Video Game / Legend of Legaia

aka: Legaia

"As if forsaken by God, human civilization collapsed. It was the twilight of humanity. Those who escaped the Mist inhabited desolate areas and protected each other. Now, their faint hope is their only source of inspiration."

— Opening Sequence

Legend of Legaia (Legaia Densetsu in Japan) is a two game Role-Playing Game series commissioned by Sony Computer Entertainment. The first was developed by Contrail, with its follow-up, Legaia II: Duel Saga, moving to the PS2 and developed by Prokion. Despite similarities in gameplay and some character designs, they have next to nothing to do with each other.

The first Legend of Legaia takes place in a world where a mysterious substance called "the Mist" has changed a good percentage of the population into monsters, caused by the symbiotic creatures (known as Seru) they were reliant upon fusing with them and hijacking their bodies, and caused civilization to completely collapse. The game centers around Vahn, a blue haired Kid Hero from a small village, one of the few areas of the world not shrouded in Mist thanks to a giant wall, and also with no Seru there. After a servant of the Mist attacks his village, he ends up merging with a Ra-Seru (A sapient Seru that can also absorb the essence of other Seru and is also immune to the effects of Mist) named Meta that was hidden/resting within a dying tree that lay in the center of his village, known as a Genesis Tree. Upon being prayed to and infused with power, the tree grows again, banishing the Mist from the immediate area, and Vahn leaves his home to attempt to find others, in order to remove the Mist from the land. Eventually, he meets up with two other heroes — Noa, a feral girl raised by the Ra-Seru Terra, and Gala, a monk who eventually gains the service of the Ra-Seru Ozma.

Both games are fairly standard turn based RPGs, but with some twists. Both games have the "Tactical Arts System", which revolves around selecting not just to make an attack but forming combinations of attacks for efficiency and maximum damage, using specific limbs and heights for attacks — turning it into a similar feel as to a fighting game. By chaining together specific attacks, a character can use Arts — by chaining Arts together, a player can find his characters doing impressive amounts of damage without resorting to magic. This is made more complex in the sequel by the multiple types of Arts one has — Basic Arts build Art Points, allowing the character to use more powerful Super Arts, Hyper Arts, Variable Arts, and Mystic Arts. (In the original, Art Points were always consumed by any form of Art and replenished by a small amount at the end of each turn, by taking damage, and by using the Spirit command, which also granted a significant extension to the combo bar, plus a temporary guard status — Spirit plus Miracle Art spam was ultimately the endgame tactic, with one party member relegated to healing.)

---

Legend of Legaia shows examples of:

