Video Game / Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG

It's a game about quitting your job

Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG is a 2022 RPG Maker MV game developed by Bass.

After the demons invaded and wiped out most of humanity, several new humanoid species populated Earth and established their own societies. The Sole Survivor of humanity, Zazz, established Zetacorp to gain political power and search for the Zodiac Stones, which he plans on using to revive humanity. Unfortunately, he also seeks to exploit non-humans for the sake of his plans, enforces poverty to coerce people into becoming Hunters, and is an all-around terrible boss to work under. The top Hunter, Akira, attempts to quit their job by fleeing to other lands, but running isn't really an option when their boss is a ruthless imperialist fascist whose ambitions won't end with just the Zodiac Stones.

Has a Steam page and an itch page.

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This game contains examples of the following:

• 11th-Hour Ranger: During the final chapter, a new party member will join depending on the player's choices, but they are all mutually exclusive.
  • If Barbados has a higher link level than Rosie or is tied, Kael joins the party on the train to Zeta instead of fighting them.
  • If Rosie has a higher link level than Barbados, the archangel Virgo joins the party while possessing Rosie's body, otherwise she attacks the party.
  • Played with on the Evil Runi Route, since Gemini has Runi mind-wipe herself and takes over her body. This causes Gemini to essentially replace Runi as a party member for the rest of the game, at least until she backstabs the party at the last second. Gameplay-wise, this means "Runi" is in sync mode at the start of battle to show that she's nothing more than a meat puppet for Gemini, but her moveset is otherwise unchanged.
• The Ace:
  • Akira is the current top Hunter due to finding two Zodiac Stones. They are acknowledged not only for their own personal combat skills, but also their ability to unite others in completing missions that no Hunter can complete alone. In Chapter 2, they're strong enough to defeat their mentor Kael, who was the previous top Hunter before his faked death.
  • Kael was the previous top Hunter before his untimely death and taught Akira how to fight. It turns out he never died and he actually managed to rise to the top of the Vulcanite Resistance.
• Accidental Murder: Runi discovered her mind-reading powers when using it on her mom during an argument. Unfortunately, she learned the hard way that reading someone's mind too deeply renders them braindead.
• Action Politician:
  • President Zazz is an unusual example, since he's both president of the state of Zeta and president of Zetacorp. He's also the hero of humanity who made a last stand against the demons and put up an excellent fight despite losing. And this is before he gets Archdemon Aquarius as a sync partner.
  • Runi is the mayor of Pon Pon Village and a powerful Esper. Unfortunately, Barbados burns Pon Pon to the ground, though Runi works with her friends to rebuild it in the ending.
  • Eliza is a sharpshooter who specializes in skills that don't use ATK or INT. In the ending, she becomes the President of Zeta and renames it Utopya while enacting various reforms.
  • Prime Minister Morgalia is the ruler of Vulcanite and the sync partner of Archdemon Leo, giving her many powerful Fire skills.
  • Chase is a pugilist who specializes in powerful single-target Fire and Slam attacks. If she doesn't sacrifice herself in Vulcanite, she will become its Prime Minister. Otherwise, Artica, an enemy Hunter-turned-ally, will become PM.
• Affably Evil:
  • Robun is an especially twisted example. Unlike Clyde, his politeness is genuine, he respects Akira for performing smaller jobs for the community, and he does seem to genuinely miss his old friends. However, he still rationalizes his sacrifice of his friends as being for the good of Zeta. In Chapter 3, if a party member kills Clyde right when the latter is about to mind wipe Robun, Robun thanks the party and states this is the first time anyone showed him such kindness. This is deconstructed because everyone is unnerved by his excessive flattery and inappropriate cheer when celebrating the fall of non-human civilization, to the point where even Akira finds him creepy. Additionally, his seeming humility is extremely self-deprecating both because of his ostracization and because he believes all non-humans like himself are inherently worthless, showing how twisted his affability really is.
  • Asterisk's affability varies depending on who he's talking to and if they've done anything to interfere with his cycle. Most of the time, he shows nothing but disdain towards the angels for opposing his goals, but is genuinely friendly towards Akira and admits to sympathizing with the latter more than with Zazz. However, if Runi kills Gemini, Asterisk becomes more passive-aggressive towards the party in his Secret Area room. Regardless, Asterisk still has a sense of fair play by never initiating battles with the party and is willing to postpone the resurrection of humanity out of respect for Akira.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Depending on the player's choice for their first bonding event, Barbados's last words will be different. If Akira didn't increase Barbados's link level to 1, Barbados accuses them of being a False Friend who never really cared about him and dies unrepentant. If Akira did spend time with Barbados, the latter shows regret for his actions and acknowledges Akira as his friend.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Superboss, Asterisk/Ophiuchus, can sync with any archdemon and changes sync partners every turn. Not only does this allow him to change his weaknesses and battle mechanics, this prevents the party from syncing with the archdemons, since Ophiuchus's syncs take priority. According to the developer, Ophiuchus has authority over all the archdemons, but because he swapped his angelhood with Virgo's demonhood, he cannot override her current sync partner and instead syncs with her Faceless counterpart Vira.
• Almighty Janitor: Before finding the Virgo stone, Akira was a low-ranked Hunter due to prioritizing smaller, lower-paying jobs over larger demon hunts, despite being just as capable in combat as the top Hunters.
• Alternate Self: According to the save ducks in the Secret Area, the Faceless bosses are versions of the Zodiac Archdemons from another timeline. The only exception is Aquarius, who is the prime archdemon and thus has no counterpart in any timeline. Instead, the player can fight the unsynced version of Aquarius.
• Ambiguous Start of Darkness:
  • Fredek states that Clyde has an inhibitor in his brain for much of his early life, which shocked him every time he had aggressive thoughts or sexual thoughts while feeding him dopamine to keep him docile. Eventually, it stopped working, leading to Clyde becoming one of the nastiest Hunters in the business. It's unknown if he was always malevolent or if the inhibitor made him go mad. However, his cutscene where he brainwashes Rosie shows that the inhibitor actually still works to some extent, but he figured out that brainwashing himself and removing certain memories can prevent it from shocking him.
  • Gemini is the Token Evil Teammate of the Zodiac archdemons, having no genuine affability or standards compared to the rest. However, Aquarius states that all archdemons are influenced by their sync partners, so it's unknown if Gemini was always evil or if she slowly became evil due to syncing with unsavory people.
• Amicable Exes: Akira and Rosie were once a couple, but they broke up because of their conflicting schedule and because Akira was too passive in their relationship. Despite that, Akira still frequents Rosie's bar and the two remain good friends. However, it's possible for them to get back together if Rosie's link level is maxed out.
• Angelic Abomination: Angels are even more otherworldly than demons, since while the latter usually have comprehensible bestiary descriptions and skill names, the former often have glitchy descriptions and skill names. Additionally, they often appear in grotesque forms because they are almost never summoned properly. Of note is Virgo, who swapped her demonhood with Asterisk's angelhood, yet retains the properties of both angels and demons.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Normal and Easy mode allow for a traditional party size of four, but Hard mode only allows an active party of three.
• Archnemesis Dad:
  • Detritus-11 is an android "son" of President Zazz, but Zazz only created him to act as extra muscle and to make Zetacorp look good. He only sees Detritus as a tool and has already disposed of four other iterations of Detritus for questioning his orders. Naturally, he has Akari kill Detritus for opposing the razing of Pon Pon Village, though Eliza secretly revives Detritus to help Akira defeat Zazz.
  • Prime Minister Morgalia supports Zeta's occupation of Vulcanite in order to gain political power for herself, which puts her at odds with her daughter Chase, who joined Akira's anti-Zetacorp cause. Even before that, Morgalia executed Chase's friends and boyfriend for opposing Zeta.
• Artificial Brilliance: Enemies know to target the party members' elemental weaknesses, allowing them to generate more Hype and spam their strongest skills more often.
• The Atoner: Lunez is a Decon-Recon Switch. He feels guilty for being complicit as a clerk in Vulcanite's mines, which has horrible labor practices and is used to punish the poor and political dissidents with forced labor. However, he's a Death Seeker who wants to just rot away in Pon Pon's prison. After joining the party, he realizes that even if he were to find closure through death, this wouldn't solve any of the problems plaguing Vulcanite, so he decides to help overthrow Morgalia and rebuild Vulcanite even if he'll never be forgiven for his crimes. In the February 2024 update, he also gets an opportunity to find documents in the mines to expose his former employers' crimes.
• Bad Boss:
  • President Zazz tries to arrange for Akira's death simply because they want to quit being a Hunter and live peacefully. He also orders Kekkan to kill Genesis and Fredek despite their loyalty, since he believes they aren't useful enough to him.
  • Prime Minister Morgalia incinerates a bodyguard for talking out of turn. Additionally, her sync partner Archdemon Leo is terrified of her abusive treatment and actually backs away in fear when they are introduced.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In the Evil Runi route, Gemini mind-wipes every party member except for Akira, and kill Detritus with a barrage of spells. Zazz turns out to have survived the battle and kills Akira, allowing him to use the archdemons to bring back the humans and conquer the world.
• Back from the Dead: Played with in Rosie's case, since Clyde lobotomizes her with his ESP, resulting in Death of Personality. Although Virgo syncs with her, Virgo can only read her memories but can't revive her consciousness. If the player maxes Rosie/Virgo's sync, Rosie will make a full mental recovery in the post-credits scene, playing this trope straight.
• Beyond Redemption: When Barbados throws away Akira's mercy and destroys Pon Pon Village, the latter decides they can no longer spare the former and kills him. They state that Barbados had the potential to be a good person, but they also recognize that the person he has become will never live up to that potential. Although Kael holds a grudge against Akira for doing so, he also admits that he has conflicting feelings because even he believes his brother committed an unforgivable atrocity.
