Castle Age is a Flash-based game available through Facebook, set in a high fantasy universe. The player is a hero who returns to their war-torn kingdom, and begins a quest to recover various crystals scattered throughout the Lands of Fire, Earth, Mist and Water, as well as the realm of Demons, Undead, the Underworld and Heaven, with a bonus level in Atlantis.
It's basically Mafia Wars, but Recycled in fantasy novels.
This game provides examples of:
- Abusive Precursors: The Dragons' rule over Valeria in the distant past was characterised by frequent wars between rival factions, with numerous "lesser beings" being killed in the titanic battles. They were also known for actions such as engineering a race of sentient weapons to act as slaves, then exterminating them almost to the last when they were deemed too volatile to be controlled. Several late-game Boss Battle plotlines feature the Dragons trying to return and re-establish their dominion over the world, with the hero having to stop them before they can reinstate their tyrannical reign.
- A God Am I: Cassandra shows shades of this even before becoming an actual Demi-God, setting up a cult dedicated to worshipping her as the Goddess of Fates.
- Allegedly Free Game: Favor Points. A major cause of
They Changed It, Now It Sucks! for certain players, who perceive the game as having shifted dramatically towards favouring those who buy large quantities of them. - The Atoner:
- The entirety of the "Perdition" questline basically amounts to the Hero working to atone for their actions, following their corruption-induced Face–Heel Turn in Fire II.
- Azeron, the demi-god of redemption and judgement, specialises in facilitating this trope for those who wish to redeem themselves. Some of his dialogue when summoned implies Azeron himself to be this, having 'wavered' morally in the past and subsequently sought to make up for it.
- BFS: A few are available to players. Zarevok's Meat Cleaver - meat in this case being that of 50 ton monstrosities from Hell - comes to mind.
- Big Bad: Mephistopheles was eventually confirmed as such, though his initial boss form was considerably weaker than some that followed. A much harder encounter later followed.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: It's eventually revealed that the demi-god Malekus and Mephistopheles were working together throughout the first arc, with the latter handling most of the heavy lifting while Malekus worked behind the scenes to ensure their victory.
- Blood Knight:
- Keira, the Dread Knight, delights in battle and conflict. It's even remarked during her boss mission that the only reason she didn't kill you in minutes was because she hadn't been able to toy with a mortal in a long time.
- Alexandria is a notably heroic example — she loves fighting worthy opponents and desires for them to become stronger, with her entire reason for seeking the Hero out being a desire to test their strength after becoming impressed about their battle with Agamemnon (her colleague).
- Boss Banter: At the start of their Boss Battle, some bosses may taunt or threaten the players. Others prefer to give funny comments, or boast about their abilities.
- Boss Battle: Each Realm/Land ends in a mission where the player character confronts the region's main threat, only for them to escape with various degrees of ease. This then unlocks the boss's Summon option, letting the player can fight them properly.
- The Bus Came Back: After two Story Arcs' worth of absence, Sylvanas reappears in Fire II to corrupt the hero into a Face–Heel Turn.
- Chainmail Bikini: A running theme among the female generals and bosses is their use of skimpy armour, even when it makes little sense. For instance, Keira the Dread Knight's armour leaves her midriff on display, partly bares her thighs, and features a Cleavage Window up to her neck despite her specialising in melee combat.
- Complete Immortality: The Aspect of Death is hinted to have something like this - the boss's defeat message implies you were Fighting a Shadow all along, and that it will simply regenerate or be reborn in time.Aspect of Death: Death begets only death. The cycle will continue.
- Darker and Edgier: The Heart of Darkness sidegame notably had a much darker plotline and tone - the hero is constantly struggling against The Corruption plaguing their soul while they and their allies are hounded by villains, Character Deaths are a frequent occurrence in an otherwise fairly low-mortality setting, and several questlines end on a highly bittersweet note or outright Downer Endings.
- Deal with the Devil: Mephistopheles and Malekus struck an agreement prior to the game's events - Malekus would lend his strength to Mephistopheles' armies to ensure their victories, and in return they would split the souls of those slain in the battles between them, causing both to experience dramatic increases in power.
