Line #3 VideoGame/Onmyoji2016


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kv.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:[[UsefulNotes/{{Onmyodo}} "Haraitamae, kiyometamae, kyū-kyū-nyo-ritsu-ryō!"]][[note]]Left to right: [[WhiteMagicianGirl Yaobikuni]], [[TokenMiniMoe Kagura]], [[AmnesiacHero Abe no Seimei]] and [[ChallengeSeeker Minamoto no Hiromasa]]. Not shown: [[TeamPet Kohaku]] and [[SixthRanger Minamoto no Yorimitsu]][[/note]]]]
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4	''Onmyōji'', or alternatively ''[[OfficiallyShortenedTitle Onmyōji Honkaku Gensō RPG]]'', is a Sino-Japanese mobile EasternRPG developed by [=NetEase=] Games, which can be briefly described as the Heian counterpart to ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara''. It features a world where humans and {{Youkai}} coexist and follows the protagonist Abe no Seimei on his quest of restoring peace and order to the land. The game features [[SceneryPorn stunning scenery]], [[{{Bishonen}} beautiful]] character designs, elements of Japanese culture and mythology and a ''[[HollywoodMedievalJapan highly]] [[JidaiGeki inaccurate]]'' portrayal of history. Well, it's a fantasy game, after all. In 2018, a spin-off MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena game entitled ''Kessen! Heian-kyō'' has been released, which features a number of characters from the original game. A [[TheMusical musical adaptation]], ''Heian Emaki'', was also performed in Japan in March of the same year; another musical entitled ''Ōezan-hen'' was announced in May 2019.
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6	This page provides tropes on the game's storyline, characters as well as mechanics for ''both'' the original game and the MOBA spin-off. '''All tropes relating to specific characters go on the [[Characters/Onmyoji2016 character page]]'''.
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8	Unrelated to the [[Film/Onmyoji2001 Japanese film series]]. Compare ''VideoGame/SummonersWarSkyArena''.
9	----
10	!!Arise, tropes! The time has arrived!
11	* ATasteOfPower: Starting from the formal introduction of SP shikigami, there will always be a week-long "assembly" period prior to the summoning banners themselves are opened where the player is given some story context on the new characters and an opportunity to test them out against preset enemies.
12	* ActuallyFourMooks: ''All'' PvE enemies, be it in the story mode or the dungeons, with very few exceptions.
13	* AdaptationalVillainy: A majority of the [[spoiler:Minamoto clan's upper echelon]] receives this treatment. The only exceptions are Hiromasa and [[spoiler:Kagura]].
14	* AdaptationalWimp: Happens to the occasional crossover shikigami, who has to be hit with the {{Nerf}} bat to balance them out. More precisely, they are battered into a bloody pulp by it, as their in-game kit usually bears only a very faint resemblance to what they are capable of in their home series.
15	** Usually, they either [[ForgotAboutHisPowers lose most of their abilities]] from their home series, or are rendered weaker and more fragile so that they could be defeated in a (reasonably) fair fight by your other shikigami. Inuyasha and his brother Sesshōmaru are probably hit the hardest with this.
16	** Even the stock standard shikigami are hit by this, as they all bend to the will of the protagonists once summoned, regardless of whether they're a lowly Hahakigami or a mythical legend capable of untold powers in their own tales. Even {{Physical God}}s and the diabolical [[spoiler:[[BigBad Yamata-no-Orochi]]]] suffer from this, though the latter subverts this if his skills are set up properly.
17	* AdaptedOut: The musical adaptation compresses much of the plot of the game, so naturally most characters who appear in the game's story mode don't show up in the musical. Even ''Kohaku'' doesn't make an appearance.
18	* AllegedlyFreeGame: While the game ''is'' completely playable for free (albeit with a number of elite cosmetics that can only be purchased with real money), nothing betrays the game's embracement of this trope philosophy more than the complete and utter cessation of development of new [[ComMons R shikigami]]. Imagine a [[CollectibleCardGame CCG]] where the developers kept releasing new expansions, but stopped making new common cards, including all the new rares and epics in boosters stuffed with reprints of old commons you already got a dozen copies of years ago, and you have an idea of what trying to keep up with new developments in ''Onmyoji'' is like.[[note]]New [=SSRs=] and [=SPs=] are released on a monthly basis, while maybe 2-3 [=SRs=] get released in an entire year, while there hasn't been a collectible R released since Mushishi came out in ''2018!''[[/note]]
19	* AllThereInTheManual: Almost all characters have in-game autobiographies that reveal their backstories and touch upon aspects of their personalities that are not present in the game's main plotline. These autobiographies can be unlocked via completing quests.
20	* AlternateUniverse: The MOBA game introduces these along with accompanying skins. So far, there have been HighSchoolAU, {{Steampunk}} AU and TheFuture AU.
21	* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Mamoru got tired of sacrificing Shiki to keep the Goddess of Gluttony asleep and ultimately sabotaged the Pact of the Four Seasons. While this act is ultimately what allows Seimei and company to enter their world to slay the evil goddess, Mamoru had no way of knowing that, and he already did know that nothing native to their world was capable of dealing with the evil goddess. He simply did it because he put Shiki above the world and its people.
22	* AndYourRewardIsClothes: Certain skins for given Shikigami are not purchasable and have to be unlocked by beating specialized challenge dungeons. See BraggingRightsReward below.
23	* {{Animesque}}: Even though the game is based on Japanese mythology, has Japanese voice actors and audio, uses game mechanics inspired by Japanese games, and has an anime-inspired art style, the developers, [=NetEase=] Games, is based in Hong Kong. In fact, even some Chinese players were initially confused that the game is made by an all-Chinese studios instead of being a Japanese game re-released in China.
24	** Actually ''inverted'' with some in-game comics, case in point the ones about a festival in the Sea Country, that are obviously drawn like ''comic books'', down to being read left-to-right, rather than like ''manga''.
25	* AnachronismStew: [[AnachronismStew/Onmyoji2016 Now with its own page]].
26	* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
27	** The game itself has this as a kind of "pity" feature, where if someone fails to summon an SSR after so many attempts, they will unlock "bad luck" achievements that give them hefty amounts of jades to use in summoning some more, or buy amulets with. The achievements are incremental, and getting an SSR in between each milestone will reset the progress. If the player is ''so'' unlucky that they fail to get anything better than an SR after 500 summons, it will straight up give them a free one. As of current, getting an SP from the summon does not wipe the "bad luck" progress, despite their greater value compared to an SSR.
28	*** The achievements are one-time only, however, and stop at 500, so if your luck is still as rotten as ever afterwards, you're on your own.
29	** The PlayEveryDay counter doesn't force players to log in consecutively to earn goodies, but rather tracks the ''total'' number of days they've checked in and reward them accordingly.
30	** Unlike most card-collecting games, hurt or killed shikigami do not have to be healed after battles to keep them in fighting shape.
31	** Also unlike many gacha-based games out there, none of the summonable post-launch shikigami are TemporaryOnlineContent, and as such cannot be missed even if you fail to get them during their rate-up windows. They simply have an inflated summoning rate during the week of their introduction, and are permanently added to the gacha pool on release. Even those who aren't added to card pools will eventually become obtainable via the shrine. The only exceptions to this rule are crossover shikigami, who ''will'' go away after their events are over, and couldn't be summoned the usual way anyway.
32	** Starting with [[spoiler:Yamata-no-Orochi]], the game will massively increase the drop rate of new [=SPs=] and [=SSRs=] during their release events for players who already have a complete collection up to those points.
33	** Sending a given shikigami on Dispatches won't actually prevent you from using them in battle.
34	** Beginning at Tier 3, players are given two "Tier Buffers" in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] that prevents their ranking score from dropping for two defeats. Getting promoted to a new Tier refreshes the buffer count, though dropping back down to a lower Tier doesn't.
35	** Beginning with Castle of the Sun, many limited-time events now offer very accessible SSR/SP summoning scrolls that can be bought in the event shop. Unlike some of the higher-tier prizes, which usually require the player reaching a certain score threshold before they can be bought, these summoning scrolls can be traded for as soon as the main event boss is defeated, and for the most part are quite reasonably-priced, thus encouraging participation. The only catch is that these do not guarantee a new shikigami when they are used.
