Video Game / Lost Odyssey

Lost Odyssey was the second of two Japanese-style RPGs developed for the Xbox 360 by Mistwalker, the other being Blue Dragon. The game was released in 2008, and was produced and written by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, scored by Nobuo Uematsu, co-written by award-winning novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu, with character designs by Takehiko Inoue, the manga artist who single-handedly popularized basketball in Japan with the Slam Dunk series.

Its plot centers around Kaim Argonar, The Hero, an amnesiac mercenary who is apparently immortal. As the game opens, he is serving in the army of the Magic Republic of Uhra, a nation still in turmoil from the abolition of its monarchy, in their war against the beastmen of Khent. The game opens with the final battle of the war, which is concluded by a meteor strike (which takes the form of lava pouring out of the sky) that wipes out nearly everyone on both sides save Kaim and another amnesiac immortal, a woman named Seth Balmore.

From the moment he meets Seth on, Kaim's memories start coming back. At the same time, Uhra is convinced that the meteor was the result of some finicky wiring in their new Magitek tower, and send Kaim off to investigate. The plot thickens as Councilor Gongora schemes to restore the inept Prince Tolten to the Uhran throne and restore the monarchy. All of this is set against the background of the "Magic-Industrial Revolution," as the nations of the world are struggling to incorporate Magitek into their daily lives. Prominent characters include:

• Kaim Argonar, The Hero; begins as The Stoic, but gradually becomes more emotional as he recovers his memories.
• Seth Balmore, The Lancer; Flirty Action Girl and former Pirate.
• Jansen Friedh, Uhran wizard, The Mole for all of about five minutes, Plucky Comic Relief by way of being a Handsome Lech and Chivalrous Pervert.
• Ming Numara, the immortal Queen of Numara.
• General Kakanas, leader of Numara's armed forces.
• Mack and Cooke, two kids from Numara who tag along for the ride. Also, Kaim and Sarah's grandchildren.
• Sarah Sisulart, Kaim's immortal wife.
• Sed, Pirate, Cool Old Guy and Seth's son.
• Prince Tolten, the heir to the (defunct) throne of Uhra and chronic Unwitting Pawn.
• Gongora, the Big Bad and an extremely Smug Snake.

The gameplay is classic Turn-Based Combat based around a skill system. Your party is made up of both Mortal and Immortal charaters. The Immortals automatically revive two turns after being KOed in battle, but only the Mortals learn skills naturally by levelling up. Thus, the Immortals rely on "skill-linking" with the Mortals as well as equipment in order to become more powerful. Magic is divided into four categories - Black offensive magic and White defensive magic, which are obvious holdovers from Final Fantasy, as well as buffing-focused Spirit magic and Composite magic, which is a fusion of spells from other schools. General gameplay resembles NES- and SNES-era entries in the Final Fantasy series, but with the benefit of the Xbox 360's graphical power and much more elaborate Boss Battles.

Another gameplay feature of note is the "Thousand Years of Dreams" - as the game goes on, Kaim starts to recover his memory in the form of dreams. These dreams are displayed in the game as short stories. Read these at your peril. Tears will be jerked. The game can be played with dialog in both the original Japanese and in English, to satisfy both sides of the Subbing Versus Dubbing debate, and both are very high quality performances. The game was not much of a fan favorite in Japan due to the 360's unpopularity there, but enjoyed much greater success in the West. The opposite occurs with critics reception, scoring a 36/40 from Famitsu but mixed reaction from Western review sites.

The game was made backwards compatible with the Xbox One and was re-released for free for the last two weeks of 2016.

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This game contains examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: The highest level you can achieve is 99, but if you don't tackle any of the bonus dungeons you'd finish by around 50.
• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Justified. Immortality isn't genetic, so Seth looks significantly younger than the son she had a generation ago, Sed. There is much humor in him still being a Momma's Boy despite looking more than twice her age.
• Action Commands: To make the most of weapon strikes, you have to release the controller trigger at the right moment. Not pull, release.
• Action Girl: Seth, who is also an Action Mom.
• Anti-Grinding: Leveling is handled in an interesting manner. Every area has its own level cap and anyone in your party below it will get a level up every battle until they reach the said cap, at which point they get the default amount of experience from battles and level up every 2-5 battles. Once you're several levels past the level cap, you only get 1 exp per enemy killed in battle, regardless of where or who you fight, but since every level is 100 exp apart and you can get up to 14 exp per battle even if you vastly outlevel the enemy, you're still guaranteed levelups at regular intervals. The real point to battles is to get Skill Points for your immortals to learn new abilities.