A-E

• Absurdly High Level Cap: This game is beatable with levels around 32-35 and will generally be beaten with levels in the low 40's. The level cap is 99, which requires hours of painstaking grinding to reach, and getting the Juggernaut spell requires that you do so.
• Action Girl: Noa, Lu Delilas, and Zora are all just as capable in combat as their male counterparts.
• After the End: The concept of the first game; the bad guys have basically already won when the game begins. They've successfully destroyed human civilization and control most of the world, now they're going after the last few isolated pockets of survivors.
• The Ageless: Seru-possessed humans in the presence of Mist. A court scientist of Drake Castle muses that while such a being ceases to be human, by some crazed power, they also cease to age. Given the options, he questions whether giving up humanity for immortality is worth it.
• A God Am I: Songi, after unleashing Juggernaut on Rim Elm and leaving to conquer the Seru world.
• Alternate Character Reading: In Japanese, "Seru" is spelled with the kanji for "beast"; "Ra-Seru" is "holy beast". They have the same pronunciation as the English version.
• Always Check Behind the Chair: Quite a few items can be found hidden in bookcases, vases, and the occasional barrel.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The final boss is fought on one of these, and it also qualifies as a Final Boss, New Dimension ^note Though you return to the location of the fight when it finishes. Why so? It takes place inside of a giant Seru, specifically Juggernaut.
• And I Must Scream: The fate of the people of Conkram, and for a comparatively brief time, those of Rim Elm. Both towns are engulfed by a massive Sim-Seru that has fused with the town and all its inhabitants. There are heavy implications that the great pain has driven most of Conkram's inhabitants insane.
  • The Seru Brides. Upon being fed to Juggernaut, they are still alive in the beakers and can call for help.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: After a couple hours of gameplay as Vahn... hey, where did he go, and who's this Noa person? Fortunately, it's only a short while before the two meet, and then you're controlling the party of both of them.
• An Economy Is You: Lampshaded by one woman in Drake Castle Town, who remarks that the shops are eschewing sales of meat and vegetables in favor of selling "weapons for killing things".
• Bag of Sharing: While you have only one inventory throughout the game, this trope really shows itself in Nivora Ravine, where your party splits up. It is entirely possible to open a treasure chest with Vahn, switch to Noa, and then equip that accessory to her without joining back up.
• Bandit Mook: The Goblinoid family of enemies^note Gobu Gobu, Gomboo, and High Gomboo are fairly weak, but can and will steal your items, and will often run off with them if you don't defeat them quickly. The Kabuki Rat and Hell Rat can steal from you as well.
• Bee Afraid: The hive of killer bees at the start of the game; it's not until much later that you can actually kill them. A lot of players died to these things before the story even started. And then your little sister steals your loot (the unique "Honey" item that increases the growth of a character's stats) if you talk to her after winning it! Fortunately, if this happens, you can fight the bees again to replace it.
• BFS: The Astral Sword. It is a massive weapon and has attack power second only to Vahn's ultimate weapon. Sadly, it's also a case of Awesome, but Impractical, as using it locks Vahn out of his Miracle Art, which is far more powerful than normal attacks while using the Astral Sword. Using a Miracle Art makes you useless for a few turns, but the damage is still superior to Boring, but Practical setups with the Astral Sword.
• Bicep-Polishing Gesture: One of Gala's victory poses is this.
• Big Bad: Prince Cort. As the Evil Prince, he occupies the "Evil Emperor" role in the Standard Evil Empire Hierarchy. Though it's heavily implied that a Rogue Ra-Seru has been corrupting Cort's mind and turning his ambition unto evil. His mother Queen Minea states that he was a good-natured person, but had changed once he began research on the Mist.
• Big Brother Instinct: Vahn has this to Nene, protecting her during the attack on Rim Elm and later from the Killer Bees. Averted with Cort, who actively tries to kill Noa at every turn.
• Blow You Away: Terra, Noa's Ra-Seru, is wind-aligned. True to form, Noa is a combination of Fragile Speedster and Glass Cannon.
• Body Horror: Get comfortable, this game has been compared to Silent Hill.
  • The Seru were given to humans by Tieg to fuse with them and give them great abilities (enhanced strength, speed, flight, ect.) But when under the influence of the Mist, they become parasitic monsters that force their way into people's skin and corrupt their minds, effectively turning them into moaning, limping zombies. The process renders them ageless and some NPCs claim that they were just conscious enough to realize what was happening to them.
  • Songi's final form looks like dementia given physical form. The torso is long and slender with ribs sticking out of its grey skin and a ridiculously long neck with a huge head. Meanwhile, the legs look like nothing that would ever be biologically functional, with one leg being over twice the length of his body and the other less than half that length with both of them looking like they had been broken a dozen times and grew back wrong. The left arm is disjointed at the shoulder and can seemingly stretch longer than expected while the right arm is a giant spiked tumor, lobster claw... thing.
  • Cort's final form has snake heads for hands and at the end of its tail, and bone blades sticking out of said hands and shoulders, which resemble the top half of a dog' s head with a crooked nose and weird teeth, and the bottom of the blades have veins in them. The upper and lower halves of its body are held together by a small bone structure that should snap under the pressure it's under, and the chest contains what appears to be a mutated version of Cort's heart surrounded by spikes. His neck is very long, ending with a weird spiked/tusked crown thing that houses Cort's head and even though his body is bigger than a large house, his face is smaller than the heroes with white emotionless eyes and a soulless blank stare. The arms, shoulders, and the end of his tail have red glowing eyes.
  • Van Saryu has a Seru, which looks like an organic sombrero imbedded in his head, that summons its shadow from the ground and engulfs him. His body becomes tree-like with root leg things and massive arms that end with giant scythe fingers. His torso and arms are made up of sections of rock/scale/armor pieces and his tiny head is buried beneath his enlarged, organic-rock Seru.
  • The laboratory where the Seru-brides are "fed" to Juggernaut.
  • The three Womb Levels.
    • This game has enough for its own page.
• Boring, but Practical: After you unlock Noa's final Ra-Seru evolution, her Ra-Seru punch strikes twice with each punch. Spamming her Ra-Seru punch outclasses every other attack combination, including her Miracle Art.
• Boss Rush: The Delilas siblings, and then Koru — three one-on-one fights, and then a final timed fight, which if you don't win in five turns, you die, and the save point's at the beginning of the dungeon. Time to level up. Thankfully, you can save before the timed fight as the timer doesn't start until you approach it.
  • A lesser example in Rogue's Tower, where you must fight two upgraded forms each of Caruban and Berserker before then fighting the head Rogue.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The talisman you get from defeating Lapis, not to mention the Juggernaut spell.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: What the Mist does to Seru^note but thankfully not Ra-Seru, and by extension, any human wearing a Seru in the presence of the Mist.
• Break the Cutie: After completing the Absolute Fortress and destroying the final Mist Generator, Noa is incredibly depressed. She has just killed her own brother^note He's Not Quite Dead though — the Big Bad, led to her parent's death as the fallout of Cort's and the Mist Generator's destruction, and feels as though Terra has abandoned her. With no family left alive, her usual cheery demeanor is broken down.
• Broken Bridge: A giant chasm stands before the front gates of Ratayu, preventing people from entering or leaving the city. Thanks to their Ra-Seru, the heroes can jump right over it once the Sebucus Islands' volcanism is dealt with, but that probably doesn't apply to Legaia's normal citizens.
• But Thou Must!:
  • Early on in the game, Meta asks Vahn to join with him. If you say no, he apologizes for forcing you but explains that you have no choice but to agree, and presents you with the choice again.
  • Later on, when getting ready to take flight to the Soren camp, refusing twice causes Gala to flip out at Vahn, locking the choices to "Yes" and "Yes".
  • When Noa asks Vahn to go in Eliza's stead as a bride to Saryu, she will keep nagging and whining until you choose OK.
• Calling Your Attacks: Several arts, most notably Vahn's Tornado Flame Hyper Art.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Cara and Grantes, when you meet them, although it's implied that they were much happier earlier on, when he still had his Seru wings. Later on, becomes Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other.
• The Chosen One: All three of the party members were explicitly chosen by their respective Ra-Seru to carry out the will of Tieg and restore the world.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: Cara.
• Collapsing Lair:
  • All four of the Mist Generator Dungeons are destroyed and become inaccessible after defeating the boss of the dungeon and destroying the Mist Generator within.
  • Rogue's Tower is similarly destroyed after defeating the Head Rogue.
• Colony Drop: After you defeat Zora and reach the Mist Generator in the Floating Castle, Songi destroys said Generator, causing the castle to tumble toward the Earth. In an unusual twist on this trope, Songi wants to use said Colony Drop to kill the people in the castle, not necessarily anyone on the ground.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: In a couple of flavors:
  • When leveled up, most spells have a secondary effect, such as reducing the target's attack or MP. Bosses are (with one exception) immune.
  • If afflicted with Poison via the Gizam spell, bosses will shrug it off after one turn; normal enemies will be poisoned indefinitely. They are also immune to the instant kill effects of Nighto and Aluru.
  • Berserker averts this trope. He can be one-hit killed via the Nighto spell if the player is lucky.
  • If one exploits a flaw in Lapis's AI programming via a certain roundabout method, it is possible to instantly kill him with Jedo.^note Lapis will use Lapis Wave to reduce all party members' MP to 0/0 for the duration of the fight, but does not use it if all characters have 0 current MP. Lapis is an optional boss, but the fight can be escaped from. Encounter Lapis, let it drain your MP, then run. Restart the battle with one character equipped with a Speed Chain and the Dark Talisman; on the first turn possible, have a different party member use a Magic Fruit to heal 200 MP on the character with the Jedo spell; since the Speed Chain always grants the first attack, that character can use Jedo to instantly annihilate Lapis