- Defeat Means Playable:
- Keira can become a general in the player's army if they beat her enough times to collect all of the armor pieces she randomly drops upon defeat.
- Lotus Ravenmoore, Mephistopheles, and several other bosses can be acquired as generals through purchasing their themed chests.
- Deity of Human Origin: Samael, the Wraith Legionnaire, is a god created by the dragons that once ruled Valeria. You have the option to fight and defeat him in an optional battle.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
- Azriel and Mephistopheles are pretty much fights against God and Satan. After completing the initial Crystals Story Arc, you later have to fight corrupted, hostile versions of the demi-gods. Later on, you even get to fight (and defeat!) the Avatar of Death itself before using its scythe to kill the newly-ascended goddess of fates.
- One of the optional Boss Battles pits you against the incarnate form of Samael, a deity created by the dragons of ancient Valeria. You and your allies ultimately best him, severing his ties to the world and kicking him back into the void he came from.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: Downplayed. The Aspect of Death isn't exactly friendly, but it fights you solely due to fate dictating that it must be so, and expresses no anger or resentment when the hero strikes it down.
- Evil Uncle: The penultimate mission of the Land of Water area involves fighting your formerly-heroic uncle Kefka, who has turned to evil and transformed into a gigantic creature resembling a Fallen Angel.
- Fighting a Shadow: The Aspect of Death and Wraith Legionnaire that you fight are actually nothing more than fractions of their wider beings. While you can't truly 'kill' either of them, you can defeat them and (in the case of the latter) banish them from the mortal realm.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: The starting choice among four heroes: one Fighter, one Thief or two Mages.
- Fireballs: Players have access to magic, including variations on the basic Fireball.
- Foreshadowing: The developers like to do this. For the first few chest sets, the epic generals foreshadowed their appearance in the story (Azriel being a notable example). Paying close attention to the story lore also gives a few more hints about what's to come.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- Azriel sided with Mephistopheles out of a belief that humanity's greed, folly, and selfishness meant that peace could never be achieved, despite all her efforts to ensure it did. Later she ends up redeeming herself by preventing Alpha Mephistopheles from destroying the world at the cost of her own life.
- As a result of the chaos that followed Mephistopheles' assault and Malekus' manipulation of the other demigods, they became malevolent caricatures of themselves, turning from benevolent protectors to ruthless tyrants. Azeron alone remained heroic due to his nature as a demigod of judgement and redemption, resulting in him turning against his former friends.
- You start heading down this path after your battle with Aurora, becoming increasingly callous toward your allies and friends due to the Dark Rage's influence over you. This culminates in Fire II where a combination of Mephistopheles' influence and Sylvanas' manipulations finally drive the main character into full-blown villainy, as they launch an assault to conquer the Land of Fire and steal the power of the other demi-gods; it takes a combination of Azeron's aid and your own efforts to atone to bring you back to heroism.
- God Needs Prayer Badly: The demi-gods draw power from their worship, and reward their followers in kind. The mass slaughter of their worshippers during Mephistopheles' invasion left all but Malekus badly weakened, which in turn provided him an opportunity to corrupt them.
- The Grim Reaper: One of the bosses is the Aspect of Death, a four-armed reaper-like figure encountered in the Undead Realm. The narration notes that it's not so much "Death itself" so much as a physical avatar of it.
- Have You Seen My God?:
- According to Azriel, the Creator "decided to leave" at some point in the past, effectively vanishing from the Castle Age universe after appointing Azriel as a caretaker of sorts.
- The demi-gods suddenly stop answering prayers from their followers at one point, before seemingly vanishing entirely after their mortal avatars are defeated in battle by the hero.
- High Fantasy: The Castle Age setting leans heavily into this genre. The main conflicts span entire countries and even different planes, with a strong focus on conflict between evil (such as The Legions of Hell, Abusive Precursors, or just invading orc armies) and good. The world itself is full of numerous fantasy races such as elves, dwarves, intelligent dragons, and similar, all of which can be recruited to aid the player on The Quest.
