Video Game / Lilitales

From left to right: Airi, Lunarie El Blanca, Cless Gretchen

Lilitales is an H-Game Dungeon Crawler RPG created by TUNNEL no.73 using Wolf RPG Editor, originally released in July 31, 2015 with an English version published on Steam on October 11, 2019 by Kagura Games. It is a sequel to TUNNEL no.73's first game, Lilipalace.

Lunarie El Blanca is soon to be knighted into the Royal Guard alongside the coming-of-age ceremony for her Childhood Friend, Princess Jill of the Kingdom of Grants. However, the joyous ceremony takes a shocking turn as a meticulously-laid ambush slaughters almost all of Luna's fellow guards, and Luna is infested with a strange parasite that threatens to rob her of her sanity by a mysterious man in white robes.

The kingdom's scouts say the princess will likely have been taken to the Wretched Hive, Ishtar: a fallen city that now serves as a trade hub for Human Trafficking. Luna desperately attempts to get assigned to the mission to rescue Jill, but suddenly becomes the primary suspect responsible for her kidnapping when her master Rahad points out that she was one of the few survivors as a woman in No Woman's Land. Ostracized in her youth as a "devil child" who was believed to be the cause of the death of her mother and wet nurse, she was quickly condemned and thrown into prison, only to be broken out the same night by the only person who maintains his belief in her innocence, her captain, Volg.

With no support from here, Luna heads straight into the lion's den to rescue her beloved princess, even if she must sell her soul to the devil...

This page is currently a work-in-progress.

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This game provides examples of:

