GoldenEnding requires you [[spoiler:to go back in time to the moment you used your red ring to absorb Yuliya's life, and return her life to her, thus relinquishing the Kind Faerie's agency on the real world.]] Doing so will cause the events of the game to play out as they should go, without your intervention. The children will survive, but you will fade into obscurity.
13* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler:When you resurrect Yuliya after her death with Margareta's life force, she comes back as some kind of faerie, calling herself a "Wicked Faerie", and drains the life from her family, unable to stop herself. This is a result of a person being given someone ''else's'' life force, not their own. As stated under BittersweetEnding, the only way to avert this is for the Kind Faerie to return Yuliya's life force immediately after taking it.]]
14* CassandraTruth: Subverted. While the other children initially dismiss Yuliya's belief in faeries as an eccentricity, the first major epoch of the game is convincing them otherwise as a faerie yourself. Once you do, they have no problems believing in you and feel bad for doubting Yuliya.
15* CatsAreMagic: Cats can see faeries [[spoiler:and ghosts]] and can interact with them even while in stopped time. This crosses over into EvilDetectingDog territory when it comes to [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie]].
16* CentralTheme: Fretting too much about the past is self-destructive, keeps the pain lingering, and prevents you from enjoying the time you have left to live.
17* ChekhovsGun: You can find a key under Herman's hat and it's dismissed through most of the game. Near the end, it [[spoiler:finally becomes relevant in a big way]].
18** Once you realize that the game merely has to shut a door in order to limit your exploration, Tia the cat might seem redundant. As it turns out, the animosity between cats and faerie is more important than just serving as a justified InvisibleWall.
19* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:Yuliya died the night you became a faerie.]] [[spoiler:You killed her, though you had no way of knowing that in the beginning.]]
20* {{Determinator}}: Deconstructed. The children's desire to [[spoiler:save Yuliya no matter what]] makes it impossible for you to [[spoiler:save them from the Evil Faerie]], as no matter how you try to sabotage their attempt or dissuade them, they find a new way to [[spoiler:set out on their doomed journey]]. [[spoiler:Lorinc]] openly recognizes in hindsight that their determination was a sign of immature recklessness and not the heroic persistence they had convinced themselves it was.
21* DistinguishingMark: There is a photo of a character with a birthmark late in the game. [[spoiler:It's on your left hand, proving that you are baby Alexis]].
22* DontGoIntoTheWoods: Robb's Forest is the site of many disappearances. [[spoiler:The Evil Faerie is responsible.]]
23* DramaticIrony: When the children head out to the forest, they take one of two paths in the underground tunnels. After [[spoiler:the massacre, you head back to the school through a trap door in the hermit's house, which you discover is connected by a short path to the other gate, meaning the children were ''this'' close to not only a much easier path into the mountains, but one that would have led them straight to someone who would have dissuaded them from the Evil Faerie before it was too late]].
24* EmptyPilesOfClothing: While the Kind Faerie [[spoiler:leaves people as mummified corpses when they take someone's time, the Evil Faerie]] leaves behind only their clothing.
25* TheFairFolk: You play as the Kind Faerie, one of the three faeries we see in game.
26* {{Foreshadowing}}: The game is laden with clues that allow you to catch onto upcoming events or reveals.
27** There are clues all over the place to the fact that [[spoiler:Yuliya is dead]] for the majority of the game, well before the game finally makes it explicit.
28** You can find a note about [[spoiler:Margareta having drowned herself]] in the river. This sets up the reveal that the light Rozsa saw on the dock wasn't just any [[spoiler:red ring, but ''Margareta'''s body]].
29** [[spoiler:Yuliya's body]] in the infirmary is in a strange, desiccated state. There's also a note nearby that comments on [[spoiler:her lost time]]. Both of these things heavily imply that [[spoiler:she did not die by an illness or accident, but to a faerie]]. Furthermore, [[spoiler:her body appears in the state that ''you'' leave people in after using the Golden Wand, not how the Evil Faerie leaves them, foreshadowing that it was ''you'' specifically that did it]].
30* HandWave: While the nature of the red ring is a major focus of the game's plot, the blue ring's existence is seemingly shrugged off despite its relevance to ''why'' anyone cares about [[spoiler:the red rings]]. You acquire your blue ring in an ambiguously canonical tutorial segment that is one of the only scenes to not [[spoiler:repeat in the OnceMoreWithClarity loop of the game]]. The only other place you even see [[spoiler:a blue ring (since neither Margareta or the Wicked Faerie have one) is on the Evil Faerie, and when he uses it to go back in time]], the game never even follows up on this use.
31* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:The Headmaster asks the Kind Faerie to take his time and use it to help a young girl. Lorinc tries the same to save his friends, but it's unsuccessful]].
32* IfYouCanReadThis: While you are intended to use the item description button to read things in the game, many of them have textures that actually reveal more information, though some of it is strange. For instance, the tutorial notes are signed "Abigail", a character who is mentioned nowhere else. The actual texture for Nils' book of herbs has a section on each herb for "''During gameplay''" that details [=RPG=]-styled effects.
33* InformedAttribute: Downplayed. The animosity between cats and faeries is certainly ''shown'', but in practice it's a bit inconsistent. Your character will refuse to walk past cats in your path, and cats in your path will growl at you. However, if someone is holding a cat, there is nothing stopping your character from petting the cat, and the cat doesn't not react negatively to the petting. Finally, in the [[spoiler:worst timeline]] you can find two cats laying together without anyone holding them, and neither you nor they have any negative reaction to each other.
34* ISeeDeadPeople: Yuliya can't ''see'' Faeries, but she can interact with them. [[spoiler:It's because her life-force was used to make you a faerie]]. This applies to the player themselves, who can see memories of previous events [[spoiler:as well as Yuliya, who's dead]].
35* LateToTheTragedy: Played with. If you follow the StoryBreadcrumbs, you discover that the setting exists in the fallout of a conspiracy that sought to [[spoiler:wield the power of the faeries]], only to result in disaster. The headmaster and Margareta themselves were originally [[spoiler:a part of this, but defected]] to raise the orphans to explicitly be ignorant of that dark past. When the children stumble on [[spoiler:the consequences of the original tragedy]], it unfortunately leads to a new one.
36* MeaningfulName: "Déraciné" means someone that has been uprooted and removed from their natural environment, much like [[spoiler:Yuliya is]].
37* MustBeInvited: Of a kind. Faeries can't open doors (their interactions can barely affect the world around them, except for their magic), so they can only pass through closed doors if someone opens them. [[spoiler:This leads to two of the orphans getting killed by the Evil Faerie after, in desperation, a door is left open]].
38* MythologyGag: The name Yuliya has made appearances in previous From Software games, such as [[VideoGame/DemonsSouls Yuria the Witch]].
39** During a trip to the past, you can find a doll that looks like the [[VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}} Plain Doll]].
40** One of the students is named Lorinc (pronounced like "Laurence"), who often interacts with a headmaster in a wheelchair. [[VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}} That sounds familiar...]]
41* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Bringing [[spoiler:Noo back to life]] starts a cascade of events that inevitably lead to tragedy, as a side effect of the children wanting to do another good deed in response.
42* OddlySmallOrganization: You can find a photo of the researchers of Rohn showing five people, but considering the [[spoiler:headmaster, Margareta, and the Old Man]] are implied to be three of them, that leaves only two to have become [[spoiler:Evil Faeries]]. Considering that Nils discovers the entire ''region'' is plagued by [[spoiler:disappearances]], not just the forest, [[spoiler:two Evil Faeries]] may or may not be enough to account for it all.
43* OhCrap: Nils can have this reaction near the end when his research into [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie determines that the entire region]] is probably covered in them.
44* OnceMoreWithClarity: In a sort of enforced RewatchBonus, the end of the game has you return to [[spoiler:the tutorial]], but this time you are able to see people during it. This makes clear that the plot had been inadvertently kicked off by [[spoiler:your actions to begin with]].
45* OrphanageOfFear: Played with. At the beginning of the game, everything seems happy with the orphans at the boarding school, aside from some implications about Rozsa's leg. Once you start picking up the StoryBreadcrumbs, there's an implication that [[spoiler:the headmaster has allegiance to some cult using faeries for sinister experiments, and Yuliya might have been tricked into luring you there for something nefarious]]. As you finish putting together the pieces, however, you learn that [[spoiler:the headmaster left that past behind, and Margareta's intentions with the boarding school were to raise the children properly and to make sure they never even had to know about those horrors]].
46* OurFairiesAreDifferent: Faeries are invisible creatures who exist in a place where time is stopped. Every faerie carries a blue ring of time and a red ring of life. Using a golden wand, they can drain the life from humans and use it to travel in time. They also all originated [[spoiler:as humans]]. Since most faeries have regrets from their [[spoiler:human lives]], they're drawn to kill people so that they might undo those mistakes. Three faeries are seen in game:
47** The [[PlayerCharacter Kind Faerie]] [[spoiler:was a baby in its human life]], and has no regrets, so it has no incentive to kill.
48** The Evil Faerie was presumably an adult, and kills many times to go back in time.
49** The Wicked Faerie is [[spoiler:Yuliya, who became a faerie after you resurrected her using Margareta's life force]].
50* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Faeries are basically ghosts, being invisible creatures that can only interact in limited ways with the living world. They also [[spoiler:used to be living humans]]. There's also a special case with [[spoiler:Yuliya]], who follows similar rules to the faeries, including being able to interact with the cats during stopped time, just with a human appearance and without any extra powers.
51* OurTimeTravelIsDifferent: The obsession that humans have for the past, whether it be nostalgia or regrets, is a power that faeries can harvest at the cost of the remaining time of that human's life in order to enable the faerie to travel into the past. Living things without the obsession with the past that humans have can only have their remaining time exchanged between similar creatures, enabling resurrection but not time travel. It's implied that the time travel is the main reason people seek [[spoiler:to become faeries, as they can undo their past mistakes]].
52** The time travel also avoids any negative [[TemporalParadox Temporal Paradoxes]] because history instantly rewrites itself to account for the changes you make. For instance, when the Headmaster [[spoiler:sacrifices his life so that you will prevent Rozsa from being injured]], the Headmaster is just fine in the new version of history because you having [[spoiler:saved Rozsa]] was "always true" to the timeline, and thus the Headmaster never had to [[spoiler:sacrifice himself to send you back]].
53* PrecautionaryCorpseDisposal: You can try to do this to [[spoiler:Noo]] near the end of the game so that you ''yourself'' don't [[spoiler:bring him back at a later time]]. Unfortunately, [[RubberBandHistory time rewrites history]] so that you [[spoiler:bring something else back instead, making it moot]].
54** There is some implication that this was Margareta's intention in [[spoiler:drowning herself in the river]]. It didn't exactly work.
55* RippleEffectProofMemory: The player has this, obviously. Otherwise, it's explicitly mentioned that any change you make to the past instantly rewrites history after that point to have always been the new way to anyone else.
56* RubberBandHistory: By the end of the game, you find that significant changes to history are very difficult to make. No matter what you do to keep [[spoiler:the children from setting out on their fateful journey to Robb's Forest]], they resolve to find another way (although you will [[spoiler:save ''more'' of them this way]]). In a specific example of those attempts, history even rewrites ''your'' actions, so that even though you [[spoiler:disposed of Noo's body to prevent yourself from revealing your ability to bring back the dead]], you discover that in the new timeline you had retroactively brought back [[spoiler:a bird instead to make up for the broken music box]], ensuring that the children will be inspired by [[spoiler:the knowledge of your ability]]. While you're eventually presented with an opportunity to [[spoiler:bring Yuliya back directly to completely avoid the need for the journey, by horrible coincidence that just makes events go FromBadToWorse]] for entirely different reasons.
57* RuleOfSymbolism: The [[spoiler:evil faeries]] have an ethereal blue mist in front of their eyes that resembles a blindfold, symbolizing how their obsession with fixing history (done via the ''blue'' ring), blinds them to the ''new'' mistakes they're making.
58* SanitySlippage: Revealed to be the fate of any human who seeks [[spoiler:the power of faeries]] because the innate obsession with the past that humans have will drive them to any lengths to steal more time. This is implied to be the reason [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie is evil]], and is explicitly what happened to [[spoiler:the Wicked Faerie]]. It is also implied that the reason the Kind Faerie ''doesn't'' go insane is because [[spoiler:they died too young to ever have any regrets or nostalgia]].
59* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler:Lorinc gives up his remaining time so that the Kind Faerie can go back in time to prevent the others from leaving, and thus save them from the Evil Faerie. It's hopeless]].
60* ShaggyDogStory: In the end, you resolve the plot by [[spoiler:basically deciding to have never had the plot happen to begin with]], making the ending little different from [[spoiler:never having played the game to begin with]]. You ''do'' give [[spoiler:Yuliya]] a new appreciation for life, but in a manner that [[spoiler:nullified ''all'' of your other actions]].
61* SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration: The gameplay is fairly well integrated into the story. Even [[spoiler:the tutorial]] turns out to be relevant to the plot, and the opening narration asking if you're excited to become a faerie turns out to [[spoiler:have an in-universe explanation]].
62** This even extends to the story's themes. It's suggested multiple times that it might be best to let the dead move on, and becoming increasingly obsessed with fixing the past is the origin of [[spoiler:every antagonist in the game]]. Likewise, the game will [[spoiler:loop infinitely]] if the player keeps trying to find a way to [[spoiler:avert the main tragedy]], with the game only ending once you decide to [[spoiler:accept history playing out as it will and giving up your ability to change time]].
63* SnowMeansDeath: Rozsa was wounded during a thunderstorm, but it's when the children go out into the ''snow'' that [[spoiler:most of them are killed by the Evil Faerie]].
64* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Déraciné'' is one to ''VideoGame/EchoNight''. Not only does it retain the overarching, first person adventure-styled gameplay revolving around a hub setting, but it also involves echoes of the past, time travel, and magical red and blue stones (this time on rings). The [[spoiler:Evil Faerie stabbing people with a Golden Wand to empower their red ring]] is highly reminiscent of the red stone dagger being used to kill and change destiny in Echo Night. As Echo Night was already a ThematicSeries that had different continuities with slightly different rules in each installment to begin with, "spiritual" is arguably enough to consider ''Déraciné'' part of the series.
65* StoryBreadcrumbs: Unusually for a Creator/FromSoftware game, ''Déraciné'' splits the difference. The main plot of the game is fairly straightforward and impossible to miss. However, the worldbuilding that gives context to the events that take place within the plot are left for you to find and piece together. Also, if you find them all, a very coherent picture is formed of the setting the game takes place in.
66* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: In such a linear game, there are a few places where the only way to progress is to do something that only makes sense because it's your only option, not necessarily because it's ''wise''.
67** To progress in Robb's Forest, you have to help [[spoiler:Herman with his plan to lure the Evil Faerie to him]]. The thing is, since this is not actually a plan to ''deal'' with [[spoiler:the faerie, this ends up being a SenselessSacrifice]] that saves no one. Even if you [[spoiler:loop through the game]], you can't try anything else, like trying to actually [[spoiler:''disarm'' the faerie]] who you are completely free to approach at the time.
68* SuddenSoundtrackStop: In the final epoch after [[spoiler:you've brought Yuliya back to life, the background music will stop suddenly when you reach the ground floor and see the EmptyPilesOfClothing]].
69* ThemeNaming: Leans into ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, but the faeries gain nicknames based on their actions. The Kind Faerie is kind, while the Evil and Wicked Faerie kill senselessly.
70* UnstablePoweredChild: {{Inverted|Trope}}. Children are ''better'' at handling faery powers than adults, because children don't have many regrets and traumas that adults have nor their deleterious obsession with the past since they hardly have one to obsess over.
71* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: You can touch Rozsa's leg wound and she will react to it, even in frozen time. Also, when Lorinc is [[spoiler:cowering from the Evil Faerie]], he will flinch from your touch.
72* WasOnceAMan: All faeries seen in the game were once [[spoiler:human]].
73** The Evil Faerie was presumably [[spoiler:one of the Rhonian scholars]], the Wicked Faerie was [[spoiler:Yuliya]], and you, the Kind Faerie, were [[spoiler:the infant Alexis]].
74* WellIntentionedExtremist: The people of Rohn were trying to create a world in which every bad outcome was undone through time travel. Unfortunately, their method turned out to drive them insane and only cause them to create ''more'' tragedy in an insatiable obsession for trying to fix ''everything''.
75* WhamShot: A few throughout the game:
76** After getting Nils his glasses back in the forest, he says he sees movement. If you look where he's facing, you'll see something [[spoiler:glowing and ''clearly supernatural'']] behind the trees.
77** In Robb's Forest, the Kind Faerie sees movement in the form of [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie, as its peering through a window at Marie.]] Later on, Rozsa enters the building in a panic, and as Marie tries to calm her down, [[spoiler:neither realize that Rozsa left the door open. The Evil Faerie enters and takes the girls' lives, with the Kind Faerie powerless to stop it.]]
78** [[spoiler:After resurrecting Yuliya with Margareta's life, the Kind Faerie goes about the orphanage, heads downstairs...and sees bundles of the orphans' clothing strewn about. [[OhCrap There's a new faerie about the place]].]]
79* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie finishes stealing the time of the Old Man and the children]], he [[spoiler:goes back in time]], as confirmed by your own blue ring. You will never see him again (unless you replay that epoch, obviously), and the devastating consequences that could result from him [[spoiler:mucking about earlier in the timeline]] is never even acknowledged. This seems partially a result of the game ultimately treating him as merely a catalyst in a plot about you and what you do with your powers, not him.
80* WoundThatWillNotHeal: The youngest girl has a wounded leg, which has not healed despite months passing since it happened.
81* WritersCannotDoMath: The passage of time in the epochs in Robb's Forest don't make a lot of sense. The time advances hours at a time, and [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie somehow only gets one or two people during each of these jumps despite having the power to wander the area instantly]] during frozen time. Even if the region is not to scale for the sake of gameplay, it's hard to imagine that [[spoiler:the Evil Faerie took so long to deal with the party]] after noticing them, or that Lorinc was [[spoiler:lying in the snow for hours without dying]].

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