Video Game / Heartbeat

Eve the human, and Klein the Cat Sith

Heartbeat is a commercial RPG Maker MV game available on Steam, made by indie team Chumbosoft. It has nothing to do with the British television series of the same name.

Heartbeat's world consists of regular humans, and the magical Mogwai. Long ago, there was a war between the races, leaving the world in a constant state of danger. To maintain the peace and ensure balance, Mogs mark various humans as Conjurers to act as mediators.

You play as Eve Staccato, a simple Conjurer from a small mountain town. What starts out as a simple errand from your grandfather ends up becoming an adventure full of both wonder and peril. You will meet new friends and foes as you take on a strange and transcendent journey.

There is a short bonus game that comes with the soundtrack, unlocked by a password obtained after beating the game's Superboss. There is also a a fan wiki which compiles more information about the characters and story from Word of God comments.

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Tropes:

• Ability Required to Proceed: There are many places that can't be accessed without the skill of a certain party member, some of which you won't discover until after they've left the party, and you'll have to wait until after you've finished the main story to get past them.
• Abusive Precursors: A not-so-distant variant within living memory of the oldest Mogs but not known by many. Humanity came to other planets in Solum's solar system and completely destroyed them for resources. Solum was only saved by diligent work from Mogwai. When Humans came back, they were surprised by the survivors and started kidnapping Mogwai to dissect them for knowledge. Some young humans defected to the Mogwai and after a war which the humans lost, the human ships were stranded on Solum and the population eventually resettled
• Actually Four Mooks: The enemies and Clusters are all actually groups of more than one.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The price of the Sheepsquatch Sleeping Sacks will increase as the game progresses, despite the trio that runs them giving you a discount in exchange for helping them earlier.
• The Ageless: Mogs cannot die of old age, and some of the oldest are centuries old, though they're very rare, as most of the oldest died in wars with humans centuries ago.
• Always Check Behind the Chair: Sometimes trash cans, cardboard boxes, and smaller boxes contain items you can take.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • There are three difficulty settings that make combat easier or harder, and don't change anything about the story.
  • As well as having multiple save slots, the game also autosaves at various points in case you forget to save for a while. You can also save at any time, which is especially useful during some late game puzzles where it is advised to make use of Save Scumming to avoid having to start over.
  • You'll usually be warned by someone in your party when the next room you're about to enter will lead to a boss battle, so you have time to prepare.
  • During the part of the game where Eve fights against Yorshk in Klein's Core, there will be an option to save beforehand, but even if you lose, the game will continue since there's no way to backtrack and do some grinding if you're at a low level.
  • If you lose the chicken dodging minigame enough times, you'll be able to skip it and continue anyway. The same thing happens if you lose the pup dodging minigame in the post-game, although that one takes more tries before you can skip it.
  • There are no achievements that are permanently missable, since any that are missed during the main story can be completed in the post-game. There are also no achievements for getting any or all of the Multiple Endings, so you don't have to get them all if you don't want to.
  • If you get a bad ending, you'll automatically be returned to the point where the story branches, so you don't have to replay the whole game or reload a save from way before that point.
  • Before the final phase of the final boss fight, you'll be prompted to save so you don't have to start over should you lose, since the previous phases are quite long.
  • After you complete the main story, you can still play (and also do a few quests and visit some areas that weren't previously accessible), and you'll be able to switch out party members who previously joined you, so you can use their skills to go back for anything you missed.
• Back for the Finale: During the final boss fight, Eve gains the ability to summon her previous allies, and they help to fight against the Queen.
• Background Music Override: During the Red Eye Cluster Outbreak, the music for all the areas is overridden with a different track.
• Bait-and-Switch: Happens a few times with the Terror Trio:
  • The first time you encounter them, it looks like you're going to have to fight them, but instead Troz turns into her Mog form and scares them off.
  • After fighting Pike on her own, and then fighting her again with Skip, you might think your next encounter will result in a battle against all three of them. Instead, Pike is on your side this time. Not only that, but Wake and Skip have turned into their human forms. Though there are later opportunities to fight the whole trio, even if it's just memory versions of them.