• 20 Bear Asses: A side quest in the Balsa Wilds asks to deliver 10 Black Wolf pelts to a hunter, which, due to the five stack item cap means making two full trips. Conveniently, there is a small and specially marked section of that map where there are respawning random encounters, unlike anywhere else in the game outside of the Tower of Trials. Delivering all of the pelts grants an innocuous accessory with seemingly no effect, but can be worn to open a secret shop at the Harbor, selling a variety of highly valuable consumables and powerful unique accessories.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Qanat is more of an aqueduct that provides almost all of Ishtar's freshwater, but is often infested with monsters, requiring clean-up crews to maintain its condition. In-game, it is also the largest area by virtue of allowing Luna to explore beyond the bounds of the minimap through the use of an accessory that lets her Walk on Water, where she can find an Easter Egg with the Author Avatar and an Optional Boss. Reading research notes underneath the Shandora Ruins states that the green slimes that attack Luna and Cless are responsible for purifying water.
• Advanced Ancient Humans
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Luna is horrified to find Rahad Came Back Wrong at the hands of the Man in White. After putting him down, she gently closes his eyes despite his actions against her and Jill, out of respect for her mentor and substitute father figure. An optional event in the Mansion after escaping the Underground Market reveals his dying words calling out to a girl named Irisha is the sickly girl there. It is implied that she is his daughter, who is afflicted with "desert consumption."
  • Airi takes pity on the vampire that corners her, after barely fending it off with Luna's help. Though the vampire has the face of her old colleague, he is hollow shell of his former self that will continue to hound her. She feeds him a bit of her magic and then leaves, unsure why she would go through the trouble when Luna asks her.
• And This Is for...
• Anti-Grinding: The game is intentionally designed to avoid making grinding in various ways. Suspicious Video-Game Generosity is in full effect to make sure your recovery items are at full stock frequently within dungeons often coupled with full recovery tiles, also due to the party usually only being one or two characters. All bosses are Puzzle Bosses with necessary equipment or accessories provided as long as the player explores dungeon floors fully. Enemy encounters are in fixed positions and do not respawn unless you exit the dungeon and re-enter. Even then, the experience from any encounter can only be earned once until the Bonus Dungeon is unlocked. As if to stress this, experience points are not even visible to the player.
• "Arabian Nights" Days: This is the overall aesthetic of the game due to most of the action taking place in the port city, Ishtar, with the Kingdom of Grants only being briefly seen in the prologue.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Octuple Assault, as its name suggests, requires Luna to perform the skill eight times consecutively. If she takes any other action, misses her attack, or is interrupted by any sort of status effect (including knockdown), she has to start back at the beginning. To add insult to injury, even though the skill states it costs 2 MP, it actually costs 3. It is more or less impossible to pull it off without running out of MP without a Spirit Pill to nullify MP costs for 3 turns, especially if Luna is alone and moreso if she exceeds 100 AGI, when she'll be using MP twice as fast as she can recover it per turn. It's not until the 5th step that the skill starts producing worthwhile results, with the Leg Sweep being able to knock down just about any enemy, as even most bosses lack Contractual Boss Immunity save for a specific handful. Luna gets some health back with another strike, with the penultimate step reducing the enemy's ATK (albeit for a small amount). The final step makes for a visually impressive coup de grace, but she'll likely be better served using all that MP for Thunderbolts or Rapid Pikes.
• Barrier Maiden: The Grants family is home to the line of successors who maintain the seal on the entrance to the Shandora Ruins, with Jill becoming the latest as a part of her coming-of-age ceremony, although she doesn't quite grasp the gravity of what it means to invoke the name of Lilith until she witnesses first-hand the horrors that the Lilith civilization produced.
• Body Horror: The Lilith Exchange ritual involves binding one unfortunate woman into the core of sickly-green mound of alien-looking flesh, feeding on any humans who come anywhere near its vicinity in order to make its host give birth after converting the biomass. The green color seeps into the core victim's limbs and roots them in place, forcing them to watch as sacrifices are thrown their way until the monster inevitably drains all life from them too.
• Bonus Dungeon: After completing the story, the Tower of Trials becomes available. The Fortuneteller outright states the Tower is completely bereft of any sort of adult content and is designed solely for RPG lovers. The game then starts mercilessly Leaning on the Fourth Wall with jokes about RPG boss tropes and dungeon crawlers abound.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The Pentagram accessory is found on the last explorable floor of the Tower of Trials, whose description is only "???", what it does is it turns Luna's Ray Pentagram initial cast into Gamma Ray, a Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke. However, at this point, your only remaining challenge will be Belrius, the Black Dragon, a rather strict Puzzle Boss that will likely leave little room to use it.
• Break the Cutie
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Nimble, the last passive skill which is acquired from the Tower of Trials, allows the changing of equipment without using an action. Given how tough the last challenges in the game are, this passive becomes mandatory in order to maintain Luna's action economy.
• Clear My Name