• Apocalyptic Log: The spheres the group finds scattered through Experimental Grand Staff, especially the entries detailing what happens to the security guards ordered to "test the prototype's interceptor skills throughout the facility" by Professor K.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Five, which is at least a rather generous one by modern standards.
• Auction: There's an auction house later on in the game where you can bid on items you've missed. Helpful if you're trying to get the Treasure Trove achievement.
• Award-Bait Song: "What You Are".
• Back for the Dead: Much of disc one is spent on the identity of the girl in Kaim's dreams, eventually revealed to be Kaim's daughter Lirum. Almost immediately upon finding her, she dies of a long illness and you aid her children, Cooke and Mack, in holding her funeral.
• Badass Boast: When Kaim remembers what Gongora did to him and his family, he vows that, even if Gongora can't die, that Kaim will fill his life with so much pain that he'll spend all of eternity wishing that he could.
• Badass Normal: Sed isn't a monarch or sorcerer and the only party member that uses a gun to fight.
• Bag of Sharing: Even when the party members are continents apart.
• Bathos: Given that all accessories show up on the characters during cutscenes, and some accessories are absurd, this happens. Nothing like having a tense confrontation with enemy soldiers while your party is wearing cat ears.
• Beast Man:
  • The Khents, a race of dogpeople resembling Dobermans.
  • There's a white-skinned little girl in a dress with fox ears and a tail named Chuchu whose race is never elaborated upon and her father that she mentions is never shown either.
  • There's Aneira, who's never shown either but is described as having wings and a bite strong enough to break iron shackles, although he might as well be dragon of some sort.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Gangora's public persona is a socially awkward and humble man not quite comfortable in the spotlight. Behind the scenes, he is the worst kind of scheming bastard.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Being immortal may seem awesome, but after a thousand years of everyone you love dying like flies and watching your children grow old and wither away it doesn't seem so great.
  • Inverted by the end of the game: when the love of your life is also an immortal, immortality suddenly does not sound so bad.
• Bling of War: Tolten's diamond-studded gold armor.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Cooke. Mack is significantly more mature.
• Break the Cutie: A necessary part of Gongora's plan. Sarah gets it very hard, but the other Immortals get it too.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: The basis of what Gongora does to the other immortals.
• Can't Catch Up: If the player is diligent with Skill Linking, beyond a certain point the mortal characters in the party will pale into insignificance in battle compared to the four Immortals.
• Character Level: Works the same way as most RPGs. EXP raises the level, SP helps the immortals to master skills.
• Character Select Forcing: The Final Boss locks out all of your mortals. Hope you trained your immortals!
• Chekhov's Gun: Wandering around in Numara's Ghost Town early in the game, you can see one of the petrified monsters that Gongora used to hold the country hostage, which you'll have to fight much later on.
• Chess Motif: The opening battle is meant to resemble chess pieces fighting each other.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Jansen, who is introduced not only drunk, but with women in his arms. Nonetheless, he is a rather decent person.
• Cleavage Window: Sarah and Ming
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: Oh General Kakanas, you wacky jingoistic traitor....
• Competence Zone: A very broad one. Even without the immortals.
• Cool Old Guy: Kaim counts, despite not looking all that old. Sed fits this trope perfectly.
• Cool Ship: Both White Boa and Nautilus qualify: the former is essentially a gigantic luxury cruise ship filled with weapons that doubles as an icebreaker, while the latter is a transforming boat-submarine hybrid that can fly.
• Creative Sterility: Mixed with Mega Manning. Immortals learn new skills by copying them from mortal party members or from support accessories they've got equipped, but will never come up with new skills of their own. Mortals learn new skills on their own, by leveling up, but can't copy skills.
• Criminal Amnesiac: Kaim and Seth are in this state when the game starts
• Crutch Character: Jansen plays this role. He is no more competent at his primary role as Black Mage in the start of the game than later on; however, he also starts the game with a very small repertoire of low level White Magic spells. He is the only person with access to healing in the first section of the game, which is important since every starting party must have a healer. He will never learn new healing spells, and his white magic will quickly fade in usefulness as enemies grow stronger; however, his healing is just solid enough to last until a proper dedicated healer joins the team, allowing Jensen to fall back to his primary role of black mage.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Don't expect any of the immortals to be quite as indestructible in gameplay as Kaim is in the "meteor strike" cutscene.
