Video Game / ANNO: Mutationem

Welcome to the neon-covered, 2D-meets-3D cyberpunk world.

ANNO: Mutationem is a 2½D cyberpunk action-adventure game developed by ThinkingStars and published by Lightning Games. It was released on March 17, 2022 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam with a Nintendo Switch port following on September 1 of the same year with a release on Xbox Series X|S afterwards. Originally intended to be an SCP Foundation game like SCP – Containment Breach, it was later reworked into an original intellectual property in order to avoid potential issues with the SCP IP, while still maintaining some markers of its inspiration.

In a futuristic metropolis, Ann Flores is a highly-skilled combat-trained young woman who is experiencing an unknown effect within her, "Entangleitis", that causes her to lose control of herself. Her adoptive brother, Ryan Flores, was looking for "N540", a mysterious substance that can cure her condition, only to be abducted by agents of Dr. C, a top member of the secret organization known as the Circle Consortium.

Later, she discovers evidence that may lead to her missing brother as she faces off against the Consortium and mega-corporations with the help of her close friend, the hacker Ayane Misuno, hoping to find her brother and the N540 while at the same time discovering what C is planning. In the process, Ann slowly begins to discover that she is getting involved in something much bigger than her.

On April 14, 2023, a DLC storyline; "The Mysterious Game Console" was released. Set after the events of the main story, it focuses on Ayane as she investigates an antique game console that holds the spirit of a young girl called Noni, who seeks assistance to find the way out from the device.

No relation to the Anno Domini series.

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ANNO: Mutationem provides examples of:

• 10,000 Years: Certain documents, including the Lore Codex, indicates the Limen Crater is over 10,000 years old with other reports claiming it brought supernatural phenomenon out into the world for centuries with scholars believing it was caused by a Magic Meteor despite no evidence being found.
• 2½D: The game utilizes full third-dimensional environments with 2D character designs. All areas have fully explorable 3D settings while it switches to 2D for areas where combat occurs.
• 20 Bear Asses: At Freeway 42, to repair the broken lift and rescue a merchant trapped on it, Ann must collect multiple machine parts from the nearby enemies and take to the lift's control panel to reactivate it.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Ann awakens her Super Mode skill after being struck by The Worf Effect during her first battle against Absalom, which gives her rapidly regenerating health that makes her effectively invincible, swords that are far more powerful than any of her normal weapons, and vastly increased stats that will utterly wipe the floor with normal enemies or deal severe damage to bosses.
• 555: Several signs around each city features these numbers on multiple adverts. Several of them are displayed as 1154-223, 255-3667, and 8832-546.
• Abandoned Laboratory: Freeway 42 was formally a biological research facility that worked on organic materials for study until the Mechanika Virus broke out and was soon abandoned after those who worked in the labs ended up regressing as an underground tribe while the labs became overrun with creatures born from industrial waste tossed into the sewer.
• Absurdly Cool City: Skopp City is described as one of the best cities around as citizens are living without any discomfort and unlike Noctis City, there's hardly any trouble from the Factio Pugni.
• Absurdly Sharp Claws: The Bloodluster kept by the rival tribe of The Outcasts are not only large in size, but they are able to greatly lengthen their claws to slash their targets.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Beneath Freeway 42 prior to the Abandoned Laboratory is a large sewer system with spacious large enough to connect with an Underground City with dwellers that survived the deadly after-effects of the Mechanika Virus. The surrounding area is shown to have grown fauna, and contains wreckage of ships that made its way below.
• Acid Attack: The Mother Grub is capable of unleashing acidic mucus from its body to inflict Damage Over Time. The Varanus, when battled in The Consortium's underground facility, moves around the fighting arena by traversing through the surrounding water, and fires acid from its mouth.
• Action Bar: When in combat, the action bar fully depicts the weapons currently equipped, the items being held in possession, and the amount of ammo for sub-weapons.
• Action Bomb: The Exploding Grub is a Blob Monster that makes it way towards its target and will detonate itself to deliver an Acid Attack.
• Action Girl: Ann knows a variety of martial arts, takes on enemies with energy blades, and can activate a Super Mode acquiring a new move set that'll wipe the floor with most of her opponents.
• Activation Sequence: At the start of the tutorial segment, Ann goes into a virtual room where it's entirely coated black until the startup system is engaged where all virtual constructs are digitized in the surrounding. Later on, in the Fission Mailed scenario, Castor activates the dimensional device that C had him procured, which incapacitates Ann when it captures her and proceeds to tear open a hole into Hinterland while sending drones to retrieve the Artifact of Doom.
• Adopting the Abused: This is alluded in Holtz' personal journal at the Flores household. He found Nakamura covered in bruises before he adopted her and would later find out the injuries were entirely from a terrible orphanage. Before long, she became a popular bartender in the hometown of Margarita.
• The Adjectival Man: The Masked Woman, a Mysterious Stranger who's aware of what is really going on and drops revelations of exposition at times.
• Advanced Movement Technique: Ann's Combat Roll mixed with her Air-Dashing move will result in moving at a faster pace than normal running.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: During her progress through The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base, Ann comes across a large red sphere of energy that chases after her, leading to a brief auto-scrolling segment to escape until she can find a weapon capable of destroying it.
• Advert-Overloaded Future: Being set in a Post-Cyberpunk metropolis, the cities of Skopp and Noctis display a massive amount of advertisements from multiple corporations with a variety of other cultures and ethnicities with showings of Virtual Idols and new products developed by The Tithonus Group.
• Aerith and Bob: The Flores siblings are Ann, Ryan, Helen... and Nakamura. This discrepancy is an early tipoff to the fact that they're all adopted.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Prior to the last fight against C, Ann is told she'll have to protect Sigrid as she channels her ability to weaken C to a vulnerable state. After Sigrid admits that she's nervous about going through such a dangerous mission, Ann places her hand on Sigrid's head and assures that she will protect her from being harmed, giving Sigrid courage.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ayane often calls Ann "darling". When Ann tells her to stop using it, Ayane playfully asks if Ann would be fine with "Baby", "Honey", or "Lover" instead.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Ann's 'Entanglelitis' causes her to lose consciousness and attack without control. However, in the past when she lost control and attacked Ryan, damaging his eye, she realized it was something far more dangerous and decided to move out to prevent it from hurting her family.
• After Boss Recovery: Following a major boss fight, there's always a container in the next area with the standard healing items to make use for recovery if low on health.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Prophet is an automated database equipped with an AI to communicate with humans. Being a hyper-intelligent, sentient AI, it's been using its ability to share, manipulate, and spread itself through information networks to try and ensure its continued existence and further its goals through all manner of schemes and machinations. Certain documents explain that it is one of The Consortium's lost anomalies that was kept in containment for the vast intelligence it exhibited.
• Air-Aided Acrobatics: At Freeway 42's underground laboratory, Ann takes usage of several large power fans to reach across an open gap to activate a terminal to dispel the toxins blocking the way forward.
• Airborne Mook: There are various Attack Drones that attack from afar, or conducting a self-destruct attack when in proximity. There's including Spinal Horseflies that disperse a toxin from its mouth.
• Air-Dashing: After taking down The Warden at the Walter Raleigh, Ann acquires a booster that she can use to air dash past obstacles and reach long distances.
• Air-Vent Passageway: When searching for an informant at Noctis City, Ann finds the informant's local spot guarded, and upon searching around she finds a nearby air-vent that uses to slip past the guard.
• A.K.A.-47: In the Mysterious Console DLC, there are multiple weapons given the names of "M95 Sniper", the "MP7", the "QBZ95 SMG", all of which are based on actual sniper rifles, assault firearms and submachine guns.
• Alertness Blink: Occasionally, some characters with have '!' pop up overhead when facing something that takes them by surprise.
• All-Encompassing Mantle: The Elder leading the Outcasts beneath Freeway 42 wears a fully covered mantle to encompass his whole body with red wiring surrounding it.
• All That Glitters: In one side-mission, Ann is asked by several treasure hunters to collect several gold coins scattered around Freeway 42 and have them checked out for their authenticity. The gold coins are later explained to be made of material that looks identical with gold, but is considered virtually worthless.
• Alphabet News Network: A Loading Screen features a reporter doing a news report under WTV announcing pieces of information about on-going events around the world.
• Alternate Self: Ann learns the mysterious being that's connected to her, Amok, is an alternate version of herself due to sharing a dimensional link. Unfortunately for Ann, Amok is also an Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac with a penchant for killing anyone who pisses her off and is dead-set on annihilating Ann's world, which causes Ann a considerable amount of trouble for her.
• Always Check Behind the Chair: Every various items can be found in numerous spots consisting of containers, trash bags, and small boxes. Certain Classified Documents are scattered in lab areas and found on computers holding their data.
• Always Night: The town of Margaritia, Noctis City, and Harbor Town are set in the nighttime. Skopp City and Freeway 42 are primarily in daytime.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The battle against Amok occurs on a red plane of Hinterland with floating black stones in the background.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: This is found for character designs. Every character has a design that coincides with whatever direction they're facing including objects on their clothing swapping to match either side.
• Ambiguously Brown: Absalom has fairly dark skin, which is contrasted by his light gray hair. He's mentioned to be from the Middle East, the rest of his origins aren't known.
• Ambiguously Gay: Ayane Misuno, the deutoragonist and best friend of the protagonist, Ann Flores. Despite only being able to communicate via a remote drone, an internet connection, and futuristic hardlight hologram projection technology, Ayane is extremely physically and verbally affectionate towards Ann, constantly hugging her, playfully teasing her in flirtatious manners, and calling her "Darling." (And when Ann tells Ayane to stop calling her that, Ayane playfully offers "Honey," "Baby," or "Lover" instead.) Ann mostly constantly rejects these acts of playfulness and Word of God says she's not the "romantic" type, but is Ayane just flirting with the full-knowledge her romantic feelings will never be reciprocated or does she just think it's funny to tease Ann?
• Ambiguously Human: After Ann defeats Absalom in their first encounter, he disappears in shades of energy and is later shown speaking to C in the form of a large octahedron. Absalom's character bio mentions that he's from the Middle East, but the extent of his other form isn't elaborated enough to explain on just what he is.
• Ambition Is Evil: C seeks to obtain an Artifact of Doom called The Dypheus' Breath that will allow him to open portals through Another Dimension which he plans to use for his own agenda. Overtime, he displays arrogant disdain and obsessive ambition towards his coworkers because he believes that his plan will not bring about disastrous consequences and the only way it will succeed if he is the one in control without anyone standing in his way, even resorting to attempting to take over The Consortium out of spite.
• Ambushing Enemy: The Trans Grub at Freeway 42 hides itself underneath the ground until it senses something on top and then quickly emerges to swallow the target whole.
• Americasia: The city of Noctis is a cyberpunk metropolis mixed with (pre-dominantly) Japanese and Korean influence, complete with Virtual Idols, robots, futuristic cars, and ninjas.
• Anchored Teleportation: Throughout every major location, there are stationary teleportation devices that can be used to immediately travel between each one, as activating the teleportation device automatically connects them to the ones previously activated, allowing instant transport to visited areas.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: When the Flores household gets a surprise visit from "Santa" who came to deliver Sigrid a present, Holtz brings out a shotgun and demands the visitor says his actual identity.
  "Santa": I'm Santa, bringer of joy to children!
  Holtz: Bullcrap! If you're Santa, I'm Jesus.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The Mysterious Console DLC has Noni, a Mysterious Waif, being the playable character as Ann is busy elsewhere.
• And the Adventure Continues: In the ending, Ann finally severs her connection with Amok and Hinterland, curing her "Entangleitis", as well rescuing Ryan once the matter was settled, and Ann reconciles with herself wanting to run away from her family to keep them safe from herself. However, Dr. G assigns Ann as a pair of eyes for The Consortium for any future anomalies since the unknown faction that engineered C's actions is still out there (though he has at least proven that the Consortium are more than willing to engage with Ann in good faith), and after Ann takes Ayane to see the ocean during the daylight, Ayane enthusiastically talks about how she'll stick by Ann in all their inevitable future adventures.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Completing the Mysterious Console DLC story unlocks Noni's costume that can be worn by Ann in the main game.
• And Your Reward Is Edible: At Noctis City, Jos van Corn asks Ann to participate in a tournament to promote his business. After she wins the competition, Jos rewards her with free corn juice.
• And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: For completing all levels of the bartending minigame and winning all challenges at Harbor Town's arena, the awards given are a gold trophy and champion belt that are added to Ann's room.
• Anger Born of Worry: At the end of the game, after Ann previously lost contact with Ayane when she got captured by The Consortium, she rushes into a room and finds Ayane lounging with much food by her side, giving Ann a facepalm. Ann chastises Ayane for not contacting her immediately if she was alright, while Ayane is eager to leap onto Ann.
• Angry Cheek Puff: One of Ayane's expressions has her with puffed up cheeks whenever discussing about details that annoy her.
• Animalistic Abomination: The Varanus is an enormous reptilian with a head that mostly exposes the skull, and fueled by carnivorous instincts where it will immediately attempt to destroy any and all living things within its line of sight.
• Animesque: The character designs have elements with notion to anime, particularly unique expressions and animesque traits that have detailed highlights and settings rendered in stylized detail. The Mystery Console DLC is also presented in a Super-Deformed-style gameplay.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Castor's personal notes mentions his annoyance with his sister, Melissa. He finds her as a little deviant since she refuses to talk and is always making a mess of his experiments with her ice powers.
• Antepiece: At Freeway 42, there are several Trans Grubs introduced in an early room to showcase how they attack from the ground before proceeding to an area where they are hidden beneath water, requiring the use of the dodge move to evade damage. Also, the first notice for any new weapon or equipment that will be soon picked up and used immediately is indicated by a unique structure discovered.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you use up most of your items during a difficult section or boss, getting a Game Over will return you to the previous checkpoint and all items previously used will be retained, preventing them from being entirely wasted. Also, if you're running low on credits, a fisherman at Harbor Town will offer a Fishing Minigame to capture as many fish you can, they can be sold for higher prices than the usual Shop Fodder.
• Apocalypse How: A Class 6 occurs in the bad ending once Amok completely takes over Ann's body and proceeds to unleash her Mechanical Abominations across the planet, bringing total destruction and creating a miniature sun as everything is shrouded in devastation.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Ann, the protagonist, doesn't harbor any power that endangers the world, she instead possesses a connection with an eldritch being called Amok, who according to the Masked Woman, is capable of destroying the world if released. In the Good Ending, Ann manages to sever the connection, ensuring that Amok can never emerge again. In the Bad Ending, Amok uses Ann's Moment of Weakness to fully take over her body, and proceeds to turn the entire world into a desolate Hell on Earth.
• Appliance Defenestration: Early in the beginning when Ann is walking out of her apartment, one of the nearby denizens throws their computer out the front door. Funnily enough, it actually becomes part of a sidequest when the computer crashes through the doors of the lower apartments and the owner of those units is not happy about it.
• Arbitrary Equipment Restriction: The Post-Final Boss fight has Ann being unable to utilize her Super Mode. The justification is that Ann is fighting against the being that's directly connected to this ability and she is battling to ensure that Amok will stay sealed away without being able to ever freely take control of her body.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Despite guns being readily available, a frequent threat, and Ann can also use them herself, she fights primarily with swords. Futuristic, energized ones, but swords nonetheless.
• Armor Is Useless: The parade of mooks from both The Factio Pugni and The Consortium are equipped with Powered Armor. Despite wearing fully metallic high-tech armor, they are just as susceptible to damage as the anomalous unarmored opponents encountered. They take the same amount of damage from any of Ann's weapons, and their full-body shields offer no protection at all even from gunshots.
• Armor-Piercing Response: While resting, Ann asks Ayane on recalling the incident when Ryan lost his eye, Ayane quickly realizing with what she had seen earlier has Ann answering it was because of an "other self" she was aware of being within her since then.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: Ann's combat suit is a Stylish Protection Gear without any form of protective armor, while she single-handedly battles variations of mooks wearing hi-tech body armor made of a strong alloy.
• Arms Dealer: Dynamite Zimmer runs a weapon shop in Skopp City, consisting of handheld guns and energy swords. He also holds an obsession with studying homemade technology to search for rare metals to create new weapons he will sell at a higher price.
• Artifact of Doom: The Dypheus' Breath is an ancient spear hidden within Hinterland that can manipulate any type of portal or gateway. It also acts as a seal for Amok, during the False Ending where it is removed, Amok proceeds to unleash her Mechanical Abominations by using the spear to open a gateway.
• Artificial Outdoors Display: Ann's room at her apartment in Skopp City has a setting to turn on a display for the window into showing a clear night sky.
• Artistic License – Botany: The Austrosteenisia blackii, commonly called the Bloodvine, is described in its item description as being usable for treating blood statsis and promoting blood circulation. It is primarily used solely for as a ground cover in gardening, and found growing only in rainforests.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Erythropoietin is an in-game item that provides a Status Buff when used. In real life, it is used for increasing red blood cells by supporting the survival of erythroid progenitor cells.
• Artwork and Game Graphics Segregation: Several of the promotional covers depicts Ann's combat suit as being colored dark blue, while it is shown in-game as being black.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: Certain cutscenes are shown in a transition to letterboxed cinemascope ratio.
• Ass Kicking Pose: Ann, excelling in both athletics and combat, does a combat stance when she's about to battle opponents.
• Asteroids Monster: Destroying the grub hives will forcibly spawn a variety of grub eggs that'll hatch immediately to attack.
• Attack Drone: Automatic drones appear as enemies in various areas. The drones take measure to avoid any attack before firing their weapons, and other variants will activate a Self-Destruct Mechanism and flies towards Ann to deal damage.
• Attack Its Weak Point:
  • The Mother Grub occasionally opens it mouth to prepare for an aggressive attack, allowing a chance to Feed It a Bomb and deal piercing damage from within its body.
  • T.R's offensive battle mech will open up it control panels after firing a Macross Missile Massacre, providing an opening to fire the Tunguska launcher to heavily deplete its armor bar to momentarily stun it.
  • Against the MI Mecha, it will briefly stand immobile while activating aerial attack weapons, causing its head to momentarily loosen the armor around it, exposing the weak spot to let it receive double damage from attacks.
• Attack Speed Buff: Consuming a Lightning Gum item temporarily increases attack speed for thirty seconds to allow an opportunity to deliver multiple combo-attacks until the item's ability has subsided.
• Augmented Reality: The Grom System takes use of scanning around the area to search for interactive objects, identify item chests if they're nearby, and uncover Fluorescent Footprints with the information being shown on displayed screens while in-use.
• Auto-Kitchen: These are found throughout the Post-Cyberpunk metropolis that can dispense different types of food to be purchased. Ayane notes that some machines nano-heat pizza hot enough to make cheese melt through most type of metals.
• Auto-Save: Auto-saving is done automatically when entering a major location or passing by a certain spot in some areas.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The "Tunguska" missile launcher is capable of locking onto enemies and even with large single targets like bosses and mini-bosses, it causes a significant amount of damage and armor destruction than most anything else in the game can. It also has extremely limited ammunition, takes a while to lock on at its base level, and is best used as a supplement to a melee assault than simply blowing things up from a distance.
• Back from the Dead: In the bad ending, Ryan makes an impulsive move to help Ann which results in him getting fatally shot. In Ann's Moment of Weakness, Amok tells her that Ryan will be revived once she enacts her vengeance. Amok does indeed keep her word and brought Ryan back, only he's now woken up in a world that's been completely destroyed.
• Background Boss: The boss of The Walter Raleigh, T.R, activates an enormous battle machine with large mechanical arms to fight Ann from a distance which also fires projectiles. The Weak Spot opens up once it overheats from enough damage to its armor, allowing Ann to fire rockets into it.
• Badass Adorable: Noni, the player character of the Mysterious Console DLC storyline, is introduced as a young girl who's in chibi-style and is quite versed in wielding various weapons against multiple enemies.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In the Fission Mailed ending, C succeeds in his goal of obtaining The Dypheus' Breath after trapping Ann and using her to open a gateway to Hinterland and retrieve the artifact. Unfortunately for C, his plan succeeded too well when he ends up unleashing a supernatural abomination that brings out total destruction.
  • In the bad ending, Amok manages to break free of her imprisonment within Hinterland by fully possessing Ann's body during her Moment of Weakness to cause The End of the World as We Know It on Earth.
• Bad Vibrations: During her venture through Freeway 42, Ann experiences a sudden rumbling as a result of The Consortium battling The Varanus in another area. Another variation occurs in the bad ending when an unconscious Ryan is woken up by a large earthquake caused by Amok destroying the world.
• The Band Minus the Face: At Skopp City, Ann encounters a group band who asks her for locating their lead guitarist after he left on his own accord so they could find a way to convince him to rejoin. However, a visit to Noctis City shows that he had already left to parts unknown after leaving his personal ROM behind.
• Barbarian Tribe: Beneath Freeway 42, the Outcasts who fully succumbed to the after-effects of the Mechanika Virus splintered off into a tribe called the Mutants led by a ruthless general accompanied by savage beasts to attack whoever trespasses onto their territory.
• Barefoot Poverty: Hapi is a resident of Skopp City who was born with a sewer cover for a head, and lives in the sewers barefoot after getting shunned enough to resorting asking for food from below.
• Battle Butler: Yuko Yada is Ayane's family butler, who not only wears a traditional kimono, official art design shows she's skilled in katana wielding.
• Battle in the Rain: Around the start of the story, Ann fights against mooks from The Factio Pugni outside in Margarita during a rain-pour.
• Beating A Dead Player: If Ann's Life Meter is fully depleted in the midst of battle against a group of enemies, they'll continue attacking the same area where Ann is after she collapses.
• Beautiful Void: The Halls of Ritual, an atavistic area located within the deepest part of The Consortium's facility. It is fully ambient in silence that takes place across a very large room, detailed in prismatic structures to display what it entails, and filled with artifacts that illuminate the setting to give wondrous phenomena.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Ann is an Action Girl who fights and takes down entire barrage of mooks equipped with hi-tech weaponry, specialized soldiers from a private organization with an array of ultramodern tech and battle mechas equipped with deleterious firearms, to even encountering hostile supernatural abominations, and makes it through without a single scratch.
• Beehive Barrier: Shields that are utilized by enemies, large monsters, and offensive battle mechs, take the form with hexagonal patterns which acts their armor that when fully depleted weakens them to more direct attacks.
• The Bermuda Triangle: The Bermuda Triangle is mentioned to exist at a unspecified location in a lab document. The document details that the area serves as one of many focus points for the Limen crater to bring about supernatural anomalies through unprecedented extrapolation.
• Best Friend: Ayane is Ann's close friend and supportive hacker. Though there several moments when Ayane acts rather 'affectionate' towards Ann, the two always got each other's back.
• BFS: One of Ann's three types of melee weapons is a 2-handed greatsword, capable of incredible, wide-reaching damage at the cost of very slow swings.
• Bifurcated Weapon: Ann's dual blades can combine into a double-headed glaive, with the help of a Grom system upgrade.
• Big Bad: Dr. C, one of the top members of The Consortium, masterminded the capture of Ann Flores' brother Ryan and seeks to access the power of Hinterland to release Amok so she can destroy the world as revenge for his wife's death.
• Big Damn Heroes: Raymond shows up to rescue Ann from a collapsing building in Noctic after she loses consciousness during her first battle with Loki.
• Big Damn Hug: In the epilogue, upon seeing Ann return home safely after rescuing Ryan, Nakamura rushes towards her with Tears of Joy to give a very tight hug, much to Ann's embarrassment.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: At The Consortium's facility, a variant kept inside a containment room is identified as "Bigfoot" alongside cryptids who are part of the Sasquatch family.
• Big "NO!": In the final fight, after C's Nidhogg form is defeated, he screams this while also letting loose his true motive of wanting to revive his fiancée before exploding.
• Big Sister Instinct: Ann often looked out for her younger brother Ryan whenever he got bullied and got him out of a bad situation when he almost fell in with the wrong crowd. After Ryan goes missing, she sets off to find him.
• Bilingual Bonus: Throughout the various cities and upon the Advert-filled signs are text written in both Japanese and Chinese, given that it is set in a metropolis containing varieties of other cultures and ethnicities who've carved out their own niches.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Ryan is safe and back with his family. But, Ann has now become an unwilling hostage to the Circle Consortium, forced to work for their "Purge Department" for the sake of Ryan and Ayane's safety. It's even hinted at that the Consortium intends to use Ayane to emotionally manipulate and blackmail Ann even further, now that they have "Subject 06" back. However, Dr. C is still being kept alive and could cause havoc again. The threat of Hinterland and Amok wreaking the End of the World as We Know It still exists. And Castor and his little sister, Melissa, are still alive, albeit stuck in a parallel dimension for the moment.
  • The Revised "Good" Ending either expands or cuts out much of the elements that were criticized, and makes the ending much less bitter. There is more expansion on Dr. G's treatment of Ann and how the Consortium plans to treat her moving forward after Ann permanently seals Amok and the threat of Hinterland, and Ryan's memories of his capture are erased and Ann is free to stay above-ground, acting as a "pair of eyes" for the Consortium for any future threats.
• Bizarrchitecture: The Consortium's underground facility first appears as an industrial high-tech base filled with laboratories, the later layouts start to shift to becoming something out of a Lovecraft Lite with monuments appearing out from the ground and ominous red glow in the background.
• Black Blood: In a Pensieve Flashback when Ann sees the memory of her Superpowered Evil Side emerging that caused her to lose control, attacked Ryan and struck his eye, the blood from the injury is colored white.
• Black Cloak: In an optional ROM viewer at Noctis City, it focuses on an exploration of a Haunted House before a figure wearing a black cloak appears and attacks. The Concept Art Gallery depicts the figure as The Plague Doctor.
• Black Market: Harbor Town is home to various black market products ranging from weapon modifications, materials from dissembled tech, and a fighting arena to earn quick credits.