• Convection, Schmonvection:
  • The Fire Path. You travel over lava by riding on a small rock.
  • In the sequel, you have to travel inside the volcanic isle of Drokonia.
• The Corrupter: Rogue appears to have done this to Cort, but it's uncertain if Rogue did it intentionally or if Cort Went Mad From The Revelation upon discovering a piece of it.
• Crapsack World: And how. With the Mist around, humans either get killed or possessed by Seru. There is also Conkram, where everyone is simply fused to a giant Sim-Seru that engulfs the town and driven to insanity from the pain.
  • Underground Octam is where inhabitants of Octam hide from the Mist, but every day, they are threatened by earthquakes caused by Xain. As said by one of the inhabitants, one can either go up there and get attacked by Seru, or stay down here and get killed by the earthquakes. It is even noted that the earthquakes have destroyed the mushroom patches everyone has been relying on for sustenance, putting everyone at the risk of dying from starvation.
  • The inhabitants of Ratayu would rather have the town covered in the Mist. Taxes in Ratayu are high, and there is the thing with the Seru Brides. Women are regularly summoned by Saryu to be sacrificed to Juggernaut, and if they refuse, Saryu will hurt and even kill the whole family.
• Crutch Character: When you take control of Noa, you are accompanied by a wolf who is indestructible and heals your wounds indefinitely during battle.
• Curse Cut Short: While traversing The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, Noa is captivated by a torrent of bodily fluids headed straight for the party. Gala turns and looks for a second and only manages to say "H-Holy..." before getting swept up in it.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Gala anyone? He can Fly and Flex at once.
• Death by Childbirth: This is how Vahn's mother died. After giving birth to Nene, Nora experienced severe hemorrhaging and no one could retrieve the medicine she needed due to the Mist.
• Death Trap: Zora's Floating Castle — according to Songi, it was specifically designed as a ruse to lure the heroes in and kill them by crashing the whole thing down to the surface.
• Defend Command: In addition to boosting your AP by 32, the Spirit command roughly halves the amount of damage that you will take that turn. It also increases the chance that you will block an attack, suffering no damage from it.
• Degraded Boss: Viguro and Kemaro.
• Demonic Possession: Cort, being a Mad Scientist, managed to uncover a piece of Rogue ten years ago, and promptly got possessed by it. Everything went downhill from there.
• Developer's Foresight: Did you sell or lose those Hunter's Clothes that Mei specially made for Vahn? Talk to her afterward and she'll notice and ask what happened to them.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: At least three times: Zeto's Dungeon, Zora's Floating Castle, and Jette's Absolute Fortress. Dohati's Castle is a partial example, but by this point, it is clear that you still have to go to at least one more region.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Zeto. He is responsible for siccing Juggernaut on Rim Elm and Snowdrift Cave, and the final location you can reach on your map is his tower. When you defeat him, he mentions begging forgiveness to Prince Cort for failing to defeat the heroes, and you still have two more regions to explore.
• Disk One Nuke:
  • As soon as players have access to the second region, players can go to Vidna and play a lot of slot machines that allows players to get as many coins as possible and trade them in for a lot of rare items in the game. As long as the players know how to time the slots, players can get a lot of money especially if they obtain the bonus multipliers. Then start selling and buying as much as possible to fill up the Point Card and start using it on bosses to guarantee a lot of damage, sometimes even one hit killing bosses.
  • The humble Agility Rings. Boosts your AGL by 20% and gives you much more art blocks than you're able to use early game. Get one on each character and you can make up for lack of extensive combos and damage output early game. Gala in particular would love to have one.
  • Noa's "Tough Love" Art. It charms an enemy, causing it to either only attack other enemies or just sit there and do nothing. It works on every enemy except bosses and mini-bosses, and it only wears off when that enemy is attacked. Random encounters become much easier to deal with when you've got 1 or 2 monsters sitting out most of the battle, patiently waiting for you to slaughter their buddies before you turn your attention back to them. Noa's able to use it without needing to spirit as soon as she has at least 5 command blocks available, which will probably be well before you've finished the first region. Using spirit, you are able to use it right away.
  • Noa's Tempest Break is usable from a VERY low level when you use spirit. With it, she is able to out damage anything Vahn can do. It's even capable of hitting harder than his magic! Tempest Break will commonly hit for 150-200 damage when Vahn is hitting only low to mid hundreds with his strongest attacks. The only draw back is she can only use it every other turn, and only if she has enough Art Points, or AP. Though, using spirit also increases AP so that is only a problem on fairly rare occasions. Honestly, Noa's high Speed and Agility almost qualify her as a Disc-One Nuke herself.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The background conflict between Rogue and the other Ra-Seru should ping players for similarities to the fall of Lucifer for anyone versed in the Christian version of that story.
• Doomed Hometown: Vahn's hometown, Rim Elm, is hit by the Mist at the start of the game. Later on, it's eaten by a gigantic Seru. Noa's hometown suffered a similar fate 10 years prior.
• Door to Before: The Door of Light consumable item allows you to instantly escape from a dungeon.
• The Dragon: Jette is this to Cort, and as Court Scientist for Conkram, co-led the research project that would eventually bring about the Mist.
• Duel Bosses:
  • The fights against the Delilas Family consist of three separate and consecutive one-on-one duels, with no chance to rest or save until all three are defeated.
  • Earlier in the game, Gala will fight his rival and former friend, Songi, solo. After the fight, he remarks that in the future, the party will have to fight him as a team.
• Dumb Muscle: Played straight with Gala's Psycho Rangers counterpart Che Delilas who constantly talks about smashing stuff and who's fighting style is More Dakka with a giant hammer. Averted with Gala, though. The story makes it clear that he is the smartest of the heroes, and most of the people encountered in the game, and his high HP, DEF, ATK, make him easily the toughest of the three physically. Adding to the aversion, Gala also has the highest magic Stat of the party by default.
• Dungeon Town: Every town except Underground Octam and the Soren Camp goes through this at some point.
• Dying as Yourself: Gaza — he is fitted with a custom Sim-Seru and driven even further insane by a combination of said Seru and the Mist's presence and warped beyond all sanity. When you defeat him, he regains his sanity and expresses remorse for failing to uphold his vow and the problems he has caused, and dies contently.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: A case of this combined with Utopia Justifies the Means as the stated motive by the villains behind the creation of the Mist.
  Several Villains^note Zeto, Dohati, the Delilas siblings, and Cort at least once: "The Mist is salvation [...] Eternal, Perfect Harmony."
• Eat Me: A variation of this is combined with Womb Level for the final dungeon. Since Juggernaut is essentially invincible on the outside, the heroes must trek through its innards to defeat it from within.
• An Economy Is You: Lampshaded — After you free Drake Castle from the Mist, one woman complains that the shops are no longer selling meat and vegetables, instead selling weapons and armor for the party.
• Elaborate Underground Base: At least one Mist Generator is housed in one of these.
• Elemental Powers: The various Seru are one of seven different elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, Water (also includes ice), Thunder, Light, or Dark.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: It's there, but not particularly noticeable unless one looks for it. When a character tries to summon a Seru of an opposing alignment; the damage output of said casting will be reduced by as much as half, while summoning Seru of the same element results in a 30-50% power increase.^note Fire opposes Water, Wind opposes Earth, and Darkness opposes Thunder. Light is primarily healing (with Aluru as the exception), but is neutral to all other elements.
• End of an Age: You've defeated the Big Bad, freed the world from the clutches of the Mist, and brought peace to Legaia. However, the Seru-kai is dead, your Ra-Seru have given their lives to save Rim Elm, and according to Dr. Usha, most Seru will die off in the next year, possibly bringing Legaia back to the Stone Age. But the human spirit is strong, and there is hope with people to follow the heroes and carry out Tieg's will.
• Encounter Repellant: The Good Luck Bell and Evil Talisman serve as repellent, while the Bad Luck Bell and Nemesis Gem are bait. Sadly, the former two can't be found until pretty late in the game.
• End-Game Results Screen: Once you've completed the game and gotten past the "The End" screen, there will be a screen prompt that tallies the number of battles, number of escapes, time spent to complete the game, maximum number of hits, maximum amount of damage, KOs, number of enemies defeated, number of Hyper Arts learned, number of magic Seru spells learned, and the treasure completion rate.
• Enemy Summoner: A few different monsters can use Divide to duplicate themselves.
• Evil Counterpart: Songi is this to Gala, along with being a Rival Turned Evil. Both are orphans raised and trained at Biron.
• Evil Prince: Cort, although his intentions seem to have been good enough to start with.
• Evolving Attack:
  • As you use your 'spells' (read: summon Seru to your aid), they (frustratingly slowly) level up, learning debuffs, damage boosts, buffs, or status-healing additional effects.
  • Because of the action bar and use of Arts, the players can use longer and more elaborate strings of punches, kicks, and arts as the game progresses. Whereas Gala can initially only use two attacks per turn without Spirit, at high levels, they can perform 12-15 or more separate hits per turn by chaining stronger arts together.
• Evolving Weapon: As your Ra-Seru level up, they grow and change (foreshadowed in the opening cutscene, but Never Trust a Trailer is in full force), dealing more damage with added effects (such as hitting multiple times) when you use the Ra-Seru command in an attack string.
• Experience Booster: The Crimson Book, which, when equipped, doubles the EXP that character gains. While you can easily find one in a treasure chest in the final dungeon, getting two more for your other party members is an exercise in frustration.