• Dare to Be Badass: Kaim had invoked this on King Gohtza when he was a child.
• Death of a Child: Mack can actually die if you bring his HP down to zero in the boss battle where he's possessed in the Crimson Forest. Cue Cooke sobbing over her brother's corpse. Worse when you remember this is basically right after Lirum's funeral.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Male version with Kaim; starts as The Stoic then begins to warm up once he meets his grandchildren and reunites with his wife, Sarah.
• Despair Event Horizon: Gongora's plan to wipe the memories of the other Immortals requires a personal trauma serious enough that they want to forget. So he arranges them.
• Doomed Hometown: The Immortals. Their planet was dying of a virus. The Immortals came to the mortal world to find the cause for the virus. The cause itself is the power of human emotion and magic energy.
• Dungeon Punk: Arguably
• Dude Magnet: Sarah, surprisingly. Other than obviously getting Kaim as her husband, Mars - the King of Gohtza - admits that he was jealous of Kaim because Mars fell in love with Sarah when he was rescued by the couple, and by then they were already married. In an optional encounter, King Kelolon wants to marry Cooke initially as she was the winner of the Kelolon tournament, but admits he's not interested in marrying a little girl, and instead opts for her grandmother Sarah, because "the glasses do it for (him)".
• Driven to Suicide: In the dream, "Letters from a Weakling" a girl named Myna marries into a judgmental, possibly racist, and closed-minded family and community. Their lack of acceptance eventually drives Myna to commit suicide by hanging herself in a barn.
  • Averted by the fact that the immortals simply can't die, so Gongora's plan involves them making them wish they were dead.
• Disc-One Nuke: Crosses over with Bribing Your Way to Victory. There are two Downloadable Content packs which grant you items or skills that can be used almost immediately after starting the game and which give you a significant headstart. The Triple Bonus Pack, which costs only 200 Microsoft Points, grants you the Killer Machine Ring, which gives you Machine Killer Lv 3+, Magic Killer Lv 3+ and Spirit Killer Lv 3+. The Double Bonus Pack, which can be downloaded for free if you have a Japanese Xbox Live account (which is as easy as just setting the country as "Japan" when you sign up), gives you the Master's Secret Script, an accessory which teaches the Weapon Guard 2 skill. Both these things together make the early game an absolute cakewalk.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Mentioned in Kaim's dreams and quite expected of him; he's seen a lot of horrible things in a thousand years.
• Early Game Hell: New players may struggle in the first section of the game. Part of the problem is that your smaller team size means you're dependent on Jensen doing both your Black Magic and White Magic, forcing you to prioritize either healing your party or doing your main form of damage. However, a bigger problem is the lack of the Game-Breaker abilities Relax, which you gain access to right after the first major dungeon, and Cover, which is gained not long after Relax. For experienced players who know how to properly combine skills and manipulate defend and GC to build Kalm up as a tank, the start isn't as painful, but not everyone is going to figure this out on their first play through.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Notably, uses the Western elements but with strengths and weaknesses defined by an Eastern cycle, which can be hard to memorize unless you think about it logically: fire consumes air, ie. wind, wind erodes earth, earth holds back water and water douses fire.
• Evil Chancellor: Both Gongora and Kakanas.
• Evil Plan: Being an immortal, genius, and extremely powerful mage, Gongora's got almost everything he needs to secure an eternal rule over the world. However, there is a key vulnerability: the Tower of Mirrors, the point uniting the human world and his home plane, the latter being a place where he's perfectly mortal. As long as it exists, there's the lingering threat of someone forcing him back home where he's not nearly as unstoppable. As such, Gongora builds Grand Staff, a massive magical reactor, under the pretense of bringing energy and prosperity to the kingdom of Uhra. Grand Staff's true purpose is as a weapon, to be used first to destroy the Tower of Mirrors and cut off the Immortal plane from the human world, and then to enforce his will on everything and everyone who would dare defy him.
• Eternal Love: Kaim and Sarah were a Happily Married pair of immortals. They pick up right where they left off after they get their memories back.
• Exposition Break: A fair few at the start of the game.
