This page contains some unmarked spoilers.
Vanessa Z. Schneider
- Artificial Human: Implied by the plot twist of Vanessa discovering a clone of herself, and that her client is also a clone.
- Badass Back: During the "Thunderbird" energy drive, Vanessa turns her back to the enemy as she releases a giant ball of plasma. She also turns her back to the final boss, Alraune, before destroying it with a snap of her fingers.
- Boyish Short Hair: Vanessa's hairstyle.
- Cyborg: Vanessa technically becomes one with the Aegis Suit on, since it connects to her spine to shoot energy.
- Clothes Make the Superman: The Aegis Suit cybernetically empowers Vanessa to fight robots by connecting to her spine and central nervous system to generate and shoot energy. Vanessa herself has no known powers.
- Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Vanessa often acts sassy and insubordinate towards her client in their dialogues.
- Cool Shades: As shown on the game's page image.
- Dance Battler: Vanessa's dodging and attack animations are all inspired by dances, and the techno soundtrack emphasizes this.
- Dissonant Serenity: Vanessa embodies this, demonstrated in the game's opening cutscene when she grooves unflinchingly as double lasers fly past her face.
- The Diva: Vanessa displays many diva qualities, from her flashy and suggestive dancing, to her sassy attitude toward her client, and worrying over her skin and glasses.
- Existential Horror: Vanessa experiences this when she discovers her clone late in the game. Further emphasized in the ending when when the Client says memories can be implanted, including hers.
- Fake Memories: The Client says in the ending that memories can be implanted, including her own. This implies even Vanessa's backstory of her parents being killed by CAMS is fake.
- Fanservice Costumes: All of Vanessa's suits, especially the Papillon.
- Featureless Protagonist: Vanessa Z. Schneider was designed to invoke this trope.
- Hired Guns: Vanessa is a mercenary hired to destroy all the CAMS robots on Planet Ode.
- Idle Animation: Hers is fairly complex with constant foot tapping and finger snapping to the BGM.
- Male Gaze: The game's trailer
gives Vanessa several shameless ass shots while she performs her in-game dance moves like wiggling her hips, and her infamous automatic fire butt shake. Upon unlocking automatic fire, she will do this animation about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time randomly. - Ms. Fanservice: Between her outfit and dancing, yes.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: The Client seems to never notice or care about Vanessa's suggestive dancing, especially when she wears the Papillon Suit.
- The Client says to Vanessa "Perhaps I should hire you privately?" at the end of Mission 2 however, which can be interpreted as innuendo.
- Power Source: The Aegis Suit is the source of Vanessa's power to blast robots.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: CAMS robots, the antagonists in the game who Vanessa is hired to rampage through, killed Vanessa's parents. Or did they?
- Schrödinger's Butterfly: Vanessa discovering a clone of herself in mission 9, discovering the Client is also a clone, and the Client saying memories can be faked calls into question just about everything in the game.
- Sensual Spandex: All of the Aegis Suits are more or less painted onto Vanessa's body with lights, design elements, and criss-crossed utility belts added on. The boxy Aegis system plugged in the back.
- Sex Sells: P.N.03 producer Kobayashi said from E3 2003 that he wanted to create a "cool" and sexy" character, and that her dance moves were modeled after dancers on television. The E3 demo, several trailers, and the game's own attract videos emphasize her bottom. Her dancing and butt shaking has nothing to do with her mission, nor is it ever referenced or explained in game, although she might be dancing to generate energy through the Aegis Suit's connection to her spine.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Vanessa becomes this with the Papillon Suit on, which is just a tanktop, chaps, and a thong, dialing the existing fanservice up to eleven.
- Shaking the Rump: Vanessa is constantly flaunting her "assets" with various sensual shaking motions.
- She-Fu: All of Vanessa's dodges are flips, cartwheels, spins, and rolls. Activate an overdrive and she does a complicated gymnastics routine before actually attacking with it.
- Spy Catsuit: All of Vanessa's Aegis suits, except for the Papillon.
- Stripperiffic: Vanessa shaking her butt in skin-tight catsuits and thongs has invoked many stripper comparisons.
- Theme Naming:
- "Vanessa" is a genus of butterfly, and "Papillon" is a French word for butterfly. These both relate to her butterfly tattoo on her waist.
- Can also relate to Schrödinger's Butterfly, given the themes of clones and Fake Memories.
- Themed Tattoos: Vanessa's butterfly tattoo, as mentioned above.
- Third-Person Seductress: Her suit is either skin tight or thong accessorized, she moves her body a lot, and the camera is permanently planted behind her, so yes.
- Transhuman: The Aegis Suit cyborgizes Vanessa by connecting to her spine and allowing her to shoot energy through her palms. Further emphasized when Vanessa discovers a clone of herself, and that her client is also a clone.
- Thong of Shielding: The Papillon Suit.