F-K

• Fallen Hero: Cort. His mother said he Used to Be a Sweet Kid and worked diligently to help improve his country. The only reason he studied the Mist in the first place was to help his country try to win a losing war, and it wasn't until he came into contact with Rogue that his Start of Darkness began.
• Fate Worse than Death: The people of Conkram, and later Rim Elm experience this, though the latter are saved at the end of the game. Noa's parents in Conkram ask the heroes to destroy the final Mist Generator, knowing that they will die when this happens. See also And I Must Scream.
• Fetch Quest: The Zalan / Pepe interlude. In order to get the Star Pearl to reach Underground Octam, you must complete an errand for Zalan by delivering an item for him to a nearby town.
• First-Person Snapshooter: A "camera stone" can be purchased at the hot springs resort in the first game. You can take pictures in several different locations, and if you won Noa a swimsuit, she's wearing it in the photographs.
• First Time in the Sun: One of the families in Underground Octam laments that their child, who was born and raised underground, doesn't know of things such as flowers, plants, clouds, and the sun. When the Mist is cleared from Sebucus, the family is happy that now the child knows what all these things are.
• Fishing Minigame: And a pretty good one, too!
• Fog of Doom: The Mist. Played with in that the Mist itself has no effect on humans. Instead, it turns the Seru that people use into insane, evil monsters that will either take control of your body and turn you into a mindless zombie, or simply kill you.
• Forced Level-Grinding: This game pulls no punches, and EXP is sparse. See Nintendo Hard.
• Fragile Speedster: Noa. She is also the Glass Cannon, with high speed and many attacks, but lackluster defenses and low HP.
• Freudian Trio: Vahn as the Ego, Noa as the Id, and Gala as the Superego
• Fusion Dance:
  • Notably The Delilases with Koru.
  • More generally, any Seru and Human that join together exhibit this. For your party, and in the backstory, it is of the Power Booster variety, with the human having vastly superior physical prowess, and your party is shown having the ability to communicate with their Ra-Seru partners. In the presence of Mist, a crazed Seru would possess the human, turning the human into a crazed and mindless zombie until the Mist is removed from the area. Thankfully, Ra-Seru are immune to the Mist's influence.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: While Terra is part of your party, she has infinite HP and MP (displayed as ???/??? HP, ??/?? MP).

• The Ghost: A kind of odd example with Cort. His name and position are given after defeating the second boss early in the game, but the heroes don't have any idea who he is or what his relationship to the story is until very late in the game. So little is known about Cort that when he does finally appear, it seems like he waited until the end of the game just to drop into the story.
• Ghost City: While nearly every town in the game is a Dungeon Town at some point, Octam in particular is noted for being particularly abandoned. Gala notes that while in most towns, there is at least the presence of Seru monsters, none exist there, prompting further exploration into why that is the case.
• Glass Cannon: Noa has by far the highest agility stat and therefore can use more attacks than the other characters for most of the game. As a result, her damage output is usually the highest, through her low HP and mediocre defenses are often not sufficient to survive more than one round of combat from most bosses without healing.
• Going Through the Motions: although fortunately, the gestures reflect the characters' individual personalities.
• Good Parents: All of the main characters' have loving parents. Vahn's father is always saying how proud of him he is, and it's mentioned several times that the deceased Nora loved him a great deal. Noa's mother and father love her so much that they're able to resist the Mist to communicate with her and despite being deceased, Gala never says a bad word about his parents. Zalan also has an affectionate relationship with Pepe, who he had been separated from for over ten years, and the Soren leader Cructes is shown to love both of his sons, including a banished Grantes.
• Gratuitous English: Several in-combat lines of dialog happen in English rather than Japanese.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Gala starts off as this, but has a change of plans when he gets a Ra-Seru.
  • Terra's wolf form plays it straight, though as he's only available in Noah's intro sequence.
• Guide Dang It!: Several examples:
  • Berserker, one of the hardest bosses of the game, will die in a single usage of a leveled-up instant-death spell. He is the only boss susceptible to this attack.
  • The Miracle Arts as well. In order to use one, you must put in nine commands of "up", "down", "left", and "right" in an order specific to each character. The game does not give any hints as to what the proper order is, or even that they exist. By extension, the final Ra-Seru evolutions as well, which require each character to have learned his/her Miracle Art, then, after fighting Songi in Noaru Valley, return to a specific Genesis Tree for each character and speak with the final spirit of Hari to awaken their true power.
  • Several items can only be found in the most random locations. The Earth and Water Ra-Seru eggs only show up as prizes in the Colosseum and the Fishing Pond respectively if you grind up enough points to earn them; both of which are well above the highest amount of coins/points you need to get the most expensive listed items.
  • Super Arts in Legaia I. They are 7-9 commands long, and they're quite powerful, but the game only gives vague hints to their existence (and not their sequence). If you discover one, it is not saved in your Arts list. Better get out the pen and paper if you want to use it again. Oh, and each character has five.
• Happy Dance: One of Noa's victory poses is this.
• Health/Damage Asymmetry: Zig Zagged. Normal enemies have slightly less HP than the player characters, but also deal slightly less damage. Bosses have considerably more HP than the player characters, and can also out-damage them as well.
• Hell: Rogue's Tower is implied to be the in-universe equivalent^note Rogue, who plotted a rebellion against Tieg a millennium ago, is sealed here eternally as punishment, combined with a Womb Level, as it is said to be the body of a Rogue itself.
  • To Hell and Back: Naturally, you have to go there and kill the head Rogue to shut off the source of the Mist in the past.
  • Hell on Earth: Conkram and Rim Elm^note After being engulfed by Juggernaut are both referred to as being this, though each place is more accurately described the unholy spawn of a Womb Level and Mordor.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Each of the three player characters.
• Heroic Host: A human which has bonded with a Seru gains a variety of powers, which may include Super-Strength, Elemental Powers, or flight. In the presence of the Mist, however, this turns into Demonic Possession. Thankfully, Ra-Seru are immune to this aspect.
• Heroic Mime: Vahn is this full-time. When you first get control of her, Noa is this way, too, but once Vahn is the party leader again, she starts talking and showing personality. A lot.
• Hope Sprouts Eternal: At the very end of the credits, there is a single flower blooming on top of the ruins of Conkram, symbolizing that while The Seru are gone and mankind may fall back to the Stone Age, there is hope for the future as long as there are heroes to carry out Tieg's will.
• Hot-Blooded: Vahn, according to his battle dialogue.
• Hurricane Kick: Noa's third Hyper Art is called this. It's closer to a flurry of kicks than the better-known examples from fighting games.
• Incredibly Durable Enemies: Many enemies require borderline all-out tactics to defeat well after they have surpassed their capacity to give you significant EXP.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Also doubles as Bragging Rights Reward, the Mettle Goblet provides unlimited AP; too bad it can only be found in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Informed Equipment: Averted — each weapon and piece of armor is shown on the characters during battle, although not during cutscenes or on the map. Many of the different variations were Palette Swaps of each other, but given when the game was produced, it's still quite impressive. If you take off all of their armor, they'll be wearing their default outfits.
• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: Prices for each item are globally fixed, and you sell items for half of the retail value.
• Karma Houdini: Given the kind of game it is and that his sister has nothing resembling a family member left alive at this point, one character's Raise Him Right This Time is somewhat reasonable (see below), but in a cast of equally or more sympathetic deaths, he's the only one who gets one.
• Kid Hero: Vahn (who is 14) and Noa (who is 12). Ironically, their official graphics and battle images look like both characters are at least in their late teens or early twenties. This is Lampshaded hilariously in Sol Tower, where you're turned away by children running an item shop if you don't have enough money. They remark on how someone so young couldn't possibly pay; one of Vahn's possible responses is "I'm not a kid! I'm 14 years old!"
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gala starts out this way, constantly insulting Vahn and Noa at first, demeaning their violent ways and their use of Seru, and quite openly displaying his disdain at being forced to help them. Eventually, he lightens up and becomes friendlier with the rest of your team, though he still occasionally argues with Noa.
• The Juggernaut: Very, very, very, very, very literally. It's a mountain-sized Kaiju that possesses the ability to teleport, has a Breath Weapon energy beam attack that can demolish a structure as big as itself, never takes any damage throughout the adventure (the game never even pretends that you could so much as scratch it), absorbs an entire town, and would continue to grow until it engulfed the entire planet unopposed. It is only stopped by the heroes, whose powers have surpassed even Tieg, attacking its weakest point: its heart. ITS HEART then proceeds to transform into a Reality Warping Eldritch Abomination that can summon a planet down on its foes and attack with a No Kill Like Over Kill energy attack that is more powerful than the planet's collision damage. Even after it is defeated, it takes the combined might of the three beings who when combined with Vahn, Noa, and Gala surpassed The Maker and a Heroic Sacrifice to free the town it absorbed. Try and find a better example.