• Corrupt Church: The branch of the Central Church located in Ishtar is said to shelter orphans and escaped slaves, as well as the bishop offering to "treat" Luna's lust worm, but it is immediately obvious something is wrong from both the sinister glare the bishop gives Luna, to his immediate private musings about Luna, and Cless outright warning Luna to stay as far away as possible while she covertly investigates them. It turns out the Central Church itself isn't completely clean either, as they burned as many books about Lilith's civilization while proppering themselves up atop the social order. Cless is somewhat disturbed by this revelation.
• Counter-Attack: Commonly utilized by both Luna and some bosses having either a physical or magical counter, which also tends to dictate whether Luna should approach a fight defensively or aggressively.
• Covert Pervert: Luna often finds herself in a voyeur's position, walking in on Airi in the middle of the act twice and unable to avert her eyes. In some situations, it can be explained that she can't act when she otherwise would without blowing her cover, but even in others, such as events involving the mercenary Shedika, she's frozen in place and watches the entire time. This can also be partially due to the lust worm affecting her judgment.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: Given this is an H-Game, it shouldn't be too surprisingly, but Luna's Chainmail Bikini stands out a bit more given that she's a part of the royal guard that serves the princess, with her captain Volg, and her comrades armored up more plainly and sensibly.
• Dance Battler: Airi's Dagger Dance, which comes with a minigame not unlike Auron's Overdrives, with the hit count totaling the number of successful steps pressed. When combined with "Additional Damage" effects, the damage can be staggering, and it just so happens that her Infinity +1 Sword, the Inferno Blade, has such an effect. However, the short window makes the skill Difficult, but Awesome.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: To avoid falling into Trial-and-Error Gameplay, reaching a game over will dump the player back in merely steps away from whatever event caused it after receiving a hint from the Fortuneteller at the Crossroads. Even hitting the time limit or maxing out lust worm progression allow a do-over, allowing the player to go back several days or knocking progression back to 85%, respectively. Interestingly, any items Airi may have stolen in a lost battle will be kept.
• Determinator: Luna's noted to be very strong-willed and incredibly determined to save Jill.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Reaching 100% lust worm progression is a game over condition, and one that is quite difficult to hit on accident. If you game over that way, you were almost certainly ignoring the main quest and deliberately seeking that ending out. Other bad ends like the brainwashing bad end are similarly highly telegraphed and allow multiple chances to back out.
• Evil Mentor: Rahad orchestrated Jill's kidnapping, tarnished the Grants Royal Guard's reputation to ensure no one could mount a rescue. He also had Luna's father assassinated over them competing for the same political position, and then raised her as a pawn to dispose of when he needed.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The Law route, due to Luna breaking out of the Underground Slave Market the same day she breaks in, the story can actually be completely as quickly as five, or even four days, discounting the two days that pass during the prologue. Luna makes most of the trek across the Borak Ridge and Marlbara Desert in a single day.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Luna fits the Fighter, Cless the Mage, and Airi the Thief. However, Luna and Cless can also lean into each other's roles with the right equipment and accessories, which become more than necessary for certain encounters that prevent or discourage physical or magical attacks.
• Fighting Your Friend:
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke
• Gladiator Subquest: The Arena is one of the possible ways to raise money to fund the search for Jill.
• Guide Dang It!:
• Hidden Depths:
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
• Hold the Line: The prologue fight explicitly states the loss condition is if any one of Luna's allies fall. Thankfully, she's not so subtly told moments earlier that the fancy spear she was knighted with heals wounds, allowing her to play The Medic in the fight. Surviving 15 turns will, at the very least, allow Luna to retain her virginity from the bandits.
• Honor Among Thieves: Surprisingly, the people of Ishtar have managed a general, unspoken code of conduct within the city's walls, despite being among rather contemptible company. To ensure the city doesn't collapse under itself, snatching people off the streets is discouraged, with Luna only being in danger due to being far from home. Pimps go out of their way to ensure the protection of their prostitutes for only a modest cut of their earnings, and are willing to forgive those who aren't aware that various groups have their own turf. Gangs also don't try to target each other's slaves to avoid conflicts from breaking out.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Batil, the information broker. He cheats at cards regularly, charges high costs for his services, and is somewhat abrasive. Despite this, he refuses to take part in the city's main trade and has established a business for finding missing persons who may have been captured instead. Even though he has little reason to believe Luna's story, he offers his service at discount (provided she can win a few games of blackjack), is completely upfront about the dangers involved, and genuinely wishes her well when they have to part ways after sneaking Luna into the Underground Slave Market. If Luna returns to the Dawn Shepard's Bar after escaping, they'll be equal parts amazed and glad to see her again.
• Lightning Bruiser: Rahad, who possesses over 200 AGI at a point where Luna would need accessories to exceed 100. As Luna's master, he possesses superior versions of her own abilities, Column Break to Thunderbolt, Rapid Rush to Rapid Pike. He also is the only enemy who will counter both types of damage if she uses a skill with either of those two abilities.