  • While trying to get to Snowver and catch Nyx before Wake and Skip take her to the Den, you'll probably be prepared for a rematch, only to find that Nyx managed to escape, and also took a large piece of Skip's Core, leaving her weakened. They both decide to let the party go after Nyx, and don't attack them again aside from the aforementioned memory versions and other boss rushes.
• The Battle Didn't Count: In Ending B, it is difficult, but possible to defeat Queen Han possessing Eve, especially by using damage items. However, she shrugs it off as being rusty and the scene proceeds as if the party lost.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Tiny Oni are pretty much the game's answer to Mr. Saturn, Temmies, and other Cloud Cuckoo Land species: tiny, goofy, and constantly saying silly quotes. However, unlike the others, Tiny Oni can be really dangerous, especially in high numbers. Tiny Oni Island used to be Raijin Island until they ate most of the Raijins living there, and the only place where you actually fight them is the Brutal Bonus Level only accessible after beating the entire game and a lengthy sidequest.
• Big Little Brother: Blitz is initially mistaken for the older brother because of his size, since Chip is much smaller.
• Bishōnen Line: Mogs that are strong enough or in a Conjurer pact can take on a human form, and said form is, in most cases, more powerful than their regular monster appearance. When Klein starts using her human form again, she gets vastly more effective as a party member.
• Blackout Basement: The Hospital Stairwell has darkness around the corners of the screen to emphasise how creepy it is; it also makes it easier to get caught by and thrown into a battle with the spectres.
• Boss Rush: The game loves these, though they're oddly mostly against copies of your own party members. Special mention to the Artificial Core, where the same rush is effectively fought twice in a row and the Kuji Inn Challenge, an outrageously long Dream Sequence that pits you against just about every major character in the game, including a bunch that are otherwise never fought (like most of the other non-combat Conjurers and several shopkeepers).
• Broken Bird: Eve Staccato's great-grandmother Eve Xin, after tragedy led to all her Mog partners being either possessed, imprisoned, or fleeing in shame.
• But Thou Must!: There are certain parts of the game where, if nothing is blocking the entrance to a place you're not supposed to go to yet, a character will stop you from going there.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": HP, MP and Limit Break are replaced with Pulse, Beat and Heart gauges, as a nod to the power of Conjurers and Mogs being heavily fueled by their emotions (in fact, Beat-replenishing items are things that make you feel warm and fuzzy, like pictures of kittens). Every party member also has their own spin on the Skills tab.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": There are a lot of weird insect creatures in Solum that everyone calls sheep, cows, and horses. But even Outset natives are a little unnerved by the Tindalos "puppies". It's eventually revealed they're not harmful, just alien livestock, and when the protagonists encounter normal livestock, they're incredibly freaked out by the "aliens".
• Cast Full of Gay: While much of the cast doesn't have any stated romantic interests, those who do are almost entirely gay women, including many of the protagonists, and a male/male relationship was significant in the history of the story. Of course, for Mogwai, gender isn't necessary for reproduction and is more a manifestation of their energy than anything else. It's also implied (and confirmed by Word of God) that only gay people can be Conjurers.
• Chain of Deals: In order to get a piece of Shep's Core, you will need to get a pen for her. After getting access to the back room of Aeros' Smallmart, you find a man who has pen, and wants some chicken to eat. Then you find several other people who all want something, and will give you something else in exchange that another person needs, until you get the chicken and trade it to the man in return for the pen.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Eve quite literally bumps into one of the more important characters in the game a few minutes into her adventure, a fact that won't become apparent until much later. Kon and Rain also appear as Snowverian tourists arguing on the side of the road early on.
• Collection Sidequest: One building has vending machines that dispense Wukong Trading Cards, which depict various characters, enemies, and locations. The Steam release has achievements for gathering them all.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The elemental affinity system is similar to more well-known ones such as Pokémon, but has some curveballs like Flora being weak to Shadow and not Fire, and that all affinities resist their own affinity.
• Defeat Means Playable: The majoity of your party members are fought as bosses before they join you, although in some cases they don't join right after, and there's one party member, Rex, who you fight after she's been in the party, who then rejoins afterwards.