L-P

• The Legend of X: Of Legaia.
• Lethal Lava Land: The Fire Path.
• Let Them Die Happy: Averted. Instead of just letting Zora die of her injuries or the Floating Castle's collapse, Songi informs her that Cort didn't love her, her entire operation was a trap for the heroes and she didn't know it, and that if she hadn't succeeded in killing them, the plan involved her death. Then he kills her. Ouch.
• Level Grinding: In multiple flavors, should you choose — use of spells would eventually level them up into better versions.
• The Load: Gala, before he acquires Ozma. Granted, he's level 1 when your party is around level 8, but training him up to par is tedious when the man can't even piece together basic Arts without Spirit due to his low agility giving him few art blocks.
• Load-Bearing Boss:
  • Cort, who is stated to be one with the Mist Generator in the Absolute Fortress. When you defeat him, said Generator shuts down and the fortress as a whole begins to collapse.
  • All of the other Mist Generator dungeons have a downplayed version of this; the dungeon is destroyed after you defeat the boss, but because you destroy the Mist Generator immediately afterwards, not because of defeating the boss per se.
• Mad Love: Zora is in love with Cort, and part of her motivation for becoming his follower in the first place was that Love Makes You Evil. She believes that he loves her, too — until Songi shows up and tells her the truth once she's Outlived Her Usefulness.
• Mad Scientist: Jette and Cort, although Jette more so.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Gala is The Load when he joins. When he catches up, he has a great damage output, the best healer of the team, and the best Seru user on the team. To put it simply, he has the most potential out of the three characters, but it take a long time to reach those potential..
  • The Point Card accumulates points equal to 5% the price of a weapon or item purchased at a shop. It can attack for a maximum of 9,999HP worth of damage at a time. When used in battle the Point Card will expend all its points onto the target, regardless of target HP, if points available on the Card are less than 9,999. Considering how much grinding you’ll be doing & how often you’ll be buying new equipment, however, & you’ll fill up that card relatively quickly.
• Manipulative Bastard: Songi. By the end of the game, Songi has pretty much hijacked the plot from the other villains, Cort and Juggernaut come back because of Songi and it's because of his actions that the Seru-Kai is destroyed insuring that all Seru, including Terra, Ozma, and Meta will die.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Cort has heterochromia (one purple eye and one green), symbolizing his villainous nature after being possessed unto evil by a piece of an evil Rogue.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Noa, who, according to the game's review at RPGamer.com, was supposed to be named "Noah", and has a Miracle Art known as "Noa's Ark". If this is true, it's likely that this was to avoid a Gender-Blender Name.
  • Juggernaut, which very much lives up to its name — a giant Sim-Seru the size of a mountain, faster than a Flying Cart, and with strength immeasurable. It is outright stated on multiple occasions that it is impossible to face head-on, and the only option is to flee.
  • Rogue, a former Ra-Seru turned to evil, who went rogue against the will of Tieg, and whose rebellion brought ruin to the human world.
• Mercy Killing: Though you don't actually perform the killing directly, Noa's Parents, fused with a giant Sim-Seru, request that you destroy the final Mist Generator to save the world and destroy the Sim-Seru, killing them in the process. As the pain they are in is implied to be very great, it's likely that they preferred death.
• Minigame Zone: Sol Tower is the home of the arena, two arcade games and the Disco Club. There is a slot machine in Vidna and two fishing ponds across Legaia, but a plurality of minigames are exclusive to Sol.
• Money Multiplier: The Golden Book increases after-battle G accrual by 25%.
• Monster Arena: The Muscle Dome in Sol Tower.
• Moses in the Bulrushes: Noa. Ten years ago, when the Mist first covered the world, her parents summoned one of the Soren to take her as far away from the incoming Mist approached Conkram and the city fell to the Mist and the Seru
• Multiple Endings: Sort of. The main plot is linear, but at the very end, the player can choose what Vahn does after the story's over.
• Nintendo Hard: The game is harder than its contemporary Role Playing Games. There's a whole new battling system; it's not that simple to acquire magic spells; the player has to manage 2 different resource pools (MP and AP); in-game money comes in a slow pace while the equipment stores have way too expensive prices; ditto for experience, and the increasing enemy difficulty makes leveling-up a vital necessity; the bosses are completely merciless; and, if you want to get 100% of completion, get ready to grind a lot of tokens and fishing points.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: It was Cort and his henchmen who orchestrated the revival of the Genesis Trees and the eventual meeting of the Ra-Seru and their wearers. By capturing and finishing off the last Ra-Seru, they planned to cover the whole world in Mist once and for all. However, as the game progresses, it becomes clear to everyone that Cort and his followers had severely underestimated the strength and determination of those they were trying to defeat.
  • Dohati has Saryu utilize Ratayu technology to develop an infinite amount of Juggernaut. However, the Mist Generator at Sebucus causes Ratayu to be covered in the Mist, and the project is halted because of it.
• No Escape but Down: During the escape from the final Mist Generator's self-destruction, if you don't just teleport out.
• No Hero Discount: Discussed by at least one shopkeeper, who notes that while he wants to help out, he still has to turn a profit.
• Not Even Human: Cort, after his Emergency Transformation following his first defeat. When you reach him in the heart of Juggernaut, he specifically says that he gave up being a human to become a "perfect entity".
• Not Quite Dead:
  • Cort — The heroes defeat him at the top of the Absolute Fortress, and the shock of the fortress starting to collapse causes him to take a tumble to his doom. It turns out that he survived by fusing with the Sim-Seru Juggernaut resting in the lake of Mist below.
  • Gaza — In a case of this and We Can Rebuild Him, Songi recovers his dying body after the first fight with him and affixes a Sim-Seru to Gaza to keep him alive, and drive him even further insane.
• Old Master: Zopu, and later, Deez. As respect for one's elders is a central tenet of the Biron monastic order, it is reasonable to assume that other dojos had elderly mentors at one point or another.
• Ominous Floating Castle: Zora's Floating Castle. When you defeat Zora and reach the Mist Generator located inside, Songi destroys it, which causes the Castle to tumble downward toward the Earth.^note The Mist Generator inside is stated by Songi to be "a piece of junk" with Mist which is no-good, and that the entire tower was a ruse to lure the heroes in and kill them
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Dr. Usha is said to be well versed in a multitude of scientific fields, both natural and alchemical, modern and ancient.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • The Nighto, Aluru, and Jedo spells have a chance of instantly annihilating an enemy.
  • The Shade family of enemies have a Random Effect Spell that can cause an instant KO. Or do nothing at all.