- Jerkass Gods:
- Subverted and played straight. Most of the demigods aren't naturally malevolent or even jerkasses - their Heel Face Turns were caused by one half of the Big Bad Duumvirate capitalising on their weakness after a cataclysmic event to corrupt them into acting on their darkest desires, all while twisting their minds to see you as a threat. Contrastingly, the demi-god of war Malekus is responsible for most of the conflict in the initial Story Arcs, having sided with Mephistopheles and corrupted his brethren as part of his Evil Plan.
- Played straight by Cassandra, after she becomes a proper demi-god. She was already a nasty piece of work beforehand, having decided to throw the world into chaos for fun, but gaining power over fate just makes her even worse.
- Knight Templar: The corrupted Corvintheus considers tyranny to be an acceptable cost for ultimate peace, and has no qualms with igniting a Civil War to remake civilization in his desired image.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: After the hero matches Agammemnon blow-for-blow during his Boss Battle, the Overseer decides to end the battle there and releases his true power in the form of a purplish Battle Aura that renders the hero barely able to stand in his presence. He then proceeds to take the hero down with one blow, though he pulls his punch at the last moment and commends them on making it that far.
- Luck-Based Mission: The random encounters based on your Elite Guard when you do quests. If you have lots of people in your Guard, you win and get extra quest progression and/or a unit/item. If you lose, you get less quest progression and no reward.
- The Man Behind the Man: Malekus was responsible for causing the other demigods to become monstrous tyrants, and played a significant role in aiding Mephistopheles' invasion.
- Money for Nothing: Even more so than Mafia Wars, it won't take long to start raking in ridiculous amounts of Gold. This is because of the Land system, by which you buy properties which give you a fixed income every hour. Unlike Mafia Wars, you don't need to collect it, so it doesn't matter how long you're offline for - the second you sign in again, you'll receive it all, even if it's tens of billions.
- Optional Boss: Lots of them; Bahamut, Alpha Bahamut, Ragnarok the Ice Elemental, Genesis the Earth Elemental, all the dragons, all the sea serpents and that's not even scratching the surface. In fact, since to progress through the quests you only have to do the one that involves the boss (which is not the actual battle itself) every boss is optional in a sense.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They come in four varieties, which from weakest to strongest are Emerald, Frost, Gold and Ancient Red. As they were the first monsters released, they're the only ones who aren't known to be sentient. Later updates revealed other types of dragon, such as Bahamut the Volcanic Dragon, the Dracolich Thanatos, and the playable Time Dragon.
- Physical God:
- The Demi-Gods (despite the name) seem to be this - each one has control over broad spheres such as justice, war, and magic, with incredible power to go with it. When they actually show up in person to fight the hero, they typically spend most of the fight handing them their arse before being taken down when the hero gets their second wind.
- Poseidon, the Atlantean King, shows up at one point to give the party a What the Hell, Hero? speech on their pillaging of Atlantis, before kicking the crap out of them with spells themed around his historical domains.
- Samael, the Wraith Legionnaire, is a Deity of Draconic Origin whose Boss Battle involves sending a physical avatar of himself into Valeria to re-establish the dragons' reign. The hero holds him back long enough for the mages to banish him.
- Agammemnon and Alexandria are very heavily implied to be something like this. Both refer to "mortals", and display physical and magical abilities on a similar tier to the demi-gods, though they seem bound to the Towers of Transcendence.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Many of the Monster Boss Battles end with the monster dead and the player's army taking heavy casualties. A few are even implied to cost the hero their life, though the ending is ambiguous enough for it to be interpreted either way note .
- Raised by Orcs: Keira's flavour text as a hero reveals that she was raised in the Demon Realm, despite her ostensibly human nature.