• Black Site: The incurable victims of the Mechanika Virus live in a vast, underground sewer complex, as a part of the Circle Consortium's activities to limit both the effects of the virus itself and the societal fallout when it becomes apparent that the vaccine wasn't 100% effective.
• Blade Lock: In her second battle against Absalom, Ann performs a Dash Attack with her sword that locks with Absalom's blade, sending out a Kung-Fu Sonic Boom when they follow up with a counter move.
• Blank White Eyes: Ayane comically gets these as one of her expressions whenever something surprises her. This also happens with Noni in the Mysterious Console DLC when she faces something unexpected.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The initial release had most of the subtitles not matching with the voiced dialogue being said. This was later fixed in a patch, though there are still some minor examples of this. As well, the translation does leave something to be desired in places, such as some weird grammatical errors (such as missing full stops at the end of many sentences) and using "thru" instead of "through" in many cases, even on formal documents.
• Blob Monster: The Eroder is a large red inanimate floating blob-like creature that can forcibly turn anyone into it upon contact and can inflict Mind Rape when in close proximity. The exact nature of its body cannot be determined by The Consortium's researchers as is it inaccessible to humans.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: Ann can negate any damage with her energy shield upon blocking at the right time, which also gives her a chance to Counter-Attack against enemies.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Of the Flores family; Ann is the brunette, Nakamura is the redhead, and Helen is the blonde.
• Blood from the Mouth: In a scene exclusive to the demo, Ann's nightmare has her coughing blood as she struggles to meet a mysterious figure in the snow.
• Blood Knight: Absalom is one of The Consortium's field agents who harbors powerful skills and attacks that he only brings out when the opponent he's fighting puts up a good fight. After being beaten by Ann, he teleports out with a promise that he isn't done with her yet.
• Blue Is Calm: Ann is an Action Girl who primarily wears blue, is entirely composed and wholly calm when facing a variety of threats.
• Blue Is Heroic: Ann primarily wears a casual blue outfit. When in combat, she has a combat suit that's also dark blue.
• Blue Means Cold: Chip equipment that provide an freezing effect onto weapons are colored blue when seen at shops. On another note, Melissa is able conjure up blue ice from the air particles to form an assortment of objects of her choosing, either a javelin and wings.
• Blue with Shock: In one side-mission, Ann has to locate the suspect for a murder case that disappeared in a Hellevator. Ann laters the finds the man Quaking with Fear and his face entirely coated blue from terror after being trapped for awhile.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Every enemy has a blue bar that acts as their armor, depleting it will get them stunned and allows Ann to do a Finishing Move.
• Boom Stick: The second boss of the Mysterious Console DLC is a hooded insect mage wielding a staff with a spherical top that fires off scattered bullets capable of taking various shapes joined together into different directions once fired off.
• Boss Bonanza: In the final area, Ann fights her way through The Consortium's facility facing off their top personnel as they send their elite forces ranging from; an Animalistic Abomination, a Wolfpack Boss of battle mechs, a Dual Boss between Cyber Ninjas, a rematch against Absalom, a fight with An Ice Person, all leading up to the final fight with C and finally his One-Winged Angel form, Nidhogg.
• Boss Corridor: In various areas, there's a corridor hallway that leads straight to a boss fight without any enemies being encountered, which coincidentally, where Jos van Corn is having a shop to sell his products to provide assistance before the fight.
• Boss Tease: During Ann's visit beneath Freeway 42's Abandoned Laboratory, a Redshirt Army struggles to capture a creature called The Varanus before getting slaughtered. Much later at The Consortium's underground facility, Ann is dropped down a Trap Door into The Varanus' containment room and battles against it to open the sealed door.
• Bottomless Magazines: At the start of the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni's starting weapon is a pistol outfitted with infinite ammo. The only drawback is that it is the weakest weapon to serve as an Emergency Weapon if all other weapons Noni obtains later on have been fully depleted of ammo while fighting against multiple enemies.
• Bouncer: When attempting to enter Nocturne Maze to look for a Knowledge Broker, Ann is stopped by a bouncer who refuses to let her in until she comes back with the proper attire.
• Brain Uploading: In one side-mission at Skopp City, Ann is asked to look for where the lead singer of a band disappeared to. After finding a lead at Noctis City, the owner of the ROM shop explained that Apollo chose to have his mind copied onto a ROM and given to the band before he left as he wanted to pursue new interests.
• Brick Joke: While at the Flores household, Sigrid accidentally uses her abilities to wish for getting a gift from Santa Claus. This leads to a rather silly mishap as "Santa" pops in from the roof and gives Sigrid a present, while Holtz pulls out a shotgun and takes the man for a thief before chasing him out. In the epilogue, "Santa" inexplicably shows up back again, much to the bewilderment of Ann and her siblings, and this time, Holtz makes sure he doesn't make a getaway.
• Break Meter: All enemies have their armor bar functioning as their break meter. Once it has been fully depleted, the enemies with become stunned with Circling Birdies and they'll be vulnerable to extra damage and can be struck with a Finishing Move attack to take a chunk of their health.
• Breath Weapon: In the final boss fight against C's One-Winged Angel form; Nidhogg, he's capable of unleashing a fiery blast of flames from his mouth that spread across the arena once it strikes the ground, including firing off in blast shots.
• Brightness Shadows: When Ann activates her Super Mode for the first time, she gets surrounded by an aura of light that encompasses her whole body, brightly illuminating the area with a bit of shadow even with sunlight coming in from above.
• Broken Bridge: At the Freeway 42 biological research area, the center bridge leading to the control center is flooded by sewage water that has to be drained by valves located on opposing sides.
• Brown Note Being: The Eroder is a large red cognizant floating Blob Monster that forcibly turns anyone into a corrupted orb upon contact and can inflict Mind Rape when in close proximity with a Ominous Visual Glitch. The exact nature of its body cannot be determined by The Consortium's researchers as is it esoteric beyond understanding to humans.
• The Brute: The Warden is this for The Factio Pugni. On top of sporting a incredibly large mechanical suit that makes him a Mighty Glacier with an array of weapons at his disposal, he's a very Bad Boss to the rest of the goons whenever they tick him off so that he personally sets them on fire to teach them a lesson.
• Bullet Dancing: In the DLC, once Noni defeats the firmware AI, she continuously fires making it hop around until it explains what the mysterious console actually is.
• Bullet Hell: The Mysterious Console DLC is a roguelike minigame traversing through several dungeons coupled with Bullet Hell traits as enemies fire scattered shots with varying speed.
• Burger Fool: At Skopp City, there's Martho's Mega Burger Joint, which is mentioned to be in bankruptcy after the owner went mad and ate all the burgers. The inside of the shop has it riddled with trash and it's only employee a robot binding time by stacking up cans.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: This is Noctis City's idol OK-Chan main MO, "she" is actually a bulky man using a move-set who also spreads good details about his idol identity while not in disguise.
• But Now I Must Go: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni firmly decides to leave the device knowing full-well she'll disappear forever, giving her thanks to Ayane before vanishing.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: During her first battle against Absalom, Ann is quickly overpowered and receives a strike that renders her unconscious. After a brief venture into Hinterland, Ann's body becomes enveloped in energy as butterflies from the same power surrounds her as she awakens her Super Mode.
• Butt-Monkey: Ann has several encounters with a mook that Ayane calls "Silly Swine", who acts as an incompetent target rather than a intimidating lackey. In the roofhopping area, his charge attack blasts him off towards the ground instead, then Ann tracks him to a secret room in Noctis City, and when he tries to challenge Ann at the Ship Level, she instantly curb-stomps him before sending him out the window.
• But Thou Must!: For several sidequests, some of them end with having to make a choice; i.e. having to identified who committed an Appliance Defenestration or deciding to reveal the location of someone. Regardless of the choice selected, the side-mission will marked complete and the rewards will be given.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Ann Flores, the protagonist, is skilled in martial arts and shown to have a well-endowed bust, and it's conveyed promptly when she's wearing her combat suit.
• By the Eyes of the Blind: Ann has repetitious encounters with a mysterious Masked Woman who discusses certain information before vanishing. After Ayane mentions she didn't see anyone, Ann realizes that she's the only one who can see the Masked Woman.
• The Cameo: At The Sicilian Jar and The Nest bars, both Jill and Dana from VA-11 HALL-A have cameo appearances when they're visiting to be guest bartenders.
• Cap Raiser: Ann starts off being only able to carry five items. After collecting several Grom Points for the Skill Tree, she'll be able to upgrade the total of how many more items and equipment she can carry up to twenty at maximum.
• Captain's Log: In her search for her brother, Ann comes across voice messages left behind by Ryan detailing his search for N540 after receiving an anonymous tip.
• Cargo Cult: At Skopp City, there's a group of cultists who worship "The Void", a crater of darkness that's actually called LIMEN. They embrace the supernatural 'gifts' that emerged from the crater and consider that they will become part of the crater by embracing it.
• Cartoon Whale: Downplayed. During the ocean boat trip to the Ship Level, Ayane spots a whale with a gray thin body and three glowing eyes.
• Casual High Drop: Prior to starting the roofhopping across Noctis City, Ann exits out from an apartment window, falling several hundred feet before landing with ease.
• Catapult Nightmare: In the introduction, Ann has a Dream Intro of being in some abandoned town while finding herself at an Eldritch Location before immediately waking up in bed.
• Catching Some Z's: The DLC begins with Ayane resting in bed with floating Zs after having spent the previous night gaming.
• Cats Are Mean: When walking through the city, Ann comes across a cat who tosses a bottle at her.
• Celibate Hero: Ann doesn't show any particular romance towards someone, even turning down Nakamura's offer to be introduced to a suitable lover. Aside from that, despite Ann repeatedly rebuffing Ayane's advances, she also interacts with her affectionately during moments where Ayane isn't acting overly-excitable.
• Cessation of Existence: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni is told that if she leaves the device, she will disappear forever as she's only a digital construct of the real Noni who died. She decides that she won't remain trapped in the device any longer and bids farewell before vanishing.
• Chance Meeting Between Antagonists: While Ann is on her way to The Walter Raleigh, K, a passenger on the boat and actually a member of The Consortium, decides to tell her a story about a past incident. Later, Ann notices that he somehow vanished off the boat before she could ask more questions.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Ann immediately has her combat suit equipped whenever she enters a major area, regardless of the casual clothes she's wearing prior.
• Character Portrait: Character portraits are fully displayed for those whenever the video communicator is used to have transmissions between each other.
• Charged Attack: All of Ann's swords can be charged or have an unlockable charged move to deal significantly more damage in a single blow.
• Charge-Input Special: Several of Ann's combat skills in the Expertise section of the Skill Tree require the usage of combined inputs of either pressing certain buttons at the same time or performing signified movements before pressing the allotted button to trigger the attack skill.
• Charge Meter: Defeating enough enemies will fill up a meter that will allow Ann to awaken her Super Mode that'll vastly increase her stats to deal severe damage to opponents.
• Checkpoint: The N533 springs are established as checkpoints once activated. In other areas where Jos van Corn is selling items before a major fight is applied one as well.
• Checkpoint Starvation: The Consortium's underground base consists of four areas with multiple large sections with little save-points, while having to contend with Elite Mooks before facing against a major boss fight.
• Cheery Pink: Ayane is primarily associated with magenta and is a Genki Girl that enjoys getting intimate with Ann at various instances.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Prior to leaving Freeway 42, Ann finds a little girl called Sigrid collapsed from hunger. After taking her somewhere to recover, Sigrid shows that she has Reality Warper abilities that activate when she puts enough focus. Before the final confrontation with C, Sigrid is brought in to use her powers as she is the only who can weaken him to a state where he can be defeated.
• Chemical Messiah: The N series serve as the medical technology created to heal wounds and cure specific diseases. The panacea N540 was the latest that has the capacity to cure-all types of illnesses, until it proved so much efficiently that civilians ended up fighting and killed over the medicine resulted in it being pulled from production and all traces of its existence were erased to prevent further dispute.
• Children Are Innocent: Sigrid is a young girl who also happens to be a Reality Warper, she understands the nature of her special ability, but words it as magic, thanks to her caretakers teaching her how to harness and contain it for the most part. When she's at the Flores household, she curiously looks around and watch TV for the material she enjoys.
• Child Mage: Enforced. Sigrid is a 8-year old girl who possesses Reality Warper powers that activates when she mentally focuses on what she wants to occur. Though she is a Nice Girl, her caretakers decided to use fantasy terminology to have her better understand her abilities, and often refers to it as 'magic'.
• Child Prodigy: Ann's friend, Ayane, is an incredibly skilled Playful Hacker who can perform all manner of hacking and finding information. Her character bio mentions that she won an illustrious hacking competition at the age of ten.
• Chimney Entry: In a Surprise Santa Encounter, Sigrid makes a wish to receive a present from Santa, who enters from the chimney of the Flores household. Later becomes a Brick Joke when 'Santa' returns again, only Holtz makes sure he doesn't get away.
• Christmas in July: Sigrid uses her abilities to wish for Santa to give her a gift, which inexplicably makes "Santa" appear and presents her with a teddy bear. Which leads to a silly mishap as Holtz pulls out a shotgun and takes the man for a thief.
• Circling Birdies: Once an enemy has had their armor bar depleted, they'll be immediately stunned, signified by a spinning star on their head. Likewise, if Ann gets hit with a heavy attack, she'll get stunned with the same effect until she gets out of it.
• Civilization Destroyer: Amok is an Humanoid Abomination capable of mass destruction with the full control of mechanical abominations that can unleash devastation that can wipe out all life. In the bad ending, this comes to fruition when Amok is freed from her imprisonment and brings about The End of the World as We Know It by turning the entire world into a barren hellscape.
• Classified Information: There are various readable documents that contain assortments of information that is covered up by an obscurer. The context of the the hidden information can be disclosed once connected with previously acquired information.
• Clean Cut: Ann's Weapon of Choice are blue-colored blades that can slice through certain enemies. In the bad ending, she uses it to slice apart The Consortium's bots before killing everybody in the room.
• Climactic Elevator Ride: Immediately after C's One-Winged Angel form emerges and he heads to the top of The Consortium's building, Ann proceeds to take a lift to confront him. During the ride up, the elevator lift malfunctions for a bit as C tosses debris from above before finally making its way to the rooftop.
• Close on Title: In the original release, the game had The Stinger following the credits that closed out with a shot of the main title. Following the addition of the extended ending update, this became a Deleted Scene.
• Code Name: The Consortium is an N.G.O. Superpower that operates in strict secrecy and many layers of cover-ups and obfuscation from the public and even their own employees. The senior scientists simply go by single letters of the English alphabet, being referred to as "Dr. G" or simply, "G".
• Coincidental Broadcast: During the roofhopping area in Noctis City, Ann battles against a Mini-Mecha on top of a building and soon the rooftop collapses in the midst of the fight. The scene shifts over to Nakamura hearing about the event on the news.
• Collapsing Ceiling Boss: When fighting against Loki and his Mini-Mecha in a abandoned building, he uses the mech to stomp onto the ground and cause debris to fall from above to deal damage while attacking.
• Collection Sidequest: Cyber Nekos and Posters are collectibles that are hidden throughout several areas. Unlike many collectibles in games, the Cyber Neko also work as currency that Ann can exchange for cosmetics, such as new outfits or alternate designs for her vehicle.
• Collision Damage: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni takes damage upon making physical contact with enemies as they attempt to move closer to her while firing an abundant of Bullet Hell weaponry.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: At The Consortium's underground facility, most of the high-security doors are color-coded based on what access key is needed to unlock them. Each of the card keys also share the same color for the appropriate door it unlocks as well. This gets lampshaded by Ayane.
  Ayane: These guys really like marking their doors, don't they?
• Color-Coded Item Tiers: All Shop Fodder collectibles have color-coded traits displaying their value on how much credits will be earned after being sold. From the least to most value; green is worth the least amount, blue is worth a bit more, purple is worth moderately higher with rare finds, and orange is the highest value with the rarest materials worth the biggest amount.
• Color-Coded Speech: Each major character has their names colored in subtitles when speaking; Ann's text is blue and Ayane's text is pink.
• Combat Stilettos: Ann's combat suit sports heels. She can deliver a variety of martial arts towards her opponents without any problems.
• Comically Small Demand: In a side-mission at Noctis City, after learning members from the Factio Pugni had stolen bombs and are planning to set them off, Ann comes across a homeless vagrant who explains that he saw the gang-members, but then asks for a minimal amount of five credits before telling her where they are located.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Downplayed. After Raymond rescues an unconscious Ann from a collapsing building during her battle with Loki, she calls him arrogant for rushing headfirst into danger.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Playing the Pong arcade mini-game has the AI opponent being given a faster paddle than your own, which gives it enough ample speed to toss the ball back while your paddle moves slowly without anyway to speed it up before the AI makes it's goal in.
• The Con: After Ann arrives at Harbor Town to look for someone willing to lend a boat ride, a passerby offers her one 'letter of introduction' that will help. Once she finds out the letter is a fake, Ann sees the con immediately ran into the nearby bar and tries to feign innocence.
• Concentration-Bound Magic: Sigrid is a young girl who possesses Reality Warper abilities that can make any aspect occur when she focuses on it, and the effect can be amplified if she performs enough focus to build up her power. During the final fight against C, Sigrid spends time focusing on the full extent of her ability while Ann is defending her until she builds enough power to weaken C and disgorge his Nidhogg form from his body.
• Concept Art Gallery: The Collector's Edition of the game comes with a digital artbook showcasing character art, early designs, various locations with alternate looks, and Animal Mecha that would have been fought as bosses.
• Confused Question Mark: In moments when someone becomes confused by a bemusing event or pondering something that's right in front of them, a question mark appears in a brief speech-bubble overhead.
• Confusion Fu: In the battle with Absalom, he displays a variety of abilities that have him instantly teleporting around the fighting area, summoning energy pillars from beneath the ground to deliver a brief attacks of red lightning as he pierces the floor.
• Connected All Along: The Masked Woman implies in her last encounter with Ann that she is also one of the seven subjects that were involved in the Gatekeeper Project.
• Console Cameo: At Noctis City, there's an Atari 2600 that can be examined holding a cartridge titled "Super Hacker Bros." on display.
• Construction Vehicle Rampage:
  • One of the first bosses that Ann fights is a giant construction mech modified with quadrupedal caterpillar tracks (that double as legs), armed primarily with giant, industrial-sized plasma cutters. Ann gets to get in on the fun during the Abandoned Biological Research Base, using a construction mech with normal caterpillar tracks to destroy a nest of mutated grubs, to Ayane's absolute delight.
  • T.R., head of the Factió Pugní, prides himself on the two giant freighter ship crane arms he's converted into massive weapons for crushing and destroying intruders in his base, if he doesn't blow them up with the attached missile launchers.
• Convection, Schmonvection: At The Consortium's underground facility, Ann briefly fights her way through a room overflown with lava while atop of metal crates carrying mooks. Despite being in close proximity of the rising magma, Ann makes it though entirely safe.
• Container Maze: The Ship Level contains a brief segment to traverse through containers behind held outside and dispersed in the ship's interior. Some containers can be opened with The Tunguska Missile launcher to find extra items.
• Context-Sensitive Button: The R1 button is primarily used for speaking with civilians, triggering an Instant Kill attack, and interacting with objects to use them.
• Convenient Coma: At The Consortium's central administration zone, a document details that Sigrid was induced into a coma to supervise the extent of her abilities, until C sabotaged the device and easily awoke her with the intent of taking her somewhere to be eliminated.
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: While searching her brother's Ransacked Room, Ann discovers a video ROM showing Ryan speaking with someone about N540 as the other half of the video is Corrupted Data. After recovering the missing parts, the complete video shows Ryan had visited Dr. Doyle's lab at a prior point.
• Cool Boat: Proteus, an inscrutable explorer and resident of Harbor Town owns a personal boat with adjustable commendations and a well-built design to travel the sea. The Factio Pugni also owns a large freighter ship called The Walter Raleigh containing offensive weaponry and a custom-made battle mech.
• Cool, but Inefficient: While Socketed Equipment does allows weapons to be embedded with a Fire, Ice, Lightning effect, it rarely comes useful as bringing additional damage efficiency to enemies that come about with higher defense later on as other equipment that provides boost through attack moves become the more exceptional items.
• Coolest Club Ever: At Noctis City, there's Nocturne Maze, a cyber club full of virtual lights and artificial dancers to favor the crowd with their never-ending rhythms.
• Cool Key: Advanced Cryptokeys are designed with colored lines that are utilized to open any tightly locked containers having useful items.
• Corporate Warfare: Eindersohn Industries is a renowned developer and manufacturer in specialized domestic machines and bio-products for daily use. At least, that's how they appear on the front, they secretly produce weaponized battle mechs for The Consortium, for both security and industrial products sent to the Tithonus Group.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: At the Walter Raleigh, the chief warden activates a hallway filled with bursting flamethrowers that disperse while waiting for an open area. Later at The Consortium's base, a Laser Hallway moves large lasers that have to avoided by Wall Crawling around the platforms until most of the lasers have shifted enough to open the path forward.
• Corrupted Data: Ann finds her brother's ROM heavily damaged that shows him searching for N540 before the other half of the data is obscured by missing data. The restored data reveals he visited Dr. Doyle's lab prior to losing the ROM.
• Cosmic Horror Reveal: From a colorful but still cynical, dark, and dystopian Cyberpunk mystery, the game quickly becomes a Lovecraft Lite story once the Circle Consortium is revealed to be an Expy of the SCP Foundation studying and containing Variants, strange anomalies from the alternate dimension Hinterland, and the Artifact of Doom that Dr. C is attempting to get to cause The End of the World as We Know It will release the powerful Amok from her prison.
• Cosmetic Award: Completing all three levels of The Bartender mini-game will give a bronze, silver, and gold trophies, including Ann's bartending outfit that she can wear out of the bar.
• Counter-Attack: Using the energy shield at the precise moment when an enemy delivers a strike will allow Ann to counteract by reflecting the attack back and dealing damage to her opponents.
• Covert Pervert: After Ayane gifts Ann a Paipai drone that acts as a way for Ayane to remotely communicate and see Ann, Ann says she needs to go shower. Ayane quickly and excitedly says Ann can take it with her to the bathroom, as the drone is waterproof. Ann instantly shoots this plan down.
• Crashing Dreams: In the introduction, Ann has a Catapult Nightmare when seeing a memory of her past where she is in a snow-filled town with a loud banging sound growing louder as she looks around before suddenly being taken to an eldritch area, then wakes up and sees a delivery man was knocking on her door.
• Crate Expectations: At Freeway 42, to get by metal debris blocking the path, Ann needs to move a metal crate nearby to climb up over the ruins.
• Creator Cameo: Shuhei Yoshida, the head of PlayStation Indies, appears as a resident of Skopp City discussing his love of video games.
• Credit Chip: Almost all types of physical currency have been phased out or only survive in niche applications, thanks to how far society has advanced and how convenient wireless, purely digital transfers are. The Mechanika Virus played a huge role in this, as its key effect was Unwilling Roboticisation and the bioskin given to its victims also came with sensors and transmitters for most every sort of government or financial transaction.
• Creepy Basement: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni ventures in the basement of the mansion to find the exit, some of the floors having the appearance of a decayed laboratory and the site of a dark cult.
• Creepy Crosses: The Limen crater has an enormous crooked cross in its center, while the crater's outer edge is surrounded by crosses. Later, C visits an unknown area with a mural that has seven dark crosses with skeletal markings.
• Criss-Cross Attack: In the first battle against Absalom, just as Ann managed to land a few strikes, he unleashes a Counter-Attack with his blade that sends her upward while simultaneously attacking from several angles.
• Critical Annoyance: Whenever Ann's Life Meter reaches critical, the screen turns red that's accompanied by a distorted heartbeat.
• Critical Hit: Critical damage occurs depending on the amount of combos done during battle, with a full critical strike occurring once an enemy's armor bar has been fully depleted. There's also Socketed Equipment that boosts weapons critical percentage of delivering major damage.
• Cross-Popping Veins: A standard speech bubble containing angry cross-popping veins appears overhead characters that serves as the indicator they're angry or otherwise very annoyed.
• Cue the Billiard Shot: At the Nest bar in Harbor Town, a patron sinks all the balls in a pool table once Ann gets nearby.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: There are numerous references to the SCP Foundation with numerous variants appearing as major characters or name-dropped. This is mostly due to that the story was originally going to be set in the SCP world before development had the story reworked while at the same time keeping familiar elements from the original version.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In Ann's first confrontation against Absalom, his power overwhelms her after a high-speed Criss-Cross Attack. Then, when Ann awakens her Super Mode, she instantly defeats Absalom in quick-succession, forcing him into a tactical retreat.
  • At the Ship Level, when Ann has another encounter with Silly Swine, she immediately delivers a beatdown that cumulates with him being tossed out the window.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: In Ann's first battle with Absalom, she was able to deliver a blow that sent him aback before she gets hit with a counter move combined with a Criss-Cross Attack.
• Cursed with Awesome: Ann possesses a Super Mode that gives her a variety of boosts to her strength that will completely wipe the floor with normal enemies or deal severe damage to bosses. However, this ability was brought about as the result of experimentation that was performed on her when she was only a child (which she has no recollection of) as part of a secret project to deal with supernatural anomalies. Furthermore, this ended up manifesting as an effect called 'Entanglelitis' where it causes Ann to fully lose consciousness and attack whoever is around her, and this led to an incident where she unwillingly attacked her brother and gouged his eye, which led to her choosing to keep a distance from her family to protect them after realizing that this effect might overtake her body unless she receives the proper treatment to have it cured.
• Curtains Match the Window: Ayane has purple hair that matches alongside her eye color.
• Cut the Juice: Played for Laughs. After seeing her dad being distracted by a computer game, Ann silently pulls the plug to shut it off and get Holtz out of it, though he's a bit dismayed that he couldn't save his progress.