• Magic Knight: Luna is immediately established as a master of both spear and spell starting with Ray Pentagram, soon later learning Thunderbolt. Both of these spells are imperative for escaping the clutches of various monsters. While she's stated to specifically be a master of lightning and water elemental magic, she will only learn Fayadaan at a level only possible in the post-game. Her final skill, Ghost Lance, summons a spectral copy of her spear that grants an additional attack on basic attacks.
• Metal Slime: One specific tile in the Marlbara Desert spawns a Gold Scorpion, which will immediately run. This practically necessitates the use of setting Quick Cast with Thunderbolt to kill it instantly, which rewards 20,000 Dinar. In-game, this is the fastest way to rack up money compared to fighting in the Arena, dancing, or prostitution.
• Monster Allies: The conspicuous third party member slot which remains vacant beyond the prologue fight is reserved for the Lizardman and Sylph, whose reusable summon items are acquired from optional encounters. After recruiting them, they may sometimes appear in Salman's House to talk to.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Airi and Cless cannot accompany Luna simultaneously. Luna explores dungeons with both on separate occasions briefly in the first half of the game, with the Law/Chaos route split at the middle determining whether Cless/Airi finishes the journey with Luna respectively. After beating the game, Luna's partner can be dropped and switched with the other as the player wishes.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When Cless is controlled by herself in a section of the Sapphire Ruins, encounters play music from Lilipalace instead. The bandits she fights as her boss encounter is also reminiscent of an encounter as well, with them lampshading the fact when they flee.
  • The "Imperial Tactics" accessory gives a chance to counterattack while defending, which is how the mechanic worked in Lilipalace.
• New Game Plus: The Fortuneteller allows the player to restart the game and letting them choose which parts of their save to retain between character levels, equipment, or things such as map exploration. Convenient for experiencing the other route quickly.
• Nominal Importance
• No Woman's Land: The people of Ishtar do not seem to regard women as even fully human.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: AGI is the key in a game with such a small party size. Every action in the turn order queue costs the equivalent of 100 AGI, with every 100 AGI allowing multiple actions in one turn as well as starting ahead of your enemies.
• Our Vampires Are Different
• Outside-Context Problem
• Player Nudge: The Fortuneteller will always point players towards a location or NPC to talk to in order to progress the story. On top of that, Luna's room also has a notebook to inform players of the next objective.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: All three player characters from Lilipalace can be found in Lilitales. Ross has an unnamed cameo at the beginning of the game as an adventurer Luna can speak to outside the Silver Goblet Bar. Cless is one of Luna's main companions, while Seria is one of the bosses in the Bonus Dungeon.
• Purposefully Overpowered: Lampshaded by the description for the Gunpowder Bombs, which do obscene amounts of damage. These items are specifically disabled in the Post-End Game Content challenges.
• Really Gets Around: According to the attendees at Airi's dance stage. Her full night "services" are booked for possibly months ahead but they say that she'll always make time to "fit in a quickie" for anyone. Airi's H-Encounter stat on her status screen is simply an infinity symbol.
  Luna: "When do you sleep?"
  Airi: "That's a secret.❤"
• Red Mage: Luna can change her role between physical or magical damage dealing, and healing quite easily thanks to having a diverse set of equipment. Her physical skills eventually fall behind, Counter in particular due to an increase in options and gaining an additional party member. Rapid Pike is usually only useful when Thunderbolt isn't, and Ghost Lance isn't acquired until making way through the Tower of Trials. Her ability to heal using the Ceremonial Spear is invaluable on the Chaos route, since Airi can only provide a heal-over-time buff, neither can otherwise heal in a pinch without relying on consumables, but she'll need to use one action to switch equipment unless you've progressed through Post-End Game Content.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Arbus, one of the Grants Royal Guards who took part in orchestrating the prologue's ambush, is promptly killed by the Man in White.
• Superboss: Diviner Fatima, found at the pinnacle of the Tower of Trials, the true name of the Fortuneteller, and Belrius the Black Dragon, the final Arena encounter.
• Timed Mission: Zigzagged. Luna has seven days to find Princess Jill or she'll be sold off as a slave, leaving the trail cold. Fortunately, the Fortuneteller can rewind time for the player to give them another shot. However, at the start of the final act, Luna can take as many days as she needs despite the urgency of the situation.
• Training from Hell: Rahad put Luna through brutal training, stipulating that he would stop training her if she cried even once, before she was deemed fit to enter the Grants Royal Guard.
• Video Game Stealing: Airi's Thieving Cat ability allows her to swipe Rare Drop items that can otherwise become Permanently Missable Content such as precious consumables that raise max HP or MP, or rare accessories from certain enemies in the Tower of Trials.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?
• Wretched Hive: Ishtar, once known as the scholarly city-state Dynople, sits at a key coastal port that has been sought by kingdoms both to the east and west of it. It has fallen so many times between each side that eventually it was declared an independent zone. The provisional government was soon chased out, and those who remained were mostly soldiers-turned-bandits. It eventually carved out an existence as a city of outlaws for criminals to escape to.
• Written by the Winners: Discussed by Professor Salman. When finding new documents in an unexplored level of the Sapphire Ruins, Cless exclaims that it may be evidence to proving the accounts of the Central Church's historical scripture. Salman states the trope word for word, saying that for each fallen kingdom in war, their perspective of history is erased with it.