36	** Some shikis, especially ones with more than one active skill (such as Kamikui), suffer from severe ArtificialStupidity when left to their own devices on autoplay, since they'll often use the wrong skill[[note]]Kamikui, for example, is normally coded to use his useful enemy-pushing True Face skill when faced with more than one opponent, but to use his ''very'' situational and frankly not very good [[UselessUsefulSkill Sleep Smoke]] when there's only one enemy left[[/note]]. However in the Options menu there's an option to change auto-control from a simple toggle (use skills/don't use skills) to "Smart Mode" (which allows you to select whether to have a shiki only attack, or use a specific one of their active skills whenever they can), giving you much more refined control of them. Unfortunately [[GuideDangIt this option is rather hard to find and not widely advertised]].
37	* ApocalypseHow: Orochi, the BigBad, puts the world through Universal Metaphysical Annihilation. The Onmyōji world is divided into seven subworlds, six defined by the evil gods, and one defined by Amaterasu, the TopGod. Wanting to create a world of pure evil InTheirOwnImage and centered on himself, Orochi puts HumanityOnTrial in order to inflict catastrophic damage to the fabric of reality, [[spoiler:opening a gate to the evil gods and corrupting Amaterasu's world with [[ElementNumberFive Aether]], the fundamental essence used to define new worlds or destroy old ones. The aether spreads from Orochi's gate and under his influence becomes TheCorruption, darkening the land, destroying the {{Afterlife}}, and turning those within it's influence into monsters. With onmyōji spells barely able to slow the corruption down, refugees flee to places farther from the corruption, hoping to buy themselves time. Since most of the gods under Tsukiyomi apparently don't give a damn about what happens to mortals, they curse the gods for abandoning them, with only a few gods like Susanoo willing to light the way.]]
38	* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Six, five shikigami and one onmyōji. Exploration stages further narrow this down to four, and special story missions only allow around one to three. The one time this headcount limit goes above six is during the Ghostly Songstress world boss battle, where players can bring one more shikigami to shore up their attack (presumably because the Songstress will permanently incapacitate one of your shikis by seducing it).
39	* ArmorPiercingAttack: Many shikigami have skills that let them ignore a portion of an enemy's DEF, allowing them to deal much higher damage than one would think. Those equipped with the Hyōsube ''mitama'' can gain up to three stacks of Piercing Arrow, which let them ignore up to ''225'' DEF at most, provided the enemy doesn't dispel those layers.
40	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: No, Yorimitsu did ''not'' use Onikiri to battle Ibaraki-dōji. Watanabe no Tsuna did. See more under AnachronismStew above.
41	* ArtificialStupidity: The in-game AI is usually fine when you set the game to Auto mode, however there are some aspects of it that can make it staggeringly stupid at the worst of moments. However Smart Mode can help mitigate this (see AntiFrustrationFeatures).
42	** All shikigami will exclusively use either their basic or special abilities based on the mode you've set them to, with no flexibility in strategy to prevent unnecessary orb loess. As long as there are enough orbs for them to fire off their skills, they ''will'' selfishly do so with no regards to the one immediately after them, which can lead to difficult situations when the one shikigami you'd need to use a certain skill (e.g. Kaguya-Hime) suddenly don't have enough to.
43	** Certain party members (usually those with overkill skills like Yoto Hime or Susabi) will always prioritize enemies who have the least amount of health remaining. While this can be useful most of the time, if the enemy team has a specific enemy about to make their move but still have enough health that your own units don't consider them a priority, it can cost you a win if their skill either wipes your party off the field (e.g. Kuro-dōji), or disables them. It becomes really frustrating if you have Onikiri on your team, and there's a priority unit on the other side that you can proc his [=AoE=] explosion off of and wipe out the entire enemy side, but he chose to hit a lowly Yamausagi instead, leaving the intended target alive to wipe him and ''your'' team out. You ''can'' assign a manual target to override your shiki's normal targeting rules, but you have to be quick, and the controls can sometimes be a bit unresponsive.
44	* AsianFoxSpirit: The game has several kitsune characters. These include Sanbi no Kitsune, Hakurou, Hakuzousu, Tamamo no Mae and Youko.
45	* AsianRuneChant: When using the Summoning feature, the ''kuji-in'' and some variations can be heard recited by Seimei. You can even hear a variation chanted by Yaobikuni if you're extremely lucky.
46	* AugmentedReality: A function in the shrine allows players to spend rare AR amulets to summon new shikigami à la VideoGame/PokemonGo. First, the player has to have a printed template or failing that, a picture of the template on a flat, readable screen, then enable this feature which connects to the smartphone's camera. Once you point the camera to the template, the game will recognize it and turn it into a summoning circle on the screen. The player then drags-and-drops summoning talismans into the circle. A video demonstration can be found [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dmqBzLTKpn8 here]]. Understandably, this is not available on the PC version, though that build allows the player to exchange AR amulets for regular ones.
47	* AwesomeButImpractical: Certain shikigami are this. Almost every rarity have a few, but the most commonly seen are SSR and SP ones. Most of the time, the true potential of their abilities are gated behind skill upgrades, making it so that they're weak, if not useless as they are, without significant investment of time, effort, and [[RareCandy Skill daruma]]. As a result, it is not always a good thing to roll an SSR at earlier levels when one couldn't invest as much into them, though [[PowerCreep there are exceptions]].
48	** This also applies to some SR shikigami as well (e.g. Chin, Kainin, Mannendake, etc...) with the added drawback that it's even harder to justify using Skill Daruma on them when you have [=SSRs=] waiting to receive them. Those that can ''only'' be summoned from the shrine for a high talisman cost like Mannendake and Ninmenju are on another level of impracticality altogether, as getting duplicates of them are exorbitantly expensive, and their lackluster capabilities often cannot justify the use of Skill Daruma to enhance them.
49	* BeefGate: A few, with the most prominent one being the [[spoiler:Dark Seimei]] encounter during Chapter 18. While his lineup is nothing fancy, consisting of a few basic units [[AndZoidberg and Ōtengu]], they boast pretty strong stats and ''two'' mitama set effects. Being able to beat them means your lineup is probably strong enough to last you for a while. If you keep failing, well then keep building, you're not there yet.
50	* BodyArmorAsHitPoints: The game uses the DeflectorShields variant for almost all shields[[note]]the exceptions being Semiei's Spell: Protect, which creates a tangible object that must be targeted and destroyed before any other targets on his team can be affected, and Shiro's shield which negates any [[ItOnlyWorksOnce single hit]] no matter how strong[[/note]], which add an additional layer of HP to the shiki or onmyoji they're protecting (visible as a white line under the target's HP bar) which has to be chewed through before anything can affect the target.
51	* BraggingRightsReward:
52	** [[AndYourRewardIsClothes Certain unlockable skins]] for a select few Shikigami are this, since obtaining them requires the player to be able to surmount very hard challenge dungeons where the odds are ever stacked massively against them and [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the AI blatantly cheats without even being remotely subtle about it]].
53	** Ultimately, the four Golden skins for the main quartet are the ultimate bragging rights rewards, as merely unlocking them means one has achieved HundredPercentCompletion, at least up until that point. To elaborate, the Golden skins are gated behind three separate Completionist achievements for getting all Secret skins (see above), [[GottaCatchThemAll collecting all available shikigami up until any given point]] (including Ryōmenbotoke, but excluding Crossover ones), and beating stage 10 of Ultimate Orochi, none of which are small feats easily achievable even for seasoned veterans of the game.
54	* BribingYourWayToVictory: There are various purchasable packs in the shop that grant many useful items like Mystery Amulets, buffs, massive amounts of currency and/or AP, along with high-grade Daruma that severely cuts down on the amount of grinding one needs in order to be viable. It should be noted, however, that most of these packs command premium prices which the game duly warns players about, and certain special ones can only be purchased once per account, or once per item rotation.
55	* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Orochi is destined to destroy the Onmyoji world. In alternate timelines, Susanoo manages to kill Orochi, but that just results in Orochi's corpse releasing a miasma that corrodes the world down to Aether anyways. The best he can do is [[SealedEvilInACan seal Orochi]], but even if it takes millennia, Orochi will inevitably be released.
56	* CallingYourAttacks: Everyone.
57	* {{Cap}}:
58	** The player level cap is 60, whereas the shikigami level cap depends on their rank, but the highest level a shikigami can ever reach (at max rank – 6 stars) is 40.