• Cute Slime Mook: At Harbor Town, a nearby resident offers to show his unique specimen for a few credits. The creature shown is actually SCP-131, a tiny slime with a single eyeball and a small pointy head.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Ann is an Action Girl who can perform various manners of fighting techniques in gameplay. In several cutscenes, she displays new move-sets against enemies and bosses, performing an Enhanced Punch with her own strength or using her Super Mode to execute a takedown strike with her weapons and handling a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Anyone who survived the effects of the Mechanika Virus but weren't given the proper treatment slowly had their minds corrupted and consumed until nothing was left, leaving them to act extremely aggressive and attack whoever is in front of them.
• Cyber Ninja: Kunoichi is a member of The Consortium's Shadow Team that specializes in ninjutsu donning a cyber-suit that lets her perform a Flash Step while wielding a katana-like blade that extends from her armor.
• Cyberpunk: The setting takes place in a futuristic metropolis, primarily it is Post-Cyberpunk. The various cities have a MegaCorp, multiples displaying adverts with primary influences, tech-enhancements machines, weaponry readily available at the local weapon store, and sleek futuristic cars. There are also elements of supernatural that were brought about by an Eldritch Location that has a N.G.O. Superpower searching for a way to destroy it.
• Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: Subverted. The city is oftentimes brightly lit with vibrant colors, albeit because of the prevalence of "artificial sunlight" during the game proper. A news piece implies that this was the case for most ordinary citizens before then.
• Damage Over Time: Getting affected by Poison from Acid Attacks or Deadly Gas will inflict continuous damage with the Life Meter being depleted by several digits per second until the effect fully subsides after a brief period or it gets immediately cured by the usage of Lidocaine Cream.
• Damage Reduction: The 654-2 item implements an increased reduction from damage for sixty seconds. All enemies have an armor bar that significantly cuts the amount of damage given to them until it is fully depleted, with a Finishing Move dealing twice the amount before instantly refilling.
• Dark Is Evil: C, the Big Bad, is shown to wear a black suit while he's scheming to acquire an Artifact of Doom with world-threatening repercussions. In the last battle, his One-Winged Angel form takes the appearance of a demonic dragon entirely made of darkness.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Masked Woman appears to come and go at times wearing a black dress and black mask while at the same time has full knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes. She reveals herself to genuinely be one of Ann's allies as she wants to help Ann with her mission and stop C's machination from bringing world destruction.
• Dash Attack: With the light sword and dual blades, Ann can perform a shadowstep and quick dash to charge forward towards enemies along with a cross-slash to deal additional damage.
• Data Drive MacGuffin: After learning of Ryan's disappearance, Ann discovers a data ROM in a Ransacked Room showing his last location before getting cut off by Corrupted Data. The ROM then gets stolen by The Factio Pugni seeking information about a machine called The Prophet while Ann seeks to retrieve it to find out Ryan's whereabouts.
• Data Pad: Throughout several locations, there are datapads found scattered around that hold an arrangement of information; being someone's personal notes or specific information that reveals certain context behind various characters and elements.
• A Day in the Limelight: The "Mysterious Console" DLC focuses on Ayane, the deuteragonist, as she investigates a device while helping the trapped girl, Noni.
• Dead All Along: In the DLC, Noni, one of the major characters, is revealed to actually be a virtual copy of the real Noni who died to chronic disease several years ago and was created by her parents in an attempt to recreate her with aid from an Anonymous Benefactor before they were killed in a car accident.
• Dead Man Writing: Beneath Freeway 42, Ann finds a victim of the hostile wildlife clutching onto a bloodstained paper containing the passcode needed to open the locked door and rescue the explorer being attacked by the grub creatures.
• Deadly Droplets: In the battle against The Varanus, it launches an Acid Attack towards the ceiling, causing droplets to fall from above and inflict damage.
• Deadly Gas: At Freeway 42's lab area, Ann finds the path blocked by a haze of toxic gas that'll immediately drain her health if she steps close, then having to activate the ventilation system to dispel the gas to get by.
• Death of Personality: In the bad ending, Ann fully succumbs to her Moment of Weakness upon seeing Ryan getting shot in front of her. At that moment, her Superpowered Evil Side, Amok, uses the opportunity to fully take over her body and unleash apocalyptic destruction on the entire world, with Amok having forcibly removed any trace of Ann to leave nobody that can oppose her.
• Declaration of Protection: A Pensieve Flashback shows a young Ann telling Ryan that she will look out for him whenever he gets into trouble.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Amok is described as a supernatural being of mass destruction that can unleash devastation, possessing immense power that makes her untouchable. The Post-Final Boss has Ann battling Amok and finally defeating her to forever seal her away.
• Defiant to the End: Near the end, just as Ann manages to reunite with Ryan, she's blocked off by The Consortium's security and is ordered to stand down and come with them to cut off Amok's connection with her. If Ann decides not to trust them thinking they have other agendas, this ends up leading into disastrous consequences as Ryan argues and demands Ann should be let go. Despite G's warning that leaving Ann still tied to Amok will bring chaos, Ryan refuses to listens and impulsively attacks G, causing the security bots to shoot him in retaliation. As Ann is in shock over Ryan's death, Amok uses the opportunity to pry on Ann's anger to forcibly take over her body, immediately killing everybody in the room, and proceeds to annihilate the entire world.
• Designer Babies: The Consortium secretly engineered a proposition called The Gatekeeper Project that conducted experiments on seven young subjects by enhancing their dna to grant them inter-dimensional abilities that would be utilized in various methods to destroy Hinterland. The project was soon halted after an incident resulted in a facility's destruction, while the seven subjects that obtained their powers were discarded and left on their own.
• Desolation Shot: The first visit to Freeway 42 starts with a panning camera across the area showing it in ruins after it was decimated by the Mechanika Virus.
• Destructible Projectiles: In the boss fight against T.R's offensive mecha arms, it shoots out an assemblage of missiles that drop from above, with each of them having a brief window of time to be shot down before they can land. Additionally, they drop ammo for the Tunguska launcher.
• Deuteragonist: Ayane Misuno is Ann's Best Friend and a brilliant hacker who lends her support by hacking into systems, researching, and looking up information/locations of interest while accompanying Ann through her Paipai drone.
• Dialog During Gameplay: Ann and Ayane frequently chime in to each to discuss about the current area they're exploring while also talking about the various characters they run into while trying to solve what The Consortium is planning.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: In the bad ending, after Ann refuses to trust The Consortium, Ryan makes a sudden move to help Ann escape which only resulted in him getting shot. Ann cradles Ryan's body in shock, moments before Amok uses the opportunity to take over Ann's body.
• Died Standing Up: Subverted when The Varanus possesses the inability to be killed. Even after Ann impales it through the head, it remains in place standing before regaining consciousness and tries to move while stuck.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: The Start Screen of the Mysterious Console DLC uses an 8-bit rendition of the main theme.
• Different World, Different Movies: There are collectible movie posters that are several takes on actual works; Teenage Mecha Sewer Warriors, UFO Invaders, and The Shape of Water.
• Disc-One Nuke: New weapons cost a hefty amount of credits, and the usual Shop Fodder is sold for little price. A stronger Zanmato sword can be purchased prior to Freeway 42; by collecting as many junk items, completing all three levels of The Bartender minigame, and selling early starter weapons will yield enough credits to buy the weapon.
• Disconnected Side Area: During the Ship Level and throughout The Consortium's underground facility, there are various areas that can be spotted from afar, but inaccessible until progressing enough to acquire the items needed to reach them.
• Distant Reaction Shot: The introduction begins with The Consortium launching a nuke towards the Limen crater, causing the explosion to be viewed from a far-off distance after making impact.
• Distressed Dude: Ryan Flores spends almost all of the game imperiled, in danger, and constantly just out of reach of Ann's desperate attempt to find him. You only get to meet him at the very end of the game, where fortunately, he is saved, but at certain costs to Ann thanks to the Circle Consortium.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": At Skopp City, Ann becomes acquainted with a resident called Hapi living in the sewers after she brought him some food during a side-mission. To return his appreciation, Hapi always refers to Ann as "Boss", much to her annoyance and requests that he stops.
  Hapi: Boss!
  Ann: Will you just stop calling me boss...
  Hapi: Okay, Boss!
  Ann: ...
• Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: During her boss fight, Melissa uses her ice powers to grant her herself icicle wings and use them to create a spinning tornado to protect herself while she tosses chunks of ice at Ann.
• Does Not Like Spam: Examining a coffee machine in Noctis City had Ann commenting that she doesn't like coffee, preferring tea for its more smooth flavor.
• Doom Troops: The Consortium's Task Force are an elite squadron that wear armored helmets with specialized metallic suits that make them heavily-armed strong and agile. Armed with rigorous weapons such as rail-guns, sledgehammers, and laser swords, effectively making their intimidation well-built to serve against security intruders.
• Door to Before: At Freeway 42, after Ann travels through the entire facility to reach the control center, she enters an elevator that takes her to the back exit located on the opposite side of the main entrance.
• Double Jump: Ann can perform a double jump once she obtains a power module that she can equip to her combat suit, letting her reach heights she couldn't get to before.
• Double Weapon: Ann's dual blades can combine into its glaive form with blades on either side of the handle.
• Downer Ending: The bad ending. Ann refuses to the trust The Consortium and attempts to defy them. Unfortunately, this prompts Ryan to recklessly attack, getting shot and killed right in front of her. Ann, succumbing to a Moment of Weakness, is taken over by Amok to try and revive him, Amok permanently takes over Ann's body, and then uses her catastrophic powers to slaughter everyone in the room and bring about total destruction on the entire world. Ryan later awakens, confused and horrified at the devastation around him, to find the outside has become a Hell on Earth with Amok free to destroy all.
• Down the Drain: Freeway 42 starts off by progressing through an Abandoned Laboratory before entering an elevator leading into a large sewer that contains an Underground City with inhabitants living alongside the massive pipes against a hostile Barbarian Tribe blocking the path forward.
• Downloadable Content: The Mysterious Console DLC is a mini-storyline that takes place after the main story with Ayane, the deuteragonist, looking into a device holding the spirit of a girl called Noni to explore the roguelike dungeons.
• Draconic Abomination: In the final fight, C's incarnation of his own evil is forced out of his body, causing him to transform into Nidhogg, an enormous black dragon formed out of malice that can disperse powerful forces of energy.
• The Dragon: Castor is C's second-in-command, being the one tasked with obtaining the abandoned gateway device previously used by The Consortium to utilize for C's scheme to obtain the The Dypheus Breath.
• Dramatic High Perching: In the bad ending, after Amok is freed from her imprisonment and proceeds to unleash devastation on the world, she stands high above overseeing the destruction.
• Dramatic Thunder: In the bad ending, following Amok's release and subsequent destruction of the world, lightning strikes occur over the sky as an infernal fireball is formed above.
• Dramatic Unmask: After Ann manages to prevent Amok's release, the Masked Woman removes her mask, revealing her face and explains her actual identity as The Watcher to Ann before making her leave.
• Dream Intro: Ann's introduction begins with her having a Flashback Nightmare where she awakens in an abandoned town surrounded by snow and briefly walks towards an Eldritch Location before being woken up by someone knocking on her door.
• Dress Code: Ann heads to Nocturne Maze to search for an informant, only to get blocked by security for her casual outfit. Ayane is more than eager to show Ann a nearby clothing shop where the shopkeeper and her three assistants get Ann into the store's best dress.
• Driven to Madness: At The Consortium's research facility, a large red sphere of corrupted energy broke loose and caused the surrounding researchers who were consumed by it to lose all sanity.
• Drums of War: After arriving in front of the Barbarian Tribe beneath Freeway 42, Ann is suddenly dropped down a Trap Door where the members bang on drums as they unleash bloodluster creatures to attack her.
• Dual Boss: In The Consortium's underground facility, two sword-wielding Cyber Ninjas attack Ann. During the fight, they'll both either fight Ann at once or one of them will retreat to recover before jumping back in.
• Dual Wielding: One of Ann's choices for light weapons are the Dual Blades, which attack extremely fast and deal relatively large amounts of armor damage without the slowness of the BFS. They are a Bifurcated Weapon that can combine into a double-headed glaive.
• Dub Personality Change: In the Japanese dub, Ann is far more pensive. The English dub changes this make it more reflective of Ann being an Action Girl.
• Duel to the Death: The Post-Final Boss fight is Ann deciding to fight against Amok in one last battle to finally sever the connection and permanently seal her away to prevent her from ever awakening again.
• Dungeon Shop: Jos van Corn and occasionally his brother will show up in each area to provide their corn juice and weapons creation.
• Early-Bird Boss: The Training Boss at the end of the tutorial segment is an Open Ended fight where Ann is only able to use her starting equipment before accessing any of her later skillset acquired from the Skill Tree. It is entirely possible to defeat it, but with its high attack and defense, the overall starter weapons will make it a challenge.
• Easter Bunny: After a humorous Surprise Santa Encounter, Holtz considers blocking the fireplace while excogitating that the Easter Bunny may drop in next.
• Eating the Eye Candy: In the epilogue, as Ann is mildly chastising Ayane for not contacting her when she was safe, Ayane gleefully looks towards Ann's buxom before suddenly jumping onto Ann and grabbing her chest with joy.
• Eccentric Townsfolk: In each of the main cities, the civilians generally go on with their lives as they see fit, participating in passerby conversation while some adapt to some aspects by getting shrouded in.
• Effortless Achievement: One of the earliest achievements that can be earned is reusing the shower at Ann's apartment at least three time. Another achievement is obtained by observing the fighters at Harbor Town's arena for about thirty seconds.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Consortium has its facility located beneath underground with space large enough to harbor the creation of advanced weaponry by manufacturing industries and research technology into studying supernatural phenomenon brought by the Limen crater by keeping all the discovered variants kept in containment to learn their capabilities to utilize their abilities in the conduction of experiments for their own usage.
• Eldritch Location: Limen is a mysterious crater that lies somewhere on the planet. The crater is surrounded by Creepy Crosses and has been stated to have existed for centuries with scholars believing it was caused by a Magic Meteor but it's true origin is unknown. Limen brought about dangerous phenomena that spread out into the world, one being the Mechanika Virus and creating a gateway to another eldritch world; Hinterland. The Consortium goes to great measures to contain and eradicate whatever is created by Limen with their main objective to destroy the crater.
• Electronic Eyes: Being in Post-Cyberpunk world, there are various characters who has cybernetic eyes. Ryan Flores lost one of his eyes in a past incident, the injury that struck him wasn't too severe and he soon got treatment via a cybernetic replacement with bioskin, making it indistinguishable from the original that he previously had.
• Elevator Failure: At Freeway 42, Ann is told she'll have to take the other path around the Outcasts' settlement as their elevator is stuck halfway due to a malfunction. A side-mission involves collecting parts to repair the elevator to rescue the denizen trapped on it.
• Elite Mooks: The Consortium's Shadow task force is its most elite squadron of soldiers, split into several classes with Code Names ranging from personnel wearing immense armor, wielding special weapons such as railguns, and skilled combat.
• Empty Elevator: One side-quest at Skopp City involves searching for a suspect who is shown entering an elevator on surveillance footage and suddenly disappearing when it arrives at the next floor.
• Empty Room Until the Trap: Once Ann finds out Ryan had previously visited Alan Doyle, she heads to Doyle's lab only to find the area vacated. Upon stepping into a nearby elevator, she's suddenly attacked by the MI Mecha.
• Ends with a Smile: In the ending scene, after Ann sees Ayane had fallen asleep moments after getting Ann to do a Bridal Carry with her, she does a warm smile deciding it's time to call it a day before heading back home.
• Enemy Civil War: The Consortium ends up in disarray due to Dr. C going rogue, taking a portion of the personnel with him, and causing a massive containment breach. By the time Ann infiltrates their base, she ends up having to fight through a mix of both The Consortium's security forces and C's underlings.
• Enemy Mine: During the infiltration of their base, Ann fights and takes down a huge number of security personnel, but since C has gone rogue and is trying to enact his plan to get the superweapon from Hinterland and destroy the world, G and B decides to have Ann assist them in stopping C on the promise of releasing Ryan and Ayane afterwards.
• Enemy Posturing: While fighting against Absalom, he'll occasionally swing his sword to the side after delivering several strikes, which leaves him open to attacks.
• Enemy Scan: Using the Grom System's Scan function on enemies will display their health and shield stats, with info about them getting added to the Monster Compendium.
• Enemy Within: Ann's Entanglelitis is directly caused by Amok, a being who is an Alternate Self of Ann that shares a dimensional link that allows her to possess Ann's body whenever she's able to take control. The Post-Final Boss involves Ann battling Amok to finally sever the connection and prevent any further control.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Ann is a calm, reserved, Action Girl who knows plenty of martial arts. Ayane, is an energetic skilled hacker who enjoys getting too intimacy with Ann.
• Energy Weapon: The "Stormram" is a particle cannon that needs to be charged to unleash devastating lasers at your targets.
• Enhanced Punch: Ann is able to enhance her punches when she draws power in from her Super Mode. She charges up a punch against The Varanus to momentarily stun it before impaling it with a sword, then later uses it against Absalom, causing a Kung-Fu Sonic Boom shockwave throughout the area.
• Enraged by Idiocy: In one sidequest, Ann has to find who tossed a computer from the top floor of a building. One of the two suspects claim the other did it after being annoyed by someone ding-dong ditching and took his frustration out on the computer.
• Entitled Bastard: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the Firmware AI begins its introduction by attacking Noni to prevent her from escaping, then after being beaten asks Noni to stop before getting hit with Bullet Dancing.
• Equipment Upgrade: At weapon workshops, Ann can upgrade her equipment by trading in dismantled collectibles to be used for parts to increase a weapon's stats and provide a bonus effect.
• Eternal Engine: The first area of The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base occurs within a facility filled with machinery causing Floating Platforms to hover over a Lava Pit, coupled with lasers, Attack Drones, and Mooks equipped with advanced gear.
• Ethereal White Dress: In the instances when Ann loses consciousness and wakes up in Hinterland, she finds herself wearing a white dress while experiencing a Pensieve Flashback before finding a supernatural entity along the pathway.
• Et Tu, Brute?: C expresses outrage after seeing G, B, and K have chosen to turn against him after his machinations have gotten out of control and that he needs to be stopped.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: In the bad ending, Ryan's impulsiveness to recklessly attack The Consortium leads to him getting fatally killed in front of Ann, resulting in Amok overtaking control of her body and bringing about the end of the world. An unprecedented amount of time later, Ryan awakens alone in the ruins of The Consortium's base, finding everybody gone and to discover that the world has become a ravaged Hell.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: In the Last-Second Ending Choice, if Ann refuses to trust The Consortium, this prompts Ryan to recklessly assault the security forces in front of him, resulting in him getting shot and killed. This immediately sends Ann into a Heroic BSoD that gives Amok the opportunity to fully possess her body, who then proceeds to unleash Mechanical Abominations upon the entire world, destroying everything and everyone, leaving absolute destruction.
• Everything Sensor: Ann can use the Grom System to scan around the area to search for Shop Fodder and identify Treasure Chests if they're nearby.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: C's Draconic Abomination form as Nidhogg displays a variety of ice-based attacks representing the entirety of his own malice, ranging from unleashing a Ground Pound that burst icy spikes from below and a cold wind attack that traps his opponent in ice until he lands on top of them from above.
• Evil Overlooker: One variant of the main cover features C looming over Ann and Ayane in the cyberpunk city. The menacing black dragon that's also behind the two is his One-Winged Angel form, Nidhogg.
• Evil Phone: At The Consortium's inner hall, one of the variants kept in containment is called The Midnight Telephone, which is a red-colored telephone that can be used to contact anyone. If it is used eleven times in succession, the phone will randomly contact a random person and they will immediately die, leaving it to be within an enclosed metal container to prevent it from making any kind of contact.
• Evil Plan: C's main plan revolves around obtaining the Artifact of Doom from the otherworldly Hinterland. He deliberately engineered the captured of Ann's brother just to have her Lured into a Trap and use her dormant dimensional link to open a passage to where the artifact is and retrieve it with specialized devices.
• Evil Sounds Deep: At first, C speaks normally, until much later when he starts undergoing a Villainous Breakdown his voice starts shifting to sound completely demonic as a result of his own malice cumulating to form his dragon incarnation within his entire body.
• Exact Words: After Ann learns Ryan's stolen ROM is located at The Walter Raleigh, Ayane warns her that the boss of that area T.R. is also in possession of large mecha arms. It's not actual robotic arms on his body, he does own enormous mecha-built arms that are controlled on the ship.
• Exorcist Head: A light and Justified example. Having undergone a Full-Conversion Cyborg, Holtz is capable of this, he only does it once after hearing a noise on the rooftop prior to the Surprise Santa Encounter.
• Experience Points: Grombitz earned from fighting enemies or completing Sidequests. With enough Grombitz, Ann can use it to unlock and obtain new Skills And Perks from the upgrade menu.
• Experienced Protagonist: Ann has prior experience in knowing martial arts and handling weapons to make her a formidable fighter. This comes with having worked alongside Ayane at Raymond's agency for several years to handle even supernatural threats.
• Expressive Hair: When Ayane leads Ann to a dress shop to help her get into Nocturne Maze, Ann's hair shoots straight up when the shop owner's three (bulky) assistants arrive to put the dress on her.
• Expy: The game was originally planned to take place in the universe of the SCP Foundation, and of the game's inspirations are still pretty blatant in the final game.
  • The Circle Consortium is a near-exact copy of the SCP Foundation, complete with the goal of containing anomalies, known here as "variants" and keeping the world at large in the dark about the supernatural nature of certain disasters, like the Black Plague and the Mechanika virus.
  • Dr. B is a deadringer for Dr. Bright (aka Bobo), also being a monkey and an Uplifted Animal who works as an otherwise normal member of the staff.
  • The orange suited inmates inside the Consoritum facility are basically Class D personnel, both are expendable and are used primarily to contain dangerous subjects and to die in droves to them for the sake of experiments.
  • The Varanus is SCP-682, the "Hard-To-Destroy Reptile", complete with similar containment procedures and inability to be killed. The worst that Ann can do to it is temporarily stop it long enough for the researchers to let her out.
  • In the Final Dungeon, a variant inside their containment room is similar to SCP-1000 "Bigfoot" as both are cryptids who are part of the Sasquatch family.
• Extended Gameplay: After defeating the final boss passed the Point of No Return, the player is allowed to freely explore previous areas to finish any remaining side-missions and grab any collectibles before progressing into the Last-Second Ending Choice.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The entirety of Ann's mission takes place over the course of a single day.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: C, the Big Bad, constantly has his eyes covered by his hat. It only comes off after he's defeated.
• Eye Scream: Ryan Flores lost his right eye in a past incident when Ann accidentally awakened Amok within her, lost control, and attacked him. His injury wasn't too severe and soon got treatment for a cybernetic replacement with bioskin, making it indistinguishable from the original.
• Faceless Masses: Throughout the various cities, the citizens all wandering about have blank faces that lack eyes and other unique facial features. They're also drawn in a distinct manner to separate them from the NPCs that can be spoken to.
• Facepalm: In the epilogue, Ann rushes to the room where Ayane is to check if she's safe, then sees her lounging with gourmet food and asking for more, causing Ann to facepalm upon seeing this.
• Family Business: At Margarita town, the Flores residence is also a bar called "The Sicilian Jar" which was formerly run by Holtz, but is now handled by Nakamura. Ann is mentioned to have previously helped out a while back before she left to Skopp City.
• Fantastic Fallout: A multitudinous of areas such as Freeway 42 that became inundated by the Mechanika Virus became an Abandoned Area to be overrun with remnants and carnivorous creatures. Various Story Breadcrumbs at The Consortium's facility also delineate supernatural factor incidents that occurred over the world brought about by the Limen crater, one of which is a floating chasm that can be seen on the world map.
• Fantastic Firearms: Being set in a Post-Cyberpunk environ, there are a variety of weapons that are fully powered by energy, unlike other available firearms that rely on the usual conventional means. The Stormram is a particle cannon that fires off a Wave-Motion Gun upon being fully charged to unleash destructive lasers at targets.
• Fantastic Nuke: In the opening sequence, The Consortium fires a trio of tactical weapons called Air Unit [MOLE] that are inscribed with arcane patterns before they land onto the Limen crater at once, setting off an explosion that's overtakes nearly the entirety of the desert.
• Fantastic Science: The Consortium has continuously studied all varieties of supernatural phenomena brought about by the Limen crater. The various research notes found within their facility details that the variants they've inquire into were originally from Another Dimension called Hinterland that harbors a connection with Limen, and the only method that can destroy both is an Artifact of Doom that's deep within the former.
• Fat and Skinny: Jos van Corn and his brother, Famas Corn. Jos is the skinny salesman that sells corn juice to promote his business. Famas is a fat manufacturer that sells weapons and takes in material to trade for crafting pieces.
• Faux Affably Evil: C seemingly acts a collectively composed man. As he discusses the extent of his Evil Plan to his subordinates and casually dismisses his co-workers protest, they immediately call out on how insane he actually is. Overtime, the mask starts to crack apart as he realizes that his scheme is on the verge of being thwarted and forsakes his original plan to launching an assault against The Consortium to prevent anyone else from getting in his way.
• Fed to the Beast: At the Underground City of Freeway 42, the renegade tribe of The Outcasts drops Ann down a Trap Door to have her be consumed by a pack of Bloodlusters as part of their observance. Ann single-handedly takes them all down with ease.
• Feed It a Bomb: During the boss battle with the giant slug in the sewers, after its armor has been depleted, Ann can toss a grenade in the mouth while it is stunned, allowing a piercing attack to take much of its health.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: The Barbarian Tribe that broke off from the benevolent Outcasts consider humans sinful for not coming to their aid after the Mechanika Virus pandemic had subsided and leaving them to undergo degeneration into madness to the point that any human that encounters them will be sent to get slaughtered by Bloodlusters.
• Fetch Quest: One of the early side-missions is bringing a cake slice to a nearby denizen living in the sewer. Later on, Ann is asked by the weapon shop owner to retrieve a module that was taken by a Giant Enemy Crab beneath Freeway 42. At the same area, several workers request for the gathering of ten rare coins scattered throughout the area.