• Big Brother Instinct: Edgar is very protective of his siblings Runi and Rosie. If Akira doesn't reconcile with Runi, Edgar will refuse to enter a romantic relationship with them, even at a high link level. Edgar will also kill Clyde at the first available opportunity because the latter mind-wiped Rosie. This means if he escapes Morgalia before entering Sho's studio, he will kill Clyde at Sho's studio instead of at Aquarius's temple.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • As the Steam updates page states, it's impossible to save everyone in the game. In the normal route, Pon Pon will be wiped off the map, one party member will sacrifice themselves to let the others escape from Vulcanite Mines, and the party will kill either Kael or Virgo/Rosie. However, the demons agree to let the party have five years to reform Zeta (now Utopya) and Vulcanite, as well as to rebuild Pon Pon.
  • The original Evil Runi route before the update in October 2023 is even more bitter than the normal ending, since Runi mind wipes herself out of despair due to Edgar's death and Akira's rejection, both Kael and Virgo/Rosie are killed, and Akira parts on a more bitter note with the archdemons, blaming them for all the tragedy. However, the process of rebuilding Zeta, Vulcanite, and Pon Pon continue as normal. However, the update changed the Evil Runi ending to be an unambiguous defeat for the entire party.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: In Chapter 2, Sho captures Akira and brings them to President Zazz, but the two decide to put on a game show where participants get a prize for killing them, all while Akira still has their equipment. Additionally, this gives the party an opening to hijack the broadcast to make their case to the public and turn them against Zetacorp.
• Boomerang Bigot:
  • Asterisk was once an angel, but despises other angels and started a war against both angels and humanity. He went as far as to trade his archangel powers for Virgo's archdemon powers.
  • Robun's motivations turn out to be that he believes the world as it is now is discriminatory, due to his experiences in the Smog Empire. He believes that once humanity conquers the non-humans, they'll create an egalitarian society, not realizing the contradiction that an apartheid state will never truly be egalitarian.
• Boxed Crook: Lunez is the sole prisoner in Pon Pon Village's cells, and his crime was that he attacked a Tundrus diplomat, killed a Vulcanthian politician, attempted to kill three prime ministers, and jaywalked. If the player talks to him enough times before it comes time to recruit the fourth party member, he'll be temporarily released to join the party. However, this arrangement becomes permanent once Barbados razes Pon Pon, leaving Lunez no jail to return to. Later, it turns out he lied about his charges and that his imprisonment is really self-imposed punishment out of guilt for doing nothing to stop the abuses in Vulcanite Mines.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: One application of the Arcdra esper power is to mind control them. This is used in Chapter 2 when Clyde brainwashes Rosie into calling Runi and getting the location of the rebels. Unfortunately, this process leaves the target braindead.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Church's secret area is full of powerful Retrograde demons with varying elemental strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the dungeon is the sixth angel Y-phen and a room containing fights against the Faceless, who are stronger versions of the Zodiac Archdemons.
• Came Back Wrong: In Chapter 3, Rosie's comatose body is used to sync with Virgo, a hybrid demon/angel. However, Virgo is the one in full control of the fusion, though they inherited Rosie's memories and sympathize with her plight. If the player maxes out Rosie/Virgo's sync, Rosie will avert this trope by making a complete mental recovery.
• Cap
  • The level cap used to be 60, but the November 2023 update increased it to 70 to compensate for the newly added Superboss fight against Archdemon Ophiuchus. However, party members won't gain FP after level 60.
  • Most consumables have a cap of 9, but weaker ones like the "H. Nut" have a cap of 25.
  • The inventory can contain up to 200 weapons and 200 pieces of armor. Body armor, accessories, and skill shards all count as armor.
• Capitalism Is Bad:
  • Zetacorp, the leading corporate power of the nation known as the Sovereign State of Zeta, treats the impoverished terribly by bribing the Church of the Vessel to exclude their communities from protection from demons. The son of President Zazz, Detritus, notes that there are many homeless people despite the country having enough money to house them, and wonders why the government would be so inefficient on this issue. Crow's bonding events imply that the real reason for enforcing poverty is to force more people to work for Zetacorp as Hunters if they want to survive. Zazz also conquered Vulcanite not because he needs their resources, but to deny the people access to these resources and hold their power plant hostage to control them, showing the imperialistic tendencies of capitalism. Finally, Zazz's endgame is to create an apartheid state where humans reign supreme over non-humans, and capitalism is his tool for enforcing this hierarchy by forcing non-humans into poorer areas.
  • The insurance company, Mine Co, recommends a painkiller known as Pix, but they use their connections to make sure it's overprescribed so that people get addicted to it even if they don't need it, all to make a profit. They then sell additional medicine for the symptoms of Pix, making money off the problem they created.
• Card-Carrying Villain:
  • Despite working for Zazz, who genuinely sees himself as a hero, Akari has no illusions about how the Human Restoration Project will make the world a worse place and admits that her goal is to make everyone suffer as much as she had in her past.
  • Zazz's nastiest minion, Detritus Seven, acknowledges that he's so evil that he'd go to Hell even as a robot. He makes it clear that he's proud of his role in the invasion of Vulcunite, as well as his oppression of the miners and genocide of the Kolfos.
• The Chosen Many: Zodiac archdemons can choose their sync partners, which Zazz wants to happen for the sake of fulfilling his deal with Asterisk to revive the humans. They tend to choose partners that exhibit certain traits or have specific elemental alignments.
  • Libra is synced with Akira Sakimoto.
  • Gemini is synced with Runi Jarami.
  • Aries is synced with Barbados Osirus.
  • Capricorn is synced with Akari.
  • Scorpio is synced with Genesis Montanaro.
  • Leo is synced with Morgalia Evers, but can switch to either Chase Evers or Edgar Jarami after Morgalia dies.
  • Taurus is synced with Sho Sharker.
  • Virgo originally wanted to sync with Akira, but Zetacorp forces her to sync with Rosie Jarami after Clyde lobotomizes the latter.
  • Cancer is synced with Kael Osirus.
  • Pisces is synced with Detritus-12.
  • Aquarius is synced with Zazz.
  • Sagittarius is a special case who requires living sacrifices instead of a sync.
  • Ophiuchus is another special case who never syncs with anyone other than the other twelve Zodiacs.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
  • Archdemon Libra prioritizes balance between powers, but they also admit that this means they'll eventually betray whoever they're contracted to if the latter is too powerful compared to their enemies. However, they make sure to warn their sync partner of this before forming the contract.
  • Robun has a habit of sacrificing his friends to complete his Hunter missions, even if they were perfectly cooperative. In Chapter 3, he sacrifices himself and his entire team to unleash Sagittarius on the party, though Akira manages to save Artica from this fate.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Akira wants to defect from Zeta, but is also concerned about their Hunter friends. However, their attempts to spare both Pon Pon Village and Barbados just results in Barbados torching the village, so they choose to kill Barbados and commit fully to toppling Zetacorp.
• Control Freak: President Zazz cannot stand any hunter who refuses to work directly for Zetacorp. He intends to send Akira on a suicide mission because he fears their popularity as an indie Hunter could result in them becoming a potential political rival.
• Corporate Warfare: Zetacorp enforces their will by hiring Hunters to track down Zodiac stones and slaughter anyone who gets in their way. The Hunters that are directly affiliated with Zetacorp effectively serve as a private army.
• Corrupt Church: The Church of the Vessel once used their influence for good by using Wards to protect civilians from demons, but their current leader, Akari, turned them into a very classist organization by disfavoring certain areas from Ward placement, leaving them unprotected. This exacerbated Zeta's poverty and homelessness situation, forcing more people to work for Zetacorp as disposable Hunters.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: President Zazz of Zetacorp uses his corporate influence to rule Zeta with an iron fist. He admits to having such a Lack of Empathy that he sees everyone around him as either resources to exploit or potential obstacles to be gotten rid of. He also buys off the Church of the Vessel to make sure certain areas get less protection from demons, causing poverty and homelessness to increase, essentially forcing people to work for him if they want to survive. Finally, he plans on reviving the original humanity to create a human supremacist society and drive all non-humans out of their homes.
• Create Your Own Hero:
  • President Zazz fears Akira's popularity will allow them to undermine his political power, so he sends Barbados to kill Akira along with Pon Pon Village. Akira survives and decides to actually become a political threat by organizing a revolution against Zazz.
  • By necessity, Zazz had to program the robot Detritus-11 to have a heroic personality with a strong sense of justice, since he needs the latter for PR and for being a moral compass for his chosen humans. He also notes that this inevitably caused Eleven to turn on him for discriminating against non-humans.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Zazz is a human brain controlling a robot body, which allows him to live almost indefinitely. However, his immortality caused him to see all the non-humans living and dying around him as beneath him and unworthy of empathy.
• Cyberpunk: The game takes place after most of humanity has been wiped out. Although there is magic and advanced technology in the setting, the corporate-owned state of Zeta deliberately enforces poverty on the citizens so that they'll be forced to work for President Zazz as Hunters. The president himself is a human brain in a cyborg body, all to extend his life long enough so that he can revive humanity as the top caste in his dystopian society. The rebel party mostly consists of relatively poor ex-Hunters, though there are those such as Eliza, Detritus, and Chase who defected from the upper or ruling class in favor of rebelling. Technology and magic are used as tools of oppression both because of surveillance technology and because Zeta has complete control over the technological and magical resources that people need to survive. The idea of transhumanism is applied in reverse, since the Non-Human Non-Binary Smogs often reshape themselves to conform to human genders, but this is abused by the Smog Empire to control people with gender roles and patriarchy. In the ending, the party overthrows Zazz and uses his vast resources and technology to improve the standard of living in Zeta and Vulcanite, making this an attempt at a Post-Cyberpunk society.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Akari was a Smog whose father forced her to go through an abusive training regimen to become a submissive slave, all to prepare herself for the day she was about to be sold. Right when that day was about to happen, she threw herself into the fireplace to ruin her own face and make herself unsellable. Then Capricorn showed up and ate her father, and the two synced. Akari then decided to take her rage out on the rest of the world by helping Zazz turn Zeta into a hellhole, and she expects the revived humans to make the world even worse.