• Expy: Sed is this to the Cids from the Final Fantasy games, not only his name pronounced almost the same way but he takes up the same mechanical role. The Kelolons also have the same shape as Moogles and serve a similar comic relief role. On a meta-level Lost Odyssey is an expy to the classic Final Fantasy games.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Averted, sort of. ONE character (Sed the pirate) uses a gun called a magic rifle, but wars are still fought with swords and shields. They have big magic tanks and cannons though.
• Fate Worse than Death: Since he couldn't kill his fellow immortals, Gongora decided to put them through events so unbelievably traumatic that they would be willing to essentially wipe away their identities just to forget.
• Fetch Quest: One wonders who thought it would be a good idea to render a funeral as a tedious fetch quest followed immediately by a broken Mini-Game.
• Filling the Silence: The voice actor for Jansen clearly strove to fill every second he could with chatter and wisecracks, at least on the English track.
• First Girl Wins: AND Last Girl Wins at the same time! Sarah somehow qualifies for both tropes at the same time, due to the particular origin of the immortals. Since all immortals are actually aliens from another dimension and all knowingly came across to the gameworld dimension with the same mission. This means that they all likely knew each other prior to arriving in the in-game world, including Sarah and Kaim, making Sarah the 'first girl' potential love interest that Kaim would know. However, apparently all immortals decided to go their own separate ways, except for occasionally coming across each other on their respective travels. Whereas Kaim went on to live a fairly mortal-like life and settling down and having multiple families over time, from what little in-game clues are given it seems that Sarah mentions it was only when Kaim actually 'found' her that they even met, married, and had their daughter. By then they were so close to their deadline to return to their homeworld, that they had to opt to abandon their mission just to raise Lirum to adulthood. Kaim on his part has proclaimed that Sarah is effectively the 'love of his life', despite his previous wives, and considering their convenient mutual immortality, it seems certain that Sarah would remain the last wife Kaim would take.
• Foil Generally Jansen and Kaim are, Kaim is very old, serious and remorseful, in comparison Jansen is young, humouring and shameless.
• The Fog of Ages: Kaim is a 1000 y/o amnesiac immortal, although his amnesia is really Laser-Guided Amnesia.
  • In the Thousand Years of Dreams, which happens before Laser-Guided Amnesia, Kaim is shown to have an excellent memory. In one case, he hasn't visited a village for 80 years and when someone in the village calls his name, he searches through his memory of the last time he was there(80 years ago!) and concludes he definitely doesn't know the person calling him. He knows the person, but can be forgiven because she was only 6 then, making her 86 when he returns. He remembers her after some prompting.
• Foreshadowing: Early in the game, Gongora is shown inside his mansion using magic while laughing evilly. As it turns out, he was creating a mud puppet that resembles Roxian so that he could murder him and trick Tolten into believing that he had done said act out of self-defense.
• Friend to All Children: Kaim, surprisingly. It's mentioned more than a few times in A Thousand Years of Dreams that Kaim has made friends with children during his travels, and he gets along very well with his grandchildren Mack and Cooke.
• Functional Magic: As standard for an RPG. Magic is also used in every day life, to create and power cars and weapons.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The immortal characters are still immortal in gameplay, in the sense that they revive after about two rounds if knocked out, but they can be knocked out and otherwise injured and if the entire active party is KO'd it's still Game Over, even though Kaim and Seth withstood a catastrophe that obliterated two armies in the opening cutscene and weren't so much as singed. While one can suppose that the Game Over is due to failure to complete the party's objectives rather than death, they're not always in situations where that should reasonably be the case, and there's no justification given for the divide between the immortals' cutscene invincibility and the way their immortality works in actual play.
• General Ripper: General Kakanas.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: When Seth sends off Jansen's three lovers at the beginning of the game, they are charmed by her forcefulness and offer to see her when she comes back. Jansen, naturally, is all over this.
• Grind Boots: Played with early in the game - at Grand Staff, Kaim and Seth slide neatly down a slope without missing a beat. Jansen, meanwhile, tries to do the same and ends up sprawling at the bottom of the slope.
• Handsome Lech: Apparently Jansen can turn this on and off at will. When it's "off," he's a talkative comic relief. When it's on, watch out, ladies.
• Harmless Freezing: Horrifyingly averted when Gohtza and all it's inhabitants are killed in a freezing holocaust.
• Healer Signs On Early: Despite being primarily a Black Magic user Jensen starts with a few low level white magic spells. As he will never learn any new white magic, thus rendering him worthless as a healer rather early in the game, it's pretty clear his white magic was given as an acknowledgement of this trope, so he can serve as healer just until the primary healer (and magic using immortal characters) to arrive and take on the healing duty.