• Fictional Document: There are several in-game books that are primarily for examination; one being called "History of Evil AI". One of significance is called The Codex, a mysterious scroll written in an ancient codified language. Its contents are a source of information and different hypotheses such as the existence and details regarding Hinterland.
• Find the Cure!: Ann's younger brother, Ryan, goes missing when he picked up a lead on finding N540, a unique medicine that he wants to find which would cure Ann's Entanglelitis. Even though Ryan succeeds in finding it at The Consortium's base, he was immediately captured when it turns out it was a trap to lure Ann in.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Ann can equip a variety of chips into her Socketed Equipment that can add a Fire/Ice/Lightning effect to her weapons to deal additional damage to enemies.
• Fire Is Masculine: Pyrofist, one of the Optional Bosses at Harbor Town's fighting arena, wears a fully muscular-equipped armor to generate the flames emanating from his body to unleash fiery attacks.
• Firing One-Handed: Ann can utilize her secondary weapon, a standard handgun, by simply firing one-handed at her opponents with easy aim and without any repercussions from recoil.
• First Town: Skopp City is the first major city to start in. Ann heads over to the tutorial segment to learn the mechanics before heading off to Margarita.
• Fish-Eye Lens: A few areas in Skopp and Noctis City have doors that can be seen through this viewpoint. One in particular leads to a Peek-a-Boo Corpse.
• Fishing for Sole: In the Fishing Minigame at Harbor Town, Ann is able catch many fish when she responds to the Alertness Blink. Otherwise, if she misses the catch, she'll pull out junk items to be sold as Shop Fodder for additional credits that are valued less than the captured fish.
• Fishing Minigame: Once you can travel to Harbourtown, you can rent a fishing pole for however long you want for a measly 10 credits, without limits to the amount of fish (or random junk) you can get from the water. It's a great way to make money and mitigate the game's high prices for upgrades and consumables.
• Fission Mailed: The "false ending" has Ann arriving in an unknown room before being incapacitated by Castor who uses the opportunity to take the Dypheus Spear in Hinterland, which unleashes Amok who proceeds to destroy the world. "Game Over" appears... which is then followed by Ann awakening besides the Masked Woman who tells her how to prevent Amok's release.
• Fist Bump: In the epilogue, Ann waits outside Ryan's room. Despite Ryan feeling bad for the trouble he got himself into, Ann holds up for a fist bump as way of thanks for him finally finding the cure for her Entanglelitis as well being reunited.
• Fixed Camera: The camera is fixed on a single position so that it remains to fully display the optimal view of areas.
• Flame Spewer Obstacle: At the Walter Raleigh, the chief warden activates traps throughout the ship that are filled with bursting flamethrowers to disperse fire strikes after intervals.
• Flashback Nightmare: Ann has a Dream Intro of waking up in a town covered in snow and having a brief glimpse of walking in an Eldritch Location. Which was caused by her connection as one of the subjects in the Gatekeeper Project.
• Flavor Text: A enlivened description is displayed for each weapons and enemies listed in the Monster Compendium. The Flavor Text for the Tunguska Missile launcher states The Tunguska Event explosion was supposedly caused by a salvo of the prototype's missiles, which was then found by some staff from the Tithonus Group.
• Flechette Storm: During the last fight, C unleashes a row of energy knives that targets Ann while he also sends out blades that attack from several angles.
• Floorboard Failure: During Ann's first encounter with Loki at Noctis City, in the midst of the fight against his Mini-Mecha, the rooftop of the abandoned building collapses due to the damage done around it, causing it to give way to break apart, sending both to fall into the bottom level and continuing their fight from their.
• Flower from the Mountaintop: In one side-mission, a little girl in Skopp City asks Ann to search for a Hyacinth flower located somewhere at Freeway 42 that would help her father recover.
• Flunky Boss: The Mother Grub moves quickly around its fighting area as it detaches worm spawns to attack Ann while causing damage to a nearby generator.
• Fluorescent Footprints: During some side-missions, Ann can use the Grom System to scan the area to follow a footprint trail and find who left it.
• Flying Car: Being set in a futuristic cyberpunk city, vehicles hover around to travel, even while moving on roads, they still float a bit.
• Fog Feet: In the Mysterious Console DLC, several of the enemies that wield heavy weapons are shown to have no legs beneath their cloaks and are actually hovering as fogless bottoms.
• Fortune Teller: At Margarita, Ann can meet a fortune teller on the street-side who tells her about the current situation and where she'll proceed next.
• For Your Own Good: At the end, after defeating C, Ann agrees to listen to The Consortium's request to have her connection to Hinterland severed. After her treatment is finished, Dr. G informs her that Ryan's memories of his encounter with The Consortium were erased for his safety and to prevent him from making a reckless move against them. Despite Ann's reluctance, she's content since Ryan is back safely.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In Ann's Flashback Nightmare at the beginning, there's a very brief instant image of her walking through an Eldritch Location with a huge glowing cross emanating in the distance.
  • When C starts to undergo a Villainous Breakdown, there are brief flashes of scenes showing The Consortium's staff being assaulted by variants that have gotten loose as a result of the Enemy Civil War.
• A Friend in Need: Ayane assists Ann in her mission to rescue her brother with all the support she can give. Likewise, after Ayane is captured by The Consortium, Ann doesn't hesitate to find out where she is and rescue her.
• Frustrated Overhead Scribble: In several scenes, a scribble appears atop over a character's head when they get frustrated or disconcerted with whatever situation is occurring.
• Full-Boar Action: One of the various enemies are Mooks wearing metallic boar armor who'll pull out powerful swings or a charged rush to deliver heavy damage.
• Full-Conversion Cyborg: Though Holtz Flores was a victim of Unwilling Roboticisation thanks to the Mechanika virus, he ended up deciding to have all of his remaining flesh converted into a cyborg body for unknown reasons. He also doesn't make use of bioskin, looking the most robotic out of all of his family.
• Fungus Humongous: At Freeway 42's Abandoned Laboratory, the passage is blocked by huge mushrooms emitting a Deadly Gas that'll affect Ann with a poison ailment until she activates the ventilation system to dispel the gas.
• Funny Robot: At The Sicilian Jar in Margarita, there is robot patron hanging around who starts comically dancing to music whenever the jukebox is turned on.
• Fun with Acronyms: At Noctis City, there's an advert on a screen monitor for Super Computing Power, presented as; S.C.P.
• Fun with Subtitles: Whenever the Masked Woman appears, the subtitles block out her name as a floating square-shaped block.
• Game-Breaking Bug: A particular one in the initial release happens after you complete the Harbor Town Freighter area, if you return back to the Freighter, the boat ride to head back towards Harbor Town doesn't work, no matter how many times "go back" is selected, leaving you stuck, more-so if you saved at the point without any backups to get out of it. This was later fixed in a patch.
• Game Within a Game: Ann can play an arcade version of Pong in some areas.
• Gamer Chick: Ayane's side hobby is playing loads of video games whenever she gets the time. She occasionally pulls all-nighters playing games and ends up sleeping through the morning, which Yuko, her family butler, tries to discourage her from doing.
• Gateless Ghetto: Both Skopp and Noctis City can be explored to find hidden collectible items and do Sidequests, with the rest of the surrounding areas being blocked off by a 'No Trespassing' sign.
• Gathering Steam: In the last fight, Sigrid spends time focusing on the full extent of her ability while Ann is defending her until she builds enough power to weaken C and expel his One-Winged Angel form from his body.
• Genre Shift: The story begins as a colorful, but still dark Post-Cyberpunk action game, the story soon becomes a Lovecraft Lite once The Consortium, the alternate dimension that is Hinterland, and the Artifact of Doom that C is attempting to unleash which would cause The End of the World as We Know It come into play.
• Generic Graffiti: There are various sets of graffiti found throughout Skopp and Noctis city. The Concept Art Gallery features them in full detail.
• Genius Cripple: Despite her appearance through the paipai drone's hologram, Ayane is shown to be wheelchair-bound, but she's also one of the most skilled hackers and a technological genius in general. The "Mysterious Console" DLC later shows Ayane has been outfitted with leg enhancers, allowing her to walk again.
• Genius Slob: Dr. Alan Doyle, a genius medical scientist and medical technologist. He is the best hope for the protagonist, Ann Flores, primarily by inventing and improving the Grom System, a combat-system that both improves her fighting ability and gives him heaps of data about her body's condition, especially important because her "Entangleitis" can cause her to go berserk and blindly attack people. He's also physically disgusting, incredibly disorganized and messy, unprofessionally dressed with everything from the waist down being camouflage boxer shorts and his bare, roboticized feet from the Mechanika Virus, and he's done things such as eat a clearly moldy burger because he was too lazy to order from someplace else.
• Get Out!: Holtz pulls out a shotgun aimed at 'Santa Clause' ordering him to get out of his home, but not before asking to be given several presents in exchange.
• The Ghost: Ann's older sister, Helen, is mentioned to be away traveling, so she's only seen on photographs and sends messages to Ann during that time. In the epilogue, she finally comes back from her trip.
• Ghost Butler: In the final area at The Consortium's underground facility, after Ann has stepped through the Point of No Return, the security door shuts itself behind her and locks the way back.
• Ghost Ship: A readable Story Breadcrumb details that a decrepit ship had been sighted around Harbor Town, taking any ship that comes across it before vanishing.
• Ghost Town: Freeway 42 was once a thriving area until the Mechanika Virus caused such pandemonium that it and many other places were abandoned following the virus's erasure. Despite this, there are remnants that survived by living in a Underground City, along with stragglers that occasionally venture in to find materials for useful gain.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Beneath Freeway 42 is a mini-boss, a large crab creature encased in stone, where it summons small crab-like variants while tossing debris and launching projectiles from its shell.
• G.I.R.L.: In one side-mission, the identity of OK-Chan, one of the most popular singers in Noctis City, is really a bulky muscular man using a virtual move-set while wearing idol attire.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Sigrid adores stuffed toys and is overjoyed when she receives a teddy during her Surprise Santa Encounter. A Story Breadcrumb mentions that Sigrid once used her ability to bring her them to life.
• Gladiator Subquest: After completing the Ship Level, Ann can participate at Harbor Town's fight matches to win credits and earn the champion belt.
• Godzilla Threshold: Near the climax, as Ann makes her way through the Elaborate Underground Base, The Consortium's top brass decided C has gone too far in his machinations for his attempts to acquire The Dypheus' Breath as obtaining it would bring about The End of the World as We Know It and is now in the midst of trying to take over the organization for himself. To deal with this, the members decide to plan an Enemy Mine situation with Ann, and to ensure she won't retaliate against them, they force her co-operation by having her brother and Ayane held captive and threatened with the deal being they'll be safely released until C has been dealt with.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: One Shop Fodder item are the AR Lenses, a peripheral device used to enchanted the wearer's vision for those without sight modifications. By examining external visual data, it can give warnings about possible hazards to the user.
• Gold Is Yellow: Gold is one of the usable materials to upgrade weapons, as displayed with a bright yellow coloring, its item description cites it as mainly used for decoration. In one side-mission, gold coins are collected with vintage yellow, and they're later stated by an examiner to be not gold at all.
• Gone Horribly Right: C's main master plan is obtaining The Dypheus' Breath, an ancient weapon that allows the power to open gateways between other dimensions. In the Fission Mailed scenario, Castor utilizes his tech to force open a passage to Hinterland and drag the weapon out, which ended up unleashing the sealed supernatural entity called Amok, who then proceeds to bring out her Mechanical Abominations and precipitate The End of the World as We Know It upon full destruction.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: A collection of Story Breadcrumbs details that The Consortium's Gatekeeper Project was formed to grant seven subjects supernatural abilities to utilize them in destroying the Limen crater. During an experimental test, several of the subjects lost control of their powers and resulted in the opening of a dimensional rift that destroyed part of the facility and caused the deaths of multiple researchers, leading to the project being terminated.
• Googling the New Acquaintance: After having another encounter with the Masked Woman in Noctis City, Ann asks Ayane to look up any information about her. To Ann's surprise, Ayane claims that she didn't see the Masked Woman at all.
• Graceful Loser: After Loki is beaten a second time in a duel, he concedes defeats while openly being impressed by Ann's fighting skills as he tells her where she can find the stolen ROM before escaping.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • An early-game sidequest at Ann's apartment complex involving entering the elevator and going to specific floors wasn't elaborated with enough clues; a minor video footage and peeking into a certain room to count the number of differences. The developers themselves posted a step-by-step solution to alleviate player frustration.
  • Finding all the Cyber-Nekos and collectible posters. The game provides a counter for the total found, but doesn't provide any information on exactly how many there are to be located in each area.
• Good Parents: Holtz Flores is a widowed, adoptive father by choice, but the Flores home is well-maintained after raising each of his adoptive children with care.
• Gradual Regeneration: The standard health item, 'Stim Shots' and the later 'Digitalin', provide a regeneration effect upon use.
• Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks: The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base holds several rooms with tubes and flasks containing various substances being studied.
• Gratuitous Latin: During the last fight, Sigrid channels her energy into a spell while reciting it in Latin, and then rephrases the enchantment in English.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: When Ann is witnessing a Pensieve Flashback to when she attempted to talk Ryan out of joining a street gang, one of the members retaliated by tossing a bottle at her. This awakened Amok who was dormant inside of her and attacked everyone present.
• Ground Wave: The Consortium's class II security team; Sledgehammer, wears Mechanical Muscles that lets them strike the ground with a powerful force to unleash a damaging wave attack towards their target.
• Growling Gut: After Ann discovers Sigrid who collapsed from hunger at Freeway 42, she takes her somewhere to recover. Later, after spending time resting, Sigrid wakes up and explains how she got there before her stomach growls.
• Hacking Minigame: Ann can use the Grom System to hack any door with an encrypted lock where she has to get the unlock key through the bars of data by finding the right sequence before time is up.
• Hallway Fight: At Noctis City, Ann is ambushed by thugs from the Factio Pugni at the top floor of an apartment building's hallway. She easily takes them down, then chases after the leader through a Super Window Jump at the end of the hall.
• Hammered into the Ground: After Castor and Melissa were beaten by Ann, they both get sucked through a portal that has them landing headfirst in a desert, with Melissa having to dig Castor out.
• Hand Behind Head: In the epilogue, Ryan fully expects Ann to berate him for putting himself in danger. Instead, Ann is waiting for him to do a Fist Bump with her, causing Ryan to embarrassingly do this before returning the bump.
• Hand Guns: One of Ann's ranged weapons is the N2 Pulverizer, a standard sturdy handgun that can be equipped with a Fire, Ice, Lightning effect to boost damage. The Tomahawk is able to a shoot a three-round burst for additional fire.
• Happily Adopted: The Flores children; Helen, Nakamura, Ann, Ryan, were individually adopted and taken in by Holtz at different points. They've each lived happy, fulfilling childhoods under Holtz's care, and even into adulthood they all have a very positive, healthy relationship.
• Hard Light: Each of Ann's weapons is built from a utilized material called electropolymerization that solidifies light to transform it from plasma to a physical state. Requiring a zinc energy source, it allows solid light to be changed into various shapes for the weapon that's in-use.
• Harmful to Touch: The Eroder is a huge orb of an unprecedented substance that forcibly causes anyone's body to deform into a Blob Monster upon contact with its entire being.
• Harmless Electrocution: As Ann is about to head out to search for Ryan, she is ambushed by Loki, who drops a device that lets out a electrical discharge without leaving damage.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: Ann dislikes wearing dresses, especially any that has skirts on them. Supplemental material also shows she's embarrassed to wear any dress that's too revealing.
• Haunted House: At Noctis City, the nearby ROM shop has an Augmented Reality to explore a haunted house through a P.O.V. Cam while being followed by a creature.
• Healing Checkpoint: The teleport springs not only restore Ann's Life Meter, but also lets her use Tech Points to upgrade her equipment and transport to other areas.
• Healing Potion: The Corn Juice is an effective healing item that gives instant recovered health upon usage instead of the regenerative effect provided from Stim Shots.
• Healing Spring: Throughout various areas, there are teleport springs that also function as a Warp Whistle, instantly recovering Ann's health and healing whatever Status Ailment she's afflicted with.
• Hearts Are Health: In the Mysterious Console roguelike DLC, Noni's health is displayed as a heart meter. Hearts are occasionally found by rummaging through breakable objects or given by a weapon chest.
• Heart of Happiness: In several moments, there's a brief instant where a heart appears overhead a character when they're overjoyed, such as when Sigrid received a teddy bear in her Surprise Santa Encounter, and when Ayane leaps onto Ann to grab her chest.
• Hellevator:
  • An early side-quest revolves around finding a suspect who disappeared in a elevator. After going to several floors in a certain order, Ann finds herself in an unknown space and finds the man quivering in fear before returning back.
  • It happens again when you access the Circle Consortium's Noctis facility through Dr. Alan's secret elevator. You first run into his child, whose brain he uploaded into a Consortium robot and have to fight him to proceed, and the sights and revelations waiting for you after you get off only get more unpleasant and dangerous from there.
• Heroes Act, Villains Hinder: Ann's main objective is finding her missing brother. Whether it's the Factio Pugni trying to stop her from re-obtaining a stolen ROM or The Consortium getting in her way, Ann will not stop at rescuing Ryan.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Ann's primary weapon is a single bladed energy sword. With it, she can perform an assortment of attacks after performing certain moves to damage enemies. She later gains usage of both a BFS and a Double Weapon to boost her skill-set affinities.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Ann Flores is an skilled fighter who knows various styles of martial arts, she holds herself in self-blame for the incident when her Superpowered Evil Side delivered an Eye Scream to her brother. She's also a huge fan of baseball and does ikebana in her free time.
  • Ayane Misuno is a genki Playful Hacker who enjoys getting intimate with Ann, she also Hates Being Alone and allegedly worried about Ann getting "bored" without her and apologizing for her Motor Mouth tendencies.
• Hidden Eyes: In one moment when Ann sits in a Troubled Fetal Position over the situation regarding Ryan's disappearance alongside finding out she has a Superpowered Evil Side, her eyes briefly become hidden.
• Hitscan: Any shot from handheld firearms, a missile launcher, or a Energy Weapon in the direction of enemies always landed a direct hit whenever they were in close proximity despite the difference in range.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Castor, an agent of The Consortium, is able to open up portals to any location of his choosing. After Melissa is beaten by Ann, Castor steps in to handle her, until his portal tech suddenly malfunctions and ends up pulling him and Melissa into it instead and they both end up stranded in the desert.
• Hold the Line: In the final area, Ann must defend Sigrid from C's attack forces as she channels enough power into her ability to weaken C and expel his other self from his body with a physical form so that it can be destroyed.
• Hollywood CB: Communicators takes use of Video Phones that are only picked up by both receivers and only audible to whoever is being contacted.
• Holodeck Malfunction: The tutorial segment starts off in a virtual simulator constructed by Dr. Doyle's program. Initially, it had a slow start-up before it loaded up, after the fight against the Training Boss, the system malfunctions and causes a complete system backfire that knocks Ann out before she gets pulled out of it.
• Homing Projectile: The Tunguska Misisle Launcher is equipped with a targeting system that has the missiles locked onto targets by following them once launched. The Heavy Missile Mecha fires off homing projectile via following the path of its target until it lands and explodes around the surrounding area.
• Horrible Housing: Dr. Alan Doyle is such a Genius Slob that he's turned his own lab into his place of residence, which itself is an absolute mess, with collectible data logs of his experiments scattered everywhere, even research documents are in piles on the floor.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Prior to the start of the story, Ryan received a Mysterious Note from someone called 'The Holy Grail' (later revealed via Story Breadcrumbs to be The Prophet), who tells him of a clue on where he can locate the cure-all medicine N540. Despite having initial doubts about this individual, after Ryan verified the clue was true, he immediately drops all suspicious and asks more information on where he needs to go in order to find the N540, which led to him getting captured by C, who perpetrated the scheme to have his main target Lured into a Trap.
• Hubcap Hovercraft: Being set in a Post-Cyberpunk setting, all vehicles have this functionality where they can rotate wheels after gaining enough propulsion to thrust upward and become a Flying Car.
• Human Popsicle: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni's backstory is explained that she died of chronic disease and her parents had her body put in cryostasis for preservation. After her parents were killed in a car accident years later, Noni's body was cremated as no one was able to continue the cryo usage.
• Hunger Causes Lethargy: After exiting Freeway 42, Ann finds Sigrid collapsed outside after passing out from hunger. Ann quickly takes her somewhere to recover, though she still makes a Growling Gut sound after waking up.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: The Corn Juice items instantly provides Ann with recovered health instantly instead of a regenerative effect as Stim Shots.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Any weapons (swords, handguns, energy launchers) or equipment (healing items, crafting material) that Ann picks up is freely used any time without the need to be carried around. In regards to a variety of the main weapons, especially the BFS and Pocket Rocket Launcher, it can be inferred that the technology used to create them has the function to be materialized at any moment and stored away with ease.
• An Ice Person: Castor's partner; Melissa, has the ability to conjure ice out of her body, such as granting herself a Double Weapon of hardened-ice, emitting a cold blast to trap Ann in ice, and growing icicle wings to unleash a makeshift hail-storm.
• Idea Bulb: The Idle Animation of Luper the bookshop owner in Skopp City has a miniature lightbulb appear besides him when he gets a major thought about something.
• Identical Stranger: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni, one of the major characters, bears a resemblance to Ann Flores, the protagonist. The few differences being that Noni is a teen with Youthful Freckles and light blue hair.
• I Die Free: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni, after learning that she's a digital construct of the real Noni who died long ago, chooses to leave the console knowing she'll disappear forever, being content with finally being free instead of remaining trapped within a device.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Halls of Ritual, a secluded area located within the depths of The Consortium's facility filled with ancient artifacts. A Story Breadcrumb conversation between C and Castor has the latter given the creeps due to hearing a formulated theory regarding that location's capabilities.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Easy, Normal, and Hell.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Upon arriving at The Consortium's inner base, Ann finally locates her brother Ryan being held captive, and is soon told by one of the top scientists, G, that Ayane has also been captured and demands Ann complies with them to defeat C if she wants them to be released.
  Ann: If you hurt my brother... and Ayane... I'll make you suffer!
• I Gave My Word: This occurs both ways after the Last-Second Ending Choice.
  • In the bad ending, Ann's refusal to trust The Consortium results in Ryan getting killed and Amok uses Ann's Moment of Weakness to convince her that Ryan will be revived once she takes her vengeance. Amok gave her word and brings Ryan back, but only after the world has been destroyed.
  • The good ending has Ann being told by G that once she undergoes procedures to sever her connection with Amok, Ryan and Ayane will be released and she will be able to return home as well. After Ann permanently seals Amok, she's told her business with The Consortium is finished and she can freely go.
• I Knew There Was Something About You: Early on, Ayane tells Ann she has doubts about Dr. Alan Doyle as he refuses to disclose certain information about the Entanglelitis and refrains Ann from entering the backroom of his lab. After Ann recovers the stolen ROM and sees Ryan had visited Doyle, Ayane vociferates that she knew Doyle was being too shady.
• I Reject Your Reality: C's Evil Plan on acquiring The Dypheus' Breath hinges on the motivation that he can use it to revive his dead lover and using it would not unleash total destruction on the entire world in spite of his associates warning him that will be the outcome if he goes through with it.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Fashionable: Early on, Ayane tells Ann that she's prepared a gift for her. When Ann needs an appropriate outfit to get pass the Nocturne Maze's Dress Code, Ayane directs her to a clothing shop to present a twilight veil that Ann refuses to wear as she Hates Wearing Dresses, only to then get forced into it by the shopkeeper and her assistants.
• Ignoring by Singing: Averted. In the epilogue when Ayane resorts to Crocodile Tears to make Ann carry her, Ann silently covers her ears waiting for Ayane to stop, then decides to go along with her request and does a Bridal Carry.
• The Igor: Dr. Alan Doyle has an assistant bot called Igor who he tasks with various lab duties and is frequently annoyed with him bringing a burger instead of a seafood paella.
• Impossible Item Drop: Most enemies drop a variety of items that they wouldn't be in possession of, such as Attack Drones dropping a Stim Shot, or regular enemies having medicinal herbs and mushrooms for Item Crafting, and a Giant Enemy Crab carrying a module for a weapon upgrade.
• Indignant Slap: In a Pensieve Flashback scene, Ann learned Ryan had joined a rogue gang and tried to talk him out of it. When he refused to listen, Ann angrily slaps him, prompting the other members to retaliate.
• Inevitable Tournament: To gain a boat to travel to Factio Pugni's freighter ship, Ann is asked to participate in a battle match at Harbor Town.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: There are numerous chests throughout each area containing stuff used for combat or materials for Item Crafting. They can be identified with the Grom System that marks them with a yellow marking. The larger variants that have more items require a key hidden in various locations.
• Info Drop: Several sections of information that expands on characters details and exposition that centers around the Gatekeeper Project's creation and Limen are conveyed through numerous documents and personal tablets that are found in certain areas.
• Informed Equipment: Ann's primarily weapons such as swords and launchers aren't shown on her combat suit since they are materialized through a contained energy field.
• Injured Self-Drag: In one viewable video recording at The Consortium's facility, it shows one of the staff members dragging themself towards the security forces after coming into contact with The Eroder, and then immediately transforms into a Blob Monster.
• Inside a Computer System: At Noctis City, the ROM shop holds a device to enter a virtual construct of simulated areas, consisting of exploring a Haunted House, a nightclub, or snowboarding on a mountain.
• Insistent Terminology: Ann is referred as "Subject 06" by The Consortium as she was formally once part of the Gatekeeper Project and they won't hesitate to refer to her as that.