• Demonic Possession: As vengeance for ruining her life, Queen Han literally took Caesar's, possessing his core and using his body for the following centuries. She also possesses Eve in Ending B, if you haven't defeated all the Red Eyed Clusters and gotten the Bagua Mirror from Choi.
• Developer's Room: One of the boxes near the entrance of the Den Castle will take you to a room with characters based on the people who worked on the game.
• Downer Ending: In contrast to the relatively upbeat tone of the game, the bad endings are astonishingly brutal and horrifying, and include some incredibly dark moments; this is played up somewhat as all endings except the True Ending give a prompt to "end this nightmare".
• Dual Boss: Comes up a few times:
  • While on your way to Harbei, you fight against Pike (for the second time) along with Skip.
  • In the Cirruwa Forest, you fight against Wake and Skip in their human forms.
  • In Snowver, you have to fight against Kon and her Conjurer, Rain. In fact, this is a two-on-two fight as Pike and Io have stayed behind at the town's entrance and Mott isn't included in the battle.
• Duel Boss:
  • Eve has to fight against Yorshk alone in Klein's Core.
  • Not taking her earlier defeat well, Rain challenges Eve to a one-on-one fight, without Mott.
  • In the True Ending, Eve is forced to face Han in her larger Mogwai form alone. This turns out to be a Hopeless Boss Fight.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Endings D and C require the player to ignore Eve saying they need to rescue Klein multiple times, and are consequently are the two most brutal endings. To a lesser extent, Endings B and A require the player deliberately ignore reminders from Choi before the Point of No Return and Rex's shouted advice that they need to avoid hurting Caesar.
• Easing into the Adventure: The game begins with Eve having to pick up a package from Solburg and bring it back to her Grandfather's shop in Sunwich, and she gets involved with the problems of Troz and Rex along the way.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Every Mog has an elemental affinity, out of Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Ice, Volt, Flora, Toxin, Light, and Shadow. With one exception (that took heavy genetic modification to happen) said affinity is determined by their species, though some species have some variety. Non-Mog characters instead deal Non-Elemental damage, though Eve can use Core Pieces gifted by her Mog friends to give herself elemental powers for a few turns.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Chip's hair almost completely covers her head, exposing just her nose, mouth, and a few freckles. Patch's eyes are also hidden by her hair.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Mogwai are based around myths and folklore from all over the world, including at least one Creepypasta (specifically the Kunekune, a japanese meme similar to The Slender Man Mythos). And then, aliens are introduced...
• Fighting Your Friend: Comes up quite a lot with the Circuits available in the Sewers including alternate versions of your previous allies, as well as post-game boss rushes that involve other characters as well.
  • In the Hall of Exodus, you fight against memories of your friends and allies. Then you have to fight Rex after attempting to tell her the truth about her parents.
  • You have to fight against memory versions of your previous allies again, this time in human form, in the Artifical Core.
  • In Ending B, the remaining party members have to fight against Eve after Han possesses her; however, they fail.
  • In Ending C and D, you end up fighting against Klein after Yorshk corrupts her, and the end changes depending on whether you win or lose.
• Fishing Minigame: Eve's field ability is to go fishing, which is done by pressing displayed directions.
• Fluffy Tamer: The Sheepsquatch trio and their farm of "puppies". Large, slimy, monstrous puppies. They managed to tame them surprisingly well, though, so they might as well be regular dogs and not alien monsters imported by accident to Solum.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Throughout the game, a woman with blue hair can be seen, and she's usually just left the area you're about to go into where you find a Mog who's had part of their Core taken. Turns out she's the one who did it, and she's also one of the story's most important characters.
  • There are many offhand references to the history of Solum such as terraforming and genetic engineering of species to survive harsh conditions, that the reveal of humans not being native to Solum and aliens being around isn't treated as a surprise by the game, though it may come as one to players who missed those references.