• Darkest Hour: The end of Chapter 2 and the start of the final chapter are rather bleak because Zetacorp successfully framed Akira's party as the terrorists who destroyed Vulcanite's mines and power plant. Additionally, one party member had to sacrifice themselves to get the others out of the mines before the explosion. The final chapter gets even darker if the player reached the conditions for the Evil Runi route, since Runi is no longer in the right state of mind to resist Gemini's manipulations.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Chase's fiancé was a member of the Vulcanite Resistance and caused Chase to realize how oppressive Zeta's occupation of Vulcanite is. Unfortunately, Chase's mother, Morgalia, is the pro-occupation Prime Minister of Vulcanite. She has Chase's lover executed, both to demoralize the resistance and because she hates him for influencing her daughter.
• Death or Glory Attack: In his first form, Zazz can use Doomsday on the party to knock them down to critical health, but this also makes him vulnerable to all elements afterwards.
• Death Seeker:
  • Akari's goal is to be among the first non-humans to be killed by the humans while the latter group ruins the entire planet. After her boss fight, Akari is angered when Akira doesn't bother killing her.
  • Lunez intends to die in Pon Pon's prison in order to atone for his crimes. If Akira invites him to the party for the snow dungeon, he'll regain his will to live and seek a better way to redeem himself.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Downplayed with Fredek and Genesis, who join the party after their defeat, but this was partially motivated by Kekkan betraying them and revealing Zeta had no more use for them. However, Akira can deepen their bond with these two through bonding events.
  • Subverted with third angel Aphos, who tries to join the party after their defeat, only for Asterisk to kill him.
  • The sixth angel boss, Quot, acts as a friendly shopkeeper to the party after her fight and gives them some information about Asterisk, demons, angels, and the Church.
  • After defeating Clyde, Robun, and Artica, Robun tries to sacrifice himself and his entire team to Saggitarius. Akira saves Artica from this fate, leading to Artica joining the Vulcanite Resistance. It helps that Artica was already genuinely friends with Akira before the latter became a fugitive and already had doubts about Zetacorp.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • Tsukasa was once a member of the Church of the Vessel, but became disillusioned with their greed and contempt for the poor.
  • Most of the party consists of former Zetacorp employees or Hunters who were either betrayed by the company or grew sick of the company's tyrannical rule over Zeta. This includes Akira, Crow, Kiyota, Eliza, Detritus, Fredek, Genesis, Lunez, and Kael.
  • Chase is the daughter of Prime Minister Morgalia, a pro-occupation politician who uses her connections with Zetacorp to fill her own pockets, ensuring the family gets to live in luxury. However, Chase doesn't think her family's riches is worth making the rest of Vulcanite suffer, so she joins an anti-occupation movement. After Morgalia executes everyone in that movement except for Chase, Chase leaves for Pon Pon and eventually joins Akira's resistance against Zetacorp.
• Developers' Desired Date: Eliza, Kiyota, Edgar, Chase, Genesis, Rosie, and Setzuna are all romantic options for Akira, but the game makes it relatively easier to pair with Eliza compared to everyone else, since her first bonding event is free and can instantly fulfill the conditions for romance. Setzuna requires the player not to fulfill anyone else's romance conditions for the whole game while the non-Eliza party members require you not to miss their bonding events. Story-wise, Eliza was already established to have a crush on Akira and secretly arranged for Barbados to show up later to the celebration party so that she has more time alone with Akira.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • The first angel boss, Eli, will appear if the player turns the light in its cabin on and off multiple times. They call out the player behind the screen decide to kill the party to punish the player's mischievousness.
  • Barbados willingly goes along with Zetacorp's orders to raze Pon Pon Village because the mayor, Runi, killed his brother. President Zazz himself is angered that he failed to kill all the residents, since he wants to eliminate anyone who could pose a threat to his power.
  • At the end of the game, the robot in Akira's apartment states that failure to pay rent is punishable by death in Zeta.
• Divided We Fall: The Evil Runi route is obtained by having Akira reject Runi's friendship while also not using Activity Points to bond with other party members. This will allow for a choice where Akira can refrain from saving Runi from Gemini's manipulation, resulting in Runi mind-wiping herself and Gemini taking over. As the story continues, Gemini will kill Kael and provoke Virgo into battle, preventing any possibility of recruiting them into the resistance group. When the party defeats Zazz's first phase, Gemini will attack the party in order to steal their Zodiac stones, and then kills everyone except Akira before going down. As a result, Akira is defenseless when Zazz ambushes them, leading to a swift death and Zazz's victory. After the credits, the archangels will call the player out on their blunder and Quot makes it clear that being nicer to Runi will prevent this outcome.
• Downer Ending: As of October 2023, the Evil Runi route was updated to be much darker while having stricter requirements, since it requires Akira to never spend an Activity Point while rejecting friendship with Runi. This results in Runi mind-wiping herself out of grief over Edgar's sacrifice. Unlike the original version of the ending where the party defeats Gemini with minimal casualties, this ending has Gemini mind-wipe all party members except for Detritus, who sacrifices himself to protect Akira from Gemini's final barrage of spells. Unfortunately, when Akira presses forward to the human stasis room, Zazz ambushes and kills them, having survived his battle by escaping while the party was distracted with Gemini. As a result, Zazz creates his apartheid state unimpeded and starts a world war against the non-human nations. All the archangel bosses call the player out for their poor decisions and advise them to be nicer to Runi in the next playthrough.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Although Akari seems loyal to Zazz at first, their end goals are subtly different. Zazz is deluded enough to believe that his plans for apartheid will result in humanity prospering, but Akari realizes and hopes that Zazz's ideal society will fall apart due to its own greed and exploitative policies, bringing ruin to even the human first-class citizens.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means:
  • Akari doesn't particularly care for the humans that Zazz wants to revive and actually considers them self-destructive beings who will ruin the planet. However, she still supports Zazz's plans because she wants humans to come back and worsen the already Crapsack World.
  • Played with in President Zazz's case. He wants to revive humans and have them prosper at the expense of non-humans. However, he wants to rename Zeta to "Dyztopia," showing that he's perfectly aware that non-humans will suffer even more once his plans are complete. It's implied that he's partially motivated by sadism against non-humans, since he blames them for "stealing" humanity's place in the world.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: The Evil Runi route is the most depressing outcome, since Gemini will convince Runi to mind wipe herself. As a result, Gemini becomes the Final Boss and kills all party members except Akira. Then Zazz turns out to have survived, and he kills Akira by flinging them from the top floor of Zetacorp, allowing him to enact his human supremacist dystopia and take over the world. This ending also has very strict requirements, since it requires the player to never use activity points and to reject Runi's friendship. Additionally, not using activity points means most characters will have a very low link level, making them slightly weaker than on a normal playthrough. Finally, Gemini is a much tougher boss than Zazz/Aquarius and her own Faceless counterpart due to her ability to gain more actions the more she's hit.
• Enemy Mine: If the party didn't recruit Lunez, Fredek will temporarily join Akira, Runi, and Edgar in the first battle with Scorpio and stick with the party until they catch up to Genesis and Kekkan, at which point he rejoins the latter group. However, he'll immediately rejoin after Kekkan betrays him and Genesis. Afterwards, he and Genesis join the party permanently.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved:
  • Deconstructed. At the end of Chapter 2, Chase admits that she feels some sadness over her mother Morgalia's death, but also wonders if Morgalia's abusive parenting instilled a feeling of Stockholm Syndrome in her.
  • If Fredek's sync is maxed out, he'll state that he wished he kept Clyde from going off the deep end, showing that he misses their old friendship.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Deconstructed with Morgalia. She misses Chase and regrets kicking the latter out of the house, but she refuses to admit that her callous execution of Chase's friends and fiance or her controlling attitude are to blame for the rift between her and her daughter. This results in her attempting to have Clyde brainwash Chase into becoming an obedient Trophy Child. The only positive thing to come out of this is that Morgalia doesn't interfere with the emergency escape minecart so that Chase can safely escape the mines, but even then, her Never My Fault attitude persists.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Clyde is an esper like Runi and also specializes in the psychic element. However, Runi fears that she could hurt others with her powers after she accidentally killed her mom while Clyde believes his powers entitle him to torment and control others. Additionally, while Runi wants to overcome her flaw of paranoia by learning to trust her friends, Clyde is incapable of Character Development because he relies on brainwashing himself in order to get along with others.
  • Morgalia serves as this to Crow and Dr. Sando in terms of being a parent. While she does love Chase, she's also very controlling and believes the two of them will be happier at the top of a banana republic, regardless of Chase's feelings. She also expects Chase to unconditionally forgive her for executing the latter's friends and lover. In contrast, Crow wants to defeat Zetacorp so that his estranged daughter Emile can live peacefully and Dr. Sando left the Smog Empire to protect Kiyota from the country's brutal patriarchy. Additionally, Morgalia constantly tries to justify her actions to herself while Crow and Sando accept that their actions, no matter how well-intentioned, have consequences.
  • Akari turns out to be a victim of the Smog Empire's misogynistic policies like Kiyota and both defect to other countries in order to escape the patriarchy. While Kiyota eventually found people who accept her and supports Akira's cause, Akari is so bitter about her abuse that she wants to make everyone else in the world suffer under an apartheid state.
  • Robun serves as this to Akira's resistance movement, since he claims to believe in egalitarianism too, yet he's secretly filled with a lot of resentment and self-hate, turning him into a Boomerang Bigot who believes non-humans are incapable of creating true equality. While he has a point about the cruelties of the current world, he has somehow twisted his logic into pretzels to believe that an apartheid state for the sake of humanity would be more egalitarian than the world's current state. In contrast, Akira's team wants to reform Zeta, Vulcanite, and later the Smog Empire into egalitarian societies instead of giving up on the non-human population. This is only revealed in the scenario where Edgar escapes from Morgalia early and kills Clyde early, causing Robun to take the spotlight as the top Hunter.