  • The Puera Seru family of enemies has the "Death Game" special attack, where it pulls out four cards and shuffles them around, letting the player select one (or picking one itself after 5 seconds if the player doesn't). At level 1, one of the four cards kills the targeted character instantly, another kills the Puera instantly, another damages both of them, and the last heals both of them. At level 2, the "damages both" card is dropped in favor of a second "kills the player" card, and at level 3, the "heals both" card is dropped for a third "kills the player" card. Better hope you can follow that single "kills the Puera" card carefully, or get very lucky in your pick.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: While most stats are useful, AGL is the most important stat, as it governs the number of art blocks the character can access. Despite having the lowest attack stat of the party, Noa will generally deal the most damage among party members, as her AGL is significantly higher than Vahn's or Gala's.
• One-Time Dungeon: All four of the Mist Generator Dungeons, as well as Rogue's Tower and Noaru Valley, become inaccessible after you have completed them.
• One-Winged Angel
  • After fusing with Juggernaut, Cort transforms from a human into a monstrous form that serves as the game's Final Boss
  • Songi's final form is a grotesque creature that looks very similar to the Berserker, but with his same facial features. See Body Horror above for both.
  • Sim-Seru seem to bestow this naturally on there wearers. Most of the characters who posses them have a One-Winged Angel form.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: The boss Xain, who appears to be a cross of a Minotaur and centaur.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Seru-possessed humans in the presence of the Mist are similar to mindless zombies in other works.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: It's very easy to defeat the Berserker by using the Nighto spell. The Berserker is the only boss vulnerable to the spell, which causes confusion and has a chance of inflicting instant death.
• Overly Long Fighting Animation:
  • As the battle system relies on chaining various attacks together to form Art combinations, battles can take a long time later in the game when the characters have 7-9 art blocks and can form multiple combination attacks per turn.
  • The Seru magic animations look cool, but each one last about 20-30 seconds on average, and since they're unskippable, it can make trying to level up your spells far more time-consuming than necessary.
    • The Juggernaut animation is a particularly egregious example, with an animation time rivaling Sephiroth's Supernova.
• Overworld Not to Scale: How you traverse the world between the various towns and dungeons^note and dungeon towns. Vahn's depiction in the overworld is roughly the same size as his entire home in Rim Elm.
• Parental Substitute: Terra to Noa.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: The most egregious example is at the point where you get the Fire Droplet at Uru Mais, just after Juggernaut destroys the place, but before returning to Usha Research Center. Players can equip this to Vahn and go towards the Muscle Dome at Sol, compete at Beginner (and if players really did a lot of level grinding, the Expert course), keep using Fire Blow, and win every single time with a 100 AP. Grab 7 Soru Breads and sell them for 3000 gold each. Given that money is hard to come by in this game, it's well worth it.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • The aforementioned point card is lost if you don’t find it before Juggernaut devours Rim Elm.
  • There are four paths that each lead to the first Mist generator, and attempting to go to the valley before you have revived three Genesis Trees in Drake Kingdom will cause a cutscene to play in a hidden area in the canyon. Each canyon contains a treasure chest, but once you have revived three Genesis Trees, these valley crossings will become inaccessible and the treasure chests therein are also forever outside your grasp.
    • The most prominent one is the path from Snowdrift Cave, because you can only visit it when you leave the cave as Noa. Once you go through Mt Rikuroa's Golem boss, the cave will collapse and prevent you from returning to the overworld and reaching it forever.
  • Any item in any of the four Mist Generator dungeons except for one in the final such dungeon and any item in either Rogue's Tower or Noaru Valley, both in the Seru-kai is permanently lost once you complete the dungeon, as the area becomes inaccessible.
  • There are not one, but two items that become lost in the first hour of the game. When the Mist attacks Rim Elm at the beginning of the game, you can talk to the shopkeeper to get three Healing Leaves, and talking with Mei and offering to have her stay with your family during the Mist attack will cause her to give you her Pendant when you leave for Drake Castle.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Noa and Vahn, if you choose the ending where Vahn leaves Rim Elm to confess his love to her.
• Pixel Hunt: While some hidden items are located in treasure chests, others are hiding in various nondescript locations with no telltale sign of their existence, let alone where to find them. Two noteworthy examples are the Platinum Card (found in Drake Castle), which lets you buy hidden items at various shops, and the Mettle Goblet (midway through The Very Definitely Final Dungeon), which locks that party member's AP at 100, giving them the ability to freely spam arts without drawback. Thankfully, no item found this way is required to complete the game.
• Playing with Fire: Meta, the Ra-Seru of Vahn, the brash, hotheaded, sword-wielding, teenage, male hero, is bound to have this element.
• Plot Coupon That Does Something: Several Plot Coupons^note Among them: Yuma's Ring, Zalan's Crown, the Star Pearl, the Fire Droplet, the Seru Flame, and the Nemesis Gem are accessories which can be equipped. The Fire Droplet in particular is noteworthy for locking the wearer at 100 AP, allowing free spamming of arts.
• Pop Quiz: Several times.
  • In Snowdrift Cave, Terra the Wolf asks Noa several questions about the plot to that point.
    • Strangely, a few of the wrong answers you can give are things that Noa shouldn't just not know because she was literally raised by a wolf, but shouldn't know because this is a fantasy RPG taking place on a world that isn't Earth.◊
  • After freeing Drake Castle from the Mist, an optional scene has Noa quizzing Vahn about items. Getting all the questions right gives you 10 Healing Shrooms, but it's arguably better to get all the questions wrong to get a Wisdom Water
  • Mrs. Usha gives not one, but two quizzes. The first gets you the Ruins Key, the second gets you a variety of healing items for the trip to Nivora.
• Prayer Is a Last Resort: After defeating Songi at Noaru Valley, the Great Genesis Tree is about to die. As the Genesis Tree is too weak to be revived and the Ra-Seru^note whose life is tied to that of said Tree are nonresponsive as well, Gala invokes this, suggesting that faith is their last chance.^note The party's prayers are answered by the spirit of Hari, who gives the last of his life to sustain the Great Genesis Tree long enough to defeat Juggernaut and complete the game
• Promotion to Parent: Noa becomes this at the end of the game to Cort.
• The Psycho Rangers: Gi, Lu, and Che Delilas are the respective counterparts of Vahn, Noa, and Gala.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Songi, to Master Zopu. Maya remarks a few times that Songi was a good child, but his pride and shame at being second best to Gala led him on a path to evil.