• Get on the Boat: Just over halfway through the main story, the party has to travel on a boat to get to Snowver.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: The official language of Snowver turns out to be surprisingly decent French. Cache Monet also tends to pepper her dialogue with Gratuitous Japanese.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Chip's little brother Blitz, who is AI-controlled due to incompatible affinity with Eve. Choi, Fang, and later Tate are more standard examples, being briefly playable for short parts of the game. Shep is a weird case: the game treats her as a full main character, but since she's more concerned with shopkeeping than adventuring, you only get her in your party for one boss fight until the post-game, where she's as playable as any other party member. The main party members aside from Klein and Mott are also initially with you temporarily until the post-game.
• Healer Signs On Early: You have Klein in your party at the very beginning, and she has a spell that can heal, and another that can revive KO'd party members. After she turns into her human form, she has even more healing spells.
• Heart Drive: A Mogwai's Core seems to act as this, containing their life force and causing harm to them if a large piece is taken. They can heal faster if the Mog is pacted with a Conjurer, as shown when Troz pacts with June in order to heal hers. The Cores are also shown to contain memories, as at one point, Eve has to go into Klein's Core to find out what's causing her sickness, and learns about her past there.
• Hopeless Boss Fight:
  • In Ending B, Queen Han possesses Eve and the remaining party members have to fight her, only to lose. It is possible to win with enough effort, but The Battle Didn't Count.
  • In the True Ending, Eve at one point has to face Han alone, and there is no way to beat her. Then the friends Eve has made all help to motivate her...
• Hub Level: Shep the Tanuki turns the world's sewer system into this, connecting all of Outset's towns as well as persuading some Mogs to set up a shop and an arena. The Den has another one in the form of the Ku-ji Inn.
• Human Disguise: Pacted Mogs often appear in their Human forms so as to not draw undue attention, since Conjurers are relatively rare. While most Mogwai in Human form have distinguishing characteristics such as strange hair colors or are a Little Bit Beastly, some have human forms that're close enough that even other Mogs get confused. Some Mogs can also turn into human forms without being pacted, or continue to do so after their Conjurer has passed.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Aside from the Snowverians who mercilessly hunt down Mogs (and brief mentions of other nations that are even worse), trauma from dealing with humans waging war on her and a terrible former Conjurer is at the root of Queen Han's hatred to humans. And reading documents on the H.M.S Tenebro in the post-game makes it clear that humans used to abduct Mogwai children and dissect them.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Mogs don't really have gender in the way humans do, having Yin and Yang mogs instead, and one character even has to correct herself to refer to a Yin mog as female at one point. Their reproduction involves fusing shards from each others core into an egg and can happen in any combination of Yin and Yang mogs. Eggs that're unloved and unwanted become cold and hard, and rarely hatch by themselves, though it's not unheard of, while eggs to loving families are warm and sometimes even bounce around vibrantly.
• Improbably Female Cast: All party members are female, referred to as Yin, save for guest-star Blitz, which is justified In-Universe as Eve can't command Yang (male) Mogwai in battle due to her Yin phase. The majority of supporting characters are also female.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: There are lots of items that block your way despite the fact that you should realistically be able to walk over them; only Rex can jump, and anything that she can't jump over is instead meant to be cut down by Io.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • The sewer system and the museum's fish collection will gleefully name every location in the game before you've even reached the first quarter. Though the sewer doesn't have any of the Den's locations, and one of the fishes is in a place that you never go to... unless you catch every other fish in the game first.
  • It's possible to unlock Steam Trading Cards that reveal characters you haven't met yet, or that tell you what the characters you have met but haven't learned the names of are called. They can also spoil the human forms of Wake and Pike before you get to see them in the game.
  • Speaking of trading cards, the different machines in Huo Wukong's shop will gradually become available as the game progresses in order to avert this. However, if you haven't seen all of the Multiple Endings, you'll end up having certain things from those spoiled.
• Interspecies Romance: Romance between Mogwai and Humans is very rare, but not unheard of, and the two cases shown in the story were between Conjurers and their pacted Mogs. Also subverted for Ark and Nile, as though they were in love, they only got married after Nile was reincarnated as a Mogwai.
• Item Crafting: Called Alchemy here; you can use materials gathered from battles to create useful items, weapons, stat-raisers, and later DNA for Mott.
• Leitmotif: Most major characters have one, sometimes with associated Dark Reprise or Boss Remix. In particular, every Conjurer has a different variant of the title screen theme.