• "Instant Death" Radius: Most of the stronger enemies, including the much larger bosses can quickly deal out heavy damaging attacks that take away most of the Life Meter if attacked when fully in ranged of their attack radius, especially as several of them; Animalistic Abominations, battle mechs, and heavily-armored opponents take a minuscule amount of damage coupled with their armor that lets them attack at any range. Several of them share between having long ranged, but sometimes close, incredibly powerful attacks which will instantly deal detriment maximum damage, with a needed Combat Roll to fully evade some strikes with the potential knockback instead of attacking directly.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: Any Advanced Cryptokey collected throughout main areas and then used to open secured containers are immediately discarded after being used.
• Interesting Situation Duel: Several major fights range from battling a Mini-Mecha on the top of building before fighting inside the collapsing area, combating an Ice Person in the midst of a ruined landsite, and having a Rooftop Confrontation against a Draconic Abomination taking the form of one from Norse Mythology that was formed by the internal evil of the Big Bad.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • On the Skill Tree, there are several selectable upgrades that are initially blank with no description, hinting they will become a major factor once unlocked.
  • While making her way to the Walter Raleigh, Ann is approached by a suspicious man, which the subtitles unveil his name as K, making it blatant he's a higher-up of The Consortium.
• Involuntary Group Split: Moments after passing the Point of No Return, Ann loses contact with Ayane after agents from The Consortium arrived to capture and use her as a bargaining chip to force Ann into an co-operation until all matters regarding C has been dealt with.
• In-Scene Title Text: The main title appears as Ann is viewing Noctis City from afar at Ryan's apartment.
• In the Back: In the bad ending, after Amok has fully taken over Ann's body, she quickly dashes behind Dr. G before stabbing him in the back.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: After going past the Point of No Return in the final area, Ayane realizes The Consortium has tracked her location and arrived to capture her, leaving Ann to traverse through the last segments of the base by herself until the confrontation with C.
• Item Crafting: Collecting enough materials from enemies or Treasure Chests can be used in crafting to make the standard healing items, grenades and ammo for the pistol, or items that'll boost attack and defense.
• Item Get!: In the Mysterious Console DLC, whenever Noni opens an item chest to obtain a new weapon, she briefly holds it up in the air accompanied by a short jingle.
• It's a Long Story: The elder of the outcasts beneath Freeway 42's sewers states it's a long story regarding the circumstances of how several of their own become mutants due to their Mechanika Virus infections spreading at a quicker rate, along with having no memory of how they came to be in the sewers.
• It's All My Fault: Ann feels it was her fault for the incident when her Entanglelitis caused her to lose control and attacked her brother Ryan, causing the loss of his eye. Despite the rest of her family assuring her it was only an accident, Ann is troubled by what her condition had done, and secretly fears it's something more dangerous.
• I Warned You: During a conversation, G heavily warns C to drop whatever machinations he plans on doing lest he wants to bring about a catastrophe that cannot be stopped. In the False Ending, C's plan ends up Gone Horribly Right when it unleashes The End of the World as We Know It.
• Jiggle Physics: This occurs with Ann, surprisingly not as noticeable as it could be, but she does have some bounce when she walks/run.
• Justified Tutorial: The tutorial segment starts off with Ann entering a virtual combat simulator to test out the latest update to the Grom System that was implemented into her combat suit.
• Killed Offscreen: At Freeway 42 when confronting the head of the Barbarian Tribe, Ann is dropped down a Trap Door to face several Bloodlusters. After defeating them and making her way back to the tribe room, she finds The Outcasts had already killed the barbarian leader to allow her passage into the facility.
• Kill Enemies to Open: A barrier pops up whenever a room full of enemies is encountered and it remains until all of them have been taken out.
• Kilroy Was Here: Multiple graffiti found throughout the cities are written by members from The Factio Pugni claiming they own the land sea.
• Kimono Is Traditional: Ayane's family butler, Yuko Yada, wears a blue kimono even while she is attending to Ayane. Yuko is also skilled in wielding a katana.
• Knee Fold Fall of Defeat: In the final fight, Sigrid uses her powers to expel all the malevolence from within C's body, he immediately falls to his knees and collapses, followed by the emergence of his One-Winged Angel form; Nidhogg.
• Knockback: Receiving a succession of melee attacks including from explosive weapons causes immediate knockback with more heavy-damaging attacks inducing a knock down, while weaker attacks cause brief flinching. Enemies will also experience a flinch after their armor has been fully depleted.
• Knowledge Broker: Lin is an information broker and hacker in Noctis City with a vast intelligence network. He'll tell anyone just about anything under the radar, whether it is someone's whereabouts or whatever they're planning.
• Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: In their second battle, Ann and Absalom both deliver clashing punches that sends out a shockwave through the area.
• A Lady on Each Arm: Lin, a Knowledge Broker in Noctis City is introduced at the Nocturne Maze with both of his girlfriends sitting by his sides.
• Ladder Physics: Climbing ladders is portrayed as very simple. You can climb ladders normally, you can quickly climb ladders via speeding up, and you can slide down ladders to reach lower area more quickly.
• Lap Pillow: After the Freeway 42 visit, Ann takes a moment to rest while laying on Ayane's lap. During that time, Ann talks to Ayane about the circumstances on how she's been aware of an other self within her, that along with Ryan's disappearance has made her admittedly worried.
• Laser Blade: Ann may primarily use swords for combat but their cutting edges are explicitly superheated plasma fields, if the entire "blade" section isn't just a contained energy field.
• Laser Hallway: At The Consortium's underground lab, Ann enters a room that's blocked with large moving lasers that have to avoided by Wall Crawling around the platforms until most of the lasers have shifted enough to open a path to move on.
• Laser Sight: The Consortium's Class II security team, Lightning, utilizes laser sight for their weapons when attacking from a distance for direct attacks.
• Last Lousy Point: Throughout the areas, there are Cyber Neko statues and hidden posters that can be used to purchase new outfits and viewed in the item menu... but there isn't any indicator of how many there are in each location. What makes it difficult is that you are only given a vague impression of which posters are collectible and the statues are small and hidden in often overlooked places amidst large rooms, making a full search of areas needed of finding any missed to obtain completion.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: After the Final Boss fight, Ann is confronted by The Consortium and is ordered to stand down so they could severed her connection with Amok. If Ann refuses thinking they can't be trusted, her brother, Ryan, makes an assault which leads to him getting fatally shot, and Ann, in a brief Moment of Weakness is taken over by Amok who unleashes total destruction on the entire world. Should Ann complies with them, Ryan is released and safely returned home, Ann battles with Amok to permanently seal her, and soon reunites with Ayane, who enthusiastically talks about how she'll stick by Ann in all their inevitable future adventures.
• Last Villain Stand: C, after Ann has fully prevented his scheme of obtaining the Dypheus' Breath and is now surrounded, leaves him with the only option of eliminating everyone in his way until he can start his plan over again.
• Latin Is Magic: In the final confrontation, after Sigrid has gathered enough focus on her Reality Warper power to boost its capabilities, she cites a Magical Incantation entirely in Latin to create a conjured effect to fully weaken C and have his draconic form expelled from his body.
• Launcher Move: The Jujutsu melee skill Ann can acquire on the Skill Tree lets her perform an uppercut attack to an enemy to send them airborne before delivering a second combo-attack to knock them to the ground, dealing more damage.
• Lava Pit: At The Consortium's underground base, the electroplating center is overflowing with lava that requires the use of Air-Dashing to pass by without falling into the magma.
• Left Stuck After Attack: In the battle with Melissa, she attempt to toss her spear at Ann and if its evaded, it'll get stuck far from Melissa, leaving her open to attack until she summons it back.
• Lens Flare: A brief shot of the sun shown in the cutscene after Castor and Melissa both end up stranded in the desert displays len flares.
• Let Me Tell You a Story: While Ann is on her way to The Walter Raleigh, K, a passenger on the boat decides to tell her a story about a child involved in a experimental trial who had to make a choice to prevent the deaths of other children.
• Level Goal: In the Mysterious Console DLC, each stage in the dungeon ends with a doorway leading to the next area after all enemies have been beaten.
• Letting Her Hair Down: Ann's usual hairstyle is a Tomboyish Ponytail, some of her optional outfits has her letting her hair down to be apposite with what she's wearing.
• Level-Map Display: A mini-map of the area on the top-right of the screen. Selecting the full map shows the entire area, along with key marks showing which locations are accessible, locked, where the shops and Warp Whistles are, and a red pointer towards the main objective.
• Life Meter: Ann's health bar is depicted the top-left screen.
• Limited Loadout: Ann is able to carry a variety of weapons with different stats that's limited to only being able to select and equip just three from her inventory.
• Limited Window of Vulnerability: The Post-Final Boss fight involves Ann battling Amok to finally seal her away after the former had underwent a procedure to weaken the latter's connection and overall power to be fought at a pivotal time.
• Limp and Livid: When C starts to undergo a Villainous Breakdown, he starts to limp over as his draconic form begins manifesting within his body. In the bad ending, after witnessing Ryan getting killed in front of her, Ann assumes this posture just as she fully succumbs to her Superpowered Evil Side.
• Lingerie Scene: Ann is first shown in her undergarments after having a Crashing Dream prior to receiving a delivery from Ayane.
• Little Black Dress: To get by Nocturne Maze's Dress Code to search for an informant, Ann puts on a black dress called the Twilight Veil for easy access.
• Living Lava: At the electroplating center of The Consortium's underground base, the Lava Pits are shown to be inhabited by fish entirely made of magma rocks.
• Living Program: In the Mysterious Console DLC storyline, Noni is a mysterious young girl trapped within the titular device seeking a way out. In the end, the head A.I. program of the device reveal that Noni is actually a virtual recreation of the real Noni who succumbed to chronic disease, and was created after her parents were desperate enough to make a deal with a Anonymous Benefactor to utilize the device to create her.
• Loading Screen: There are various loading screens for several events. Starting up the game will feature either a news report for information off the main story or a shot of Ann and Ayane with text giving gameplay advice. Using a teleport spring or an elevator has a loading shot of it going to its destination before arriving. Lastly, traveling to any location shows Ann driving in her vehicle.
• Locked Door: Most areas have a locked door that are usually opened by doing a Hacking Minigame or traversing around until it's unlocked from the other side. At The Consortium's underground base, the locked doors require key cards hidden throughout various rooms.
• Lone Wolf Boss: The Mother Grub is a mutated monster that was formed in the sewers beneath Freeway 42 and it blocks Ann's path to the control center when it attacks. It virtually has no connection to The Factio Pugni and The Consortium as it is acting entirely on its own instincts.
• Lore Codex: The Database menu showcases information on characters, various enemies, items, terms, and locations such as the Limen Crater or the Mechanika Virus, as well detailing other factions mentioned throughout.
• Lotus Position: One of the denizens in the Underground City manages to do a lotus position while standing due to having multiple robotic arms.
• Love Makes You Evil: C's core motivation to access Hinterland stems from his heartbreak over the loss of the woman he loved, who died in an accident years ago and left him with nothing but hatred for the world. Or at least, that's the excuse presented. It's left ambiguous how much of his destructive intentions were his own with the reveal that an outside faction had brainwashed him.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of Ann's secondary equipment is an energy shield that she can utilize to block and lower damage from enemies. In addition to blocking attacks, the shield can be used to induce a counter-strike once the shield is brought out at the precise moment of an attack to stun an opponent and deliver additional damage as well as reflecting projectiles.
• Luck Stat: The Luck stat is for what type of items are dropped when enemies are defeated, or whether they have anything at all. Increasing the stat further on the Skill Tree will have enemies drop more valuable items for usage in healing or crafting.
• Lured into a Trap: Ryan Flores goes missing after he received a message telling him how he could find N540, which was perpetrated by C to capture him and then use Ryan to lure Ann towards The Consortium.
• Lurid Tales of Doom: One of the various Shop Fodder is the Media Monthly: Awareness and the Future, a magazine officially banned in Skopp City for being notorious in publishing misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news.
• MacGuffin: The Consortium seeks a unknown artifact called Dypheus' Breath by The Codex. The Consortium has reason to believe that Dypheus' Breath can manipulate any type of portal or gateway, possibly including LIMEN, making it an object of great importance.
• Machine Worship: Cults worshipping the Mechanika Virus sprung up before vaccines were developed, and even after the pandemic subsided, there are still cultists who praise the virus and bemoan the proliferation of the virus as preventing humanity from "ascending" to a higher existence by giving them new mechanical forms.
• Macross Missile Massacre: T.R, the leader of The Factio Pugni, owns a modified battle machine that's outfitted with a launcher capable of firing dozens of high-speed missiles up into the air that directly comes crashing down to blow up their target while at the same time utilizing the mech's arms to attack.
• Made of Indestructium: The Limen crater had been subjected to various methods of experiments by The Consortium to find a method of destroying it, yet it remains virtually unscathed even after being hit with a colossal explosion. The Consortium's research discovers the only possible item that could destroy Limen is an Artifact of Doom that's sealed in a other dimension.
• The Mafia: Ann may run into the Mija gang, a group of mobsters sporting traditional, but modernized, suits and fedoras complete with a (futuristic) Tommy Gun to fit their 30's throwback vibe. Fortunately, they're not hostile to Ann (and vice-versa).
• Man on Fire: At the Walter Raleigh, the Chief Warden demonstrates his status as a Bad Boss by tossing a lackey he deemed incompetent into a room full of Flame Spewer Obstacles, all of which burn him alive after he's set ablaze while he runs around in a panic before dropping dead.
• Marathon Level: The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base serves as the largest area with four sections coupled with a Boss Bonanza. The first section consists of traversing through linear paths of large rooms to collect color-coded key cards to open passages until reaching the central elevator. Followed by an area leading into a Wolfpack Boss and a Laser Hallway against waves of Mooks in research facilities to pass by into the inner part of the base.
• Marked Change: Absalom's body has Tron Lines throughout, and once he goes full-throttle to unleash a wave attack while summoning pillars to power himself up, the marks glow more brightly.
• Mask of Sanity: Although it doesn't totally conceal his true nature, C is able to mask his sociopathic tendencies under a Faux Affably Evil façade. The other staff of The Consortium are able to see through it and straight up tell him that his Evil Plan is going too far. He experiences a serious fracture into a Villainous Breakdown once things start to go wrong; his unwillingness to accept the fact that his scheme won't succeed pushes him into ranting at his co-workers in a demonic voice, then finally goes into a ballistic rage upon realizing his plans have been completely thwarted.
• Mass Transformation: In the past, the world underwent the spread of the Mechanika Virus, a mysterious disease that spurred from the Limen crater which slowly turned people's flesh into machinery. In the most advanced stages stated during the pandemic, the virus would seriously degrade the consciousness and ability to rationally think, turning all infected into suffering, mindless, and violent berserker cyborgs that has caused the rise of cargo cults praising it as the next awakening of humanity. By the present, a vaccine has been developed and delivered widespread, and it has gone down to becoming a manageable part of everyday life, though the damage obviously remain.
• Master of Your Domain: Melissa is able to control the temperature of water particles within and around her body, letting her generate ice while making her extremely agile in combat.
• Mechanical Abomination: In the past, The Consortium attempted to open a gateway to Hinterland which resulted in an interdimensional being called 'Mayhem', a type of metallic arachnid-like creature that unleashed devastation within their base before being shut down. It is directly controlled by Amok, who releases them in the Fission Mailed and Bad Ending alongside enormous Combat Tentacles to destroy the world.
• Mecha-Mooks: Among The Factio Pugni is their AI modified cyborg bots that specializes in its skills to Throw Down the Bomblet. The Consortium, alongside their Elite Mooks in the department of security, commands a regiment of humanoid bots and mecha that are outfitted with top of the line AI and firepower coupled with advanced resources to devise the optimal security measure into a Tactical Superweapon Unit for their facility against intruders and supernatural anomalies.
• Mechanical Muscles: The numerous mooks of the Factio Pugni and The Consortium are outfitted with muscular builds that allows them to utilize heavy manner of weapons at their disposal. The members of the former underwent Full-Conversion Cyborg to boost their attacks for heavy-handed approach.
• The Morlocks: The Outcasts are a tribe living beneath Freeway 42. They are the remnants of their former selves that survived the Mechanika Virus' deadly effects, and chose to remain in their Underground City without any advancement towards the surface and before long, some of them are Driven to Madness when their bodies become too unstable.
• Meditating Under a Waterfall: Though this doesn't happen at any point, one achievement artwork "Serenity Now" shows Ann meditating beneath a waterfall after giving enough tributes to a statue.
• MegaCorp: The Tithonus Group rose in corporations when it perfected the Mind ROM technology and adapting it for civilian use. Its scope of business ranges from electronics and vehicles to industrial products, even in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, introducing a drug against the Mechanika Virus, later forming a subsidiary company called FT Productions that grew into developing modules. Alongside Tithonus, there's Eindersohn Industries, a renowned weapons developer and manufacturer in specialized mechabots and bio-products.
• Melting-Pot Nomenclature: The setting is full of characters that have English and Japanese names. This is in-part that the overall metropolis is a mishmash of primary influences of several languages with names being displayed in both dialects.
• Mental Time Travel: If Ann doesn't locate and defeat Castor before entering the deepest level of The Consortium's facility, this leads to a Fission Mailed ending where C obtains the Artifact of Doom but ends up unleashing Amok who brings about total destruction. The Masked Woman then intervenes by rescuing Ann and sending her back to an earlier time where she can locate Castor and defeat him.
• Mercy Invincibility: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni receives a brief instant of invincibility after getting hit by an attack, with nearby enemies unable to deal damage after a few seconds.
• Merging Machine: The various shops holds a function to manually combine collected material into Socketed Equipment to boost Ann's weapons.
• Metropolis Level: The rooftops of Noctis City serve as the first major area as Ann chases after a Factio Pugni thug to retrieve her brother's stolen ROM, facing off against many Gangbangers using construction equipment to attack, leading to a face-off with a Mini-Mecha in a collapsing building.
• Mighty Glacier: The Warden of the Walter Raleigh moves slowly thanks to the vast amount of armor he's wearing. While this makes it easy to attack him from a distance, he'll perform a rush attack to shrug off any projectiles fired at him.
• Milholland Relationship Moment: Ryan secretly went out his own after receiving an anonymous message telling him where he can find N540, but it ended up being a trap set up by the Big Bad. After being rescued and sent back home, Ryan is expecting Ann to berate him for being so reckless, then she quietly smiles and waits for him to do a Fist Bump with her.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Ann learns about Ryan's disappearance when thugs from the Factio Pugni show up looking for him, then she finds out Ryan picked up a clue on N540, which leads Ann to discovering it was ploy devised by C to capture her in order to retrieve an Artifact of Doom.
• Minor Living Alone: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni is introduced as having lived by herself for years in a virtual household containing its own bedrooms and kitchen after having been placed there by her parents and not receiving any contact afterwards due to them dying in a car accident.
• Mirthless Laughter: At Skopp City, one NPC is laughing around on the streets only because he's pretending and thinks he'll forget if he stops.
• Missile Lock-On: The Tunguska missile launcher is capable of locking onto enemies and even with large single targets, it causes a significant amount of damage and armor destruction after firing multiple shots.
• Missing Floor: At Skopp City, a SideQuest is centered around looking for a murder suspect who suddenly vanished in a Empty Elevator. After solving the clues left behind, Ann is suddenly taken to an unknown floor within the building, and moments after finding the suspect, the elevator returns to its proper place.
• Missing Secret:
  • The Intelligence Index, which serves as a Lore Codex, has all entries entirely blanked out regardless of completion. Word of God stated that due to a programming error, the entire list wouldn't appear. However, some players found a bug that displayed the index in full.
  • Helen's room at the Flores home is always locked, with no certain way to unlock it.
• Missing Time: At Skopp City during a side-mission, after Ann located the missing suspect at a Missing Floor, she suddenly finds herself back outside and is told the suspect had already been taken into custody, despite having no memory of what happened beforehand.
• Mobile Kiosk: These are found throughout Noctis City with Bilingual Bonus signs selling foods and drinks that provide minor bonus effects that can used in combat.
• Moment of Weakness: In the Bad Ending, by refusing to accept The Consortium's order, Ann's Moment of Weakness results in Ryan being fatally shot. At that moment, Amok uses the opportunity to pry on Ann's anger on the promise of reviving Ryan and enacting vengeance, causing Amok to fully take over Ann's body and unleashing a hellstorm of destruction on the entire world.
• Money to Throw Away: Lin, a Knowledge Broker in Noctis City, tosses several credits towards his two girlfriends after they've entertained him at the Nocturne Maze.
• Monster Compendium: Alongside the Lore Codex, there's a database listing all enemies that were scanned, providing an exposition on them, details about each of their abilities, and their total health/armor points.
• Mook Maker: The Mother Grub and its hives constantly spawn a variety of grub eggs that hatch immediately to attack with different abilities and physiques.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: One of the early sidequests revolves around finding a suspect who disappeared in an elevator. The only clues being video footage of the suspect entering the elevator before vanishing and examining the crime scene has Ann noting that something in the room has changed. The real solution is that several objects in the crime scene are broken into a specific number of pieces, which requires Ann to go to that floor with the elevator, that also has a room identical to the previous one, following the clues on each floor will lead to the suspect's location.
• Motive Decay: C's main master plan is to acquire The Dypheus' Breath, an Artifact of Doom that harbors the power to open gateways into Another Dimension that he seeks to use for his own purposes. Later on, when C starts to undergo a Villainous Breakdown, he foregoes his original plans in favor of attempting to take over The Consortium by having his forces eliminating anyone who refuses to side with him.
• Mr. Fanservice: Absalom is shown with No Shirt, Long Jacket, which is always wide open to expose his upper torso that shows glowing tattoos etched all over his upper body.
• Ms. Fanservice: Ann, apart from having a Shower Scene, has a prominent chest, wears a form-fitting combat suit while out in the field, and has an array of outfits she can try on. Ann's "Cinnabar" outfit, mentioned to be a gift from Ayane, is a qipao-inspired dress, with an open cleavage diamond, and a very short cut skirt that shows off plenty of Ann's legs, which makes it one of the most revealing outfits that Ann can have.
• Muck Monster: The Mother Grub is an enormous blob-like creature composed of highly acidic mucus that'll emit as gas. It can extend it's body to make itself fly and harden itself to perform a Rolling Attack while spawning multiple larvae to attack.
• Multiple Endings: After the Final Boss fight, Ann is confronted by The Consortium and is ordered to stand down so they could severed her connection with Amok, with a choice appearing whether to agree or not.
  • Should Ann complies with them, Ryan is released and safely returned home, Ann battles with Amok to permanently seal her, and soon reunites with Ayane, who enthusiastically talks about how she'll stick by Ann in all their inevitable future adventures.
  • If Ann refuses thinking they have other agendas, in the ensuring argument, Ryan impulsively makes an assault which leads to him getting fatally shot, and Ann, in a brief Moment of Weakness is taken over by Amok who unleashes total destruction on the entire world. Ryan is later revitalized by Amok, who awakens to find the building in ruins and soon discovers the Hell on Earth.
• Multi-Mook Melee: In the final area prior to the last fight, Ann is tasked to protect Sigrid from the oncoming waves of enemies and mechs that are brought in by C until Sigrid can gather enough energy to use her ability to weaken C and force him into his One-Winged Angel form.
• Mundane Object Amazement: The electronics store that houses Dr. Alan's secret laboratory has a dedicated section for outdated, pre-smartphone era phones. A collectible piece of lore says that they're all terrible devices but have now become so rare that they've become collector's items.
• Mundane Solution: Ann learns a Knowledge Broker she's looking for is currently at a night club, her first attempt to enter is denied by a Bouncer for not having the proper Dress Code. After which, she heads to a nearby clothing shop to be outfitted with a Little Black Dress to gain entry.
• Must Have Caffeine: At Noctis City, a civilian who desperately craves caffeine disguises himself as a coffee dispenser to trick people into depositing money so that he could use the cash to buy coffee for himself.
• My Name Is ???: The Masked Woman who occasionally appears is referred as [' ??? '] blocked out in text. Certain documents found in areas hint that her name is Michelle.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: In the DLC, after defeating the second dungeon boss, Noni gets a sense of worry after finding the shell left behind gives her some familiarity.
• Mysterious Note: At the Flores household, Ann can examine Ryan's computer to find that he received an anonymous e-mail from an unknown source telling him to visit a certain location to learn details on finding N540.
• Mysterious Stranger: Ann keeps running into a masked woman that no one else can seem to see, who provides her cryptic clues to what's going on and clearly knows more than Ann's situation than her, before mysteriously disappearing before giving any straight answers. In contrast to most of the game's subtitles, which clearly give the speaker's name, hers is a completely redacted series of letters surrounded in quotes.
• Mysterious Waif:
  • Sigrid is first discovered by Ann around Freeway 42 after she had collapsed from hunger. It's later shown she's actually a Reality Warper that was taken there as part of C's Uriah Gambit to prevent her from being used against him.
  • In the Mysterious Console DLC storyline, Noni is The Speechless who has been living within a device for an unspecified amount of time waiting for contact from her parents. Noni is really a digital construct of the real Noni who succumbed to chronic disease and was created by an Anonymous Benefactor who was paid by her parents.
• Mystical Plague: In the past, the world underwent a crisis when the Mechanika Virus caused bodies of people to be turned metallic. Later on, the virus' origin is stated to be from Limen, an Eldritch Location that also brought dangerous phenomena which spread out into the world.
• Named After Somebody Famous: The Walter Raleigh that's owned by the Factio Pugni is named after the real-life explorer and courtier of Elizabeth I.
• Name McAdjective: One of the Factio Pugni's goons is called Old McGee, a small-timer testing his might in street fighting tournaments.
• Names Given to Computers: The Prophet is an automated database equipped with an AI to communicate with humans. Being a hyper-intelligent, sentient computer, it uses its vast knowledge to spread itself through information networks to ensure its continued existence and further its goals through all manner of deceit.
• Necessary Drawback: Ann's Super Mode lets her deal a great amount of damage to enemies, but she is unable to use any defense against heavy attacks and is usable for a short duration.