59	*** From the get-go a shikigami can only level up to 20, where passive XP gains stop and they cannot be fed more fodder past this hurdle (though any excess amount will carry over). Through investment, it is possible to raise them up to level 40, five levels at a time. In order to breach these caps, one must upgrade them using fodders of the same grade, with the amount needed being equal to the grade they are currently on (e.g. upgrading a grade-4 shikigami will require ''four'' grade-4 fodder). This is normally a very time-consuming process, as the fodders themselves require several cap-breaches to be usable at higher tiers, though there are usually fresh copies of grade 4 and 5 Daruma blanks in the shrine that can be traded for using tokens.
60	*** Of course, the game itself doesn't have to play by this rule. While normal dungeon mobs are capped at level 40, event or challenge map monsters often go ''way'' above this, giving them a significant edge over the players.
61	** Crit has an effective cap of 100%. While it's very possible (and ''easy'') to build higher than 100%, any excess Crit value will be rounded down and wasted.[[note]]The sole exception is Hangan, who converts excess Crit to Crit DMG when his passive is maxed. And his passive gives him 1% Crit for every 1% of HP his target is missing, so he can get a LOT of extra Crit DMG.[[/note]]
62	* CerebusSyndrome: Kickstarted by the [[WhamEpisode chapter]] with [[CrusadingWidow Sakura-no-sei]]. [[spoiler: It becomes known to the heroes and the players that there's a BigBad who [[AllegedLookalikes looks like and smells like]] the hero out to destroy the city and the hero's life.]] Yay.
63	** Think that's bad enough? How about [[spoiler: the revelation that Yaobikuni is actually the henchman of a [[GreaterScopeVillain bigger, stronger villain]]?]]
64	* ChainmailBikini: Largely [[AvertedTrope averted]] with most humanoid characters' clothing's covering enough for battle save for a few who are very obviously designed for {{Fanservice}} (or [[FanDisservice Disservice]]).
65	* ColorCodedItemTiers: White for N, blue for R, purple for SR, gold for SSR, and glistening red for SP.
66	* ComMons: Most if not all R shikigami apart from the ones you have to trade for in the shrine or collect shards from the demon parade. They have by far the highest chance of being summoned from a Mystery Amulet, but actually have an absurdly disproportionately small pool of shikigami to summon from- there are a mere ''thirty-one'' R shikis in the game that can be summoned by Mystery Amulets (with a 78.75% chance of getting one), compared to over ''fifty'' [=SRs=] (20% chance), almost thirty [=SSRs=] (1%) and a dozen [=SPs=] (0.25%), so whenever you expend a lot of amulets at once to try and get the latest SSR or SP release you should expect to see the same handful of Rs popping up over and over and over again- a matter not helped by the fact that new Rs simply never come out at all any more, and on the ''very'' rare occasions that they do they're shrine exclusive, so you can't summon them anyway.
67	* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard:
68	** Let's face it, Computer[[note]]or Smartphone in this case[[/note]] [[spoiler:Ōtengu]] in chapter 18's battle against [[spoiler:Kuro Seimei]] is ''unbelievable''. Nowhere else in the game do you find anyone with ''two'' special ''[[RareCandy mitama]]'' effects at once.
69	** Mobs in later level of the skin dungeons get this, especially the bosses, which means that having gotten those skins indicates a very powerful, competent, or plain lucky player.
70	* ContainmentField: The ''inkai'' barrier. Once holes have been poked in it, the air reeks of negative energy and malicious ''yōkai'' run amok.
71	* ContractualBossImmunity: Bosses are usually immune to most status effects.
72	* TheCorruption: [[ElementNumberFive Aether]] is normally the fundamental element that creator deities use to create new worlds. But when an already completed world is exposed to it, the aether causes it to corrode out of existence. Under Orochi's influence, the aether is not only destroying Amaterasu's world of love and law, but corrupting it in the meantime, causing docile spirits to become ferocious and humans to turn into evil monsters.
73	* CounterAttack: Equipping a ''shikigami'' with four ''Sō'' ''mitama'' grants them a 35% chance to automatically swat their enemies right back using their normal attacks when they receive damage. Combined with Shōzu's [[{{Synchronization}} life-link]], this allows them to counter from a ''teammate'' taking damage as well.
74	* CriticalExistenceFailure: Aside from certain raid bosses, none of the enemies or shikigami in the game [[ShowsDamage show any sign of damage]] as their health lowers. A perfectly healthy shikigami looks the same as a near-death one, and will simply keel over dead once their health has been depleted.
75	* CultureChopSuey: Crossed with AnachronismStew; while the original game isn't known for being highly accurate on either Heian history or culture counts, the MOBA game takes it a step further and ''throws accuracy out the window'', with the appearance of such things as UsefulNotes/{{Qipao}}, swimsuits, AncientEgypt sarcophagi and ''PunkRock''.
76	* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Zig-zagged. While there is no lasting penalty for dying in ''Onmyōji'', it does force you to restart from the beginning if you wipe while clearing a dungeon. The Netherworld Realm MarathonLevel has no "fail" state and will simply reward you based on progress, and world boss fights are lenient enough to let you rejoin after a short waiting period, assuming the other players haven't finished them off already while you're away. The only true consequence to wiping is falling down the ranking charts in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]], due to the competitive nature of this mode.
77	* DenserAndWackier: ''Three'' anime adaptations of the game take this route and completely chuck the game's serious tone and characterization out the window.
78	* DoItYourselfThemeTune: The theme song "Kekkai" is performed by Creator/NanaMizuki and Creator/MamoruMiyano, who voice Aoandon and Momo, and [[spoiler:Yamata-no-Orochi]], respectively.
79	* DramaticIrony: As Orochi brings calamity to the world, a village of mortals curse the gods for abandoning them. Enmusabi, one of the few gods to still care about the mortal world, passes by and delivers them aid. They then call her kinder than a god, which Tamamo-no-Mae then teases her about.
80	* DressingAsTheEnemy: Interestingly enough, the game actually allows for this, as [[spoiler:Kuro Seimei]] is an actual obtainable skin for the original character, allowing him to dress up as his [[spoiler:EvilCounterpart]] with no repercussions to the story. The catch is that obtaining said costume requires the player to shell out a considerable amount of money topping up during certain events, typically in the upper hundreds of dollars[[note]]The Kuro Seimei costume unlocks at around 7,000 - 8,100 units recharged, which costs on average between $600 and $700 spent per event just to obtain it.[[/note]].
81	* DubNameChange: The main reason why it's so difficult to communicate across different fanbases of the game. The many different builds have their own localized names for several shikigami and mitama sets for no apparent reason, even if they don't relate very much to the units themselves. Particularly bad examples of this are Kachōfūgetsu and Kyūketsu-hime, who are renamed "Hana" and "Vampira", respectively, in the English builds, along with what amounts to 80% of the mitama sets which have names that are the rough English equivalents of their original titles.
82	* DumpStat: DEF for (almost) all shikigami; only 2 shikigami (Heiyo/Samurai X and Jinmenju) have abilities that scale with it, as a defensive stat it's inferior to HP (and many shikigami have abilities that scale off HP), and there are a lot of shikigami and other abilities that can can reduce or partially ignore it. The developers are fully aware of how weak DEF is, [[FakeDifficulty why do you think soul drops are rigged to favour it as their primary stat when they drop or as a secondary when upgrading?]]
83	* EarlyBirdCameo: Certain SSR shikigami[[note]]Miketsu, Tamamo no Mae,...[[/note]] make appearances as AI-controlled mobs in special dungeons in the North American and Vietnamese versions of the game prior to their official introductions, which usually take place just a few months after said cameos anyway.
84	** Again in the aforementioned versions. Certain loading screen artworks and special dungeon mobs feature skins that aren't available to their playable counterparts at the time of their introduction.
85	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Before the update in which Sakura-no-sei is released as an attainable ''shikigami'', her skills are exactly the same as Momo's. Now A.I Sakura's skills still are, which becomes TheComputerIsACheatingBastard when you realize A.I Sakura can ''resurrect'' while yours can't.
86	** The first two side stories are the only ones in which none of the main characters appear.