• Little Bit Beastly: Some Mogwai still have certain features in their human forms, such as ears, tails, or sharp teeth. Others look like they could easily pass for humans with unusual hair colours, which is how Nyx avoided being detected for so long.
• Long-Lived: Two varieties. All Wuji Conjurers have long lives, with Eve Xin living to 200, with the trade off that they cannot reincarnate. The Stacatto family, descended from Eve Xin, also seems to have slow maturation and longer than average lives, but a more subtle variant; her son Liang is nearly 80 and looks decades younger, while her great-granddaughter, Eve Staccato, is 22 and is constantly mistaken as a teenager.
• Malicious Misnaming: It doesn't matter how much it's repeated, Wake never gets that no, Pike's name isn't short for "Pichael".
• Monster Town: The Sand Bar and Hisstanbul in Outset are these; the former is home to aquatic Mogs and the latter is where some Cat Sith live. The Den has several more of them.
• Morphic Resonance: All Mogwai in human form retain the same color schemes as their Mog forms, and some are also a Little Bit Beastly, though this isn't universal.
• Multiple Endings: Five total, though all except the true ending are bad endings that give the player the option to "wake up from this nightmare" and return before the Point of No Return for that ending. They depend on whether or not the player completes certain sidequests, overcomes challenges, and a choice made in the final battle.
  • Ending D: Minced Meat. The party does not save Klein. As the party enters the castle, Klein attacks from behind to protect Eve from "Dragons", mortally wounding Kon. She then attacks Eve and after Eve loses the battle against her, Nyx appears to protect her, but Klein stabs her in the back. With Nyx and Kon dying and Eve defeated, Yorshk appears and reveals that she has brainwashed Klein. Rex is captured by the Siren guards of the Castle, and a triumphant Yorshk gloats that she will soon reach the throne. As a final cruelty, she forces Klein to eat Eve alive so that nothing is left for Dragons to hurt.
  • Ending C: Goodbye. The party does not save Klein. As the party enters the castle, Klein attacks from behind to protect Eve from "Dragons", mortally wounding Kon. She then attacks Eve, and after Eve defeats her, she collapses backwards, the strain of the battle and fighting Yorshk's mind control proving fatal. She dies in Eve's arms as Nyx and Rex come back to see where Kon and Eve are. The guards close in as Nyx warns Eve they need to leave, but Eve can't go on without Klein. The guards catch everyone and immediately proclaim their punishment to be death, leading to a Bolivian Army Ending.
  • Ending B: Demigod. The party saves Klein, but does not defeat all of the Red-Eyed Clusters and fails to collect the Bangua Mirror. Queen Han possesses Eve, forcibly pacting with her, then kills the fallen Caesar and Nyx when she attempts to save Eve. After the remaining party challenges her, regardless of whether she wins or loses, guards arrive to back her up and the party is defeated. She exiles Kon and Rex, and swears to take conquer Solum to return it to the Mogwai using the power of her new form. To torture Klein with her failures, she leaves her locked in the dungeons until she rots.
  • Ending A: Heiress. The party saves Klein and defeats all the Red Eyed Clusters, but accidentally defeats Caesar, leading to his death. Queen Han attempts to possess Klein, but Nyx amputates her arm and then kills what's left of her energy. This enrages Rex and Kon, the former storming off in disgust after calling the party monsters and the latter of whom assumes the throne, vowing to never again let humans hurt Mogs. Back in the Outset, Rain is heartbroken when she hears Kon will never return, and threatens to kill the party. Eve is left devastated and the attempt to change the world fails.
  • True Ending: It's Okay To Cry. The party defeats all the Red-Eyed Clusters, saves Klein, and doesn't hurt Caesar. The party is sucked into the Artificial Core along with Queen Han, and after a montage of their friends from along their journey cheering them on, Eve is able to get the Queen to calm down and abdicate the throne. The only ending to have the credits roll and allow for the sizable post-game content to be accessed.