• Hermetic Magic: When casting spells, characters will stand still with their eyes closed, concentrating until it's their turn. Some spells take two turns to cast, depending on the spell and the person casting it.
• Hidden Depths: Jansen proves to be much more than the annoying Talkative Loon he first appears to be, especially after he meets Ming.
• The High Queen: Ming.
• Homeless Hero: Kaim never stays in one place long, to avoid revealing he is immortal, or forging close bonds that will inevitably be broken.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Gongora in Disc 2. It seems winnable at first, given that he doesn't do too much damage, but then he decides to stop playing around and, by using Pain Surge, instantly kills your entire party. No question.
• Human Aliens: The nature of Immortals as a whole is unclear, but they're not human: they are beings from a parallel world that attained human form upon reaching the game's world. Their immortality, in fact, is a consequence of their world and the human world being so fundamentally different.
• Immortality: Kaim, Seth, Sarah, Ming and Gongora are effectively immortal.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit:
  • The opening scene features a pair of soldiers wearing headgear with giant rings on them. And they are surprised that Kaim - possibly the least fancily dressed character in the game - managed to survive, "especially in that outfit."
  • Ming wears one of the most Stripperiffic outfits in the game. And she's supposed to be a queen.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kaim comes across like this at the start. Jansen has his moments, but it's always clear that he's a pretty nice guy.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: While nearly every pot, bookshelf, chest, and drawer in the visitable parts of town has useful items in it, the game has a hilarious Lampshade Hanging for this trope, in that the inhabitants of houses and proprietors of inns want you to take them for some reason. The innkeepers say that all the gold and potions lying around their businesses are "complimentary," while private citizens consider it a favor if you removed some of the clutter... you know, those piles of 100 gold coins that just do nothing for the flow of the room.
• Large Ham: Gongora leaves no scenery unchewed.
• Last Lousy Point: The game's infamous "Treasure Trove" achievement requires you to obtain every single item from all the lootable containers in the world. This includes not only treasure chests, but also every single pot, canister, rock pile, rammable tree, poster, underwater bubble, and other sorts of hidden stashes. Even with a guide, it's an incredibly arduous task. If you missed even one thing (and it's not for sale at the Auction House), good luck scouring the entire world for that Last Lousy Treasure.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Used very briefly for a pair of bosses at the end of the game. You separate into two teams of two characters and both parties must defeat their respective boss on the same turn.
  • Also used in the Eastern Spirit Temple in Disc 4.
  • Done by force in Disc 3
• Limited Wardrobe: Kaim and the other immortals are shown in flashbacks ranging from 5 years to 1000 years, and with only a couple of exceptions from Kaim and Sarah, they all are wearing the same exact clothes. Aren't they worried about not being in fashion anymore?
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Loading screens stick around for a while, but contain information on party member statistics.
  • The loading times are successfully mitigated by loading the game onto your system's hard drive (to the point where it's hard to take in the party member stats that quickly)... of course, that takes up over 24 gigs of memory for the four discs. Unless you just install the disc you're currently on, then delete it and install the next one when you reach the changeover point, of course. Even faster if played on an Xbox One through backwards compatibility.
• Luke, You Are My Father: Occurs when Kaim meets Lirum in Numara.
• Magitek, and lots of it. Magic has sparked what the game calls a "Magic-industrial revolution," allowing cars and all sorts of flashy technology to be developed. For some reason, guns are the one thing they don't have in abundance, but all sorts of other bizarre machines abound. Maybe it's the fact that you don't need a gun when you can shoot fireballs from your fingers.
• Male Gaze: When Ming has to prove her identity as the Queen of Numara, she removes the silver emblem on her chest to reveal a royal crest. The camera focuses quite intently on her breasts during this.
• Master Swordsman: Kaim and Seth have had several centuries to practice their sword skills, and boy does it show.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Jansen and Ming
  • It's mentioned in A Thousand Years Of Dreams that Kaim has been married many times over his lifetime, and Seth briefly mentions in a flashback that she took a mortal husband.
• Manipulative Bastard: Gongora: it's almost scary how seamlessly he flips between cackling Evil Sorcerer and humbly soft-spoken depending on what he needs.