• Evil Former Friend: Clyde used to be friends with Fredek and Genesis, but after his emotional inhibitor device stopped working, he became a nastier person and after an argument with Fredek, he outed Genesis as an escort and ruined her reputation. Additionally, it's implied that this incident is what led to Genesis's parents disowning her. Worse yet, he wiped this memory from his own mind to avoid being held accountable to Fredek and Genesis.
• Evil, Inc.: Zetacorp outright brags about owning all means of production and they have so much influence that they not only have corporate mercenaries, they also used their wealth to take control of the Church of the Vessel and use them to persecute the poor. Although they are technically fighting dangerous demons, President Zazz's endgame is to revive humanity and have them establish a human supremacist society while subjugating the world's non-human countries.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Zazz programmed Detritus Eleven to be as close to the ideal human mentality and possible in order to improve Zeta's public image and to act as a moral compass to humanity. This backfires because Detritus gains a sense of justice that causes him to oppose Zazz's war crimes and plans for apartheid.
• Evil Reactionary: President Zazz is obsessed with the past glory of humanity and seeks to revive the original humans, but he rejects coexistence with non-humans and seeks to conquer and exploit them for the sake of humanity. He hates the idea of non-humans living in the lands that once belonged to humans, even though it was the demons who were responsible for wiping out humanity in the first place.
• Extreme Doormat: In Chapter 1, after the destruction of Pon Pon Village, Akira has a dream where they realize that following the law and complying with Zetacorp's demands just gives the corporate state more power to oppress the citizens. They also realize that their past relationship with Rosie failed because they were too passive and mainly just did what Rosie wanted, which only made Rosie feel bad. At this point, Akira decides they need to start doing what they want instead of trying to please people, resulting in them becoming a rebel against Zeta. However, Akira can regress back into this trope in the Evil Runi route, where they become too passive again and do nothing to stop Gemini until it's too late.
• Fallen Hero: Zazz was the human hero, Zavoir Zzoldos, who made the last stand against the demons, but after extending his life with his robot body, he gained immortality and slowly lost his empathy for all other people. His goal is to revive humanity and have them exploit all other species on the planet.
• False Flag Operation: At the end of Chapter 2, Morgalia blows up Vulcanite's mine and power plan, all so Zetacorp can frame Akira for it and stop their resistance movement from gaining popular support.
• Fantastic Racism: Zazz resents the non-human species for living on what he considers to be human territory and seeks to create an apartheid state where the revived humans will dominate non-humans.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • President Zazz speaks formally to Akira at first and thanks them for delivering Virgo and Pisces to Zetacorp, but when they discuss Akira's plans to retire from being a hunter, he makes it clear that he sees everyone around him as tools and that he wants to milk Akira's abilities for all they're worth, whether they like it or not. He at least has the decency to pay for their next party as a reward for finding a Zodiac Stone, but this is a carrot-and-stick deal to keep them loyal, and he actually plans on having them killed. Later, he discusses this trope by complaining about how cumbersome it is to maintain appearances in front of the public when he really holds them all in contempt.
  • Akari is the well-mannered and composed aide to President Zazz, but her demeanor is revealed to be a Mask of Sanity. When Zazz orders her to kill Detritus, she does so with a Slasher Smile on her face and it's revealed she's just as bloodthirsty as the president. The mask repeatedly slips over the course of the story and she eventually reveals that she wants to create a world of suffering, all while singing happy birthday to herself.
  • Played with when it comes to Clyde, who seems like yet another friendly Hunter to Akira, but Genesis warns Akira that he has a sinister side, which is proven true when he murders a bouncer in cold blood while continuing to make thinly veiled threats against Rosie in the most polite way possible. He takes sadistic pleasure in hurting people with his esper powers and playing mind games with them. However, he later reveals that he has to brainwash himself into acting presentable to others, and he's just an openly rude Jerkass in his default state of mind.
  • Sho is a smooth-talking and bombastic entertainer with a morbid sense of humor, but is also very greedy for ratings and is willing to side with Zeta for the sake of his show biz career. When he traps Akira in a hunting game, he maintains his cheerful persona while relishing in Akira's impending doom.
  • Prime Minister Morgalia acts like a worried mother who wants to reconcile with her daughter Chase, but in reality, she still has the same abusive mindset that caused Chase to run away in the first place and she cares more about controlling Chase than actually repairing their relationship. When Chase rejoins the party, Morgalia speaks to the party with Sugary Malice while making it clear that she's going to have Clyde brainwash Chase and that she's going to blow up the Vulcanite mines to frame Akira's resistance movement.
  • In the February 2024 update, the party can meet a robot, Detritus Seven, who acts polite to his younger brother Eleven, but likes to remind the latter that the former is Zazz's favorite. He's also surprisingly accommodating with helping the party, since he assumes they're just obedient miners. Once he reconnects to Zazz's network and learns the truth that the party is rebelling against his father, he drops all pleasantries and tries to kill them. He also declares his intent to kill Twelve for little to no reason at all, despite how she's still on the same side as him, making it clear that he holds all his siblings in contempt. After the battle, the party learns that he committed numerous war crimes and atrocities in Vulcanite with sadistic glee, showing that his earlier behavior was merely a Mask of Sanity.
• Feudal Future: The Arcdras formed the Tundrus Kingdom and the Smogs formed the Smog Empire in the post-human world, both of which utilize a traditional aristocracy. In contrast, Zeta is a completely corporate run state while Vulcanite is a puppet democracy in service of Zeta. Before Zeta took over Vulcanite, the latter was a collectivist society with no form of currency.
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • Akira and Runi start out hostile to each other, since Runi is paranoid of Akira while Akira doesn't appreciate Runi reading their mind. However, they're forced to team up when Barbados/Aries destroys Pon Pon Village and kills most of the residents. Whether or not they become friends depends on the player's choice in Bone Town.
  • If Akira rejects friendship with Runi, but chooses to intervene when Gemini tries to convince Runi to mind wipe herself, Gemini tries to kill Akira. Runi then kills Gemini to save Akira, leading to the two reconciling. Gameplay-wise, this raises Runi's link level and restores the player's ability to have bonding events with Runi.
• For the Evulz: During the Final Boss fight, Zazz will summon zombies of Barbados, Morgalia, Clyde, Robun, and whoever sacrificed themselves in Chapter 2. He specifically picked the first two to hurt Akira and Chase, and the last one to hurt everyone.
• Fusion Dance:
  • The party can gain the favor of Zodiac Archdemons and sync with them to use their abilities. Unfortunately, many antagonists are also capable of syncing with Zodiacs. The leader of the Zodiacs, Ophiuchus, can sync the rest of them on-demand and deny the party the ability to sync, though Virgo's status as an angel means she can maintain her sync with Rosie.
  • The Bone Elder is a fusion of several Smogs, though their consciousnesses have yet to fully fuse and they often bicker among themselves.
  • The new Superboss of the February 2024 update, Detritus Seven, is synced with the leader of the archangels, Slash.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Battles can happen underwater and the appropriate visual effects will be applied, but fortunately, there's also no consequence for using fire or thunder type skills underwater.
• Gameplay Grading: In the December 2023 update, archdemon battles now include a checklist of objectives, which include winning without consumable items, winning within a time limit specific to each boss, and winning on hard mode. Completing all the objectives for an archdemon grants a "gold" Steam achievement, though only the first two objectives grant additional Fate Stones for crafting.
• Global Warming: At some point in the past, the Earth's temperature increased to the point where it melted humans in cryosleep. Even if Asterisk didn't invade Earth, the extreme temperatures would have wiped out humanity anyways.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: According to Quot, all angels have a tendency to go insane from loneliness, which is why they attack Akira for irrational reasons. This is apparently something caused by Asterisk.
• God Is Evil: The Greater-Scope Villain is Ophiuchus/Asterisk, the God of Cycles, who wiped out most of humanity and cursed the angels for betraying him.
• Good Is Not Soft:
  • Runi, the leader of Pon Pon Village, is polite and only wants the best for her family and people, but she's willing to kill anyone who attacks the village, putting her at odds with Zetacorp. However, she only killed one Hunter from Zetacorp rather than the two she's accused of, since Kael actually abandoned his mission and went to Vulcanite.
  • Although Akira initially wanted to spare Barbados, he spits on their mercy and destroys Pon Pon Village with the power of Aries. No matter the player's choice in the first bonding segment, Akira decides Barbados is Beyond Redemption and kills him at the end of Chapter 1.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The leader of the demons, Ophiuchus/Asterisk, is responsible for waging war on humanity and causing the survivors to be placed in cryo-sleep, which means he's the reason Zazz is evil. He also supports Zazz's goal to revive humanity for unknown reasons and he helps Akira on their journey so that the latter will bring the remaining Zodiac Stones to the human stasis chamber, allowing Zazz to complete his plans even if he dies.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Runi treats Akira with suspicion both because Akira only recently left Zetacorp and because she's jealous that her estranged sister, Rosie, is friends with Akira.
• Handy Man: Although Akira is one of the best combatants among the Hunters, they focus more on jobs that directly help people with their everyday problems, such as plumbing or fixing appliances. While this did prevent them from attaining a high rank due to their lack of combat and Zodiac Stone missions, they were also well-respected by Zeta's citizens. This is deconstructed because they're still technically subservient to Zetacorp, the corporation responsible for oppressing Zeta's citizens. Additionally, their popularity causes Zazz to become paranoid of them and scheme to kill them to create an Inspirational Martyr for Zetacorp. This is reconstructed when Akira's popularity as a handyman causes Zetacorp's propaganda campaign against them to be less effective than expected and inspires other people to rebel against Zetacorp.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Akari is helping with Zazz's plan to revive humanity, but she reveals that her true goal is for humanity to oppress non-humans. She also refers to humans as parasites, showing that she thinks poorly of them too. Due to her past, she despises all living beings and wants the world to be a hellish dystopia.