87	* ElementNumberFive: Aether is the element [[TheMaker creator deities]], such as the original gods of the Onmyōji world use to define new worlds from nothing. For a world that has already been completed however, this element is nothing but death. [[spoiler:When Orochi puts HumanityOnTrial, he releases the aether to destroy the old world to create a new one InTheirOwnImage.]]
88	* EmpireWithADarkSecret:
89	** [[spoiler:Kyoto offered HumanSacrifice to the god Orochi, signing a DealWithTheDevil to gradually increase Orochi's power by feeding him maidens in return for ensuring Kyoto's prosperity. Some feel that Kyoto is only getting what it deserves when Orochi starts breaking [[SealedEvilInACan free from the seal]] and attacks the city.]]
90	** Legend claims that the founding Mermaid Queen made the First Promise with her people, promising they would never die so long as they never left the Sea of Eternity. She created a pearl blessed with infinite LifeEnergy that she and her successors could channel to those who didn't betray the promise. [[spoiler:In truth, only merdragons are naturally immortal. The pearl was actually a LifeDrinker artifact designed to steal life from both merfolk not yet born and humans who were lured to the Sea of Eternity as sacrifices.]]
91	* EnemyMine: In the Final Advent arc, with the seal on Orochi's PrisonDimension fully broken, massive armies consisting of Seimei, Kuro Seimei, the Ominous Land, Mount Oe, Sealand, and the Celestials all put aside past differences and join up to take {{Revenge}} against Orochi for his countless crimes.
92	* EvilIsBigger: The "boss" versions of certain shikigami encountered during play and throughout the story appear bigger than their playable counterparts. [[spoiler:Yes, including Yaobikuni.]]
93	* EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce: If even ''one'' of the [[SevenDeadlySins Six Evil Gods]] manages to devour the world they were [[SealedEvilInACan sealed in]] and break free into the main world, it will be TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
94	* ExcusePlot: The MOBA spin-off for some, as it allows players to just duke it out with cool characters and cool skills without the pesky obstacle of a plot, plus sets of extra-creative skin designs exclusive to that game that simply wouldn't fly in ''Onmyōji'' even considering its historical inaccuracy.
95	* FakeDifficulty: The soul system which you use to enhance your shikigamis stats is blatantly rigged to be as frustrating and grindy as possible; dataminers have confirmed that flex-stat souls (in slots 2, 4 and 6, the most powerful and pivotal ones) are ''heavily'' slanted towards dropping souls with [[DumpStat DEF]] as their primary stat (34% drop chance, compared to 10% for [[OneStatToRuleThemAll the really key stats like SPD, Crit and Crit DMG]]) and when leveling souls up similar numbers apply to the secondary stat bonuses (which can ruin even a rare soul after you've already invested heavily into leveling it), to intentionally minimise the chance of you being able to get an actually good soul and make you grind more (or preferably, fork out more for things like [[BribingYourWayToVictory Reverse Scale Boxes]])
96	* FantasyKitchenSink: On the one hand, we have real Japanese historical figures and mythological creatures, but on the other hand, we also have rewritten versions of foreign fantastic creatures ([[ChineseVampire jiāngshī]], ''Hēibái Wúcháng'', vampires) as well as purely invented creatures.
97	* FestivalEpisode: Side story #4, which introduces Tamamo-no-Mae.
98	* FissionMailed: The Final Sealand Invasion event was seemingly rigged so that the combined defense of Heian-kyō [[HopelessBossFight would fail]]. Players who logged in after the fact are greeted with the sight of a thoroughly-trashed courtyard populated with the Sealand bosses, with whatever few survivors of the assault lamenting their defeat. That, and a special mark for "losing" the war, provided one had spent at least 500 rice balls. All hopes seem lost, until it was revealed to have been a gimmick, and the event resumed as normal the very next day.
99	* FreakyFridayFlip: One dispatch mission involves a cat laughing at a newly wed couple who's souls have been exchanged. Succeeding in the mission results in your onmyōji successfully casting a spell to switch them back to normal.
100	* GameplayAndStorySegregation: It's entirely possible to use Yaobikuni against [[spoiler:her own boss fight when she betrays Seimei and company]].
101	* GlassCannon: As a form of balancing, shikigami with powerful attacks often have lowered HP and DEF scores, to allow the other team a shot at taking them down before they do too much damage. On average, those with S-ranked ATK will often come with A or B-ranked HP and DEF, that may or may not be improved upon evolving them. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from building them with ''mitama'' sets to alleviate this, and there are exceptions.
102	* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: While gods don't need prayer per se, gods outside the city of the gods need their divine power to be sustained by actions relating to their domain. Enmusubi draws power from the bonds between humans. The Moonfolk draw power from wishes. Gods will weaken to a SleepModeSize and even disappear if their needs are not met.
103	* GottaCatchEmAll: The Frog Shikigami added alongside Tamamo-no-Mae award the player with a free SSR provided they manage to collect all 14 of them. The catch is that these N-grade Shikigami have an even lower abysmally-low drop rate as a standard SSR (even taking into account that you get them from the more common Broken Amulets), only provide ''one'' shard per hit in Demon Parade (and are even harder to hit than SR shiki), and are complete [[JokeCharacter Joke Characters]] to boot.
104	* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Amaterasu, TopGod and benevolent GodEmpress once reigned from Takama-ga-hara, city of the gods, with gods and mortals enjoying a close relationship. But after Orochi rebelled, and Sussanoo sabotaged his execution, part of the city collapsed, and the city mysteriously distanced itself from mortals. Takama-ga-hara gods that preferred the mortal world, and others that fell to it during the disaster, found themselves cut off from home. As far as anyone can tell, it is as if most of the gods have completely given up on mortals and stopped caring about what happens to them. At this point in time, the only remaining point of contact between Takama-ga-hara and the mortal world is Takama-ga-hara's emissary, Susabi, and even he doesn't have much to say besides the fact that Amaterasu has lost most of her power. The only Takama-ga-hara gods that are confirmed to still care about the mortal realm and be healthy enough to do anything about it are Miketsu, Enmusabi, and Suzuhikohime.
105	* HighSchoolAU: The MOBA game has a set of skins that transforms certain characters into high school versions of themselves who attend the "Heian-kyō High". Some of the collectable loading screen images in the main game portray scenes from this setting as well.
106	* HollywoodMedievalJapan: Not technically "medieval", but there is quite a number of liberties taken in the game's portrayal of the Heian period.
107	* HotSpringsEpisode: A limited-time offer skin that turns the house into a hot spring resort.
108	* HumanityOnTrial: [[spoiler:The focus of the Final Advent event. Even in its broken state, long separated from the gods, the world at large still respects Amaterasu's teachings. In order to make her look like a hypocrite, Orochi reverse engineers the trial Amaterasu tried to execute him with to use it on the world. If by the standards of Amaterasu's own laws, the collective sins of the world outweigh the sins of Orochi, GodOfEvil, then the trial ritual will empower Ashura, Orochi's chosen executioner, to destroy the world, allowing Orochi to create a new world InTheirOwnImage. Even if Orochi himself planted the seeds, the sins of the old world outweigh Orochi's by a large margin, causing the world to be found guilty. Seimei ultimately convinced Ungaikyō, a crucial part of the ritual, to shatter himself, prematurely cancelling the trial. But even so, Orochi gets what he wants, with the ritual releasing one of the other evil gods from it's seal. And even if the trial has been delayed, it has not been truly stopped, with the end of the world still approaching.]]
109	* ImmortalBreaker: As one of the original gods, and an intrinsic part of the world, Orochi could not be killed by normal means. In order to execute him, Amaterasu had the gods build an artifact, Ame-no-Habakiri, that could suppress his divinity. [[spoiler:But when Susanoo was ordered to execute him, Orochi used DemonicPossession to force him to betray Amaterasu and kill the other gods instead. Susanoo has since passed the weapon on to Seimei to help the mortals help themselves and kill the SevenDeadlySins without direct help from the gods.]]
110	* InNameOnly: TheMovie's faithfulness to the source material in a nutshell – for starters, not only do the aesthetics not look very Japanese, the characters look ''nothing'' like their game counterparts, many important characters, like Kagura and Yaobikuni, are AdaptedOut, and some choices for {{Canon Foreigner}}s are ''bizarre'', like the Ming dynasty ''Princess Changping''.