• My Greatest Failure: Klein has a doozy of one. Two hundred years ago, she was tasked by Queen Han with killing her first Conjurer Eve Xin, as vengeance for her fellow Mog Caesar having an affair with the King. Klein instead tried to kill the Queen with one of Eve's ceremonial daggers, but fled and dropped the weapon. This immediately lead to a huge Human/Mog conflict, Caeser being possessed by Han, Eve's first Mog Nyx being imprisoned and tortured into turning from a Wisp into a Reaper, King Long's death when trying to flee with his and Han's Egg, and Eve Xin becoming a Broken Bird for the rest of her life while Klein watched from afar.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Goes both ways. HP is called "Pulse" and represents the will to fight, although they will need to be revived rather than gradually recover; if all the party's Pulse drops to 0, the game will tell you that they lost hope. Meanwhile, enemies that have their Pulse reduced to 0 will surrender rather than be killed.
• Older Than They Look: While most of the Mogs are on the side of Really 700 Years Old, Eve herself is twenty-two. No one ever believes her (the twintails don't really help), which is why diners and bars only sell you coffee.
• Ominous Save Prompt: There are instances before you move on to the next room where characters will warn you that you should prepare before you proceed. The save menu also comes up after various cutscenes.
• One-Gender Race: The Tiny Onis are all male.
• Optional Boss: During the Red-Eyed Cluster outbreak, a number of NPC mogs can be fought, but aren't required for completing the game, including Zheng in Corona Woods, the staff of the Sand Bar Museum, and the Sheepstack in Tindalos. Then there's Peppy Jack in the post-game, who has an entire sidequest and difficult dungeon to reach, and the Kuji Inn challenge, which is the only way to fight the non-combat Conjurers in the story, including June, Patch, and Beck.
• Party of Representatives: Each of your main Mogwai party members are all different elements; light, shadow, volt, earth, toxin, fire, water, ice, wind, and flora. They are also all different species, although Io and Nyx both started out as ice affinity Wisps before Nyx became a Reaper and Io had her affinity changed to fire.
• Permanently Missable Content: Downplayed as anything you miss during the main quest can be done after completing the story, however, there are some exceptions:
  • Early on in the Solburg Tunnels, you have the option to complete a rather complex puzzle and rescue a lost "puppy". Shortly after, you meet the Sheepsquatch trio for the first time, who turn out to be the owners and reward you with a discount on their sleeping bags. If you didn't get the puppy before finding Rex, you won't be able to do so when you return to the tunnels which means you don't get the discount.
  • Some dialogue involving your current party members and various characters you've met on your journey can be missed if you don't revisit the earlier areas and talk to them to before your allies leave you. Most notably, you're prevented from backtracking once you get on the boat to Snowver, and by the time you're able to do so again, Pike has left the party, so if you went straight for the boat after she joined you then you'll have missed out on extra dialogue between her and your other friends.
  • If you head straight to Harbei during the Cluster attack instead of exploring the previous areas you've visited, you'll miss out on scenes where you can be assisted by your previous allies and some other characters, and also fight against NPCs who have fallen under Yorshk's influence. You also lose out on extra Mog Essence, which is used to craft stat-raising items, and can only be obtained from specific one-time battles (even if you repeat the sewer circuits, you can only win it from doing a new circuit for the first time).
  • If you didn't defeat all the Red Eyed Clusters before the Point of No Return, or if you did but didn't visit Choi and recieve a specific item from her, then you're locked into one of the bad endings. Thankfully, you don't have to replay the entire game if you don't have a save file close enough to that point, since you'll automatically be returned to just before then so you can do what you need to do before going to the point of no return again.
• Plot Tunnel: At one point, you have to travel on a boat to Snowver, and get temporarily stuck on an island along the way before making it there, where you still can't backtrack for a while. The sewer entrances you see during this time are unreachable until specific story events have happened, by which time your two party members for that part of the game have left, so you'd better hope you saw all the missable dialogue you wanted to see with them before you got on the boat.
• Polyamory: One sidequest involves delivering different species of fish to Fang, a female Mogwai with twelve wives (and one ex-wife).
• Posthumous Character: Eve's recently deceased great-grandma Eve Xin drives a lot of the plot and character motivations.