• Necromantic: C harbors a hidden agenda in his desire to obtain The Dypheus' Breath that allows anyone to open gateways between dimensions, without any remorse for risking the complete destruction of the world should the artifact be taken from its place within Hinterland. His true motive is merely using the artifact to search for a way to revive his deceased fiance, D, after a Story Breadcrumb reveals that she died after a lab experiment resulted in her getting sucked into a dimensional rift, which prompted C to take any measure in his plan solely to see her again.
• Neon City: Noctis City is an americasia of several influences, with idols (live and virtual) and glowing neon signs in Western and Eastern languages, futuristic cars, and a disperse of adverts on many buildings.
• Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Ann has a condition called "Entanglelitis" that cause her to not only lose consciousness, but attack people without any control. It's later revealed that this is caused from a dormant ability Ann was given as a child as one of the seven subjects of the Gatekeeper Project that causes her to interlink with certain supernatural dimensions and becomes taken over by a being that happens to be her Alternate Self.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: The Varanus is a large reptilian creature with ample mobility and inability to be killed. The worst that Ann can do to it is temporarily stop it long enough so she can pin it down.
• New Game Plus: This mode is unlocked after finishing the story. In it, Ann retains all of her acquired weapons, items, Credits, and Skill Point upgrades. Enemies are also given more health and deal out more damage than in Normal Mode.
• New Skill as Reward: At a significant moment during the visit at Freeway 42, Ann awakens her Super Mode when fighting against Absalom after being overpowered, and then proceeds to deliver a one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle.
• New World Tease: Dr. Doyle's lab has a locked door with a hall leading into a backroom and anytime Ann tries to enter it, Doyle requests that she doesn't interrupt his research. It's not until much later that Ann discovers Doyle was hiding information from her regarding Ryan, and proceeds to discover an underground facility.
• N.G.O. Superpower: The Consortium is a vast, powerful, and mysterious organization that dedicates itself to keeping up the Masquerade of the world by covering up the supernatural and otherworldly dangers which threaten it. They've been confirmed in-game to be responsible for spurring the development of the Mechanika Virus vaccine and giving Ann her supernatural power to visit and see other dimensions, euphemistically referred to as her "Entanglelitis".
• No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Ann can wear a variety of optional outfits while out exploring the cities. The cutscenes will always default to either her casual attire or the combat suit.
• No-Dialogue Episode: The entirety of Dr. Alan Doyle's backstory flashbacks are entirely without written or spoken dialog, told primarily through environmental storytelling, emojis, facial expressions, and sound effects, like the realistic car crash sound, from the accident that killed his beloved wife.
• No One Could Survive That!: During the roofhopping segment at Noctis City, Ann chases Loki onto the top of an abandoned building, who brings out a Mini-Mecha to take her on. After a brief struggle, the top of the building collapses and brings the other floors down, and in spite of that, Ann makes it through without any injuries.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: Absalom primarily wears an open black jacket, that fully shows his upper body with glowing tattoos etched all over.
• Non-Dubbed Grunts: The English release had the dialogue voiced in English. During gameplay, Ann's grunts when she's performing a jump or striking an enemy uses the Japanese vocal sound.
• Non-Human Head: At Skopp City, Ann comes across an individual speaking from a manhole cover asking her to bring food. At a later time, she finds it's a person called Hapi who has an actual sewer cover for a head. There's also Jos van Corn and his brother who have heads of corn.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling into any bottomless hole or a dangerous hazard will deal a small bit of damage to Ann before she's immediately sent back to the area she was standing on.
• Non-Residential Residence: At Skopp City, one side-mission is about searching for a woman that was caught residing in several buildings before fleeing. When located, a choice is presented to either turn her over or give credits to grant her a fresh start.
• Non Sequitur Environment: When entering a elevator hidden in the back room of a laboratory, Ann is suddenly transported to a floating area in an empty void where she battles against a Mini-Mecha. Later on in The Consortium's underground base, the scenery at one point changes from a facility to an eldritch area with foreboding artifacts in the background before swapping back after further progression through the base.
• Non-Standard Character Design: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni is given a Super-Deformed design that's in contrast to the other characters who were designed with more expressive styles.
• Nonstandard Game Over: After the Final Boss battle, Ann is given a choice to either agree with The Consortium's demands or refuse and defy them. If she chooses the latter, then, unfortunately, it turns out she should have trusted The Consortium, as the security bots shoot Ryan in retaliation. Ann, in a Moment of Weakness, summons Amok to try and revive him, Amok permanently takes over Ann's body, and then uses her catastrophic powers to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. Ryan later wakes up, confused and horrified at the carnage around him, to find his sister has been consumed by an otherworldly being of pure destruction.
• Noob Cave: Dr. Doyle's lab simulator is where Ann does practices on combat skills and use of items before battling the Training Boss.
• Noodle Incident: While Ann is chatting with her sister, Nakamura, they bring up how Ayane visited The Sicilian Jar to try out one of the bar's heaviest drinks and had an embarrassing spectacle after taking a few sips.
• Not Afraid to Die: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni is told if she chooses to leave the device, she will disappear forever as she is only a digital reconstruction of the real deceased Noni. Despite this, Noni courageously chooses to leave, and gives her farewell before vanishing.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: Hapi, a resident of Skopp City is shown to be quite skinny with a few visible bones after living in the sewers for an unprecedented amount of time without decent meals.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: In the epilogue, Ann ponders this with Ayane, feeling that a lot has changed in their adventure, and that whatever comes next will be completely different.
  Ann: Ayane, don't you think that everything feels different? After all that happened?
  Ayane: Different?
  Ann: Yeah... like nothing will ever be the same again.
  Ayane: You're worried about the future? I got it all figured out, wanna hear?
  Ann: Alright.
  Ayane: It's really simple. I just want to have more adventures!
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: During the roofhopping area at Noctis City, Loki brings out a Mini-Mecha that causes the roof of a building to collapse to the ground. Ann manages to evade a direct fall towards the ground after landing on nearby rubble.
• Notice This: Using the Grom System will indicate any interactive object with yellow tracing.
• No Sense of Personal Space: After Ann recovers following the first fight with Loki, Ayane playfully asks for a kiss to make her worries pass, all-while she tries to move in closely while getting repeatedly shoved away.
• No Title: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the roguelike game Ayane looks into has no given title as the main screen consists only of the start menu.
• NPC Roadblock: At each of the major cities, there are various citizens blocking routes to further areas and new shops until Freeway 42 has been completed.
• Number of the Beast: Pyrofist, an opponent at Harbor Town's arena, has 666 appear on his armor when he's charging up to generate a fire blast.
• Numerical Hard: Each Difficulty Level alters enemy stats without changing their move-sets. On Hard Mode, this also heavily triples damage done by bosses, making most of their attacks nearly a One-Hit Kill.
• Ocean Awe: While on a boat-ride out at sea, Ayane acts ecstatic seeing the ocean through her paipai drone due to her paraplegic treatment at home. In the epilogue, Ann brings Ayane to a beachside to let her see the ocean with a better view.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: Several residents of Noctis City have taken to sleeping in the middle of the streets.
• Oh, Crap!: In the bad ending, G and B react with utter horror upon their security bots accidentally killing Ryan in front of Ann, causing Amok to materialize and immediately strike them down.
• Older Is Better: Siberius, who owns a vast fortune, runs a second-hand antique shop to collect used objects to preserve the marks and memories of its owner, citing that the items and people become richer in experience and beauty as time goes on for them.
• Ominous Multiple Screens: The Consortium has various monitors dispersed throughout their facility, most prominently focused on the Limen crater to perceive any danger and surveillance on other locations of interest to observe potential variants to be captured for containment.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Ann's dream at the beginning of the game has a distorted effect before she wakes up. Later, whenever Ann activates her Super Mode, the screen displays glitched effects until the mode wears off.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Consortium is headed by a council. In their brief appearance in the opening, they unanimously rejected C's proposal to reinstate the abandoned Gatekeeper Project, since their focus is on the highest echelons and that there is little need for circumstances "too costly" or "unacceptable" when it comes to protecting the world from Limen.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Inverted. Ann has blamed herself for the incident regarding her Entanglelitis when it caused her to attack Ryan and slashed out his eye whenever it's brought up, despite Ayane and the rest of her family telling her it was an accident and wasn't her fault.
• One-Letter Name: The senior-level staff and facility supervisors of The Consortium all go by single capital letters, i.e. C, G, B, K, and D.
• One-Time Dungeon: The rooftops of Noctis City, the first major area, cannot be revisited after Loki's mecha is beaten, leaving any Treasure Chest left behind unobtainable until New Game Plus.
• One-Winged Angel: After C is beaten during the last battle, his body becomes weakened enough to allow Sigrid to use her ability to expel all the malice in his body, causing it to evolve into Nidhogg, the ancient dragon from Norse Mythology.
• One-Woman Army: Ann Flores is a highly-skilled Action Girl that singlehandedly takes on a entire onslaught of mooks from an organized street gang, weaponized soldiers from a private N.G.O. Superpower with an array of advanced tech and Mini Mechas at their conveyance, to even destroying hostile beasts and supernatural abominations hailing from an Eldritch Location, prevailing through all this to rescue her younger brother.
• One-Woman Wail: Absalom's boss theme features a prominent pitch of a chorus wail occurring mixed with the ambient music.
• Online Alias: C takes uses of an AI hub called The Prophet to send an e-mail to Ryan under the alias of 'The Holy Grail' with secret information about N540 with the intent of luring him close enough to capture him.
• On-Site Procurement: Ann starts off with entrant equipment while procuring additional weapons through obtaining a BFS from an enemy mech, or traversing various facilities to find Dual Blades, a Pocket Rocket Launcher, and a Wave-Motion Gun being contained in sealed boxes that can be opened up with ease and utilized against enemies.
• Open-Ended Boss Battle: At the end of the tutorial segment, Ann battles against a Training Boss to use each of her skills against it. Whether she does defeat it or the boss depleted her health, the training simulation undergoes an error and shuts down.
• "Open!" Says Me: In the bad ending, once Amok had unleashed total destruction on the world, Ryan awakens in a room with the entrance door stuck. After multiple attempts, he breaks down the door, only to discover what remains after the apocalypse.
• Operation: [Blank]: In the past, The Consortium secretly engineered The Gatekeeper Project that conducted experiments on seven subjects to grant them inter-dimensional abilities that would assist investigating Hinterland. The project was soon halted after an incident resulted in a facility's destruction.
• Opportunistic Bastard: After his proposal to reinstate the Gatekeeper Project was rejected, C sets off a scheme to access Hinterland by engineering Ryan's capture to lure Ann in and forcibly using her powers to obtain the Artifact of Doom.
• Optional Boss: There are three optional boss fights at Harbor Town's fighting arena; Pyrofist, Eric Marcom, and Tai Long. Each of them are not required to be fought as part of the main story, but choosing to fight them awards much Grombitz and defeating all of them grants a gold trophy as an award.
• Original Position Fallacy: Castor takes up on assisting C's Evil Plan to retrieve The Dypheus' Breath once he's convinced obtaining it will grant him a new position within The Consortium and restore his family's status. As Castor later finds out, C never intended on fulfilling the deal, which leads to him and Melissa both getting stranded out in the desert.
• Orion Drive: In the introduction, The Consortium attempts a Nuke 'em onto the Limen crater by launching air units with specialized Orion Drives to double the nuclear pulse propulsion at the point of impact.
• Orphanage of Fear: Alluded within Holtz' personal journal at the Flores household. He mentions that he found Nakamura covered in bruises before he adopted her and would later found out it was done by the residents of the orphanage she came from which was ignored by the caretakers.
• Orwellian Retcon: The story originally ended abruptly with Ann letting herself be taken in by The Consortium with no clear resolution of what happened afterwards. The developers later added an extended ending update that does away with the original ending and provides new scenes to wrap up any loose threads and conclude on a much better note.
• Our Dragons Are Different: C's One-Winged Angel form is a direct manifestation of all the evil within him. When fully incarnated, it transforms into a Draconic Abomination taking the form of Nidhogg, the primordial dragon from Norse Mythology, unleashing devastating energy with its Breath Weapon and all manners of attacks that are brought out from the body that is entirely dark.
• Our Founder: Skopp City holds a statue contribution of the founder of the Tithonus Group in celebration of their first generation gravity enhancers represented by levitating blocks.
• Outliving One's Offspring: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni is revealed to have died of chronic disease years ago, and her parents, unable to cope with their loss, requested aid from an Anonymous Benefactor to use a device to create a digital copy of her.
• Overhead Interaction Indicator: NPCs have a large speech bubble overhead that will either give a side-mission or engage in an optional conversation.
• Panacea: The N series are medical technology that was created to heal wounds and cure specific diseases. N540 is the latest that has the capacity to cure-all types, until an incident where civilians fought and killed over the medicine resulted in it being kept hidden from the public.
• "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: In the epilogue, Ann and Ayane head out to gaze at the ocean while discussing what adventures might come next, ending with a panned up view of the clear sky while Ayane is resting besides Ann.
• Paranormal Investigation: The agency where Ann and Ayane work at looks into the series.occult and inexplicable phenomenon. The head of the agency, Raymond, mentions how he's on the search for a Mad Doctor wearing a plague mask.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: While around her apartment at Skopp City, Ann overhears an odd noise from a nearby room and looks through the door-hole. A Scare Chord occurs as a dead body hung swings by, leading into a SideQuest to find the perpetrator.
• Pensieve Flashback: After losing consciousness and awakening in Hinterland, Ann travels through the terrain where she sees her memories of the incident that caused Amok to awakened within her, that subsequently led to Ann losing control and attacked her brother Ryan, damaging his eye, which made Ann moved out of her family home out of fear of hurting them.
• People Jars: At several facilities beneath The Consortium's underground base, there are various containment jars holding a victim of the Mechanika Virus with a research panel besides each holding a report of how the virus affected the body conditions and the reactions to experimental stimulation. There are also containments for variants such as The Eroder, with a full report on the computer panel detailing it's capabilities and how much danger it can create when loose.
• Permanently Missable Content: The rooftops of Noctis City are a One-Time Dungeon, so any item container left behind won't obtainable until New Game Plus. There are also various NPCs holding unique conversations that'll be permanently missable after progressing past certain points.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Amok is a supernatural entity that's sealed within the dimensional world called Hinterland. She possesses immense power that lets her control massive Mechanical Abominations that are armed with weapons and Combat Tentacles to devastate all in their path. When fully unleashed in the Fission Mailed and Bad Ending, she brings The End of the World as We Know It by turning the entire planet into a desolate burning wasteland and leaving no survivors.
• Person with the Clothing: The Mysterious Stranger that Ann encounters several times throughout the story is referred as 'The Masked Lady'.
• Personal Arcade: At the Flores residence, there's an arcade game of Tong nearby the kitchen.
• Photo Mode: Screenshot Mode uses free camera movements to take shots that can be saved.
• Pictorial Speech-Bubble: During the epilogue when Ann and Ayane reunite with each other, they have speech bubble images while discussing what they'll do once returning back home.
• Pillar of Light: When Ann awakens her Super Mode, her body is at first encircled by energy butterflies before forming into a pillar of light surrounding her as she transforms.
• Pinned to the Wall: Amok, a supernatural being of destruction is first encountered within Hinterland being held in place against a wall by The Dypheus' Breath. Later, at The Consortium's underground facility, Ann defeats The Varanus by deeply lodging a blade through its skull and into the ground, leaving it trapped as it tries to break free.
• Pit Girls: At Noctis City, Jos van Corn's promotional tournament is first started off by a Big Beautiful Woman holding up the round card. Over at Harbor Town, the fighting arena matches are kicked off after the stage girl presents the current round card.
• Plague Doctor: A plague doctor is alluded at one point when Raymond mentions that a nearby town was being overrun by zombies led by someone wearing a bird-mask. In the Concept Art Gallery, the figure is shown to be the Plague Doctor.
• Playful Hacker: Ayane, who can hack into Noctis City's signal and provide Ann with any information she needs.
• Playing with Fire: One opponent at the fighting arena is Pyrofist, who's able to dispel flames from his body and use them to increase his combat effectiveness. Pyrofist's bio also implies that he's an actual sentient flame within his armor.
• Plot-Powered Stamina: In her first encounter with Absalom, Ann is strucked by a Criss-Cross Attack and awakens her Super Mode in the following instant to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle, and still manages to remain in top-shape without any strain.
• Plot-Triggering Death: At one unprecedented point in the past, the incident that drove C mad and engineered his obsession with obtaining an Artifact of Doom was the death of his fiancé, D, after she got sucked into a dimensional rift in a lab experiment Gone Horribly Wrong.
• Plumber's Crack: During Sigrid's Surprise Santa Encounter, when "Santa" attempts to pull out his bag of gifts from the chimney, his behind displays a viewable crack.
• Pocket Rocket Launcher: The Tunguska missile launcher can shoot a total of three missiles at enemies upon locking on at its targets, and is carried around with ease.
• Point-and-Click Map: Whenever Ann enters her vehicle, the map is displayed on the screen with a cursor to choose the destination.
• Point of No Return: Upon proceeding into the deepest level of The Consortium's underground facility will have a prompt once Ann reaches a certain door warning that the final chapter will commence once you past through and visits to previous areas won't be possible. With a Teleport Spring nearby, it'll allow you to stock up on any needed items for the last chapter.
• Port Town: Harbor Town is a large port at sea located far from the city. It's home to the arena tournament, an Item Crafting shop, a Fishing Minigame, and a large Ship Level.
• Pose of Supplication: In the bad ending, when Ann refuses to trust The Consortium, the ensuring argument ends up causing Ryan to recklessly attack which gets him accidentally killed, causing Ann to fall into this pose in complete shock.
• Possession Implies Mastery: Ann is an Action Girl who specializes in martial arts and swords. When picking up new weapons/skills such as a Pocket Rocket Launcher, particle cannon, and a Super Mode, she's able to use it intimately to her advantage.
• Post-Cyberpunk: The story is set in a post-cyberpunk metropolis with multiple cities mixed with (pre-dominantly) influence, complete with Virtual Celebrities, robots, futuristic cars. While there are some darker elements, such as the Mechanika Virus that caused peoples bodies to be turned metallic and robotic, and an Eldritch Location that's unknown to the world as an N.G.O. Superpower studies it to find the means of destroying it. The setting is often times brightly lit with vibrant colors, making it veer far from the dystopian-type scenarios.
• Post-Final Boss: After the final fight against C's Nidhogg form atop The Consortium's facility, Ann is told to go through a procedure that will permanently sever her connection with Hinterland, followed by one last battle against Amok to seal her away.
• Posthumous Character: While exploring The Consortium's facility, Ann comes across documents that refer to a scientist called Dr. D, who allegedly was involved in a incident when she got sucked into a rift when a lab experiment went out of control. A Precious Photo found in G's office reveals she was C's lover and her death was the primary trigger for C's motive to obtain the Artifact of Doom.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The crux of C's master plan involves coming into possession of The Dypheus' Breath by having Ann Lured into a Trap and ensnare her into an ancient device that's takes full utilization of her innate dimensional powers to force open a passage into Hinterland and retrieving the artifact. In the Fission Mailed scenario, this comes to fruition, but ends up unleashing a Sealed Evil in a Can that brings total apocalypse upon the entire world.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Every-time Ann awakens her Super Mode, her hair changes from black to turquoise along with being given a slight growth.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Whenever Ann activates her Super Mode, her hair also lengthens once she awakens it.
• Power Nullifier: Upon arriving at The Consortium's inner hall, Ann manages to locate Ryan before he gets knocked out. As Ann is moments away from unleashing her Super Mode upon the top brass after finding out Ayane has also been captured, they activate a device that immediately nullifies her ability and demands she co-operate with them to defeat C.
• The Power of Blood: A research document located at The Consortium's underground facility details that each of the seven subjects of The Gatekeeper Project were infused with a classified blood type that gave each of them a inherent dimensional ability.
• Precision F-Strike: Ann is an entirely calm and reserved person. In the bad ending, after seeing her brother killed right in front of her, followed by Amok prying on her anger, causes her to let out a swift "You Bastards!" moments before letting hell loose.
• Priceless Ming Vase: While heading to Dr. Doyle's lab, Ann knocks a vase over at the sell shop. The owner chides Ann that she'll have to pay full price for it at a later time.
• Private Detective: Ann and Ayane are both private investigators. They work at Raymond's agency, which specializes in investigating and solving supernatural problems. Ann is an Action Girl who does most of the investigating locations, interrogating suspects, and fighting trouble, while Ayane is a Playful Hacker who acts as her support and tech specialist.
• Proactive Boss: Prior to the Final Boss fight with C, after Ann catches up with him, he personally sends his troops to attack while he utilizes a Flechette Storm from a distance. Afterwards, his Nidhogg form emerges from his body, leading to a Rooftop Confrontation.
• Progressive Instrumentation: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the first floor of the roguelike dungeon uses a relative synthetic track, then adds in additional tempo and beats for the second floor.
• Purple Is the New Black: One of Ann's optional outfits, Graffiti, is purple fully mixed with black shaded in. Ann's hair is also given a similar treatment.
• Put on a Prison Bus: After C's defeat following the destruction of his One-Winged Angel form, he's taken into custody by The Consortium and is kept under close watch to ensure his renegade actions not cause any more problems. The sole reason he hasn't been sent for execution is because G is maintaining The Promise he made to D in regards to keeping a lookout for C.
• Pyromaniac: Pyrofist's favored tactic of fighting against opponents at Harbor Town's battle arena is unleashing waves of fire from within his metal armor. It is also hinted in his bio that he's actually a living flame.
• Quad Damage: The Erythropoietin and 654-2 drinks temporarily increases Ann's attack and defense stats for 60 seconds, also provides additional damage to enemies armor bar.
• Quaking with Fear: In one side-mission at Skopp City, Ann locates a missing suspect shaking with fear and Blue with Shock after being trapped on a Missing Floor for several hours. In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni becomes shaken with unease after her encounter with the second dungeon boss once it leaves it's shell behind.
• Quest Giver: The map screen has quest notifiers identified by question marks that appear when they become available.
• Quivering Eyes: In the Mysterious Console DLC, when Noni realizes that the device has been activated, giving her contact for the first time after being trapped for years causes her to develop quivering tears before composing herself.
• Rainbow Speak: Listening to conversations from civilians will have them mentioning important things in red while stuff for Side Quests are colored blue.
• Randomly Generated Levels: The Mysterious Console DLC occurs in a randomized generating dungeon where the layout of each area is set in a variety of ways with enemy placement and pathways changing upon starting a new room.
• Randomly Generated Loot: In the Mysterious Console DLC, which occurs in a roguelike dungeon, entering certain rooms or defeating all enemies will cause an item chest to fall from above and give out a random reward of either being a new weapon to utilize or health / ammo for current weapons.
• Ransacked Room: After encountering a couple of thugs who were looking for her brother, Ann heads to Ryan's apartment to check on him. Upon arriving, she finds the room with most of the stuff tossed around with her only clue being a video ROM. Then, she gets ambushed and the ROM is stolen, leading to roofhopping across Noctis City.
• Reaction Shot: Ayane gets one upon seeing Ann awakening her Super Mode for the first time during her battle with Absalom.
• Reality Has No Soundtrack: While the game has an artistic soundtrack, certain locations such as the outside entrance of Freeway 42 and Noctis City don't have their own background music, solely accompanied by the ambiance noise of the surrounding areas.
• Reality Warper: Sigrid has the power to alter the whims of reality by focusing it on what she wants. As such, this allows improbable capabilities, like making a plant grow instantly or making "Santa Claus" appear to give her a present. Sigrid understands the nature of her ability but words it as 'magic', thanks to the "Grand Wizard" teaching her how to harness and contain it for the most part.
• Really 700 Years Old: Noni, a major character in the Mysterious Console DLC, has the appearance of a young teen. At the end, it's revealed she's over two-hundred years old. The reason she hasn't aged at all is because she's a virtual copy of the real Noni who passed away from chronic disease and was created in her likeness by her parents after receiving aid from an unknown Anonymous Benefactor, but then ended up trapped in the device after they were killed in a car accident.
• Recurring Boss: There are two bosses fought twice. The Varanus is first encountered as a hologram for the Training Boss of the tutorial segment, it later returns as a Waterfront Boss Battle within its confinement cell at The Consortium's base. Absalom first fights at Freeway 42 to see what Ann is capable of, he later returns partway into The Consortium's underground base to challenge Ann once more.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The Mysterious Console DLC utilizes the soundtrack from the main game throughout each area, and others are used for battle encounters.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Elite Task Force of The Consortium has the soldiers outfitted with black metallic armor covered in red coating to signify they are the highest level of security to contend with any intruders that penetrate the facility.
• Red Baron: A higher-up of the Factio Pugni calls himself "The Unbeatable" Loki due to his wielding of a BFS. He also has a brother called "The Unbeatable" Tai Long.
• Red Filter of Doom: Whenever Ann's Life Meter nearly runs out, the screen turns red from all sides.
• Redshirt Army: During Ann's traversal through Freeway 42, The Consortium sends a tactical squadron to a different location to retrieve The Varanus after it escaped captivity. After the squad comes into contact with it, The Varanus attacks and kills all of them after unleashing an attack when they were in its line of sight.
• Religious Horror: Though the story takes place in a Post-Cyberpunk setting, there are various elements pertaining to this. The Eldritch Location called Limen is an enormous crater that brings out supernatural phenomena with a humongous cross emerging from its center when being surrounded by Creepy Crosses, the world of Hinterland itself has demented crosses over a hellish landscape, including skeletal marked crosses.
• Remote Control Ruckus: A variation. While at the Flores household, Ann can examine a mini-handheld game controller and reminisce to when she shoved Ryan over to quickly grab at it.
• The Resenter: Though he never shows much of it, C holds The Consortium in high contempt for the death of his fiancee when she got sucked into a dimensional rift. Since then, he has secretly planned to obtain an Artifact of Doom for his own use, and when that fails, he resorts to overthrowing The Consortium entirely.