111	* InterfaceScrew: Due to the game's cramped UI, every time a system notification pops up at the top of the screen, it will be bound to obfuscate quite a lot of info, namely your opponent's health bars and whatever buff/debuff they may be having.
112	* InterfaceSpoiler:
113	** For those who started playing on the EN build of the game, the existence of the Grade 6 exchange ticket was spoiled rotten from day 1, nearly a year before the item was actually released on that server.
114	** Right from the get-go, the fact that Kagura, Hiromasa, and Yaobikuni are also playable characters alongside Seimei were spoiled by the login screen.
115	* ItemGet: A past update gave SSR and SP shikigami summons unique intro cinematics
116	* JerkassGods: The gods ''used'' to love mortals, but under Tsukuyomi's influence, the ones that still do are a minority, with most of them now having no problem with exterminating mortals. In fact, the few gods that ''do'' still love mortals are now seen as {{Category Traitor}}s.
117	* JidaiGeki: Of the Heian period.
118	* JokeCharacter: The frog versions of the SSR shikis. Not only are they super rare to get (being as unlikely to drop from a Broken Amulet as an SSR is from a normal one and only giving you 1 shard rather than the usual 4 you get for N shikis when you hit one in the Demon Parade) leading to the nickname [="SSNs"=], but to add insult to injury they're all deliberately underpowered, with their weaksauce versions of their SSR equivalents' moves so weakened (with practically ''all'' utility removed) as to make them useless. Perhaps most notable is Yoto Hime Frog; while Yoto Hime's Savage Combo hits 6 times for 50% of her ATK per hit (adding up to 300% of her ATK), moving to a new target whenever she kills the previous one and (once maxed out) adding an additional 2 hits, Yoto Hime Frog's Savage Combo hits 6 times... for ''10% of its ATK per hit.'' That's ''worse'' than just using its basic attack, especially since Yoto Hime Frog doesn't even have Extra Slice for the chance of triggering additional damage! The only reason they're even in the game is to accommodate a new achievement that gives you a free SSR if you can collect all of them.
119	* JustBeforeTheEnd: Campaign mode takes place as the peaceful era ends and the end of the world approaches. Various events taking place after campaign mode depict escalating wars as Orochi manipulates everyone. [[spoiler:When he has created enough chaos to power his plans, Orochi unleashes TheCorruption, killing people and raising them as nagas. He also uses a god killing weapon to inflict cracks upon the world and contaminate it with Aether. He eventually manages to locate DestroyerDeity Izanami in the VoidBetweenWorlds and summons her direct influence into the Onmyoji world. Reality starts falling apart, the afterlife is annihilated forcing the dead to converge on Enma, most of the land is poisoned, everyone without protection starts turning into monsters or joining the dead, most of humanity dies, and the survivors are forced to take refuge in places that have been warded by the strongest spirits and onmyoji remaining.]]
120	* KimonoFanservice: Since this is a [[JidaiGeki period fantasy]] game, ''everyone'' wears kimono, spanning the whole spectrum from just good-looking to sexy.
121	* LargeAndInCharge:
122	** Applies during PvE, where all mob encounters will have one central enemy that's significantly bigger than their side minions, usually situated at the rear (4 and 6-mob encounters) or heart of the formation (Orochi zone). They may or may not have a boss health bar, depending on the situation.
123	** Yamata-no-Orochi himself is this, both story-wise and gameplay-wise.
124	** The many world bosses are this, since they have their own unique models that dwarf even the game's resident BigBad.
125	* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: Shikigami of higher rarity are given brighter, more colorful portrait borders compared to more common units, in this order: Red (SP) > Gold (SSR) > Purple (SR) > Blue (R) > no border (N and daruma). Played with in that SP shikigami are not necessarily more powerful than [=SSRs=], due to a larger focus on support than offensive, and those that are geared towards aggressive combat typically have convoluted kits that pale in comparison to the usual SSR shikigami. In fact, few of the Game Breaker examples thus far have been SP, and one can easily make do without them.
126	* LethalJokeCharacter: Frogs are useless in most scenarios, but during Menreiki's Karma Duet event, full frog teams receive one of the strongest powerups. If the full team is comprised of frogs, then their damage is boosted by 50%, any shikigami [[CopycatMockery they are imitating]] get stat drained, and they summon Oboroguruma, a boss monster, to help.
127	* LittleBitBeastly: Somewhere around a third to one-half of the Shikigami fall into this category.
128	* LuckBasedMission: Stage 10 of Jikigaeru's secret zone might as well be this. To elaborate, the zone consists of a single stage vs Jikigaeru and his lineup, both of which are greatly beefed up. To "balance" this out, the zone introduces a mahjong gimmick which, provided either team can accumulate a good hand, as shown under Card Rules, will occasionally rain down extra damage on the other side. Beating stage 10 with shikigami damage alone is next to impossible due to attrition, so whether you'll be able to win at all depends on which cards the Verdict Boss decides to give you at any given time. It's entirely possible for Jikigaeru to get all the good cards, which he will, as TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, and pummel you to dust within a few turns, while you're stuck with nothing but bad cards that you can't do anything with.
129	* MagikarpPower: Some shikigami can be summoned and used as they are perfectly fine, as long as they're well-equipped and leveled. Others require heavy investments before they're even worth using, due to the tremendous tactical advantages they grant at max skill levels. Most of the time, these shikigami are either SR support types, ST [=SSRs=]/[=SPs=], or a combination of both. Special mention goes to Yamata-no-Orochi and Susabi, who basically need to have ''everything'' maxed out in order to fight at full strength, especially the former, since level 5 of his basic attack confers a handy buff as well.
130	* MarketBasedTitle: The game is known as ''Onmyōji Honkaku Gensō RPG'' in Japan because of copyright-related reasons.
131	* MassiveMultiplayerCrossover: The game has had crossover events with enough series to qualify. In chronological order: ''Manga/NuraRiseOfTheYokaiClan'', ''Anime/{{Mononoke}}'', ''Manga/HozukisCoolheadedness'', ''Manga/InuYasha'', ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' and another [=NetEase=] video game ''Shéndōu Yèxínglù''. ''Nura'' ran into licensing issues which have held it up in the English localization, if not [[NoExportForYou aborted it altogether]], and ''Bleach'' seems to have run into similar issues.
132	* TheMissingFaction: There were four original onmyoji, and yet only three great clans were founded between them. Historians are pretty sure this isn't a case of one of the original four marrying into another's clan, there really should have been a fourth great clan with its own specialized purpose and duty to protect the world from evil god Orochi. It is speculated that Orochi somehow erased the fourth clan out of existence and history.
133	* MoneyForNothing: The basic koban golden coins aren't good for too many things. While they can be scarce in the early game, most late-game players will be swimming in these without an idea of what to spend them on. Unless you've been busy upgrading shikigami and mitama all day, which would be doubtful, considering the involved process, you'd be gaining them dramatically faster than they could be spent away, and that's not going into the constant stream of koban given for free like candy in each event. Once in a while, however, the betting showdown will rerun for the express intention of "helping" players burn their excess money.
134	* TheMusical: ''Two''; the first adaptation performed between March 9 and March 18, 2018 and the second in 2019.
135	* MyRulesAreNotYourRules:
136	** At any given moment the player is only given an 8-slot Mana bar that fills passively, or via the skills of certain Shikigami. This presents a very limited resource that one must carefully ration so that the units who need it most can have access to (enough of) it to activate their skills. The AI team never has to concern with this, as each unit on their side has its own bar that fills independently from each other, ensuring that they can all use their abilities without affecting their allies. More often than not, these bars are close to or at full capacity as soon as the match starts, allowing them to drop their skills on turn 1 without hassle. Certain AI units in skin dungeons can have as few as ''one'' bar of Mana, ensuring that they will ''always'' be able to use their skills on turn unless somehow disabled, which is harder than it sounds.
137	** An AI-controlled Sakura-no-sei can revive dead allies due to her skills being a holdover from before she was introduced. Players using her have no such luck. (Then again, you can just use Momo, as AI Sakura simply used Momo's moveset before she was released herself and wasn't updated after she was.)
138	** Some "boss" shikigami in the story mode are unbelievably annoying to beat due to them boasting ''two'' special mitama effects at once, [[spoiler: case in point being the infamous Kuro Seimei battle in chapter 18]]. Barring the two-piece sets obtainable from world bosses, it is just flat out impossible for any player to replicate this.