• The Power of Friendship:
  • After learning that Nyx has been stealing Core pieces to make an Artificial Core to save Caesar from being possessed by Han, Klein and Eve suggest using the pieces that Eve has recieved from her friends to make one instead, saying that they were formed from better emotions and memories and would be more effective than ones with painful thoughts instead.
  • When all hope seems lost after Eve is unable to defeat Han in her strongest form, everyone she's gotten to know throughout the game can feel it and start cheering her on, giving her the motivation to continue, as well as giving her the ability to summon her allies to fight by her side.
• Queer Establishing Moment: The earliest possible moment you learn that most of the characters are attracted to the same gender is when you meet Fang at Choi's house in Corona Woods, who mentions having 12 wives, not only establishing that she likes women but that she is also polyamorous.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Terror Trio, who are encounted a few times throughout the game with differing boss battles.
• Random Species Offspring: It's mentioned that a Mog can hatch as either species of their parents. Discussed and played for drama in Klein's flashback, where Queen Han goes ballistic over the idea of what would happen to the Den's order if an egg produced by her husband, Long, were to hatch into a Manticore, the species of their general, or if it were to hatch into a Dragon that would have to live with the knowledge that one of their fathers was a commoner.
• Shout-Out: Loads of them!
  • To Simple Clips. Right at the game's outset, on Eve's starting equipment, no less!
  • "Pike" is not short for "Pichael".
  • VOLCANO BAKEMEAT, caps and all, is a TV Dinner brand in this universe.
  • About 80% of the houses in the game have at least one bookcase "full of Mogwai encyclopedias and magazines". Just like every other house in both Pokémon and Mega Man Battle Network.
    • Speaking about Battle Network, Eve's e-mail is definitely inspired by that game, with the same interface layout and functionality (for storing both storyline fluff and reminders of where to go next).
  • Taking control of your signature Mon, temporarily, to explore passages too short for your main character to go in, shouldn't be a new mechanic for anyone following fanhacks, specifically Pokemon Prism.
  • There are a long series of Pokémon references, ranging from cameos (Eve having Luchador masks that resemble the starter Pokemon of Alola) and several move names. A major end-game location is also named Snowver, and the Snowverian's tendency of having blue hair could be a reference to the blue color of shiny Snover.
  • Aside from being named after a volcanic moon, "Io" is known for being the name of another will-o'-the-wisp.
  • The Veggie Freighter Snowverian requires you to compete in the "Hungry Games", and which are NO RULES! JUST RIOT! YOU DO FOR ME YES?.
  • The Sprite enemies look exactly like Koroks.
  • Nyx's boss sprite has a glowing blue light trailing from her left eye. This also ties in with the solid black weapons that Mogwai use.
  • Two of Eve's final moves from the DNA Shop in the post-game are ESP Rockin' and Revengeance. There's also a Running Gag of a surprising number of the game's trash cans containing a single hamburger... and it's all mouldy.
  • Peppy Jack, the strongest Tiny Oni who led a bunch of other Tiny Oni with his "bad vibes" has a horn rising from his right temple and an eyepatch.
  • Kon's theme song "Mogster Hunter," as well as Snowver being a hunting town in general is a reference to Monster Hunter. Eve also owns plush toys of Brachydios and Khezu, while Rain's room has ones of Lagiacrus and Lagombi.
  • Several character quotes from the Wukong cards are lyrics from various songs by Marc M. of Sick Animation
  • One of Klein's weapons is the Tenjou Dios.
  • Belle's theme is Rustic Ranch Story and would fit in well in the games it references. June also owns a Mountain Tengu branded camera, and Dawn looks very suspiciously like a hatless Sumireko.
  • An NPC in Aeros resembles Chris-Chan, and even says "ZAP TO THE EXTREME!"
• Solo Sequence:
  • Klein can enter through small openings. Sometimes the areas within are straightfoward, but other times they will have puzzles or enemies, or both. Going into such an area later in the game leaves her vulnerable to getting kidnapped by Yorshk.
  • Eve goes through this at one point when she has to go into Klein's Core to find out what's causing her sickness.
• Suspiciously Cracked Wall: Chip can run into cracks in walls to open up new areas, or create shortcuts between places.