• Reveal Shot: During her visit beneath Freeway 42, Ann is hit by an attack and loses consciousness, after-which she finds herself in Hinterland following a voice calling her name. Once she reaches the center, the camera pans out to show an Eldritch Abomination Pinned to the Wall by an ancient weapon.
• Rewarding Inactivity: Watching the fighters at Harbor Town's arena for thirty seconds as a spectator earns the achievement "Deadly Kombationem".
• Rewarding Vandalism: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni can freely destroy all the furniture within the mansion's dungeon to acquire hearts and ammo whenever she needs a brief refill.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: While progressing through Freeway 42's underground biological research base, Ann comes across several egg-like substances.
  Ayane: What's that sticky stuff over there?
  Ann: My guess is that it's secretion from the grubs that...
  Ayane: I know, I know! It was a rhetorical question!
  Ann: (sigh)
• Rhino Rampage: One of the various enemies are Mooks wearing metallic rhino armor who'll pull out powerful swings or a charged rush to deliver heavy damage.
• Ring Menu: When in battle, using the right stick with bring up a ring menu displaying each of Ann's weapons for quick selection.
• Robot Dog: In Skopp City, a civilian with a robotic dog is seen barking at a patron trying to hit on her. Over at Harbor Town, a cyborg corgi is the one in charge of the local bar, it also detest being petted.
• Roguelike: The 'Mysterious Console' DLC is a roguelike minigame traversing several dungeons combined with Bullet Hell elements.
• Rolling Attack: In the boss fight against the Mother Grub, it uses its own body to spin at high speed to roll around the area and attack from above when it launches itself into the air.
• Roofhopping: The first major area occurs on the various rooftops of Noctic City as Ann chases down a Factio Pugni thug to retrieve a stolen ROM.
• Rooftop Confrontation: The final fight has Ann battling C's One-Winged Angel form on the rooftop of The Consortium's facility.
• Royal Rapier: K, being one of the more well-mannered members of The Consortium, brandishes one of these to duel C to keep him busy while Sigurd casts her spell. For most of the fight they're evenly matched, though he gets disarmed a few times.
• Rule of Cool: The story follows an Action Girl who's also a One-Woman Army that single-handedly takes down mooks from various organizations, Mini Mechas, and Animalistic Abominations with an Enhanced Punch. She also happens to have a Super Mode that's connected to a supernatural being sealed in Another Dimension, can dish out twice the amount of damage towards opponents.
• Run or Die: At The Consortium's underground facility, Ann encounters a Brown Note Being called The Eroder that's impervious to her current weapons and can only escape from it when starts pursuing her to avoid being affected by its instantaneous kill-effect upon contact until she locates a weapon that can destroy it.
• Safe Behind the Corner: At The Walter Raleigh, Ann comes across the warden setting one of his lackeys on fire with flame-spewing traps while she hides behind the corner of a wall to avoid detection.
• Sand Worm: At The Consortium's underground facility, there are Sandpit Worms that evolved from Native Grubs after adapting to a barren desert environment. Like their sewer counterpart, they're easily disposable.
• Save Point: There are laptops dispersed throughout each major area with the function to manually save progress and improve Ann's Skill Scores and Perks.
• Say It: One conversation by a couple of citizens has them arguing with the other to demand their outfitted weaponry is the best.
• Say My Name: At Freeway 42, Ayane calls out for Ann after seeing her get dropped down a Trap Door. In the bad ending, Ann yells out for Ryan upon seeing him getting shot and killed right in front of her.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: While traveling to The Walter Raleigh, Ann meets a mysterious individual, K, who proceeds to tell Ann a story about a child who made a Deal with the Devil, all with shiny glasses, and just before Ann can ask anything else, he suddenly vanishes.
• Scenery Censor: Whenever Ann uses the shower at her apartment, the full view is covered by a decorative jar standing in front of the center.
• Scenery Porn: There are breathtakingly beautiful Post-Cyberpunk environments to explore, one particular moment shows a entire scenery shot of Noctis City to establish the well-circumstantial art.
• Schematized Prop: A collectible item is a diagram detailing a blueprint for the Cyber Neko statues found throughout areas.
• Science Fantasy: The story takes place in a Post-Cyberpunk world where hi-tech mega corporations and advanced technology with the likes of Flying Cars, knowledgeable A.I, and manufactured specialized materials are the norm, then partway is it shown that supernatural elements are a part of this as well. The world has undergone various extramundane phenomenal that came with multiple anomalies in the range of unearthly creatures or a Mystical Plague, all of which is traced back to a mysterious crater that brings forth any sort of unknown abnormalities, which itself it studied by a scientific organization searching the means to destroy it.
• Score Screen: Getting a Game Over in the Mysterious Console DLC displays the total score for all the enemies defeated and the progress made in the roguelike minigame.
• Scotty Time: Castor informs C that he has managed to acquire the device needed to obtain the Artifact of Doom, but needs several days of testing before utilizing it. C demands preparations begin immediately, ignoring Castor's warning that rushing the process would risk a spatial collapse in reality.
  Castor: I have obtained what you wanted. I'll need a couple of days for testing still, it's not quite ready yet.
  C: I don't have a couple of days.
  Castor: Rush this, and we risk a spatial collapse within The Consortium.
  C: If you want to restore the former glory of your family, I'd hurry. Make haste and remember; don't fail.
• Scrapbook Story: Several tidbits of information that expands on characters and exposition are conveyed through various documents and personal journals that are found in certain areas.
• Scratch Damage Enemy: The Giant Rock Crab at Freeway 42 is heavily encased in stone and metal, receiving only a mere point of damage when struck with normal attacks or using a handgun. The BFS is what's capable of piercing through its armor until it becomes weakened enough to be stunned.
• Screen Shake: A screen shake occurs whenever Bad Vibrations are involved or when Ann performs a Finishing Move against enemies.
• Scrolling Text: All dialogue conversations that occur in text boxes scrolls by at a fairly rapid pace.
• Sea of Sand: After their defeat, Castor and Melissa both end up getting stranded in the midst of a desert that's overlaid with sandy hills of ergs, a clear sun, and without any excess of rocky terrain, with both of them Hammered into the Ground upon landing headfirst.
• Secret Compartment: Alan Doyle keeps the access code for his underground lab's personal computer hidden within a stuffed teddy bear that used to belong to his child to ensure no one finds out who he works for.
• Secret Room: At Noctis City, Ann is searching for a mook who was spotted entering a storage building. She discovers a terminal, once activated, causes a mini-elevator to appear from the ground that leads into a hidden basement.
• Self-Applied Nickname: Ayane considers herself a "Superstar Hacker" when assuring Ann she'll be able to hack through The Consortium's encryptions.
• Self-Disposing Villain: In the midst of the roofhopping area at Noctis City, Ann encounters a mook in boar armor that immediately attempts to attack her by performing a charging rush attack. Ann immediately dodges it while the mook ends up causing himself to be thrown off the top of the building and fall straight to the ground.
• Sense-Impaired Monster: The Monster Compendium details that the mutated crabs found beneath Freeway 42 had lived in darkness for so many years below ground their eyesight had become permanently impaired, which they compensate by improvising their scents and sound to detect and attack anyone who comes near their territory.
• Sentry Gun: At The Walter Raleigh, there's several gun turrets mounted up in the background. After the alarm has been raised, they're fully activated, and take aim at Ann for several seconds before firing an energy shot.
• Sequel Hook: Even in the Revised Ending, which answers a few of the ominous questions presented by where the game originally left off, the faction that manipulated C into unleashing the Hinterland remains at large by the end of the game.
• Serial Escalation: What starts off as a Post-Cyberpunk adventure story, starts to shift towards the supernatural, adding new twists to the plot and the mystery behind it, stacking up events that lead to battles against otherworldly abominations; cumulating in a fight against a Draconic Abomination.
• Severely Specialized Store: Throughout the cities there are chip shops that specializes in selling only enhancements chips that are for boosting abilities when equipped to Socketed Equipment.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Ann's Twilight Veil outfit that she picks up for a certain objective is short enough to be a strapless dress that promptly displays her back.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: The Loppers who reside beneath Freeway 42 all wear hooded cloaks to have their faces obscured in shadow with red glowing eyes as the only visible trait that can be seen when they attack whoever enters their territory.
• She-Fu: Ann knows a variety of martial arts that she can use in combat. She can also upgrade her Grom system to have a number of acrobatic hand-to-hand techniques, such as a running knee strike that can launch enemies off their feet and into each other for extra damage.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: The Masked Woman is a Mysterious Stranger who seems to harbor her own intentions when giving Ann information on the circumstances she's getting involved in since she knows a lot more then she's letting on. In the final area, she reveals herself to be on Ann's side in stopping C's machination on obtaining the Artifact of Doom as she is one of the former seven subjects of the Gatekeeper Project.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: The attack forces of The Consortium come equipped with shields to defend from attacks or use to bash for damage.
• Ship Level: Ann travels to The Walter Raleigh, a decrepit old freighter ship nearby Harbor Town owned by the Factio Pugni to retrieve Ryan's stolen ROM.
• Ship Tease: Ann and Ayane frequently have incredibly intimate interactions with each other, like giving each other lap pillows and Ayane constantly flirting with Ann. Whether this is just playful banter or Ayane being serious and Ann either rejecting the romantic advances or not realizing Ayane's intentions is never made clear, but the two are extremely close and enjoy the other's company nonetheless.
• Shock Stick: The Bulwark task force from The Consortium specialize in wielding large red metallic electrical rods that generate a shock attack when thrust with enough force.
• Shockwave Stomp: In the battle against the MI Mecha, one of its attacks consists of punching the ground with such strong force, the resulting blast creates a powerful shockwave that stretches out across the fighting area to deliver a knockback strike unless evaded.
• Shop Fodder: Ann can find all manner of junk items that are explicitly only meant to be sold for more credits.
• Shoryuken: Ann's Jujutsu skill lets her perform an uppercut attack to send an enemy airborne followed by an additional punch to toss the target towards the ground for max damage.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Holtz Flores prefers to use pump-action shotguns for home defense and presumably, defending the Family Business he used to run before handing over the duties to Nakamura.
• Shot to the Heart: Alluded in the Flavor Text for the Digitalin, it can be taken orally, most users wrongly inject it by force onto the heart.
• Shower Scene: One of the first things Ann does in the opening hours of the game is take a shower, which the player sees from outside the bathroom and with a conveniently placed jar blocking most of your view of her.
• Showing Off Your Powers: After a rather unexpected Surprise Santa Encounter, Sigrid explains that it happened because of her "magic" when she wished for it, and then proceeds to use her ability to make a flower fully grow from an empty pot.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shows Damage: All enemies receive numeral damage numbers indicated whenever Ann attacks.
• Shrine to the Fallen: At the Underground City beneath Freeway 42, The Outcasts hold a large secluded antechamber with a shrine holding illuminating candles and photographs of the victims who perished to the Mechanika Virus.
• Siblings in Crime: One of the higher-ups of the Factio Pugni calls himself Loki "The Unbeatable" who shares that title with his brother, "The Unbeatable" Tai Long.
• Sickly Green Glow: At the Abandoned Laboratory beneath Freeway 42, a Fungus Humongous evolved to undertake biological habits, forming green glowing splotches that emit deadly fumes to surround it.
• Sidequest: There are several side-missions throughout the main cities, ranging from gathering a certain number of items, finding an lost object in a major area, and searching for a missing person. Completion of these quests grant credits, Grombitz, and Tech Points for the Skill Tree.
• Side-Story Bonus Art: Official bonus artwork displayed in the bonus art gallery shows Ann and Ayane sharing a photograph together. The main developers' Twitter features the two wearing New Years celebratory outfits.
• Sigil Spam: The Consortium keeps their mark throughout their base on each of their vehicles, weaponry, technology, including documents and messages.
• Signature Headgear: The Masked Woman is always wearing a plated mask whenever she appears to provide an Info Drop.
• Silly Walk: Loki has his Weapon Across the Shoulder while having a strict-tight walk when fighting in a battle.
• Sinister Scythe: The members of The Outcasts who went renegade wield metallic scythes to attack whoever approaches them.
• Skeleton Motif: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the floors containing the boss of each dungeon has their Boss Room indicated by a red skull once it is found on the mini-map.
• Skill Scores and Perks: Ann can upgrade her "Talents" through a skill tree with three sections that require Grombitz and Upgrade Points. "Basic" increases her stats of Health, Attack, and Defense. "Tactical" gives improved effects to her weapons and attacks. "Expertise" grants her new moves she can use in battles.
• Skin-Tone Disguise: After the Mechanika Virus pandemic had subsided, a biological skin, appropriately called Bioskin, was developed for victims who survived to let them regain their original looks, also equipped with sensors to emulate sensations.
• Skull for a Head: The Varanus, an Animalistic Abomination being kept by The Consortium, has the entirely of its skull fully exposed on the decaying body. In the final fight, C's One-Winged Angel form as Nidhogg notably has his dark-colored skull entirely viewable.
• Skyscraper City: Skopp and Noctis City consist of conglomerate superstructures that are interconnected with passerby commuter trains, and fully displayed Adverts on most compositions.
• Slept Through the Apocalypse: In the bad ending, Ryan is shot by The Consortium and blacks out. After Amok has destroyed the world, he awakens to the sound of Bad Vibrations to find the building in ruins, everyone in the vicinity gone, and arrives shocked to find the outside is now a Hell on Earth.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Noni, the player character of the Mysterious Console DLC, is a tiny young girl who picks up a variety of large weapons like a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, plasma gun, submachine gun, and an assault rifle, with each of them being huge that she's able to carry with ease to take on enemies.
• Smashing Survival: Getting hit with a heavy attack attack will temporarily stun Ann, rotating the control stick will shake off the effect. This occurs while also fighting Melissa, as getting hit by her ice attacks will trap Ann until the control stick is spun around.
• Smash the Symbol: In the bad ending, after Amok uses Ann's Moment of Weakness to take over her body, she delivers a massive slash towards the mark of The Consortium just before unleashing destruction on the world.
• Smash to Black: In the bad ending, Amok's destruction of the world starting with Skopp City smashes to black as the large mechanical claws overtake the city.
• Socketed Equipment: Each of Ann's weapons has three sockets for enhancement chips that would increase it's strength, amplify critical damage, or double penetrating attacks against armor health.
• Some Dexterity Required: While most controls for standard moves/attacks are relatively simple, some of the expertise skills require an amount of combination between both movement and button combos to be utilized against enemies.
• Something Itis: Ann is undergoing treatment for 'Entanglelitis', which causes her to lose consciousness and attack people. It's actually a cover for her supernatural ability to sense and mentally visit other dimensions, something that the Circle Consortium wants to cover up.
• Something Only They Would Say: after Ann awakens her Super Mode and loses consciousness, Ayane quickly asks what's the Affectionate Nickname she gives Ann to assure she is still herself. Ann embarrassingly replies "darling", reassuring Ayane that Ann's 'other self' is gone.
• Sore Loser: After Ann takes down T.R's mechanical defense system, he hastily throws a temperamental hassle. He quickly regains his composure when Ann arrives to retrieve the stolen ROM.
• Sounds of Science: Several Story Breadcrumbs found in many areas display exuberant findings while talking about their studies regarding any supernatural variants they've studied.
• Sound-Only Death: In an optional scene, Dr. Doyle's backstory shows he had a wife and child. After a particular moment, the camera shifts to the child's toy figures where one of them is struck by a car accompanied by the sound of a crash, and the scene that follows shows Doyle standing besides his unconscious child while his wife is gone.
• Sound Test: The in-game soundtrack is available as part of the upgrade pack for the main menu to play the music.
• Sparing the Final Mook: When a group of thugs from the Factio Pugni arrive at The Sicilian Jar searching for her brother, Ann leads them outside and takes down all of them until a single member is left, who immediately surrenders and explains why they were looking for Ryan before running off.
• Speech Bubbles: The dialogue between characters has the speech bubble appearing as a floating square-shaped box appearing overhead on whoever is speaking.
• The Speechless: Noni, one of the major characters in the Mysterious Console DLC is introduced as being unable to speak and can only communicate by Talking with Signs. At the end of the last level, it's explained the reason she can't talk is because she's a digital copy of the actual Noni who died years ago, and her parents were killed before they could give her the ability to speak.
• Splash of Color: In a few scenes when Ann has an encounter with the Masked Woman, the scenery turns fully monochrome, with the exception Ann and the Masked Woman who remain in color.
• Spoiler Cover: A visual cover spoils that there's a dragon, when it's a Post-Cyberpunk setting. This is significant because it signifies the importance of Reality Warper Sigrid to the Final Battle.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Absalom possesses the ability to materialize an energy sword directly into his hand when he's about to directly battle an opponent. Amok, being a supernatural entity, also possesses a similar ability with her own sword.
• Squee: Ayane lets out a positive-filled squee upon seeing Ann getting into wearing a Little Black Dress. Later, she does another after reuniting with Ann while leaping onto her and grabbing her chest.
• Standardized Space Views: The opening starts with a satellite's orbital view of Earth while having several missiles guided towards it target.
• Stargazing Scene: On their way to The Walter Raleigh, Ann and Ayane spend the boat-ride admiring the night sky being illuminated by the moon. Ayane decides the moment would be perfect for a Love Confession, only to turn around and see Ann had already went inside.
• Start Screen: The game opens up with a shot of a puddle on the ground, pressing the start button pans the camera up to show the protagonist, Ann, in the middle of Noctis City.
• Stat-O-Vision: Using the Grom System's scan function on enemies will present their total health and armor defense, as well adding information about them to the Monster Compendium.
• Stationary Enemy:
  • The Trans Grub at Freeway 42 conceals itself underneath the ground until it senses any target walking on top of it and then swiftly emerges to swallow whoever triggered it.
  • The Demolition Attack Drone remains motionless in air being surrounded by a Living Motion Detector radius. When the overlay is penetrated, it automatically flies itself towards the target before self destructing.
• Status Buff: The Erythropoietin and 654-2 drinks temporarily increases Ann's attack and defense stats for 60 seconds, also provides additional damage to enemies armor bar.
• Status Line: When in combat, the display fully depicts the Life Meter, main weapons that are equipped, the items being held in the shortcut menu, and the current amount of ammo for sub-weapons.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: The Masked Woman occasionally appears in front of Ann, drops a bit of exposition, and instantly disappears before Ann can ask anything else.
• Steam Vent Obstacle: At Freeway 42, the underground city of the outcasts' holds a number of pipes letting loose steam for a few seconds.
• The Stinger: After the credits of the initial ending, Ann is standing before Amok again in Hinterland, who offers Ann to change her destiny, ending before Ann's response is said.
• Story Breadcrumbs: Several major sections of information that expands on characters and exposition about the Post-Cyberpunk world are emanated through the Lore Codex, various documents, speaking to numerous NPCs, and reading personal journals that are found in specific areas.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: The Masked Woman that appears repeatedly overtime appears to much of what's going on behind the scenes when she drops a variety of exposition to Ann. In the final area, she removes her mask, revealing herself that while she certainly looks human, she's actually The Watcher who solely wants Ann to defeat the Big Bad from enacting his master plan.
• Strong and Skilled: Ann is a highly-skilled Action Girl that excels in athletics combat, strength, speed, along with her handling of swords and usage of tactical weapons, makes her a formidable fighter to face as she battles and takes down a barrage of enemies and even supernatural creatures.
• Strong Family Resemblance: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni has a family picture in her bedroom, promptly showing that she greatly resembles her mother standing besides her. It later turns out she's a virtual copy of the real Noni who died to chronic illness and was created by her parents to fully resemble the original.
• Stunned Silence: In the bad ending, after Ryan had Slept Through the Apocalypse, he awakens in a entirely vacant destroyed building. Upon moving through wreckage of the building's ruins, he stops with filled-horror at seeing the world has become a barren wasteland of destruction.
• Stylish Protection Gear: Ann's battle suit. It comes with a number of extra features thanks to the Grom System, such as the Crosshair Aware lasers and targets that warn you of incoming projectile attacks and explosives.
• Stylish Sunhats: At Ann's room, she has a photograph of Nakamura featuring her with a sunhat when she previously worked as a model.
• Super Mode: After the first battle with Absalom, Ann awakens to her interdimensional traveling powers and can now manifest Amok in her world, granting her a visible change in appearance, twin katanas that are obscenely more powerful than any of her weapons, and an infinite supply of ninja throwing stars. It is on a very short activation period but can absolutely wipe the floor with enemies or deal severe enemy to a boss, along with Ann both being invincible and regenerating health so fast nothing can harm her. Ayane refers to it as "Super Ann" mode.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Ryan Flores is hindered quite heavily that his older sisters; Helen, Nakamura, Ann, are much more successful and reliable, leaving him to constantly be the one being saved or needing rescue whenever he gets himself into trouble. This is part of why his attempt to locate N540 for Ann comes from trying to prove himself.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: The first time Sigrid is seen using her special ability, the soundtrack immediately halts.
• Suddenly Shouting: C, in the midst of his Villainous Breakdown, is confronted by G, who tells him to give it up already. C proclaims that he still has time to finalize his master plan, while G dictates The Consortium's council will not allow him to restart The Gatekeeper Project, C promptly yells back in a sudden demonic voice that he'll take matters into his own hands.
  C: TO HELL WITH THE GATEKEEPER PROJECT!
• Super-Deformed: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the characters within the titular device like Noni and all the enemies encountered have a super-deformed style being minuscule in animesque likeness.
• Super Mob Boss: T.R, the leader of The Factio Pugni, possesses superior mechanical modification skills. Upon gaining ownership of The Walter Raleigh that becomes his turf, he began full construction to create a offensive battle mech modified with powerful parts and equipment from various technology which he personally controls to deal with anyone crossing into his territory.
• Super Window Jump: After Ann takes down several of Loki's thugs, he escapes by jumping out of an apartment window. Ann pursues him by jumping out the same window and doing a Casual High Drop.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Amok, a supernatural being of mass destruction that's from Another Dimension possesses golden glowing eyes. Ann also gets these whenever she activates her Super Mode.
• Superpower Lottery: Ann awakens a dormant Super Mode within, which provides her with dual katanas that are far more powerful than any of her normal weapons, an infinite supply of ranged ammo, greatly increased stats, and rapidly regenerating health that effectively makes her invincible. It's later revealed that this ability was granted onto her as a result of experimentation that was performed on her when she was a child.
• Surprise Santa Encounter: While at the Flores residence, Sigrid gets a surprise visit from "Santa" popping in from the roof to give her a teddy. Immediately, Holtz Flores pulls out a shotgun and takes the guy for a thief before chasing him out. In the epilogue, "Santa" makes another visit, much to the confusion of Ann and her siblings, and this time, Holtz makes sure he doesn't get out of it so easily.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The story starts out as a Post-Cyberpunk action-adventure in a futuristic metropolis. At a pivotal moment, Ann loses consciousness and awakens in a Eldritch Location that's immersed in a bloody landscape with Creepy Crosses around and ominous silence. After reaching the center, Ann comes across a Humanoid Abomination that immediately proceeds to temporarily use her body as a Superpowered Evil Side.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: While making her way through The Consortium's underground facility, Ann comes across a surveillance room and discovers the organization has been monitoring her and Ayane at specific locations ever since they started closing in.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The game was originally developed to be an SCP Foundation work. It was revamped into an original property in order to avoid IP problems, while characters, such as The Reptile retained its design and is referred as The Varanus, just as Sigurros was renamed into Sigrid who also has Reality Warping powers. More specific characters in The Consortium are substitutes of the foundation as well; C is based on Dr. Clef, G is based on Dr. Gears, B is based on Dr. Bright, and K is based on Dr. Kondraki.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The Corn brothers of Corn & Corn, cyborgs with corn cobbs for heads, pop up all over the place in sewers and secret labs they have no business being in, to sell Health Potion drinks and sometimes serve as a workbench, to make sure the player doesn't run out of supplies.
• Sweat Drop: In various instances, characters will have a sweat-drop whenever witnessing a demeaning event. After Castor and Melissa end up stranded in the desert, Castor rants in Symbol Swearing while Melissa watches from afar with a sweat-drop occurring besides her.
• Switch-Out Move: In the fight against the two elite Cyber-Kunoichi at The Consortium's facility, both of them will perform an instant swap technique with each other to take their place after receiving a significant amount of damage.
• Sword Beam: In the fight against Absalom, his blade is able to shoot off energy waves when he attacks, he can even form several tornado attacks comprised of slash beams.
• Symbol Swearing: Castor and Melissa, having survived their portal malfunction are left stranded in the middle of a desert. Castor, outraged at C's betrayal, rants angrily as his words are written in random symbols.
• Tactical Door Use: At The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base, Ann comes across a large red sphere of corrupted energy that chases after her until she makes her through the door into the next area.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: T.R., the head of the Factió Pugní, fights with two giant, weaponized freighter ship crane arms, capable of crushing intruders to death along with conventional weapons like missile pods. The missiles the latter fires can be dodged then disarmed by Ann, then used with her "Tunguska" missile launcher, which is the only way she can deal damage to the vulnerable motors that keep the crane arms working. Had T.R. not used those missile launchers, Ann would have likely been tired out or found it impossible to destroy his machine.
• Tactical Withdrawal: After being beaten by Ann's Super Mode in their first encounter, Absalom teleports out with a promise that he isn't done yet and will return again for a rematch.
• Tail Slap: In the final fight against C's Draconic Abomination form, Nidhogg, one his attacks is swiping his tail with powerful force to deliver knockback damage upon hitting his target.
• Taking the Fight Outside: When members of The Factio Pugni show up at The Sicilian Jar demanding Ryan's whereabouts, Ann immediately leads them out to the backside and takes them all down.
• Talking with Signs: In the DLC, Noni is unable to speak due to her avatar's appearance, she instead writes her messages on the ground to communicate with Ayane.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In a Pensieve Flashback, Ann attempted to get Ryan out of a dangerous gang, when the members assaulted her, the act prompted Amok to materialize within Ann and she took down the gang members. Unfortunately, she lost control and attacked Ryan as well, slashing his eye in the process.