Q-S

• Raised by Wolves: Noa, although there was only one wolf involved, which turned out to be a Ra-Seru. But she's still a pretty literal example of the trope.
• Raise Him Right This Time: Cort.
• Random Effect Spell: The Shade family of enemies has the ability to use this against you, causing such status effects as Venom, Toxic, Petrifaction, HP -50%, or instant death. It can also do nothing at all, or heal its target of HP and status.^note The player can manipulate luck in his/her favor; the roulette wheel always makes exactly one full spin after it is stopped, allowing for easy "luck" manipulation.
• Randomly Drops / Video Game Stealing: The Evil God Icon gives you a chance to steal items from enemies when you defeat them. Each enemy has a particular item that you can steal with a fixed drop rate, and while obtaining mundane items such as HP and MP healing items is easy, obtaining extra Crimson Books or Stat+ Waters is an exercise in frustration.
• Rare Candy: The various stat waters:
  • Power Water, Guardian Water, Swift Water, and Wisdom Water permanently raise that character's ATK, DEF, SPD, or INT by +4.
  • Life Water and Magic Water raise that characters HP or MP by +16 and +8, respectively.
  • Miracle Water (and the Honey mentioned above) raises all of that character's stats by +4.
• Recurring Boss:
  • You'll fight Songi three times over the course of the game. Sadly, he very much remembered to level grind between each fight
    • It's strangely paced, though. You'll fight him in the first Mist Generator about 1/4 of the way into the game, and then again a little while before roughly the halfway point. After that, while he still continues to be part of the plot, you will not fight him again until the very end of the game, as he serves as the second to last boss. It's almost like there was a fourth encounter planned that ended up being cut.
  • There are also two fights each against both Cort and Gaza.
• Rival Turned Evil: Songi.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: Noa has hair which is somewhere between red and this. Her personality aligns more in this direction — as the youngest of the three heroes and by far the most naive^note See Raised by Wolves. Though not quite The Pollyanna, she is the most cheerful and gregarious of the heroes.
• Satanic Archetype: Rogue. A former Ra-Seru who led a rebellion against Tieg, the creator deity and in-universe equivalent of God a thousand years ago. The Rogue were put down by Tieg's strength, sealed away in the Tower of Rogue, the universe's equivalent of Hell, for all eternity. When Cort finds a piece of Rogue, he promptly fuses with it, granting him great power and an ambition for evil.
• Scenery Gorn: Conkram in its current state. One of the few video game architectures that send Legaia's level design right into Silent Hill Territory. Between people trapped in walls, guards that open the pathway by splitting up the flesh that joins them together, and overall oppressive atmosphere, it's a nightmare on Earth. It's one of the most poignant examples of the horrors of the Mist, and a level that can be repulsive to many gamers playing through it.
• Second Hour Superpower: None of your characters starts with their Ra-Seru when they first join your party. Once that character does join with their Ra-Seru, their ATK shoots up, and they get access to magic.
• Shock and Awe: Ozma, Gala's Ra-Seru, is of the Thunder element. Surprisingly, Gala is the only one of the three heroes who isn't a brash hothead.
• Shoryuken: Vahn's first Hyper Art, Tornado Flame, is basically a Shoryuken powered by a Ra-Seru.
• Sole Entertainment Option: The only place with real entertainment is Sol, the town which was built on a tower that was partially above the Mist. There were several different activities people could do... but there isn't much in the way of recreation anywhere else.
  • Partially justified, in the Sol is also the only town that's unaffected by the Mist (the upper floors at least), while everyone else had to struggle to survive as best they could. In fact, the abundance of entertainment in Sol has turned most of the residents into Apathetic Citizens, completely unconcerned with the Mist, yet also bored out of their minds.
• Standard Evil Empire Hierarchy: Although there is no evil empire present in this game, the main villains (i.e. the Mist Generator bosses and Songi) do fit the mold of this trope. See also the various subtropes.
  • Cort is the Evil Prince, and the leader of the villains.
  • Jette is his Dragon, right-hand man, and the former Court Scientist of Conkram.
  • Zora is the Oddball among the main villains.
  • Zeto and Dohati are the former Secretaries of State and the Interior of Conkram, respectively, and both serve as a combination of the General and the Guard.
  • Songi is the Evil Counterpart, specifically to Gala. As his loyalty is only to himself, he is not above stabbing the others in the back if it's to his own benefit.
• Status Buff: The various elixirs, which raise a character's stats for a single battle.
• Status Effects:
  • Venom/Toxic — A poison effect that also reduces your attack. Toxic is a double-strength Venom.
  • Curse — Affected player cannot use magic. Basically the same effect as other Role Playing Games' "mute" or "silence".
  • Rot — Limits your ability to attack by sealing one or more of your up, down, left, or right attacks.
  • Stone — Petrification. Fatal if all party members are affected.
  • Numb — Similar to paralysis, but naturally wears off over time or if said enemy/ally is attacked.
• Stock Monsters: Slimes, orcs, attack insects, etc.
• Summon Magic: Spells involve summoning the various Seru you have fought throughout your adventure.
• Superboss: Lapis has an ATK stat that dwarfs even the final boss, and for having crazy-long combos easily capable of dealing 7,000 HP of damage per round, while , forcing them your party members will have a max HP stat somewhere in the upper 2,000's or a bit over 3,000.^note Hint: Since Lapis is Light-elemental, you can equip Luminous Jewels or the Light Egg/Talisman to halve the damage output, making his attacks survivable with a good accessory setup and a little luck... or use an MP exploit to use Jedo on the first turn.
• Super-Empowering / Talking Weapon / Upgrade Artifact: Seru straddle the line between these three tropes — while Seru are sentient beings, their role in the story is to combine with humans, giving the human vastly increased speed, strength, and sometimes additional powers such as flight. The heroes' Ra-Seru are important characters in their own rights, dispensing wisdom and advice in addition to granting superhuman strength and shielding them from the Mist's harmful influence.
• Sword Beam: The Ghost Knight family of enemies has the Windhash ability. Stronger forms of the same also have the V-Windhash and Neo-Windhash, the latter of which can Curse its target.
• Sympathy for the Devil: After defeating Songi for the last time, his Seru separates from his body. Witnessing his former friend in agonizing pain being destroyed by the Seru-kai, Gala asks Ozma if there is any way to save him.^note There isn't.