• Take Your Time: Despite there being instances of you being urged to hurry, you can take as long as you like before progressing the game. In fact, late in the game when you arrive at the Den Capital, it's implied that Caesar will die if you don't help him soon; however, going straight to the castle instead of looking for Klein results in a bad ending.
• Terrible Trio: Wake, Skip and Pike quite literally call themselves the Terror Trio, and people forget and mix it up with the trope name. They're not actually incompetent (in fact Wake has quite the reputation), but they're not really evil as much as they are somewhat jerkish Punch-Clock Villains (except Pike, who's not even a jerk). All three end up pulling a Heel–Face Turn, with Pike joining the party while Wake and Skip opt to crash on Belle's couch and start a family.
• Theme Naming: The Conjurers have last names based on musical terms of some sort, while Mogs are instead named after demons (mostly of the Ars Goetia). And on a more humorous note, there's Mac and Chee.
• Time-Limit Boss: Nyx will ominously count down from thirteen with every turn of her boss battle, with your allies worrying about what it could mean. If you don't defeat her before she reaches zero, she'll use a move that takes out everyone.
• Tragic Keepsake: Nyx's scarf. It was Eve Xin's and the only thing left of her in the Den after Klein took her and ran to the Outset.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Most of the screenshots on the Steam store page for the game are taken from the post-game, spoiling that you get Core pieces from other characters besides the main party, and that you can go into space for one of the sidequests. In fact, the page straight up says there are still things to do post-game.
• Trauma Inn: Sleeping in Eve's bed or other beds that are available to sleep in will restore the party's Pulse and Beat. The Sheepsquatch Sleeping Sacks can be paid to use, and the three Mogs that run them have their own inn that you can also stay at.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Will o'Wisps might be kind of a joke among Mogs, being barely corporeal balls of cold flame, but enough emotional trauma can cause them to turn into much more fearsome Reapers, who are not only much stronger, but also known for their ability to directly reach for a Mog's core.
• Underground Monkey: Generally avoided. Stronger Mogs in later areas are often similar to Mogs in earlier areas, but have new sprites and moves and are referred to as +, and some species later have ++ and X varieties. However, Sprites, Dryads, and Nymphs are all recolors of each other, which goes for their + and ++ forms as well, with the only difference between the three being that Nymphs are Ice-affinity unlike their Flora-affinity cousins.
• Verbal Tic: The Tiny Onis say "man" all the time, man!
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left:
  • After fighting Yorshk while in Klein's Core, she tries to get away, but Eve manages to catch her and bring her back out. However, she escapes again, but at least Klein is better now.
  • When you find the Terror Trio in Cirruwa Forest, they've already captured Nyx, and you have to fight against Wake and Skip, but once you defeat them, the two leave with Nyx still in their custody.
  • Later on, after the battle with Nyx, she runs off. She then ends up in trouble since she went into Snowver, a town of Mogwai hunters that can tell she isn't a human, and Eve and Klein have to rescue her.
• Virtual Pet: Early on, Eve gets a magical baby moth that acts as a computer-controlled fifth party member. Its stats can be modified by feeding it various foods, and transformations unlocked with the DNA of befriended Mogs.
• Weapon Specialization: Noted to be a particularity of Mogs. They are born with the ability to wield one specific weapon, that they can hide in and pull out of their shadow; while they can change the specific weapon they use (with most Mog party members having three different weapons found in game), they can't change the type of weapon. Said weapons range from regular swords and axes, to more outlandish stuff like yoyos and umbrellas, to outright gimmicks like Shep's Bag of Holding or Nile's prophetic crystal ball. While most are fitting with their personality, some get less lucky (notably Quinn the Jackalope, a cute and friendly little girl who can barely even lift her battleaxe).
• White-and-Grey Morality: The heroes are pretty cheerful and upbeat characters themselves, and they are happy to save the day. While there's only one character in the game who seems to be truly evil, everyone else is redeemable or at least quite sympathetic. You know it's this trope when the majority of your party ends up being people who were initially enemies.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Eve's a fan, and would probably have tried to become a Masked Luchador if it wasn't for her Conjurer business. For someone who looks like a White Magician Girl at first glace, all of her moves are wrestling-themed in some fashion.