• Hazy-Feel Turn:
  • In the ending, Sho supports Chase's reign as the new Prime Minister of Vulcanite, but it's unknown if he truly turned over a new leaf or if he's just pragmatically trying to regain clout.
  • Capricorn asks Akira to take care of Akari, since she only turned evil because of her abusive father. If Akira agrees, Akari will be put through the same rehab process as Twelve, though progress is slow.
• Healer Signs On Early: Akira is the main playable character and starts with a healing skill, Mend. They can learn additional healing skills through the skill tree and from leveling.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam:
  • Subverted with Detritus, who refuses to help President Zazz hunt down the survivors of Pon Pon Village. Zazz then orders Akari to sync with Capricorn and kill Detritus. However, Eliza secretly rebuilds Detritus with his memories intact.
  • Played straight with Aphos, who mistakenly believes Akira is a terrorist and attacks them. Afterwards, Aphos realizes the news lied to him and offers to join the party, but Asterisk kills them.
  • In Chapter 3, if Edgar survives, Robun almost considers making peace with the party when Edgar saves them from Clyde, but Saggitarius eats their soul.
  • This is a more ambiguous case in the final dungeon, where Detritus-11 tries to convince Detritus-12 to join Akira's side instead of Zazz, but Akari remotely deactivates Twelve before the latter can confirm her answer. In the ending, Twelve is reactivated and given a chance to rehabilitate. However, her success at rehabilitation depends on Eleven's link level.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Kael is a Hunter working for Zetacorp and despite being a good colleague to Akira, he's still subservient to an evil corporation. Later, he fakes his death in Pon Pon and joins the Vulcanite Resistance to free Vulcanite from Zeta, but he's captured and forced to work for Zetacorp again, otherwise the bomb implanted in him will explode. While he is being forced to work for Zetacorp against his will, he also has a personal reason to attack Akira, since the latter killed his brother Barbados. If the player increased Barbados's link level at the start of the game, Kael will give up on revenge and have Akira heal him from the bomb's explosion, allowing him to permanently join the party. Otherwise, he dies fighting the party.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Eliza is Zeta's press secretary and pushes their propaganda, despite her inner conflict. When Zazz has Pon Pon razed to the ground and has Detritus scrapped for disobeying him, Eliza revives Detritus and the two defect from Zeta to join Akira.
  • Fredek and Genesis will join the party after Kekkan betrays them, both to get back at Zetacorp and to get an excuse to attack their archenemy Clyde.
  • After Aquarius Temple, Artica joins the Vulcanite Resistance to help the city survive the power outage.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Downplayed with the protagonists, who are fugitives due to defying Zetacorp and are painted as terrorists by the media. However, when Detritus makes his case on Sho's show, most of the audience sides with him, much to Sho's dismay. After Morgalia blows up Vulcanite's mine and frames the party for it, they lose a lot of the popularity they built up, though Zazz notes that many still sympathize with them.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Chapter 2, Crow, Edgar, Chase, or Kiyota will stay behind in the exploding mines to start the mine cart that lets everyone else escape. This outcome depends on whose link level is the lowest, though the game will choose them in the stated order in case of a tie.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Asterisk doesn't reveal why he attacked humanity in the first place or why he agreed to revive them for Zazz, outside of him ominously mentioning a cycle. On a New Game Plus run, he'll claim that wiping out humanity is a Mercy Kill because of how they rendered the planet uninhabitable, but he doesn't specify if that is the main reason he did so.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal:
  • Although Akira and Barbados seem to be friends at first, the latter reveals he secretly resents the former for claiming the top Hunter rank despite having no loyalty to Zetacorp and because he knows they have no desire to avenge his brother Kael.
  • If the player beats Barbados's data in the Battle Lab, Detritus reveals that he always hated Barbados for being blindly obedient to Zetacorp and sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of succeeding at his career. Ironically, Detritus seems to be one of the few people that Barbados respects.
• Hypocrisy Nod: After the boss fight with Aries synced with Barbados, the latter admits that Runi is justified in killing the Hunters who attacked her village, but he states that he still hates her for killing his brother Kael.
• I Have No Son!: If the player chooses Detritus for the Romance Sho, Zazz calls into the show to publicly disown Detritus, who disowns him in turn.
• I've Come Too Far: Prime Minister Morgalia actually resents being a pawn of Zeta, but she still follows their plans because defying them would mean all the crimes she committed for her family's sake would be for nothing.
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • Prime Minister Morgalia starts showing regret about how she treated Chase and how she sold out Vulcanite to Zeta, but when Clyde offers to brainwash Chase to obey her, Morgalia sides with Zeta anyways. In the scenario where Edgar stays behind to start the minecart, he calls Morgalia out on never taking responsibility for her horrible treatment of Chase.
  • In Zazz's logs about the Detritus series, he's disturbed at Detritus Seven's sadistic murder and oppression of the citizens of Vulcanite and notes that as the one who built Seven, he would be considered the worst mass-murderer and dictator in history, but he ultimately absolves himself of all blame by stating that his victims aren't human.
• Immoral Journalist: Deconstructed with Eliza Belguard, since her example shows that in a sufficiently corrupt environment, it's nigh-impossible to stay relevant without being one. She was originally against Zeta's occupation of Vulcanite and hoped to use her journalism to make Zeta a better place, but in order to make advancements in her career, she had to keep writing propaganda to excuse President Zazz's terrible leadership and war crimes. Although she knew she was in the wrong, Zazz and Akari Touma preyed on her friendless background to make her dependent on her career for validation. As a result, she was successful enough to become Zeta's press secretary, but was unhappy with herself for betraying her conscience. However, seeing Akira Sakimoto use their Hunter job to directly help Zeta's citizens causes Eliza to follow her conscience and eventually join Akira's rebellion against Zazz.
• In the Back: In Aquarius Temple, if Edgar survived Chapter 2, he'll stab Clyde in the back in order to avenge Rosie. If the player is in the Evil Runi route, Gemini/Runi forms an ESP Blade to stab Clyde instead. If neither condition is fulfilled, Robun simply slashes Clyde from the front.
• Invincible Villain: Although Asterisk can be defeated in a boss fight, it's clear he's holding back to a more reasonable level to challenge Akira. It turns out he's actually Ophiuchus, the God of Cycles, and is so strong that he can oneshot Aphos, a powerful angel. Even the Big Bad Zazz stood no chance in his past fight with Asterisk, which is why he had to negotiate with Asterisk in order to get the archdemons to revive humanity. The December 2023 update includes a new battle against him in his full power archdemon form, but he also states that he has Complete Immortality, which means the party can only stalemate him at best. The only one who ever came close to killing Asterisk was the archangel leader Slash, but thanks to Quot betraying the angels, Slash loses his chance to do so. In the ending, Akira doesn't bother trying to challenge Asterisk and instead seeks a compromise to delay humanity's revival long enough for the party to reform society.
• Irony: Eliza is Zetacorp's press secretary who is largely responsible for their Villain with Good Publicity status. Later, she defects from the corporation despite how this will cause her to share in Akira's Hero with Bad Publicity status.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Penny is a grouchy pharmacist who has no patience for the party wasting her time, but she sympathizes with the Vulcanite Resistance and lets the party access her secret shop once they team up with the resistance. She also cares for her kid and refuses to sell the highly addictive painkiller, Pix, even if it would make her a profit.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
  • President Zazz is presented as a demanding and controlling boss, but he seems to at least have a benevolent goal of vanquishing demons and reviving the original humans. He even pays for Akira's party despite being irritated by their desire to retire. Then he reveals that he intends to displace the non-human citizens in favor of the humans, and that he plans on conquering other countries to further expand his human supremacist state.
  • Prime Minister Morgalia is the ruthless pro-occupation ruler of Vulcanite whose Establishing Character Moment is killing one of her bodyguards on live television for annoying her, but she does seem to genuinely miss her daughter Chase. Unfortunately, the story reveals that she executed Chase's lover for being part of the Vulcanite Resistance and kicked Chase out of the house for siding joining the Resistance, and she feels entitled to forgiveness despite not changing her ways. Later, she agrees to have Clyde brainwash Chase into loving her again, showing that she's a Control Freak who is incapable of truly reconciling with her daughter.
• Jerkass:
  • Gotcha, the AI for the spell shard and weapon mod gacha machine, is incredibly rude and condescending to Akira while admitting to exploiting gambling addictions. Akira admits they only interact with Gotcha in order to obtain items, and not for the latter's personality.
  • Clyde is such a smug and openly sadistic person that he needs to brainwash himself to consistently maintain a polite facade.
• Knight Templar:
  • President Zazz is the human hero who made the last stand against the demons, and he's willing to do anything to revive the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, he also believes non-human species stole the world from humans and seeks to have humanity dominate them. He's clearly bought into his own hype and believes that even if he dies, he'll be remembered as a savior to his people rather than the fanatical and racist monster that he really is.
  • Robun is vaguely implied to be a fanatic, but if the player gets the route where Edgar escapes from Morgalia early, they'll learn that Robun genuinely believes non-humans are evil and that the world would be a better place if humanity took over and enslaved them. This is in contrast to Akari, who is a Card-Carrying Villain with no illusions about how dystopian and self-destructive a human supremacist state will be.
• Knight Templar Parent: After the death of her husband, Morgalia becomes extremely controlling towards her daughter Chase and insists she knows what's best for the two of them. She goes as far as to sell out Vulcanite to Zeta just so the two of them can live in luxury, and executes Chase's anti-occupation friends. Morgalia notes the irony that her extreme actions to protect her family caused Chase to run away from home, but she refuses to own up to her abuse and tries to have Chase brainwashed to obey her.
• La Résistance: After President Zazz orders Barbados to destroy Pon Pon Village, Akira decides to start a revolution against him and the State of Zeta. The party also teams up with the Vulcanite Resistance to free Vulcanite from Zeta's occupation.