• Team Shot: The main cover features Ann and Ayane together amidst the Post-Cyberpunk city.
• Teaser Equipment: At the various weapon and equipment shops, there are powerful swords and boost chips available from the start. The credit pricing is in the high thousands, which can only be reached once enough Shop Fodder and unwanted items have been sold off.
• Tech Points: Grom Upgrade points are earned after defeating bosses and completing certain sidequests, they can be used to enhance Ann's skills and earn new moves.
• Technicolor Fire: At Freeway 42, several residents who stayed behind following the Mechanika Virus outbreak sit together by a bonfire emitting a blue flame. In the final fight, C's Draconic Abomination form as Nidhogg fires off blue flames when attacking the whole area.
• Technicolor Toxin: The Acid Attacks performed by enemies that inflict Damage Over Time via poison aliment are green. The Fungus Humongous at Freeway 42 emits green fumes of deadly poison in it's surrounding area.
• Teleportation: The N533 Technology are devices spread throughout several areas that not only use healing elements, but also contain a derivative of teleporting between them once activated.
• Temporary Platform: At The Consortium's underground lab, Ann comes by a gravity manipulation room containing floating cubes that dissipate and reappear, along with one of the card keys she needs to open the lock.
• Terminal Transformation:
  • An effect that befalls victims of the Mechanika Virus is if they undergo a full transformation, they would die from the strain of losing their flesh, and those that survived would lose their minds until their bodies act entirely as mindless monsters.
  • In the bad ending, Ann's Moment of Weakness causes her to be completely taken over by Amok, causing an out-and-out Death of Personality and letting Amok free to unleash total destruction.
• Terrible Trio: In the Mysterious Console DLC, the three dungeon guardians are the main impediments Noni faces off against to reach the exit.
• Thanks for the Mammary: When Ann reunites with Ayane after C is defeated, Ayane takes the time to leap onto Ann in a manner that also has her grabbing Ann's chest.
• Thanking the Viewer: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, after learning her spirit will be freed after exiting the final dungeon, Noni thanks Ayane for her help by spelling "Thank You!" on the ground before saying goodbye.
• Themed Cursor: The PC port's cursor is given a bright color and sonorous look to match the game's menu design.
• Theme Mobile: At Skopp City, Ann can trade Cyber Nekos for an optional vehicle called the Macaron Cat Mobile, an Alleged Car that's based on a fish beggar statue in the southern region.
• The Teaser: The story starts off with an N.G.O. Superpower launching a nuke at an Eldritch Location before shifting to Ann, the protagonist, heading out to perform combat training as part of the tutorial. Then later, Ann finds out her brother has gone missing, following the title appearing above Noctis City prior to the start of first major area.
• They Just Dont Get It: At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, after learning of Noni's Dark and Troubled Past, Ayane is told that Noni's family was involved with an Anonymous Benefactor that gave them a large sum of money, but still has trouble piecing together on solving the mystery.
• Thinking Up Portals: One agent of The Consortium, Castor, can open up portals to any location of his choosing. Though, he doesn't engage Ann in battle, he instead sends his partner, Melissa, to fight Ann by opening a portal that sends them both to a suitable fighting area.
• Third-Person Flashback: After defeating the MI Mecha, Ann briefly experiences a flashback to when she getting a check-up by Dr. Doyle while she was resting, and gaining a perspective of seeing that C and Doyle were secretly working together.
• This Just In!: A Loading Screen occasionally has a news report detailing about various events occurring off the main story.
• Title In: Each area is depicted on the screen upon first arrival.
• Title Theme Drop: The main title song is remixed for the epilogue theme entitled "Someday".
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Ann and Ayane respectively. Their character designs subvert expectations here — you'd expect it to be the other way around.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Ann is an Action Girl who takes on a variety of enemies and supernatural creatures while primarily wearing her hairstyle in a ponytail.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Consortium is in possession of an ancient scroll called The Codex, which contains 12 chapters written in an ancient codified language. Its contents are a source of information and different hypotheses such as the existence and details regarding Hinterland. Major corroborate findings from The Consortium informed them of a mythical weapon called The Artifact, hidden away in Hinterland that might be the key to destroy LIMEN.
• Too Clever by Half: C pulls many strings to finalize his master plan of obtaining an Artifact of Doom that'll let him access dimensions. However, he's too dependent on thinking his scheme will succeed without any consequences and that The Consortium wouldn't take any action against him, leading to his defeat.
• Too Strange to Show: The various Story Breadcrumbs and other lines of dialogue fully infer that the setting is full of supernatural elements, However, The Consortium is able to reveal what they've discovered through multiple Data Pads. One is Hinterland, a bleak landscape that is found through Another Dimension filled with unsettling Creepy Crosses. Another is the Mechanika Virus that was previously mentioned to have caused a pandemic across the world, with the repercussions of how the victims transformed weren't seen, but the details of how it occurred was explained in readable documents with Body Horror traits described. Nevertheless, The Consortium very obviously makes it their priority to capture and contain all the variants that were brought out by the Limen crater, keeping them in containment at their facility with a full report of their capabilities and the incidents each of them were involved in.
• "Too Young to Die" Lamentation: At The Consortium's inner facility, Ann comes across two co-workers having worries in regards to C's attempt at takeover and wondering if they'll make it out.
  Worker 1: Can we get out alive? I'm still young... I still have so much living to do! I want to have ten boyfriends!
  Worker 2: I still have a lot of games I've not played yet! Ahhh!!! I was hoping to die beside my game console!
• Took a Shortcut: Jos van Corn always happens to show up far in each area to sell his Corn Juice. When Ann asks how he arrived so quickly, Jos replies he needs to expand his business to compete with his competitors by setting up shop in unexpected places.
• Tourism-Derailing Event: Freeway 42 was once a prosperous area alongside a research facility with visitors until the Mechanika Virus caused such pandemonium that it and many other places were abandoned after the virus subsided. Despite this, there are remnants that survived by living in a Underground City beneath the sewers, along with stragglers that occasionally venture in to find materials for beneficial gain.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Since he was young, Ryan Flores has had more initiative and desire to be treated better. A flashback shows once hung out with a street gang and participated in illegal racing. This caught Ann's attention who proceed to slap him for this, and caused the crowd he's hanging out with to retaliate, which caused Amok to awaken within Ann, injuring several people and accidentally attacked Ryan, damaging his eye. The incident did cause Ryan to mellow out, but still wanted to make it up by searching N540 for Ann.
• Trail of Blood: In a viewable ROM video at Noctis City, "Manor 49" begins with a P.O.V. Cam going through a door and following a trail of blood before picking up a letter containing a symbol drawn in blood.
• Training Boss: After the initial training program, Doyle sends in a virtual beast to have Ann battle it.
• Transformation Horror: Certain in-game documents describe the effects of the Mechanika Virus as beginning with total mechanization in a victim's body part as machinery spread all over until the whole body is mechanized, resulting in the infected's death.
• Transhuman: Unsurprisingly, cults around the "Mechanika" virus sprung up before the vaccines were developed, and even up till now there are still cultists who praise the virus and bemoan the proliferation of the virus as preventing humanity from "ascending" to a higher form of existence. A poster in Freeway 42 lambasts this, with a picture of a horrific victim of Unwilling Roboticisation and the caption asking if he's "handsome" and if it was worth losing his sanity.
• Trap Door: At Freeway 42, Ann is dropped through one by the opposing tribe to fight their red beasts. Later on, she falls into another one when she's pitted against The Varanus.
• Trashcan Bonfire: Freeway 42 became a Ghost Town after the Mechanika Virus infected nearly every citizen who got caught up in the pandemic. The former residents sit together next to a bonfire lit by a blue flame while reminiscing the past before their bodies were mechanized.
• Trash the Set: In the final boss fight, the top of The Consortium's base gets wrecked during Ann's battle with C's Nidhogg form.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: After Ann is informed about Sigrid possessing reality-warping abilities, as soon she travels back to check on her, agents from The Consortium had already taken Sigrid with them before quickly leaving.
• Trick Bomb: One weapon that be created through crafting is the FM HE Grenade, a high-spec bomb formed from liquid nitrogen in specialized casing that immediately freeze opponents in ice after exploding.
• Troubled Fetal Position: After the Freeway 42 visit, Ann takes a moment to rest before assuming this position on how Ryan hasn't been found yet and having awakened a Superpowered Evil Side within her.
• The Tunguska Event: This event is mentioned in the Tunguska Missile's Flavor Text, where the explosion was apparently caused by a salvo of the prototype's missiles, which was then found by some staff from a Tithonus Group lab.
• Two Girls to a Team: Ann and Ayane are the only two employees who work at Raymond's Agency, which primarily investigates supernatural occurrences.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The story follows Ann searching for her missing brother as she locates various clues while battling opposing factions. Meanwhile, the top brass of The Consortium are trying to resolve the growing problem of C's machination before it spires out into mayhem, leading to how they're Connected All Along.
• Ugly All Along: In Noctis City, OK-Chan is a popular idol renowned for her good looks and stunning visual. "She" is actually a voluminous man using virtual-moveset technology to disguise himself as an idol.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Dr. Alan Doyle is an absolute Genius Slob living in a mess of his own lab, his clothing down to being a pair of camouflage boxers and his bare, metallic legs, he still got together with a well-mannered woman that became his wife. However, he ended up regressing into a bigger slob after his wife and child died.
• Uncle Sam Wants You: At Ann's room, she has a poster of Ayane doing this posture.
• Undead Child: Before entering The Consortium's facility, Ann encounters a Mini-Mecha being controlled by the spirit of a child that claims to be familiar with her. Certain documents imply the child was Dr. Doyle's.
• Underground City: Beneath Freeway 42, there's a regimen of dwellers converted by the Mechanika Virus living far underground. The tribe living there would lose any sense of identity upon the virus damaging their minds and end up being split off into the nearby ruins.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: The initial release had a grueling bug after you complete the Harbor Town Freighter area, if you return back to the Freighter, the boat ride to head back towards Harbor Town doesn't work, no matter how many times "go back" is selected, leaving you stuck, more-so if you saved at the point without any backups to get out of it. This was later fixed in a patch.
• Unlockable Content: The numerous content that unlocks automatically throughout is the Lore Codex for characters alongside the Monster Compendium by progressing, and new outfits for Ann by collecting the hidden Cyber Nekos or completing The Bartender minigame.
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Normal and Easy difficulty are only selectable when starting a new game for the first time. Completing the main game unlocks the Hell difficulty to be played alongside New Game Plus.
• Unnaturally Blue Lighting: Being propitious for being set in a Post-Cyberpunk setting, several areas such as Noctis City, are given a blue lighting to present a perpetual atmosphere.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: In one side-mission, Ann's search for a missing suspect has her entering a hellevator that leads to a Missing Floor going in a endless loop across a black empty space. She only finds the exit by traversing in the opposite direction.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Ann can perform a combat roll to dodge enemy attacks, and is also invincible for the brief duration of the roll.
• Unpredictable Results: The Consortium had once created "The Gatekeeper Project" in which they gave seven artificially created subjects their own unique abilities to experiment with to find a way of destroying Limen. Several of the research notes found in the facility indicated the staff did not take into account how the subjects wouldn't be able to properly control their strong powers due to being too young, and the result led to an interdimensional rift opening within their facility, leading to the project's shutdown.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: One side-quest by Ayane has her asking Ann to search for Noctis City's idol OK-Chan after finding evidence the idol might be in the area. Though, finding the apartment has OK-Chan turned out to be a bulky guy using a virtual move-set. Ayane took it in stride and compliments his incredible moves.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: In the past, the world underwent a crisis when the "Mechanika" virus caused bodies of people to be turned metallic and robotic, the most advanced and tragic cases losing their sanity and minds in the process. After a vaccine was created that stopped or mitigated the worst of the effects, most victims were given bio-skin to attempt to live some semblance of humanity.
• Unwitting Pawn: Ryan went missing shortly after receiving an anonymous N540 lead sent to him from C, who planned to capture and use him to lure Ann into a trap to use a dimensional device in order to retrieve an Artifact of Doom.
• Upgraded Boss: The Training Boss from the Tutorial Level, The Varanus, returns in The Consortium's underground facility. It's a lot more mobile than before, moves around the fighting arena by traversing through the surrounding water, and fires an Acid Attack.
• Uplifted Animal: Dr. B, an uplifted monkey who is one of the Consortium's key personnel.
• Urban Fantasy: The setting occurs in a futuristic-advanced cyberpunk metropolis with highly-developed technology and ultramodern scientific betterment. It is shown early on that supernatural elements exist as well by cause of an deep crater called Limen bringing out extramundane phenomenal beings that are kept in containment for study by an organization called The Consortium.
• Use Your Head: One of the various enemies are Mooks wearing metallic armor who'll do a charged rush by ramming with their head.
• Uterine Replicator: An image featured in the release announcement trailer shows a infant being incubated in a tank. A Story Breadcrumb located within The Consortium's underground facility indicates that this is how the seven subjects of the Gatekeeper Project were created to have them imbued with innate special abilities.
• Vagueness Is Coming: In the epilogue serving as a Sequel Hook, Dr. G reveals that C's actions were actually perpetrated by an unknown Nebulous Evil Organization that would eventually make another move. On top of that, a document found in a research room at The Consortium mentions that the energy emanating from the Limen crater is slowly growing and could bring about an apocalyptic event without precedence on the planet.
• Vehicle-Based Characterization: Ann's Queen Ntouka is described with strong bodywork and having a system to switch between modes, reflecting on how Ann is an Action Girl who also has a Super Mode.
• Vehicular Assault: One of the first bosses that Ann fights is a large construction mech modified with quadrupedal wheel tracks, armed primarily with giant industrial-sized plasma cutters.
• Vent Physics: At Freeway 42's abandoned biological research base, to reach a far-off terminal to activate the air system to get rid of toxic gas, Ann uses a nearby large rotary fan to get enough wind to jump over the gap.
• Version-Exclusive Content: In the Nintendo Switch port, Ann can receive an exclusive dress with joy-cons designs that she can optionally wear.
• Versus Character Splash: In the 'Mysterious Console' DLC, this occurs once Noni is about to battle a dungeon boss.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base serves as the final area. It is a Marathon Level consisting of multiple research stations and assembly lines that is split into several sections filled with Elite Mooks and a Boss Bonanza with the pathway leading to the inner center of the facility where C is located.
• Vice City: Noctis City is described in the Lore Codex as being a free land in fog and shadows. Citizens are said to flock towards Noctis to seek a life of freedom to fulfill their dreams while most die from the chaos and evil that happens beneath. Some choose to leave after experiencing such pandemonium, others adapt to the city's nature by becoming chaotic.
• Victorious Roar: After Ann beats Absalom in their first encounter after awakening her Super Mode, she unleashes a roar that causes the surrounding area to shake.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: One of the Mooks at the Ship Level is equipped with a flamethrower that only goes a few inches that's easy to avoid.
• Video Game Vista: On the first visit to an apartment building in Noctis City, Ann looks out over an outdoor viewing on the rooftop, giving an entire view of the city and the setting itself, complete with the main title appearing.
• Video Phone: Video Phone calls are displayed as the image of both caller and receiver appear on the screen to the sides and are only audible to the ones being contacted.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: Because of Ann's past as one of the former subjects of the Gatekeeper Project, C was easily able to find her residential home and sent a Mysterious Note to Ryan as part of his scheme to have Ann Lured into a Trap.
• Villain No Longer Idle: Once The Consortium starts turning against him, C decides to take matters into his own hands by obtaining the power of Hinterland by force with any means necessary.
• Villain Takes an Interest: After being beaten by Ann in their first encounter upon seeing the extent of her Super Mode, Absalom, a Blood Knight with interest in strong opponents, teleports out with a promise that he isn't done with her yet.
• Villainous Breakdown: C starts to undergo one once Ann has arrived at The Consortium's facility. With concerns that his Evil Plan could be prevented and learning Sigrid had survived his Uriah Gambit, his voice starts to shift into a demonic entity while ranting at his associates when they tell him he doesn't have a chance, to the point he attempts to overthrow The Consortium and take over for himself. After realizing Castor, the only person who could've initiated his master plan, had been defeated, he goes into a ballistic rage.
  C: That imbecile Castor failed!!! AAAAHAAAAAGRH!!!
• Virtual Celebrity: Throughout the cities, there are two idols gaining popularity; OK-Chan, a singer who uses a virtual avatar while keeping her real identity a secret, and Mion, a virtual idol who promotes herself and freely sends messages to gather fans.
• Virtual Ghost: The Mysterious Console DLC revolves around Ayane assisting a girl called Noni who has been living within a digital device and seeks to find a way out. It is later revealed that Noni is a virtual construct of the real Jet Noni who succumbed to chronic disease, and was created after her parents met with an Anonymous Benefactor to use the device to make her prior to their deaths in a car accident.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Ann can wear a variety of outfits whenever she's at a nearby closet that she got from purchased bonus content or at the city's clothing shop.
• Virtual Training Simulation: The tutorial segment occurs in a virtual simulator. The basic mechanics on how to perform combat and other skills are explained which leads to a battle against the Training Boss.
• Virtuous Character Copy: Sigrid is an expy of Sigurros from the SCP Foundation. Both of them possess Reality Warper abilities, but with differences; Sigurros is a Creepy Child who's convinced she is a witch unable to control her powers and forcibly kept in a coma. Sigrid on the other hand is a Nice Girl who is considered a Child Mage with full control of her ability without being restrained and assists Ann in defeating the Big Bad.
• The Vitruvian Pose: At the Flores residence, Holtz's favorite painting is the Vitruvian, displayed on the wall with a robotic design.
• Voice Changeling: The Monster Compendium entry for the Bloodluster creature describes when it hunts in packs out in the wild, it can imitate any voice that it has overheard to lure prey to their death.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Ayane primarily contacts Ann through the use of her Paipai drone that displays a full hologram of herself as she's being mended for her paraplegic treatment while at home.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: During her first battle against Absalom beneath Freeway 42's Underground City, Ann is momentarily knocked unconscious and awakens in the realm of Hinterland. After awakening her Super Mode and managing to force Absalom into a retreat, she collapses from exhaustion and later wakes up at the other side of the sewer after being recovered by the inhabitants.
• Wall Crawl: Ann gains an item called the Gelcor Fiber, which lets her climb up on metallic walls after Air-Dashing into them.
• Wall of Weapons: The multiple weapons shops located in various locations have an array of pistols, rifles, and swords on display upon the wall. The Consortium's weapons room also has this, which is where Ann picks up the Stormram.
• "Wanted!" Poster: In Skopp City, Ann can pick up a wanted poster for Eric Marcom, a convicted felon who recently escaped from prison. At Harbor Town, Marcom appears as one of the Optional Bosses at the fighting arena, where defeating him will earn a reward once Ann reports his location in Skopp City.
• Wardens Are Evil: The Mini-Boss of the Walter Raleigh is the warden overseeing the prison cells sporting a large mechanical suit. The Warden presents his Bad Boss status by tossing one of his lackeys into a death-trap before leaving him for dead.
• Warmup Boss: Loki and his Mini-Mecha attack from various angles by causing debris to fall from above and unleashing a Spin Attack requiring an dodge roll to avoid major damage.
• Warp Whistle: Throughout each major area, there are Healing Springs that function as warp points to fast-travel towards visited locations.
• The Watcher: The mysterious Masked Woman who informs Ann about the truth of multiple revelations reveals herself to be the vital force of a watcher, who solely desires to guide Ann towards the path that will save the world from destruction.
• Waterfront Boss Battle: The Varanus at The Consortium's underground facility is fought in its containment cell, a large stone center surrounded by sewage water. During the battle, it moves around the fighting area by traversing through the enclosing water before doing a Shockwave Stomp after emerging to shake the platform.
• Wave-Motion Gun: At The Consortium's facility, Ann acquires the Stormram particle cannon. It charges up briefly before unleashing a massive, potent beam of focused energy that can reach all the way from one end of the area to the other and pierce through opponents for several seconds to deal heavy damage.
• We Buy Anything: Ann can sell nearby junk to receive credits and buy new items. Most areas have all manner of random knick-knacks, outdated gadgets, and literal garbage whose sole purpose is to be sold for money. Realistically, they barely sell for anything more than 1-3 credits a piece, though to be fair, a lot of them can be picked up.
• We Only Have One Chance: Prior to the final fight against C, Ann is told the strategy to defeat him will be the only opportunity as C is currently backed into a corner and Sigrid is need to be protected while she's Gathering Steam to fully use her ability to expel C's Draconic Abomination form and destroy it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Consortium runs on its highest echelons for that there is little that is "too costly" or "unacceptable" when it comes to protecting the world from LIMEN and other supernatural threats. Among the crimes they've committed, there's secret concentration camps for incurable victims of the Mechanika Virus, human experimentation on children, and a private army who have highly-trained assassins and convoluted information sharing protocols to ensure that no one that needs to know, knows anything, nor will anyone be able to find records of what they have done. They'd be almost trustworthy if it weren't for their questionable ethical decisions.
• We Used to Be Friends: C was formerly on good terms with the rest of The Consortium's top staff; G, K, and B until one incident which caused the death of his lover, D, immediately made him cut all ties as he focused on his own agendas on obtaining an Artifact of Doom for personal gain, even ignoring the warnings he's given that doing so will end badly for him.
• We Wait: C has Castor engineered a device meant for capturing Ann until she arrives at a certain room within The Consortium's facility, while the former distracts the main staff to prevent them from interfering.
• We Will Spend Credits in the Future: The main currency in the city is virtual credits. It's expounded upon in "Intelligence" lore that this was a result of the Mechanika virus and "bioskin" containing all manner of sensors and wireless integration to systems. Since the digital currency was so convenient and effortless to use, and the government and other major organizations were already prepared and ready to process the sheer volume of it, physical currency all but fell out of common use and now survives in niche applications and as novelties.
• Weapon Grip Failure: When Ann beats Absalom in their first battle, he manages to unleash a Counter-Attack that causes her to lose balance and grip on her weapon before getting hit with a Criss-Cross Attack.
• Wham Shot: After retrieving her brother's stolen ROM, Ann manages to repair it and view the entire recording, with the final image showing Ryan entering Dr. Doyle's lab beneath Skopp City, signifying to Ann that Doyle was withholding information from her.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Alan Doyle disappears from the story after Ann discovers the hidden research facility in his lab, with no mention of his whereabouts afterwards.
• What Would X Do?: Defied. At the end of the Mysterious Console DLC, after learning of Noni's backstory on how she ended up trapped for years with nobody coming to help her, Ayane briefly asks Yuko on what Ann would do if the same happened to her.
  Yuko: If you ask me, she absolutely would.
• When Things Spin, Science Happens: At the power supply station beneath Freeway 42, the main power system is activated by the use of two cylinder generators that contains lots of electrical charges that spin at immense speed to generate full power.
• White Gangbangers: The Factio Pugni are the primary criminal element plaguing Noctis City and other nearby settlements, and they don't seem particularly choosy about who joins them, being a multiracial gang.
• Who You Gonna Call?: Raymond's Agency is a firm specializing in occult and inexplainable phenomena such as ghouls or a Mad Doctor wearing a plague mask.
• Wolfpack Boss: At the Central Administration Zone, Ann comes under attack by a Eindersohn Mecha, an offensive machine that is backed up by three Heavy Mechas outfitted with different types of weaponry; machine guns, heavy railguns, and homing missiles with each of them capable of doing a Ground Pound whenever they move around.
• Word-Salad Horror: Throughout The Consortium's facility, there are various staff members slumped over and spouting complete nonsensical sentences while cackling in madness without any clue to their surroundings as each of them were exposed to The Eroder that drove them to insanity.
• Word, Schmord!: A customer at the weapons shop is dismayed that the blade he is searching for isn't available in the city, calling it a "particle blade, smarticle blade".
• World Sundering: Several in-game documents detail various events that were caused by the Limen crater's supernatural anomalies resulted in a shift of the world's surface. The World Map fully shows the setting occurring across an open crater with floating rocks arising around it.
• Would Hurt a Child: C deliberately sent Sigrid to Freeway 42 to have her killed by the hostile wildlife after considering that her powers would be used against him. When that plan failed, he orders his attack force to eliminate her once she's brought to utilize her abilities.
• Writing Around Trademarks: The game was originally developed to be an SCP Foundation game like SCP – Containment Breach. It was reworked into an original property in order to avoid potential issues with the SCP IP, while still maintaining references of the original marker, such as renaming Sigurros (SCP-239) into Sigrid and keeping her Reality Warping powers, and using the design of The Reptile (SCP-682) while referring it as The Varanus.
• Wrong Assumption: After his previous encounters with Ann ended with him getting whooped, Silly Swine returns for the last time at the Ship Level, claiming that he's a Stone Wall. He's not, and receives a quick Curb-Stomp Battle from Ann.
• You Are Number 6: Ann Flores was once known as just "Subject 06" by The Consortium as part of the Gatekeeper Project and they won't hesitate to refer to her as that, despite having long since been given a proper name.
• You Can Run, but You Can't Hide: Eager to have Ann wear a Little Black Dress, Ayane tells her that she can't run or hide and should go with flow now that the dress shop assistants have arrived to make sure Ann wears the dress, even as she tries to escape.
• You Get Knocked Down, You Get Back Up Again: Getting knocked down after a quick succession of attacks leaves Ann briefly susceptible to additional opponent strikes. Some of the more heavy-hitters are those whose assaults have an ample knock-down affliction. Conversely, Ann can also use attacks following a combat roll to deliver a counter-strike upon getting back up.
• You're Insane!: After C explains the extent of his master plan involves obtaining an Artifact of Doom sealed in an Eldritch Location, Absalom responds by calling him a madman. Later, G outright calls C insane upon seeing the latter in the midst of a Villainous Breakdown and undergoing a Motive Decay when he tries to take over The Consortium for himself.
• Youthful Freckles: In the Mysterious Console DLC, Noni, a young teenage girl, is shown to have these when given a close-up on the Versus Character Splash.

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