139	** The skin dungeons boast this proudly as their conditions for some bosses. These boss shikigami behave for the most part like their player-usable counterparts up to about level 5 of the dungeon, whereupon all bets are off and they suddenly gain new modifiers to up the ante.
140	* NeverSayDie: The filter in the chatroom and ''shikigami'' comment sections does not allow posts containing the Chinese character for "death" 死. While Japanese players can get around this by using ''kana'', this is a problem for Chinese and Taiwanese players.
141	** The character for "kill" 殺 isn't allowed either.
142	** The game itself is a bit of a doozy with this. For starters, the in-game wanted missions or achievements specify their demands for the player to ''knock-out'' enemies, rather than killing them. But on the flip side of the coin, eliminated shikigami and onmyoji are marked with a giant "Dead" tag on the [[StatusLine status bar]].
143	* NeverTrustATrailer:
144	** This [[https://twitter.com/mashinohina/status/864090529578876930 ad]] depicts Seimei and Hiromasa with the caption "Which one is your type?", making the game look like an OtomeGame even though it isn't.
145	** The trailer for the 4th side story [[spoiler: shows Yaobikuni with her friends at the firework festival, but in the real story, she's already exposed as evil and [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome treated by both the narrative and other characters as if she never existed]] at this point.]]
146	* OneStatToRuleThemAll:
147	** Crit and Crit DMG. The game is unique in that almost ''everything'' can crit, not just damaging attacks- heals and even ''shields'' can crit, multiplying their effect by the shikigami's Crit DMG modifier (150% at base). So almost ''every'' shikigami that isn't pure utility (like orb providers, accelerators and tanks) wants Crit and Crit DMG. The ideal is to have enough Crit on the secondary stats of souls to get the shikigami to 100% Crit or near enough to it without needing to use a Crit primary soul in the 6 slot, freeing it up for a Crit DMG primary soul instead. Ask any ''Onmyoji'' player which stats to build on any shiki that isn't a utility or tank and the answer will always be "Crit".
148	** SPD. With very limited exceptions, the shiki that acts first wins.
149	* OneSteveLimit: Zig-zagged.
150	** Players could deploy more than one copy of any specific shikigami, but doing so could [[CripplingOverspecialization crimp the team in a number of ways]] if the lineup lacks certain functions. Furthermore, doing so often require the duplicates being well-equipped as well, which makes fielding 5 identical [=SSRs=] an incredibly impractical act, neverminding how hard it is to obtain that many copies of one shikigami in the first place.
151	*** Some special shikigami passives or ''mitama'' effects don't stack if many of them are deployed at the same time (e.g. multiple Higanbana will share one's flower layers, multiple ''karei''/Azure Basan sets will still only give 3 extra orbs at round start, etc...). On the other hand, effectively ''[[InvertedTrope inverted]]'' by Chin who is only ever used in pairs or even ''trios'' (and is a complete GameBreaker when used in this manner).
152	** Players playing as Kagura can have both versions of [[spoiler:Hakuzōsu]] on the field at once, one as a shikigami and one as her battle companion. ''While'' fighting the [[spoiler:Hakuzōsu]] totem boss.
153	** If you want to deploy the SSR version of [[spoiler:Yamata-no-Orochi]] against his boss self, the game won't stop you.
154	** Certain shikigami can be deployed alongside their SP versions if the player so desires, despite the fact that they are the same characters and their presence should be mutually-exclusive story-wise.
155	* OptionalPartyMember: The Crossover shikigami are considered to be this, as they're only involved as far as their own collaboration event is concerned. Despite having proper index numbers, they are not catalogued in the shikigami book, and obtaining them is not needed for the full-collection achievement.
156	* OriginalCharacter: Many shikigami in the game are actually original characters created by the developers. These are either {{Composite Character}}s of actual mythical and folk legends, such as Susabi, or entirely fictional, like Yōtō-hime. In fact, discounting {{Crossover}} shikigami, about 70% of the SSR list are original characters, and it would be far easier to name those who ''aren't'' made-up than those who are.
157	* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons are a diverse lot and are not of one race, but hundreds. Some were born demons, some fell, some are even former gods and buddhas. Demons are ''not'' AlwaysChaoticEvil, but plenty of them certainly are. All demons respect strength and are driven by a rebellious streak. The first demons were corrupted from other races, including humans, by the Seven Evil Gods when they fully unleashed the power of sin in order to corrupt the world. Demons were intended to become beings of pure sin, but modern demons value freedom far more and have no respect for the evil gods. As such, Orochi sees them as delightful but ultimately failed creations, since he wants his followers to be [[PureIsNotGood pure]] rather than in-between like humans.
158	* OurGodsAreDifferent: The beings that personify and manage the world.
159	** Izanagi, God of Creation and Izanami, [[DestroyerDeity Goddess of Destruction]] are the {{Top God}}s in charge of the multiverse.
160	** Amaterasu is TheMaker and guardian deity of the Onmyoji universe. Her siblings, Susanoo, the WarGod and Tsukuyomi/[[spoiler:Susabi]] the {{Seer\|s}} serve by her side. Orochi is the GodOfEvil opposing them.
161	** There are other lesser gods managing lesser aspects of the world.
162	* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: The merfolk are a humanoid aquatic race with two legs and a tail. They are LongLived, with some of them even having full fledged immortality. If someone eats a mermaid's flesh, then they will share that merfolk's longevity. Mermen are weaker than mermaids [[spoiler:due to being incompatible with the merfolk's LifeDrinker artifact]], and the merfolk are as such a {{Matriarchy}}. If a merman's mate dies, then he becomes a SexShifter. Merdragons are a considerably more powerful subspecies with the power to control the tides.
163	* PaletteSwap: SP skins, not to be confused with the SP ''rarity'', are merely recolored versions of certain shikigami's default appearance. These are rather rare, and can be quite difficult to get ahold of, due to them only having a small chance to drop during certain summoning events, and are only available for exchange using uncommon skin tokens otherwise. If you're lucky, a mint SSR shikigami could come with an SP skin when summoned, but these are rather uncommon sights.
164	* PaperTalisman: Of ''course''. You even get to doodle on them when summoning new units, though the cheaper white talismans cannot be drawn on, befitting their lesser energies that only allow them to summon [=Ns=] and [=Rs=].
165	* PartyInMyPocket: The PlayerParty comprises of the ''onmyōji'' PlayerCharacter and three to five ''shikigami'' depending on the battle, but outside of fighting, all you see is the ''onmyōji'' walking around. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since the player character is actually shown performing a summoning ritual before every battle.
166	* PermanentlyMissableContent:
167	** Applies to crossover ''shikigami''. Due to RuleOfThree, a given collaborative crossover will only happen at most three times per franchise, giving each player only a short time to gather enough summon shards to acquire their desired SSR shikigami[[note]]Or SR, in the case of Okō[[/note]]. Once the third phase ends, that will be it, unless one can scrounge up enough shards by trading with other players, which may or may not be easily possible due to the overall finite amounts of these. Once every possible shard of a certain crossover SSR have been traded or combined on a given server, said shikigami is truly lost forever.
168	** Additionally, you cannot wish for shards of a SSR shikigami unless you already have at least one to start with, or have summoned them once beforehand, which defeats the purpose of wishing in the first place. This means any players who begin playing the game after the events are done can ''never'' acquire them. So far on the English servers the ''Anime/{{Mononoke}}'', ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'' and ''Manga/HozukisCoolheadedness'' events have concluded and will not come again, while the ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' and ''Manga/NuraRiseOfTheYokaiClan'' events aren't happening at all because of the licensing issues.
169	* PiecesOfGod: The Celestials were created by a god who, feeling lonely, decided to separate pieces of himself into them.
170	* PlayerCharacter: The game has four. All players get Abe no Seimei as their first PC, and the rest (Kagura, Minamoto no Hiromasa and Yaobikuni) has to be unlocked as the game progresses.
171	* PlayEveryDay: Not to the same demanding extent as other free-to-play titles, ''Onmyōji'' rewards loyal players by giving them freebies with every login, from minor amounts of gold, to daruma of certain kinds, up to and including free jades and summoning tickets. It doesn't enforce a strict "streak" mode like most games, so you could skip or miss a few and come back no worse for wear, but it does track the ''total'' amount of days you've logged on and reward you accordingly. Logging on 365 straight days will award you with a random SSR shikigami, and the game also grants you an uncollected one at 500, along with a free summoning ticket everyday, so you probably wouldn't want to miss those.