• Manly Tears: Kaim, who worked as a mercenary for countless battles, wars, and various odd jobs in the past, bursts into tears when he finally reunites with his daughter, Lirum, on her deathbed.
• Medieval European Fantasy: The setting for the world borders on this, along with being steampunk.
• Metal Slime: Silver Kelolons.
• Mini Dress Of Power: Seth wears a short yellow dress, in addition to the armor on her legs and arms.
• Momma's Boy: Sed is one, and proud of it too.
• Motor Mouth: Jansen. Has the remarkable ability to pack over five times as many excuses, commiserations, and complaints into a sentence as the average person. And every word is solid gold.
• New Game Plus: Beating the game allows you start over with all your immortals at level 50, which isn't that much of a reward since it means you still need to do all the sidequests over again for the accessories that teach them all their abilities as well as grinding the mortals to equally high levels to get many unique skills off them as well...not to mention the fact that by the time you've taught every immortal all their skills, they'd be far past level 50 to begin with.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Immortal characters automatically revive themselves after a few rounds.
• Nonstandard Game Over: Usually if you fail to defeat any of the Puzzle Bosses the right way someone critical to the plot dies and you get a game over.
• NPC Amnesia: Played with: thanks to Jansen throwing an amnesia-causing magic pearl at the guard of their cell and convincing him that they've been wrongly imprisoned, he'll release the party every time you get caught in the Stealth-Based Mission segment.
• Obviously Evil: Gongora is so obviously shifty (just look at that Beard of Evil!) that the leader of the council keeps revising his position within the first half hour of the game. First he wants the construction of Gongora's giant magic tower, the Grand Staff, temporarily halted so he can send investigators, then he says he definitely wants it suspended and sends two unkillable people to check out why nobody's reported back from it, then he orders Gongora under house arrest, all in the same day. Sadly the heroes don't tumble to his evil until after the damage is done.
• Out of Focus: Sarah suffers this somewhat; at least in comparison to the other Immortals.
• Papa Wolf: One wonders if Kaim wouldn't have hated Gongora so much if he hadn't been involved with Lirum's disappearance.
• Party Scattering: The majority of Disc 3 involves the main cast separated from one another through various complications.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Numara Atoll. Accessible when you get your first boat, the enemies here can level you up into the late 40s, roughly the level you're expected to be at during the endgame.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Averted. Any items missed in one-shot dungeons show up in the auction house.
  • Played straight with the Shieldus and Barricadus spells (likely a developer oversight). If you didn't purchase them before Gongora freezes Gohtza, you won't ever be able to get them. The front gate of Khent is also inaccessible after that point, though there's barely anything to do there.
  • Played straight with two of the ninety-nine seeds that are part of a game-spanning collect-a-thon, due to another probable developer oversight. If you don't collect those two seeds from the closets in the Tolstan Inn in Disc 2, you will discover that the closet doors don't even have an 'open' prompt when you head back there in Disc 4-and, of course, the contents aren't available at auction.
• Pet the Dog: The first clue that Jansen is a better person than he seems to be is when he saves a bird from getting blasted with hot steam in the White Boa's engine room. Ming, observing, remarks that he's really quite kind.
• Pirate Girl: Seth.
• Pirates: Seth and Sed. Cooke wants to be a pirate when she grows up.
• Point of No Return: Subverted twice with Grand Staff 1+2 and then played straight with the Tower of Mirrors. A particularly egregious example in that while you are warned both times you try to enter Grand Staff, the actual point of no return gives no warning outside of an automatic save point that's rarely seen beyond disc change prompts.
• Power Source: Magic, for the most part, is treated as an energy source that allows many complex machines (like cars) to be built, but, well, being magic, it's capable of so much more. Your first major quest is going to a giant magic reactor, Grand Staff, which is leaking magical energy and mutating the local wildlife into monsters.
• Prison Episode: Kaim and company are at one point obliged to escape from the brig of a royal yacht, dodging security drones and pussy-footing across pressure-sensitive floor tiles. Hilariously, they begin their escape by wiping the memory of their guard and convincing him that they were jailed by accident, so even if the player makes a mistake and the party gets caught again, the guard will apologize and let them back out.
• Purposely Overpowered: All the immortal characters are this, especially in the late game as the number of slot's immortals get for assigning abilities raises far more rapidly then the number of passives mortal characters get, and with the ability to pick and choose the most effective things to slot into them. The immortal characters can always make themselves numerically superior to any mortal characters, and they can also can choose to cover multiple roles at once. Mack in particular is almost always overshadowed by an immortal built for another type of spell casting spending a single slot to be able to cast his signature green magic, the only think that makes him remotely viable.