• Laughably Evil: Sho Sharker is a goofy show host who is introduced abruptly cutting to commercial because he accidentally mentioned Prime Minister Morgalia's age. However, he's also a ruthless advocate for Zetacorp and is willing to have dissidents killed on his show, all while cracking jokes at their expense. Even his Villainous Breakdown is humorous due to him declaring himself "uncancellable" while watching his anti-Akira campaign fall apart. In-universe, many viewers find him more obnoxious and gaudy than funny.
• Leaked Experience: Inactive and knocked out party members get full experience. Due to hard mode's headcount limitation and the hype battle mechanic, this is a necessary feature.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • Zazz and Akari took advantage of Eliza's loneliness to make her Zetacorp's press secretary and make her dependent on the company for validation. They also took advantage of Robun's status as a social pariah to convince him that non-humans deserve to be dominated by humans to create a more equal society.
  • Gemini is subtly stoking Runi's paranoia in order to manipulate her into mind-wiping herself, allowing the demon to have the power of syncing while being in full control of their combined form. These attempts will succeed if Akira refuses to be friends with Runi and Edgar's link level is lower than Crow, Chase, and Kiyota's link levels.
• Mirror Character: Robun's additional characterization is only revealed in the event where Edgar escapes from Morgalia early, and it shows that like Akari, he believes non-human civilization isn't worth saving. While Akari was a victim of the Smog Empire's sexism, Robun faced discrimination for a disease that affected his physical appearance. Both want their fellow non-humans to be killed and/or enslaved by humanity, but Akari knows humanity will create a self-destructive dystopia while Robun has the delusion that humanity will create an egalitarian society, at least for themselves.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal:
  • In Chapter 2, Kekkan betrays Genesis and Fredek, claiming that the State of Zeta wanted them to die for outliving their usefulness. As a result, Genesis kills Kekkan and joins Akira's party alongside Fredek.
  • In Chapter 3, Robun wounds Artica in order to sacrifice her to Saggitarius, but Akira saves Artica, causing the latter to side with Vulcanite Resistance.
• Monster Arena: The Battle Lab has the player fight battles without using consumable items. These battles include mobs and stronger versions of previous boss fights. The Hard Battle Lab even includes bosses that the player might have missed, such as Virgo and Synced!Cancer in the same fight despite them being mutually exclusive bosses.
• Moral Myopia:
  • In an inversion of Ape Shall Never Kill Ape, Asterisk holds the party in contempt for killing Gemini by shattering her Zodiac stone. When the party retorts that Gemini was planning to kill the other Zodiacs, Asterisk states that it's okay for archdemons to kill each other and that they've done so in the past, it's not okay for mortals to do so. It's implied the archdemons are incapable of permanently killing each other even if they wanted to, though Asterisk made sure to create Faceless clones as backups in cased an archdemon actually dies. Strangely, this sentiment isn't shared by archdemons Libra and Leo, who believe the party was justified in killing Gemini.
  • After the player defeats Detritus Seven, they can view Zazz's logs on the Detritus robot series. Zazz programmed Eleven's AI to be capable of empathy and morality because he believes humanity needs a hero of justice to lead them. Unfortunately, Zazz despises sapient non-human species and is annoyed that Eleven shows compassion to them. In his logs on Seven, Zazz writes that he would be considered the worst mass murderer in history for allowing Seven to slaughter so many people, but he doesn't consider any of Seven's victims to be people because they're non-humans. When the Vulcanite Resistance manages to defeat Seven and leave him for dead in the mines, Zazz has the gall to be offended.
• More Despicable Minion:
  • Downplayed. Although Akari has a more thoroughly explained backstory than Zazz and is presented as a tragic figure, her end goal is actually much worse. While Zazz at least seems to genuinely want humanity to prosper, albeit in a classist apartheid society, Akari cares nothing for humans and only sees them as a means to hurt as many people as possible, with the implication that she wants humanity to make the entire planet uninhabitable and doom themselves too.
  • The February 2024 update to the game adds Detritus Seven, who is so sadistic that even Zazz was somewhat disturbed by his creation's brutal reign over the Vulcanite Mines and genocide of the Kolfos.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Two recruitable characters, Virgo and Rogue, are mutually exclusive so that in the final chapter, one is a boss while the other is recruitable. On the Evil Runi route, neither is recruitable, though only Virgo will be fought as a boss.
• My Greatest Failure: The leader of the archangels, Slash, regrets listening to Quot's request to spare Asterisk, since this just led to Asterisk continuing with his cycle of wiping out humanity and reviving them. Slash now believes the only way to atone for his failure is to stop the party from unwittingly delivering the Zodiac stones to Zazz's office, thus preventing the cycle from continuing. Quot herself regrets convincing Slash to spare Asterisk, since she is not only ostracized by the other angels, Asterisk dumps her anyways.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: President Zazz is an unusual example in that he believes in human supremacy, is fanatical about humanity's past glory, seeks to turn non-humans into third-class citizens, and is repeatedly called a fascist, but since he's the only human alive, he doesn't really have a Cult of Personality based on these ideals. Instead, he relies on his corporate power and political connections to coerce people into doing what he wants and manipulate greedy non-humans into betraying their people for profit.
• New Game Plus: After defeating the Final Boss, the player can create a save file that can only be used to start a new run, with only items carrying over. However, Asterisk seems to remember meeting Akira before, due to being the God of Cycles. Some of his later conversations will have additional facial expressions and lines, and his final shop has him hint at his motivations.
• Ninja: Akira wields ninja weapons like kunais and has high base agility, though their class is listed as Freelancer.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Zazz encourages his Hunter minions to sacrifice each other at a drop of the hat for outliving their usefuless. In Chapter 2, Kekkan tries to leave Genesis and Fredek for dead when the party starts to gain an advantage. In Chapter 3, Robun is so fanatical about serving Zeta that he tries to sacrifice himself, Clyde, and Artica to empower Saggitarius to kill the party, without the latter two's consent.
• Noble Demon: Although Asterisk is the Greater-Scope Villain behind Zazz and is only helping the party to ensure the maximum amount of syncs for Zazz's plan, he has more of a sense of fair play and generosity in comparison. In the standard ending, he agrees to delay humanity's resurrection for five years out of respect for Akira. Before his Superboss fight, he sells the party the Syncro Ring, knowing that it mitigates his boss mechanic of disallowing the party from syncing.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: Smogs are gaseous beings who are not born with a biological sex, but they can slowly change their solid form shape to their liking. The protagonist, Akira, is a Smog whose pronouns are they/them, but not all Smogs go by they/them. In fact, most of the ones in the Smog Empire chose genders and adopted a patriarchy, though most of the ones in Bonetown don't significantly change their shape or choose a gender.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • If Chase is the only one left standing in the boss fight with Morgalia, the battle automatically ends in a game over and Morgalia kidnaps Chase so that Clyde can brainwash her.
  • On the Evil Runi route, Gemini will automatically win if she mind wipes Akira enough times, leading to Akira being lobotimized. She then unleashes a massive attack with the execute property to ensure a total party wipe.
• Not So Similar: If Crow is the one to sacrifice himself to save the party at the end of Chapter 2, Morgalia will state that the two of them are similar due to their estrangement from their daughters and their desire to give them a better life, but Crow denies this; Crow was separated from his family because everyone thought he was a conspiracy theorist about Zetacorp's true goals while Morgalia chose to kick Chase out of the house because the latter rightfully opposed her tyrannical rule over Vulcanite. Additionally, Crow accepts that he can never be with Emile again because of his reputation while Morgalia can't understand why Chase will never forgive her. Finally, Crow supports Akira's egalitarian goals in the hopes that his daughter will benefit while Morgalia turned Vulcanite into a classist dystopia with herself and Chase prospering at everyone else's expense.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Prime Minister Morgalia claims that submitting to Zeta is the best way to ensure that the imperialistic state doesn't hurt Vulcanite citizens too much, even though it's clear that most Vulcanites resent the occupation and many of her citizens are forced into homelessness and horrible working conditions. However, when Akira's party and the Vulcanite Resistance take over the capital, Morgalia threatens to blow it up if they don't return Chase to her, showing that she's motivated more by her desire for control and power than altruism. Worst of all, she follows through on this threat out of spite. Her desire to protect Chase also counts, she since's such an abusive Control Freak towards Chase that she wants Clyde to brainwash Chase into loving her again.
  • In the Evil Runi route, Gemini completely takes over Runi's body and engages in extra brutality, such as killing Kael and kicking his body off the train, and then killing Virgo/Rosie despite the latter's willingness to negotiate. While she claims this is for the sake of ending Zazz's fascist regime, it's clear that she's on a power-high from having full control of her sync with Runi and that she killed them out of sadism. After Zazz is defeated, she then kills everyone in the party except for Akira, even though they're the only ones who can reform a post-Zazz world. The Broken Gemini route reveals that her true goal is to kill her siblings, and that she sees Runi and the resistance movement as pawns to make that happen.
• Obviously Evil: President Zazz is a skull-faced cyborg with tentacles growing out of his face for some reason, and he's a greedy and bigoted dictator.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: Downplayed. The majority of Vulcanite citizens want an end to Zeta's occupation of Vulcanite, but this is based more on ending the exploitative labor practices and false democratic system than on expelling civilians from Zeta. Once both Zeta and Vulcanite are liberated from their dictators, the two countries have a positive relationship.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: At the end of Chapter 2, President Zazz states that Zeta won't help rebuild Vulcanite's power grid until Akira is captured, essentially coercing the citizens into turning on Akira whether or not they believe they blew the power plant up.
• Offing the Offspring: Zazz treats the android Detritus like a son at first, but when Detritus protests against his war crimes, Zazz has Akari kill Detritus while calling him a waste of parts. Fortunately, Eliza revives Detritus and the two join Akira's side in order to depose Zazz.
• One Nation Under Copyright: Zetacorp is a MegaCorp, but it's basically indistinguishable from being the main body of government of Zeta, since Zazz is the president of both the state and the corporation. Any attempt to defy Zetacorp is considered treason against the state itself, and even attempting to retire too early from Zetacorp is punishable by death in Zazz's mind.