172	** Also encouraged with the free black daruma in the shop, where you must collect daily freebies from it for 49 days straight, whereupon the game will give you a Skill daruma on the 50th.
173	* PlotTailoredToTheParty: When climbing the Tower of Zenken at the climax of the Return of the Mara event, the nine sentry traps spread across the first 34 floors of the tower were each designed to require one member of the invading party to stay behind to deal with it- Seimei, Kohaku, Tamamo-no-Mae, Shuten Doji, Ibaraki Doji, Minamoto no Yorimitsu, Onikiri, Garuda and Asura, although Asura cheated the last two with Garuda's help to proceed on his own.
174	* PocketDimension: One type of Realm magic is used to create alternate spaces. They are sometimes used as homes or bases by onmyōji or spirits. They are also frequently used to reenact the past using illusory recreations of the locations and individuals that took part in historic events. These reenactions can often be interacted with by visitors to a degree.
175	* PowerCreep: Extremely prevalent, particularly with SSR shikigami. Shikis that were once top-tier and highly feared such as Yōtō-Hime, Ōtengu and Ibaraki Dōji find themselves massively overshadowed by even more powerful releases such as Tamamo-no-Mae and Onikiri, only for them to eventually become obsolete as well. If the most-recently released SSR isn't an absolute must-have, someone on the design team hasn't been doing their job right.
176	** Things have started to get a bit nuts with the release of Yamata-no-Orochi. OK, as a playable incarnation of the game's BigBad he needed to be impressive, but he's the first shikigami to have an ''[[BrokeTheRatingScale SS]]'' ranked stat, tipping the scales at an unbelievable '''4074''' ATK (''600'' higher than previous leader leader Yamakaze). With that said, Onikiri is ''still'' the more broken one, since making full use of Orochi's true potential requires a considerable ramp up period and some battlefield manipulation, while Onikiri just wins by pressing one button on a good day.
177	** Not helping matters is the fact that the developers have taken to basically ''only'' releasing SSR and SP shikigami now- they might release maybe 2-3 [=SRs=] ''per year'' and they ''never'' release Rs any more (there was a gap of ''three years'' between the releases of Mushishi, who came out in 2018, and Akaname, who came out in 2021, a matter not helped by Akaname being completely useless), while the [=SSRs=] and [=SPs=] come out practically ''monthly,'' making it exceedingly difficult for players to keep up with the new releases unless they grind their pants off to farm the hundreds of summon amulets they're going to need (along with [[RandomNumberGod all the luck in the world]]) [[AllegedlyFreeGame or just fork out]]. Things started getting truly insane in 2020, when they released SP Otakemaru ''and'' SP Ubume (which, both being [=SPs=], only have an ''0.25% chance'' of being summoned at all) ''at the same time!''
178	* PowerEqualsRarity: At least when it comes to matters of simple DPS, SSR and SP shikis are just straight-up better than any lower-tier shiki can even ''attempt'' to be. There's simply no comparison based on their stats ''alone,'' never mind their insanely-damaging abilities. And while a number of R and SR shikis still have a unique niche in the game that [=SSRs=] and [=SPs=] can't fill (e.g Ushi no Toki), the PowerCreep means the newly-released [=SSRs=] and [=SPs=] are slowly starting to infringe on their territory as well (Enmusubi has already supplanted Shoyo/Bukkuman in uber boss compositions).
179	* PowerDyesYourHair: Almost all Awaken-able ''yōkai'' get their hair color changed when Awakened.
180	* ProphecyTwist: The world is destined to be destroyed by Orochi, GodOfEvil, as he puts HumanityOnTrial. Susabi, despite believing that everything is predestined and YouCantFightFate, proposes using a DangerousForbiddenTechnique to alter how the end of the world happens. While it is completely impossible to actually prevent the end of the world, it may yet be possible to disperse and displace it using a worldwide ritual spell to spread the damage across alternate universes.
181	* RandomNumberGenerator: This is a game where players are ''heavily'' dependent on the RNG system being merciful in order to even be remotely viable. Trying to get a powerful shikigami from summoning? RNG. Trying to get a Grade 6 ''mitama''? RNG. Trying to upgrade that ''mitama'' to gain desirable stats? RNG. And so on. Even combat stats like Crit and Effect HIT/RES, or skills that have a ''chance'' to deal extra damage, are heavily reliant on you being lucky, since Crits won't always fire if you're under 100%, and Effect HIT/RES aren't 100% foolproof no matter how high you build. Sometimes, the difference between a glorious victory and a crushing defeat is the little bit of extra orbs or attacks you randomly gain, or the enemy's counter moves failing to trigger.
182	** Not even the ''Hyakkiyakō'' parade minigame is safe from this. Passing shikigami require an absolutely random amount of beans thrown at them to even register. Some will nail on the first hit with minimal bean loss, some won't despite the player shotgunning them in the face in volleys of 10, and rarer shikigami are generally harder to score, on top of being rare as heck and requiring colossal amounts of shards to summon.
183	* RankInflation: Shikigami rarity run the gamut from N (Normal), to R (Rare), SR (Super Rare), and SSR (Super ''Super'' Rare). And then there's SP, which is supposedly short for ''Special'', of all things.
184	* RareCandy:
185	** The materials used to Awaken ''shikigami'', which comes in four types and three tiers for each type. These can only be collected in the four Awakening dungeons — each one giving only one ''type'' — or given as a reward along with high-quality ''mitama'' after fighting an Octopus.
186	** The special Goblin ''mitama'' that confer no effect on their own, but provide massive XP gains when used as fodder to enhance other souls. These are typically given only during events in very limited quantity.
187	** Skill Darumas are these. There are a handful of ways to acquire them in-game, none of which are terribly easy nor efficient to maintain a steady supply[[note]]Outside of events and/or [[BribingYourWayToVictory paying for packs with real money]], a diligent player typically gains about one to two per week, up to three ''at best'' if they can save up enough shards to combine into a full one.[[/note]], yet they are the only practical way to enhance the skills of an SSR shikigami, who typically run around four to ''twelve'' to reach peak performance.
188	*** Seriously [[ExaggeratedTrope exaggerated]] by the super-ultra-mega rare Samurai Daruma. Currently the only known way to acquire one is as part of the achievement reward for logging in for 1500 days in total (more than ''four years''). The effect? Almost ''instantly max out any shikigami-'' it instantly raises them to G6 and level 40 and gives them 8 skill up effects (enough to skill max a 2-skill shiki, although not one with 3 skills that need to be leveled).
189	* {{Retcon}}: Onikiri's backstory as a human orphan, which was present in the test server but removed before implementation because of conflicts with the main story, causing a widespread outcry, and Minamoto no Yorimitsu's character as an ambiguous and callous AntiHero. The Chinese fandom were so angry with Yorimitsu's subsequent demonisation that the developers had to rewrite Orochi's scrolls and previous chapters, and add additional content to reframe Yorimitsu as the character he was meant to be.
190	* RocketTagGameplay:
191	** [=PvP=] battles frequently come down to which side has the faster accelerator (usually Yamausagi or Kamaitachi). Even if there's only one point of speed difference between them, the faster one will speed boost their entire team, which will then all get to act before any of their opponents, often leading to [[CurbStompBattle the slower team getting blown off the board without even getting a single action]]; even if they don't get completely wiped out, they'll have taken serious damage (and the faster team will also have already set up any defensive skills they have), meaning they have a ''massive'' uphill battle if they want to have a chance. This is absolutely universal at lower levels because it's much, ''much'' easier to build up a single damage dealer to maximum until it's powerful enough to [[OneHitPolykill kill the entire enemy team in one hit]] than it is to promote a team to be able to ''survive'' an attack from such a shikigami.[[note]]Promoting even a ''single'' shikigami to G6 takes an enormous amount of time and resources and can take the average player literally over a ''week'' if they're not [[BribingYourWayToVictory just buying shortcuts]].[[/note]] Even at higher levels, the damage-multiplying trinity of ATK/Crit/Crit DMG will generally ensure that offence>defence.