• Puzzle Boss: The game has several:
  • The Obsidian Miasma at the end of Disc 1.
  • Body of Thought in Disc 2.
  • The Magic Beast in Disc 3.
  • General Alpha & General Beta, as well as Jansen in Disc 4.
• Rags to Royalty: Jansen
• Random Encounters: As standard for an RPG.
• Really 700 Years Old: Most of the Immortals look around 20-30 years old, despite verifiably being around for almost 1000 years or so, with Gongora looking the oldest at around 40-50.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Ming, and Chancellor Roxian of Uhra. Unwilling to let capable rulers interfere with his plan, Gongora has Roxian eaten by a giant snake.
• Recollection Sidequest: The "Thousand Years of Dreams". The immortal playable characters are all amnesiac at the start of the game, and seeing certain events or visiting certain locations will jog memories and unlock short stories about their pasts. Some are earned automatically as one progresses through the story, but the vast majority are optional.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Ming and eventually Tolten.
• Save Point: They usually show up just before a boss fight.
• Saying Too Much: One of Kaim's dreams, "Little Liar", focuses on Kaim befriending a young girl that became a Compulsive Liar after her mother died and her father seemingly abandoned her, alienating her from the rest of the market she's sleeping at. Eventually, she tells Kaim that if he wants enough money to leave and continue his journeys, her "friend" was supposed to be receiving money from her father after he got a job in the city, but the local tailor has been stealing all of her mail, so Kaim should steal from him. The next morning, an angry mob forms from the shopkeepers at the market because the girl has stolen the tailor's money and left town to reunite with her father. Kaim confesses to the crime instead and says he found the letters in the tailor's house as well; the tailor claims that's impossible, because he threw them all away...and then the mob immediately turns on the tailor.
• Schmuck Bait: Most Puzzle Bosses in the game can end with you getting a Non-Standard Game Over or curb stomped because you failed to realize you were fighting a puzzle boss, not a regular one.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: Exactly what Gongora wants to prevent. The fact that he tremendously pissed off Kaim, Seth, Sarah, and Ming does not work in his favor.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Seth. Kaim's armour also conveniently leaves his lower back bare, for the players who prefer men.
• Shirtless Scene: Kaim gets a short one early on.
• Shout-Out: A couple of these, such as the Kelolon and the Blue Dragon, both references to fellow Mistwalker game, Blue Dragon.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Jansen.
• Smug Snake: Gongora. He's so obviously evil and completely lacking in charisma, pummeling the slimy little git is all you'll think about. Done literally when Gongora turns into a giant snake to kill the head councilman.
• Stealth-Based Mission: After you're captured on The White Boa, you're forced to sneak through the ship to retrieve your equipment. Thankfully, there are checkpoints included.
• Stripperiffic: Queen Ming's outfit has a hearty helping if cleavage to its name.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Sarah and Kaim look more like Cooke and Mack's parents than grandparents, while Sed refers to Seth, who looks a third his age, as "Mama".
• Tag Along Kid: Mack and Cooke.
• Take a Third Option: Gongora's last minute plan after losing the fight against his fellow immortals doesn't let up on his cruelty. Their mortal companions are trapped in a magical barrier that's causing the Mirrors to age them at a rapid pace. The only way to stop this would be to destroy the mirrors, but to do so means that there would be no way to stop Gongora from attempting to take over the world again, which as an immortal he'd be free to do so as many times as he wants until he succeeds. Seth decides to make a Heroic Sacrifice to take a third choice: Force Gongora to cross back into their home dimension with her before Kaim breaks the mirrors, thus saving their companions and stopping Gongora for good.
• Team Dad: Kaim, of the quietly surly but caring variety. Rather fitting, since his grandchildren are part of the group.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Compromises a majority of the plot development in disc 3. Seth accidentally gets teleported to Uhra with Tolten and reunites with her son, Sed, Cooke and Mack hijack a train trying to find a violet aurora that can reunite them with their deceased mother, Kaim and Sarah chase after them, and Gongora's weather machine separates Jansen and Ming from everyone else.