• Original Position Fallacy: Detritus-12 is programmed to believe that non-humans are inferior in order to make her more compliant with President Zazz's plan to create a human supremacist society. However, Akari points out that androids like Detritus-12 will be considered a second class citizen who can be disposed of at any time.
• Our Humans Are Different: The original humans were driven to extinction by the demons, leaving only android replicas of humans and humanoid species who are collectively referred to as humankind. There is one original human left, President Zazz, who is a human brain controlling a huge robot body.
• Overflow Error: Angels are an in-universe example because they have numerical stats associated with them. According to Quot, many of the angels started out peaceful, but thanks to Asterisk, their aggression stat went so low that they wrapped around to the highest value. There are some exceptions, such as Eli having a low aggression stat even after the change and Exca having a high aggression stat even before the change.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • President Zazz uses his corporate influence to create and persecute the poor. He also plans to displace non-humans from their homes and make them second-class citizens in favor of humans.
  • The Smog Empire has a brutal patriarchy where women have little to no rights and are considered property of men. If the player causes Edgar to escape from Morgalia's mansion early, an optional cutscene with Robun reveals that the empire discriminates against those with disfiguring diseases too.
• President Evil: Zazz is both the president of the State of Zeta and the president of Zetacorp, and he's a greedy man obsessed with expanding his influence and chasing after humanity's past glory, at the expense of other races.
• Pretender Diss: Sho instantly sees through Akira's Bonebud disguise because he was once a Bonebud, and he notices that their behavior and knowledge of the Bonetown Elder don't match real Bonebuds. He mocks Akira for thinking they could fool a real Bonebud, though he notes that most people outside Bonebud culture wouldn't be able to tell.
• Propaganda Hero:
  • Although the Hunters are presented as a benevolent organization to Zeta's public, they are actually just muscle for President Zazz's imperialistic agenda in reality and are often ordered to commit atrocities against any settlements that defy Zetacorp. Whenever a Hunter dies in the line of duty, Zazz will publicize their deaths and present them as martyrs to induce Patriotic Fervor among the citizens, but privately can't even be bothered to remember their names because he sees them as nothing but disposable pawns.
  • Detritus-11 was deliberately programmed to resemble Zazz's past self as the hero of humanity and was created to make Zetacorp more popular despite the company's oppression of Zeta and Vulcanite's citizens. However, Zazz is quick to order Eleven's execution when the latter tries to do the heroic thing by opposing Zetacorp's atrocities.
• Psycho for Hire: Clyde is the most sadistic of the Hunters, since he is utterly gleeful when destroying Rosie's mind and brags about it in front of Runi and Edgar. He shows nothing but mockery towards Vulcanite after Zeta's false flag bombing leaves them without electricity. It's clear that unlike the other Hunters, he's more motivated by a desire to hurt people than money or survival.
• Psycho Supporter: Robun is fanatical about serving the Church of the Vessel and is willing to sacrifice his teammates and even himself just to slow down the party. It's noted that he only joined after Akari took over and spread anti-poor and pro-Zetacorp views.
• Punch-Clock Villain:
  • Kael is shown to be a sociable guy in flashbacks, but he's still on Zetacorp's payroll and it's implied that he was ordered to attack the civilians of Pon Pon Village if they didn't give up their Zodiac stones. Subverted when he defects and is later forced into serving them again due to a bomb they implanted in him.
  • This is deconstructed because Zetacorp deliberately enforces poverty in Zeta in order to force people to apply as Hunters for them, regardless of their personal feelings on committing atrocities for the corporation.
• Puppet State: After being invaded by Zeta, Vulcanite nominally still has its own democratic system and Prime Minister. In reality, Zeta controls the outcome of the elections and ensures that the pro-Zeta Morgalia Evers always gets elected as PM. Zeta also rigged the mine and power plant to explode on command, which is intended to both punish Vulcanite if they ever overthrow the government and to force Vulcanite to become dependent on Zeta for electrical power.
• The Quisling:
  • Prime Minister Morgalia supports Zeta's occupation of her country. She's a more tragic example than most, since she did so because she thought becoming a pro-occupation politician would be the best way to give her enough power to provide for her family, though her inability to take responsibility for her actions ultimately makes her unsympathetic.
  • Sho is aware of Zetacorp's plan to effectively enslave all non-humans, but supports their plans anyways because he wants to use his connections with the company in order to stay on top of the entertainment industry.
  • Akari is aware that she will be a second or third class citizen once Zazz completes his human supremacist state, but she doesn't care because she wants everyone else to suffer and she plans on killing herself once that plan is complete.
• Rage Within the Machine: Zeta is a corporate dystopia that conquered Vulcanite and spread its tyranny there. Several party members are Hunters (corporate mercenaries), Eliza is the press secretary of Zeta, Detritus-11 is the robot progeny of President Zazz, Crow was once a Zetacorp employee, and Lunez was once a clerk in Vulcanite's mine. They all end up turning on Zeta in order to overthrow President Zazz and rebuild Zeta into a more egalitarian society.
• Red Herring: Rogue has a ninja-like appearance with black schlera, making him seem like a Smog assassin. This is to hide that he's actually the Vulcuro Kael, who secretly abandoned his mission in Pon Pon Village, only to be captured and forced to work for Zeta again.
• Rewatch Bonus: It's not obvious on a first playthrough, but on a second playthrough, it becomes evident that Clyde's inhibitor implant actually is working to some extent, but he intentionally brainwashes himself in a way that doesn't set it off as much, allowing him to engage in his worst impulses with little to no consequences.
• Revenge Before Reason:
  • Barbados wants to avenge his brother Kael by killing Runi and even razing her village. Eliza points out that doing so could cause a war with the country Pon Pon Village is in.
  • If the player didn't increase Barbados's link level in the first activity point segment, Rogue/Kael will refuse to forgive Akira. In Chapter 3, he dies fighting the party on the train to Zeta and dies stating that revenge isn't worth it. Otherwise, this trope will be subverted and Kael will join the party.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Akira's party seeks to rebel against President Zazz in order to free Zeta and Vulcanite from his tyranny. With the exception of Gemini in the Evil Runi route, the party never does anything morally grey or questionable.
• Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Chase is the daughter of Prime Minister Morgalia and the family lives in luxury because Morgalia sold out the country to Zeta and exploited the citizens for cheap labor. However, Chase sides with the anti-occupation side instead and later helps the party overthrow her mother. If Chase isn't the one to sacrifice herself to save the party, she'll become the new prime minister in order to rebuild Vulcanite into a more equal society.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: If the player starts a New Game Plus run, Asterisk will greet Akira like they already met before. He will also give more hints about angels and his motivations in his optional shop dialogue. To a lesser extent, if the player's previous route was Evil Runi, Akira's nightmare in Chapter 1 has Gemini taunt them with their lobotomized friends.
• Schrödinger's Question: The difficulty select screen plays with this, since it asks if the human hero won against the demons (normal), negotiated with the demons (easy), or was killed by the demons (hard). In the Brutal Bonus Level, Aquarius reveals the context behind each difficulty setting's lore. While the easy route's lore is exactly what is presented in the difficulty selection screen, normal mode lore has Zazz defeat Aquarius. On hard mode, Aquarius kills Zazz, but Zazz revives himself in another body. Either way, Zazz has no means of defeating the 13th archdemon Asterisk/Ophiuchus, meaning he has no choice but to negotiate anyways. This makes the story differences between each difficulty inconsequential in the long run.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If the player beats the angel Y-phen, this edits a global file so that they can never be fought ever again, even if the player reloads the save file or starts a new game. The angel states that this is because they want to find another timeline where they can actually win, which means this is a conscious decision to avoid any player who is capable of beating them.
• Sibling Murder: Gemini's real goal is to take complete control of Runi and use their combined psychic powers to kill all of the other Zodiac Archdemons. As such, none of the other archdemons miss her if the player gets the outcome where Runi kills Gemini.
• Skill Scores and Perks: Characters can learn skills both through leveling and spending FP, which are gained through levels. Everyone gains 1 FP every three levels, except for Akira who gains 1 FP per level. This is because they can also spend FP on individual stats, and every 10 upgrade in a stat decreases the cooldown for the skill tied to that stat. Skills gained solely through leveling are presented as a choice between two skills, meaning some skills are mutually exclusive.
• Small Steps Hero: Akira often does the smaller jobs that most hunters neglect, since someone has to do them. Although it doesn't pay as well or increase their rank as much as bigger jobs, they're satisfied with being able to help the community in a small way.
• The Sociopath:
  • President Zazz admits that due to his immortality, he has no empathy for Zeta's citizens and that their suffering means nothing to him. However, he can maintain at least some degree of good publicity with his charisma, though he hates doing it because he sees non-humans as far too beneath him to warrant such effort. Despite his cruelty, his ego and pride are so overblown that he believes himself to be the righteous hero of humanity and expects his species to praise him once they're revived. He wasn't always like this, since he showed genuine grief over his fellow humans in the past.
  • Clyde seems to be a high-functioning sociopath who can hide his sadism and callousness behind a polite facade, but he later displays Hair-Trigger Temper when his pride is wounded and can't help but gloat about Zetacorp's crimes when he's on the job. It becomes clear that he's actually a low-functioning sociopath who normally has so little impulse control that he needs to brainwash himself into keeping up appearances.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Right before his second boss fight, Clyde will mock whoever sacrificed themselves at the end of Chapter 2.
• The Stinger: After the credits, Akari is still in prison and learns that Eliza created a documentary based on the former in order to start a feminist movement in the Smog Empire. Akari also gains a cellmate in Yuuki Sanda, the pop icon whose posters can be found throughout the game. Unfortunately, Akari still has a grudge against Akira and seeks to get revenge on them when the demons resume their invasion.
• Strawman News Media:
  • The ZNN only exists to parrot pro-Zeta propaganda. In her final bonding event, Eliza mentioned that although she was personally against the occupation of Vulcanite, Zazz and Akari forced her to write fluff pieces on both Zetacorp and the Church of Cycles (which they control) in order to excuse their terrible leadership.