192	** Played a bit differently at higher tiers, however, where more powerful players often try to ''outlast'' each other, rather than merely ''outspeeding''. Such strategies would often involve a very speedy Shōzu instead of accelerators, to increase the team's survivability, on top of bringing Shikigami with powerful counters to negate the enemy's advantage of speed with free hits. Of course, said Shōzu still has to be fast enough to ''go'' first before it can be taken out itself, otherwise it's as much use as a bicycle to a fish.
193	** Furthermore, at such levels, savvy players are very likely to include a reasonably-upgraded Higanbana in their formations, whose crowd-controlling effects are the bane of any accelerator who needs to be active on their turns to actually be of any use. As Higanbana subverts the normal turn order by automatically hitting opponents immediately at the start of their turn, she technically ''always goes first''. However, this strategy fell out of favour when players realised she gets easily negated by a sufficiently thick Sea Sprite soul, which gives all shiki on the user's team a shield lasting one turn at the start of the battle. Since the CC effect comes from Higanbana's soul rather than her skill, if she can't damage the shiki directly she can't apply the soul's effect, and that one turn is all it takes to devastate her team.
194	** The faster double-pull teams with Onikiri would more often than not win immediately on turn one, after one strike, just to show how ridiculously broken he was. Continuous PowerCreep has left Onikiri obsolete, but the same can often be done with Ashura.
195	* SeriesMascot: Seimei, Kagura and Kohaku are often featured on the game's icon.
196	* SituationalSword: Effect Hit as a stat gained when leveling up souls. Shikigami that have abilities which scale with Effect Hit, or synergise well with souls that themselves scale with Effect Hit (such as equipping Mimic or Priestess on Ootengu) live or die on the amount of this stat they can get from their souls. On the other hand, for pure DPS shikis like Susabi or pure utility shikis like Hiyoribo (who have no synergy with Effect Hit in their kits at all) getting Effect Hit on their souls when you level them is ''terrible'' and can often ruin the soul, forcing you to replace it with another one. No matter whether you want ATK, Crit, Crit DMG, HP, DEF, Effect RES or SPD, getting more of the others on any shiki isn't necessarily ''bad''[[note]]Although in some cases getting too much SPD on a shiki can disrupt your planned turn order by having it go before another shiki you'd prefer to act first.[[/note]] (as every shiki benefits from being able to resist attacks and at least has access to their base attack to do damage with) but Effect Hit is the only stat which is often capable of being a complete dead stat which contributes nothing whatsoever.[[note]]There are two exceptions. First is Heiyo/Samurai X, whose basic attack scales with his ''DEF'' rather than his ATK and has no other damaging abilities in his kit, making ATK a completely dead stat on him. Ironically, he's one of the shikis that lives or dies by Effect Hit. The second is Jinmenju, an Indirect DPS shiki whose ''entire'' kit scales with his DEF instead of ATK, making it equally useless on him.[[/note]]
197	* SpellMyNameWithAnS: ''Onmyōji'' is a Chinese game, about Japanese mythical figures, with optionally-localized English text. Expect many players to not know whether to pronounce character names in Chinese, Japanese, or English when you bring up an onmyōji, shikigami, or mitama during conversation if your friends play on a different build than yours. This is due to the fact that character names are written the same way in both kanji and simplified Chinese, but are pronounced very differently in either language that are not strictly wrong in any case.
198	* StrongerWithAge: One of the ways Seimei mentions for spirits to become stronger is the passage of time.
199	* SummonMagic: Since this game is about UsefulNotes/{{Onmyodo}}, this one is very much expected. The player can summon ''any'' yōkai present in the game at varying levels of rarity as ''shikigami'' to aid them in battle. Acquiring a new ''shikigami'' requires the player to enter the "Summoning" room and use a variety of talismans (which can either be bought or earned by winning battles and completing quests).
200	* TopGod: Amaterasu is the leader of the gods, reigning from the city of the gods.
201	* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The 1-year anniversary CG short gives away [[spoiler:Yaobikuni's return]] and the climax of chapter 26.
202	* UnfeelingHeavens: Legend claims the moon to be a paradise free of conflicts and war, and many humans foolishly believe it. According to the Moon Princess, Kaguya-hime, it's more like a cold hell, and the humans stupid enough to break in get sentenced to a FateWorseThanDeath. The moon gods [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly are born]] from the wishes of humans and [[EmotionEater feed off of them]], but are {{Hypocrite}}s who despise emotions and falsely claim to be free of them, using this to look down on humans. Reflecting how inhuman they are, they SpeakInUnison with a CreepyMonotone.
203	* {{Unperson}}: There were 4 original onmyōji, and yet they apparently only founded 3 great onmyōji clans between them. It is speculated that the 4th clan was erased from history by Orochi.
204	* UnstableEquilibrium: The current meta of the game sits in a lofty and uncomfortable position due to the proliferation of GameBreaker shikigami that massively favors those who are lucky or spend money enough to acquire them. Those that have them are almost guaranteed to always win in many important areas, mainly [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]], even if their actual player level is far too low to be capable of such, therefore giving them more and more rewards that they could then use to summon ''more'' game-breaking units. The game itself seems to unabashedly promote this, as players who already have a complete collection will receive a ''huge'' rate-up for new shikigami, who will subsequently let them trample all over the previous meta due to their horridly-unbalanced kits.
205	* WelcomeBackTraitor: [[spoiler:Episode 27, in which Yaobikuni is again accepted as part of the main ensemble.]]
206	* WhiteAndGreyMorality: The dynamics between [[spoiler:Dark Seimei]] and the regular, "White" Seimei is this. For all of his grandiose posturing and "evil-doing", [[spoiler:Dark Seimei]] has proven time and again that he's not entirely incapable of mercy or genuine helpfulness. If anything, he's more of a morally-gray AntiVillain leaning a bit more towards the Black end of the spectrum, but not wholly, irredeemably evil.
207	** BlackAndWhiteMorality: The conflict between the young Seimei and [[spoiler:Minamoto no Yorimitsu]], on the other hand, veers straight into this territory. For more information, check the [[Characters/Onmyoji2016 Characters]] page.
208	* WouldHurtAChild: ''Encouraged'' in a sense, since many of the more useful support units in the game are literal children, or at the very least appear to be. Zashiki Warashi is the most common victim of this trope, as KO-ing her cripples the enemy team's orb supply.
209	* WoundThatWillNotHeal: The game invokes this in several ways.
210	** [=InuYasha's=] post-buff Bakuryūha outright ''removes'' HP equivalent to 50% of the counter-attack damage dealt to an enemy while at Black (final) Tessaiga state. This removed HP can no longer be healed back, and Bakyryūha could take away at most 80% of an enemy target's max HP if it keeps stacking on them.
211	** The stage 10 Higanbana boss of her own skin dungeon does this to your own shikigami lineup, as each proc of her flower bed seals away a small portion of your units' max HP, on top of dealing high damage.
212	** This is what makes fighting True Orochi especially painful if you have a limited lineup. Each hit from dungeon mobs will seal away a portion of your units' own health that slowly stacks if you don't switch them out to "rest" between each fight.
213	* YouCantFightFate:
214	** Everything in this world is predestined. For all intents and purposes, everything that has happened, is happening, will happen, and even how this world will end has effectively been written down and set in stone. ScrewDestiny is absolutely impossible, as even your attempts to fight fate is you fulfilling your fate to begin with.
215	** All worlds end, one way or another, and it is ''this'' world's fate to be destroyed by Orochi's hands. Orochi ''will'' destroy this world, as he has in every single AlternateTimeline, the flow of [[ElementNumberFive Aether]] that allows time to move forward ensures it. The only question is how long it will take, and whether Orochi will live through it to create his [[ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil world of pure evil]]. Compromise is not an option since he despises and cannot stand the very existence of Amaterasu's world of love and law. If Orochi is killed, the miasma released from his corpse will corrode the world back to Aether. Even repeatedly [[SealedEvilInACan sealing]] or banishing Orochi will only delay the inevitable, since evil, greedy, TooDumbToLive mortals ''will'' ensure his return each time no matter what, even if it takes tens of thousands of years. If Orochi is free to act as he pleases, he will conquer the city of the gods, turn humans into monsters and let them torture their formerly fellow humans for fun, and eventually slay former GodEmpress Amaterasu to replace the old world with his new one.

Context VideoGame / Onmyoji2016