• Underrated and Overleveled: The game appears to be a pretty horrible offender. Seth and Kaim are immortal beings who spent the nearly a thousand years fighting and developing as warriors, Jensen was picked by the strongest mage in the capital to be an ally for them, and Queen Ming (who is received only shortly later) is an immortal queen known for stopping an invasion of powerful magic beings single handedly with her powerful magics. Fighting along beside this team are... two little kids with no combat training at all. Cooke, at least, has the combat abilities befitting a little girl, and uses White Magic, in a world where magic is plentiful, and where she had to help her sick mother. Mack doesn't have this, but his encounter in the Crimson Forest gave him abilities unknown to the world for hundreds of years.
  • Completely, and skillfully, averted with Tolten. As a prince who presumably received training in combat throughout his upbringing he would be expected to be competent with a sword, and indeed the first time he is used in combat he is about equal to the rest of the party in strength and shown being capable of defending himself when forced to. However, by the time he becomes a regular party member he is the exact same level, making him far weaker than the others, who have been growing steadily stronger for another fourth of the game. He has to be placed in the back row where he can be protected to keep him alive through the first few battles and he can barely dish out worthwhile damage...luckily the combat system (ie, the ability to easily guard low health and vulnerable allies in the back row from damage temporarily) prevents his low level from making him a liability that dies all the time, and the leveling system ensures he gains levels absurdly fast so he will catch up to a useful level in very little time. This fits very nicely with his characterization, he is depicted as too afraid to fight, or stand up for himself, alone, and has to learn how to be a stronger/braver man just as he has to gain xp in combat before he is an equal to the rest of the team.
• Unwitting Pawn: Tolten is such a well-meaning idiot it's almost painful to watch. Thank God for Character Development to knock it out of him.
• Useless Useful Spell: Thanks to this games plentiful amount of tricky bosses, status spells have use in game. They also work, without exception, on any enemy who is not immune to them.
• Victory Pose: Coupled with a victory chant by the person who won the battle. Humorously, Tolten's victory pose is a relieved sigh.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: The trope is inverted, instead of the villain forgetting to level grind Tolten forgets to. He is equal to the rest of the party in strength when first controlled, but he does not become a regular party member for an entire disk. By the time he can be controlled he is so underleveled compared to both allies and enemies as to be a worthless Load. Luckily the leveling system ensures he rapidly gains levels so he can start being an asset quickly. This was likely intentional, he is suppose to feel like a sheltered prince, not a powerful warrior, when he first joins the team.
• War Is Hell: A number of Kaim's dreams deal with the horrors of war.
• Warp Whistle: The world map acts as this, there's no over-world to speak of.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Bogimoray is the game's way of saying "Skill Link: LEARN IT". Unless you've taught Null Paralysis to your Immortals and gave Jansen the Yellow Band, Bogimoray's Para-Flare will bring the battle to a crashing halt, no questions asked. Even without Paralysis in the equation, it still does a ton of damage, and the boss's respawning minions delight in nailing your party members with powerful Force spells in the meantime. Just in case the player decides to rush down the Bogimoray in a desperate attempt to kill it before it uses Para-Flare, there's another one waiting in the wings, with a Para-Flare fully charged upon spawning.
• We Are as Mayflies: Immortality is not genetic, so Kaim outlives his daughter and Seth looks at least 30 years younger than her own son.
• We Have Reserves: General Kakanas' attitude towards his troops, as shown when he decides to shoot arrows at the party even after his advisor warns him that his soldiers would get caught in the crossfire.
• Wham Line: "Father..."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: General Kakanas' ultimate fate isn't entirely shown: while he comes off as comical for a large amount of time and would normally be expected to rot in jail for the rest of their life, he did essentially stage a coup and later tried to unsuccessfully murder his queen in her sleep and like the dream involving her shows, she's not beyond letting traitors get what they deserve.
  • This question gets answered if you talk to Maya, Ming's lady in waiting, after his defeat she had him placed on the construction crew responsible for cleaning up the mess he and his tanks made of the palace. Maya that is, not Ming; really says how little of a threat he is to the Queen now that she's got her memories back.
• White Magician Girl: Subverted. Cooke is female, a healer, carries a staff... and is a Bratty Half-Pint who wants to grow up to be an Action Girl. Played straight, however, by Sarah.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Another major theme, for obvious reasons, but it's subverted by the ending in which the characters agree that eternity isn't so bad after all.
• Would Hurt a Child: Those nameless soldiers in Numara are quite pricks to Cooke and Mack, and even try to pick fights with them before the party intervenes.

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