- Required Party Member: Many quests require that a certain hero be equipped; while you can complete the quest with another general, it will not progress the quest and consequentially prevent you from unlocking the next mission.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Lord Darius, the King of the Land of Earth, is also a paladin and well-known military leader. He's described as repeatedly leading his men from the front during several quests, and notably makes appearances in several Boss Battles as the leader of The Cavalry.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Several of the Optional Bosses flee from their battles when 'defeated', rather than being slain outright.
- Shout-Out: Way too many to list. Mostly to fantasy games like Baldur's Gate (Zarevok is very clearly named for Sarevok) and Final Fantasy (Bahamut much more closely resembles the creature from that game than the mythical entity). There are also references to other fantasy works like The Lord of the Rings (such as the hero Strider) or mythologies like Norse Mythology (Hammer of Storms is obviously based on Mjölnir). Many of its missions and lands are shamelessly based off Naruto. Cavern of Time and its unlockable hero (The Time Keeper, a dragon), are clearly inspired from World of Warcraft's own Cavern of Time which are guarded by bronze dragons.
- Story Arc: The main game is split into four major story arcs.
- Land of Fire to Ivory City: The hero's homeland (the Land of Fire) comes under attack by Orc hordes, who steal the Crystal of Fire. The hero and their army promptly set out on a journey through the other three element-themed lands, collecting their respective Crystals and battling powerful minions of the archdemon Mephistopheles as they go. In the Land of Water, they fight Mephistopheles' incarnate form and drive him back into the Demon Realm before pursuing him through multiple worlds to foil his planned invasion of Valeria.
- Earth II to Mist III: The absence of the Elemental Crystals following Mephistopheles' consumption of them to reach the Kingdom of Heaven unbalances Valeria's natural environment to grow chaotic, decimating the Land of Earth and awakening powerful Elementals. After one levels a mountain range during a battle with the hero, the Lands start going to war with each other as suspicion runs rampant, forcing the hero to return and try to understand the causes of the sudden aggression. The cause is the Demi-Gods, who have seemingly become twisted caricatures of themselves. The hero confronts and defeats each one, but is afflicted with a strange sense of Unstoppable Rage and overwhelming bloodlust.
- Fire II to Perdition: Mephistopheles and Sylvanas exploit the hero's rage and frustration to manipulate them into a Face–Heel Turn, with the hero beginning to wage war on the Land of Fire as revenge for supposedly using them as a pawn against Mephistopheles. After defeating one of the three remaining Demi-Gods, Azeron intervenes and explains the situation to the hero, bringing them back to their senses. The two defeat Malekus, the one responsible for the events of the previous three arcs, before the hero goes through a series of trials to purge them of The Corruption and return home.
- Fire III to Outer Realms: Years after your last climatic battle against Malekus, a strange cult begins to spread through the lands, spreading chaos and creating powerful monsters as they go. The hero has to unravel the reasons behind the cult's actions before travelling to the Outer Realms to defeat their Demi-God leader.
- Stripperific: Many female characters, heroines and villainesses alike. Particular mention goes to Keira
and Lotus Ravenmoore; the former wears a highly exposing set of armour, while the latter's outfit has an Impossibly-Low Neckline that bares her skin down to the navel and barely covers half her breasts. - Sssssnaketalk: Bahamut constantly hisses his 's'es whenever he talks, presumably to underscore his menacing nature.
- Tautological Templar: Corvintheus considers tyranny, war, and the oppression of those who do not follow his "righteous path" to be entirely acceptable, because the demi-god of honour, chivalry, and protection (i.e.: himself) approves of his actions. Subverted in his uncorrupted state, where he's a much more reasonable and chivalrous figure.
- Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed. Malekus is notably more ruthless and power-focused than the other demi-gods, but he's not exactly evil so much as he is a godly Blood Knight who respects strength above all else. Subverted hard during the third story arc, where it's revealed that he was The Man Behind the Man to Mephistopheles' invasion and becomes the Final Boss of the Pangaea region.
- Worthy Opponent: Alexandra and Agamemnon, the masters of the Towers of Transcendence, both refer to the hero as this after battling them. The former is particularly notable, as she remarks that she actively sought the hero out following their battle with Agamemnon due to being impressed with their strength.