  • To a lesser extent, Sho Sharker is a show host whose focus isn't only news, since he also has game shows and celebrity/politician interviews. However, he is in on Zeta's plan and like the ZNN, mainly exists as a mouthpiece for Zeta in order to make the people of Vulcanite more compliant. He doesn't seem to be very good at it, since his ratings are propped up by bots and most of the Vulcanite citizens see through his lies.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy:
  • Prime Minister Morgalia constantly tries to justify selling out Vulcanite to Zeta as necessary to provide for herself and her daughter Chase, and refuses to own up to her actions even after Chase leaves her, even though deep down she knows she's in the wrong. At the end of Chapter 2, if Chase is the one to sacrifice herself to save the party, Morgalia screams that all the crimes she committed for herself and Chase now mean nothing. Chase retorts that her actions will lead to Zeta and Vulcanite being freed from Zazz while only Morgalia's actions will amount to nothing.
  • In the event that Rogue/Kael is recruited. Virgo will turn against the party because she believes it's better for them to abandon the revolution and flee than to risk humanity returning. Kael points out that the rebels already suffered too many losses to back down, but Virgo subtly implies that Kael is engaging in this fallacy. However, Kael retorts that running away wouldn't protect the party from Zeta for long anyways.
• Swiss Bank Account: Eliza transferred funds to an account in the kingdom, despite being a Zeta citizen. This comes in handy when Zeta freezes most of her bank accounts after she sides with Akira against them and becomes a fugitive.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Crow notes that when Kekkan ran the Church of the Vessel, the organization was more benevolent, but ever since Akari took over, Kekkan became more bitter and only focused on increasing her own standing in Zeta's hierarchy.
• Troubled Abuser: Prime Minister Morgalia is very controlling towards her daughter Chase and kicked her out of the house for a few days for protesting against Zeta's occupation of Vulcanite. When Chase decides to run away from home to Pon Pon, Morgalia switches between regretting how she alienated her daughter to insisting that this outcome isn't her fault. It's also implied that losing her husband caused her mental state to get even worse. Near the end of Chapter 2, she swings back to abuser mode and seeks to kidnap Chase so that Clyde can brainwash Chase into obeying her.
• Trumplica: Morgalia's ascent to becoming Prime Minister is based on Trump's 2016 election. Both were considered unserious "meme" candidates for supporting extreme or unpopular policies while getting the support of fringe groups, won the election despite losing the popular vote, are associated with show business, and tend to flaunt their wealth.
• Undefeatable Little Village: Subverted. Pon Pon Village is able to fend off Zeta's Hunters thanks to Runi's ability to sync with Gemini. Unfortunately, Aries overpowers Runi and the party, and then syncs with Barbados to destroy the village.
• Vicariously Ambitious: President Zazz wants to revive humanity to create a human supremacist state, but he also wants to step down from his position and hand it off to another human.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • If the player set up Edgar, Chase, or Kiyota for romance by getting them to a link level of 3, only to pivot to Genesis or Eliza, they will be heartbroken. If they go down Genesis's romance route only to state that they only want sex from her, Akira's relationship with her will be forever ruined. Most infamously, the player can have Akira refuse to forgive Runi. All of these will result in "Broken Syncs," which will prevent the link level of the affected character from increasing. In the case of romance options, this will cause Akira to gain elemental weaknesses too.
  • If the player has no link levels with anyone, refuses to forgive Runi, and refuses to save Runi from Gemini, this will result in the worst ending where Gemini fully possesses Runi and kills everyone in the party except for Akira, who is then killed by Zazz.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • Subverted with Prime Minister Morgalia and Sho Sharker. The former won all her elections due to her connections with Zeta, but always lost the popular vote because most voters oppose her pro-occupation stance. The latter has the biggest entertainment show, but his ratings and views are actually pumped up by bots rather than pumped up organically.
  • Downplayed with Zazz, since while he's able to paint Akira as a terrorist and pin the Vulcanite Mines bombing on them, he notes that a lot of the citizens still believe in Akira's cause while remaining suspicious of Zetacorp progaganda.
• We Have Reserves:
  • Zazz has no problem risking his Hunters or sacrificing them to obtain the Zodiac stones, regardless of their rank. He deliberately made Zeta's economy terrible so that people will be forced to become Hunters if they want to make a living, making them easy to replace.
  • If the player gets Runi to kill Gemini, Asterisk states that Gemini can be replaced by her Faceless counterpart.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Zigzagged with President Zazz. While he does genuinely want to revive the cryo-sleeping humans and believes himself to be humanity's hero, he also wants humanity to prosper while exploiting non-human species, who he blames for stealing humanity's place in the world despite how it was the demons who attacked humanity. He's perfectly willing to cede power to a human successor, showing that he's not completing enacting his plan only for himself. However, he wants humanity to continue hoarding resources and seems to have no real plan to avoid another environmental crisis, which would just lead to his conquest being rendered moot when everyone dies from the heat wave again. Additionally, he wants to go to war with the remaining two non-human countries, which could bode poorly for the people he supposedly wants to save.
  • The archangel leader, Slash, wants to kill Akira because they fear that if the latter confronts Zazz, they'll unwittingly accelerate the Human Restoration Project and Asterisk's cycle by bringing all the Zodiac stones to the human cryosleep chamber. If the player recruits Kael, Virgo will also come to this conclusion and try to kill the party, making her unrecruitable.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Barbados calls out Eliza for her fence-sitting regarding Zetacorp's atrocities, stating that no matter how bad she feels about it, she's still complicit as Zetacorp's Head of Logistics and Press Secretary.
  • If Akira is wearing Kael's jacket right before the second fight with Rogue, the latter will give the former a Precision F-Strike because he realizes this is proof that Akira killed Barbados.
  • During Libra's fourth bonding event, if Akira chose not to forgive Runi for using ESP powers on them, Libra will point out that Akira just made it easier for Gemini to manipulate Runi.
  • In the Evil Runi route, the archangels call out the player for isolating Runi and letting Zazz succeed in creating a human supremacist state. Quot is gentler to the player about their mistake and advises them to use New Game Plus to get a happier ending.
  • If the player recruits Rogue/Kael, Virgo points out that if the party confronts Zazz, he'll still succeed in his human restoration plan because all the Zodiac stones will be gathered in the location he wants. She calls out the party for being willing to take such a risk for the sake of revolution. However, Kael points out that not going means they'll be forced to live under Zazz's oppressive regime anyways.
  • Before the start of the story, Virgo approached Akira with the intent to befriend and sync with the latter, but Akira handed her over to Zetacorp. If the player recruits Virgo and does her bonding event, she admits she was bitter about Akira doing so, since this left her at the mercy of Zazz.
• Willfully Weak: After clearing Zeta's sewers, it's possible to revisit it before starting the first bonding events and fight Asterisk. Asterisk is powerful at this point of the game, but can still be beaten with proper tactics. However, it turns out he was holding back, since he's actually defeated Zazz in the past and led the demons in wiping out most of humanity.
• Worthy Opponent: If the player defeats Aquarius in the Brutal Bonus Level, the latter states that he was originally Zazz's enemy back when Zazz was fighting the demons as the last living human. He was initially angered at Zazz surviving against the demons against all odds, especially in the hard mode lore where the latter revived himself in another body. Eventually, he gained respect for Zazz's determination and promised to sync with the latter if he could get all the other Zodiacs to sync first. Unfortunately, Zazz is now a racist Knight Templar who wants to revive humanity while forcing non-humans to become second-class citizens, making this an example of Villain Cred too.
• Written by the Winners:
  • Inverted with the conflict between humans and demons. Although the humans lost, Zazz is still in charge of the civilized world and claims the demons wiped out all humans except for him. However, his hidden logs and Asterisk's own words imply that most humans were going to die from climate change anyways, and most of the survivors of the demon attack didn't survive the extreme heat wave, including the ones that were in cryosleep. The reason Zazz needs the archdemons in the first place is because the sleeping humans melted, and he can't revive them without the demons' help.
  • Zetacorp has a computer with information about each major humanoid species, but there's no entry on the Kolfos, who seem to be native to Vulcanite, which implies a species-wide Un-person.
  • President Zazz states that insurrectionists like Akira will be written out of history, and his words imply that he inflicted Un-person to other rebels in the past. In the ending, Akira and their allies take over both Zeta and Vulcanite, meaning they're the ones who get to write history and expose Zazz's crimes.
• You, Get Me Coffee: This is a battle mechanic in Sho/Taurus's boss fight, where he orders his employee Jasper to heal him with coffee. However, once Sho's HP is low enough, Jasper finishes him off and reveals he was part of the Vulcanite Resistance all along. He only used his position as Sho's gofer to get access to the latter's computer.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Chapter 1, Zazz reveals that he never intended for Akira to survive their mission to Pon Pon, since he wants a martyr to justify razing the town to the ground. In Chapter 2, it turns out he's sending Hunters he doesn't like, such as Genesis and Fredek, on missions so that one of his closer associates can silently get rid of them.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters:
  • Zetacorp labels Akira a terrorist for killing Barbados after the latter destroyed Pon Pon Village on President Zazz's orders. Later, Zetacorp frames Akira and the Vulcanite Resistance for destroying Vulcanite's power plant to turn public opinion against them. Ironically, Akira and their allies are surprisingly clean even by the standards of rebel protagonists in most fiction.
  • However, in the Evil Runi route, Gemini uses the party's cause as a cover to slaughter enemies that they could have otherwise spared or recruited, making her an unambiguous terrorist.
• Xanatos Gambit: President Zazz sends Hunters to kill Akira and the party, but he also wins in the scenario where the party storms into his office and kills him, since this puts all the Zodiac Stones in proximity of the humans he wants to revive. Right before his boss fight, he sarcastically calls Akira a model employee for saving him the trouble of finding each stone.

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