T-Z

• Third-Person Person: Noa always talks like this in the Japanese version of the game. She doesn't in the English script, though.
• Timed Mission: You have six minutes to escape from the Floating Castle before it hits the ground and gives you a Game Over.
• Time-Limit Boss: The fight against Koru. You have four turns to defeat him, and then... BOOM! Koru explodes, vaporizing half the region, dealing 9999 damage to each of your characters, and instantly giving you a Game Over.
• Time Travel: Of the Stable Time Loop variety. In order to acquire the Nemesis Gem to reach the final Mist Generator, you must travel back into the past, as none remain in the present. Prior to doing so, there is at least one mention of "three mysterious heroes" who saved the past from the Mist, implying that you already will have stopped the Mist of 10 years ago.
• Tragic Monster: The vast majority of Seru. Before the Mist came, they were benevolent creatures who lived in harmony with humans and co-existed through mutualistic relationships. Once you learn about their past, it makes the Seru's involuntary madness and eventual extinction all the more tragic.
  • There's also Gaza, a mighty swordsman. After being defeated by the party, he is taken away by Songi, one of the main antagonists. Later, Gaza shows up again, this time under the control of Sim-Seru. He turns into a monster, which the party has to defeat. Gaza is injured fatally, but he makes a noble sacrifice to save his city in his last breath.
  • Depending on how you interpret things, Prince Cort is also an example of this. He might have been willing, though the game also notes that Rogue Seru are capable of possessing unwilling hosts as well. It never states clearly whether he was Brainwashed and Crazy or evil all along and really evil after getting a Rogue Seru. Fortunately for Noa, he gets a second chance after all, but at the time you fight the monster form in the last boss fight, the heroes are under a different impression.
  • Cort is a small fry compared to THE ENTIRE CITY OF CONKRAM! Thanks to the Mist being spread from the Absolute Fortress, the Sim-Seru presented to the King during Noa's backstory began to grow in an unstable fashion, eventually absorbing the entire city. By the time you get there, everyone there has become a part of the massive beast, and the King and Queen both help the party prepare to storm the Absolute Fortress with full knowledge that the result is a massive Mercy Kill.
• Trauma Inn: Discussed — when Noa asks what an "Inn" is for, one possible response is to tell her that it is a place for restoring HP and MP.
• True Companions: Comes up a lot in the story, especially in the bonds between a Ra-Seru (or other sentient Seru) and their partnered human. The lengths to which Juggernaut goes to try to save Cort are just jaw-dropping. If a bit unfortunate for Vahn and friends.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Vahn, Noa, and Gala.
• Underground City: The caverns under Octam. Originally the ruins of a lost civilization, it was cleared out so that the inhabitants of the town above could build new houses and escape from the Mist above.
• Underground Monkey:
  • Normal (non-Seru) enemies come in a limited number of types, and each type of enemy is Palette Swapped twice over the course of the game^note Three "flavors" of each enemy type. Their names change slightly for each version; one example is the Hornet — Killer Bee — Queen Bee enemy type.
  • Seru monsters are even more generic. After you fight each Seru, later dungeons will have [Seru] Lv2 and [Seru] Lv3 forms of that monster, with corresponding stat increases.
• Unholy Holy Sword: As far as the backstory goes, the Seru themselves. They're not evil so much as easily brainwashed, but...
• Ultimate Life Form: Songi being a human fused with a Sim-Seru born of a Ra-Seru claims to be this. He may be right.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • One of the Seru whose powers you can absorb is Nighto, and when used by one of your characters, has the power to either confuse or kill a single enemy. Sounds pretty good, right? Well...the chances of confusion actually working are fairly low (compounded by the fact that confusion, although doing exactly what one would expect in that it causes monsters to attack fellow monsters, tends to last only one turn on stronger beasts, much like other status changes in this game), and the chances of actually killing an opponent are almost nil. But, there's one glorious exception, and that's the very difficult mid-game boss Berserker, where Nighto's chances of instantly killing Berserker are actually quite good.
    • Legaia's fairly bad about this, actually — the majority of your Seru (essentially your magic spells and main means of dealing out huge damage to bosses) will reduce enemy stats or have other such effects at higher levels... but typically kill normal enemies in one hit, and of course bosses are immune to these effects. And even if someone does bother to fight normal enemies, magic doesn't regenerate and boss fights are generally wars of attrition that involve healing spells every turn... hope you stored a lot of mana poti- I mean mana leaves.
• Victorious Childhood Friend / First Girl Wins: Mei, in the ending where Vahn chooses her. And in the ending where Vahn chooses Noa, she's Ixis's Victorious Childhood Friend.
• Victory Pose: Each character has several. Notable in that depending on how much health said character has, their pose ranges from happy and triumphant to tired but relieved.
  • Noa and Gala each get a unique one that plays one single time: Noa's is when you defeat Cort for the first time and Gala's is when you defeat Songi for the last time. To avoid missing them, the game will play them even if said characters are not the one to deal the final blow.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The very first boss of the game, Caruban, is this. His 1,024 HP grants him decent staying power and his Fire Breath attack can deal damage equal to 50% of both Vahn's and Noa's HP, while his normal combos can deal 75% to either party member. That the first true boss of the game^note the Golem is a mini-boss is the Wake Up Call serves as testament to what the player is in for.
• Warp Whistle: The Door of Wind item allows you to warp to any town you've already been to at least once.
• Warrior Monk: The monastic order of Biron is an organization of these. Gala is a member until he is excommunicated for wearing Ozma and joining the party. One ending has Vahn deciding to train at Biron.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Each character has a favored weapon. Some weapons can be used by all characters, but characters who aren't proficient with the weapon require more of their arts bar to use the "arms" command.
  • Vahn: Swords and a few Fists.
  • Noa: Ferals and Claws^note As she is human, these are not natural weapons. Rather, they are not unlike spiked knuckles
  • Gala: Axes, Clubs, and Maces.
• Where It All Began: The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the Bio Castle, is overlaid on Vahn's hometown during the ending arc of the game; the Seru Juggernaut engulfs Rim Elm.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Cort has this, and true to form is the Big Bad of the game.
• Winged Humanoid: The Soren are a nomadic group of these. Played with in that the wings are Seru.
• Womb Level: The whole of The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and Rogue's Tower. Conkram is another example, as it has also been engulfed by a monstrous Sim-Seru.
• The Worf Effect: When Zeto attacks Rim Elm at the start of the game. Tetsu, the resident monk of Biron and Vahn's teacher in basic combat, charges, leaps forward, and is effortlessly brushed aside.
• World Tree: The Genesis Trees, which possess the power to push back the Mist and are also the home to Ra-Seru. The Great Genesis Tree in Seru-kai is a straighter example; your Rival Turned Evil attempts to steal all the power from it, which brings the Seru-kai itself to the brink of death. At the end of the game, the Great Genesis Tree and Seru-kai do both perish.
• You Have Failed Me: An odd combination of this and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness occurs regarding Zora — her role in Cort's scheme is to serve as bait to lure the heroes to the Floating Castle, but according to Songi, he fully anticipated that she would be defeated by them.
• You Shall Not Pass!: If you talk to Dr. Usha's scientists, they'll tell you that a mysterious mountain range appeared in the far north several weeks before the Mist arrived outside the tower. You later learn that Cort and his minions were behind this, effectively isolating Conkram and its people from the outside world.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: While you can learn normal Arts, Super Arts, and your Miracle Art without being taught in-game (either through trial and error or by looking it up), you must acquire various books for your characters to learn their respective Hyper Arts.
• Younger Than They Look: Based on appearances, Vahn and Noa both look to be somewhere in their late-teens at least, but according to dialogue, Vahn is only 14, and Noa is 12.

---