All roads lead to our "Goodbye".
— The game's Tagline.
Memento Mori (stylized as MementoMori) is an Idle Game for Android and iOS mobile platforms developed by Bank of Innovation (Mitrasphere), released worldwide (except for Mainline China, Russia, The Netherlands and Belgium) with English and Japanese audio and English, Japanese, Korean and Traditional Chinese subtitles on October 18 2022.
In a world similar to medieval-era Europe, there are certain girls with powers who are known as Witches. But when calamity started spreading throughout the land with no end in sight, the Church of Longinus decided that the best course of action was to engage in a "Witch Hunt"; ostracizing, hunting, torturing and eventually executing them in the belief that they were the cause of the Calamity.
And as if to make matters even worse, Curses start spreading across the world, caused by girls overtaken by their negative emotions and becoming Witches of Qlipha. Soon, nation after nation fell to ruin caused by their despair.
However, among those fated to become Witches are girls who, together with a Duke slated to become the Successor of the Staff of Tikkun, decided to band together and journey across the world to bring hope to everyone amidst the Calamity, and save Witches from the Church's hands.
Notably, every playable character has their own Image Song, or "Lament", which can be heard on the game's official YouTube channels: in Japanese
and in English.
Tropes that appear in this game:
- Action Girl: The playable Witches, some reluctantly so, others playing the trope straight.
- After the End: The world of Memento Mori is essentially in a post-apocalyptic state after the surge of the Witches of Qlipha's Curses laid waste on most, if not all, nations. The premise of the game is to return the world to before the Witch Hunt that led to the Curses ever happened.
- All of the Other Reindeer: A particularly common theme amongst most Witches, shunned by society for being Witches. Some were even subject to Parental Abandonment when their powers manifested.
- Amazon Brigade: Due to the Improbably Female Cast, the Duke is surrounded by the Witches that he saved and gave a place to call home, and are all ready to fight for his righteous cause.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- As is natural of an Idle Game, you'll accumulate resources that you can collect any time even when absent from the game. The cap here is at 24 hours' worth, double that of most idle games' 12 hours.
- Unlike those in higher rarities who need to be leveled, N-rarity characters will have all their Memories and voice lines (except for their birthday greeting) unlocked from the moment you obtain them in the in-game Character Index, which is convenient since you're more likely to have them released for materials.
- Common within the Idle Game genre is the ability to synchronize your backup units' experience levels with the five highest-leveled units available in the roster. Memento Mori's take on this mechanic is Level Link, which performs the above with more character slots unlocked by either paying Premium Currency or for free by reaching certain player levels.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Once rescued by the Successor and his party, the Witches all decide to stay with him simply because he was unfailingly kind to them despite their status as witches.
- Com Mons: Despite this trope being in full effect, the four N-rarity Witches all have their own Image Songs and Memories for players to enjoy and sift through, contributing to the Story Breadcrumbs nature of the narrative alongside their higher-rarity counterparts.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: By right, N-rarity Witches are unable to have their ranks upgraded and R-rarity Witches can only go as far as SSR+. Their NPC versions in the Main Quest, the Cave of Space-Time and the Towers on the other hand can include a SSR+ Monica and a UR Iris, for starters, and at higher levels you can even see LR versions of them. In addition, you can't have duplicates in your own team, but in the Towers, you can encounter teams with duplicates — for example, floor 185 of the Tower of Infinity has three Fenrirs.
- Corrupt Church: The Church of Longinus, natch. To begin with, they were the ones who initiated the "Witch Hunt" in the belief that the Witches were the ones who caused the Calamity. Some of their sects also played a part in the girls' misery, most notably the Inquisition who were infamous for their brutal torture of Witches and were the cause of Lunalynn becoming a Witch of Qlipha among other atrocities. Not to mention the Pope herself, Elfriede, also became a witch, namely the Witch of Longinus.
- Crapsack World: The world of Memento Mori was pretty pleasant until the calamity came. Then the Witch Hunt started by the Church of Longinus made things worse.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Some of the girls were already living harsh lives before the events of the game, and majority, if not everyone had their lives ruined by the Witch Hunt soon after.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The Laments sung by the Witches of Qlipha, Nina, Mimi, Mertillier, Cherna and Sophia are done by their respective voice actresses in the Japanese version.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Azure -> Crimson -> Emerald -> Amber -> Azure. Radiance and Chaos Witches on the other hand are mutually exclusive to each other.
- Gone Horribly Right: The Kingdom of Byrune tried to make their own man-made witch that can destroy an entire nation. They got their wish alright. They just didn't count on the "Witch of Rust" turning on them.
- Grandfather Clause: When a Witch is Promoted to Playable, sometimes her skills are changed from what was initially in the data, for balance purposes. However, this trope applies to any appearances she has already made in the Main Quest or a Tower as an enemy prior to her promotion to Playable — when you encounter her there, the skills she uses remain unchanged from before.
- Idle Game: The girls do all the resource gathering while the player is away. The player themselves is in charge of developing their abilities and deploying them in boss battles, trials and raids.
- Image Song: Every playable character has one, known as a Lament. Each one provides more background to their stories before they met the Successor.
- One Degree of Separation: While all of the girls are gathered under the Successor, some of them had interacted before the events of the game, either explicitly slated in their Character Stories and songs, or implied.
- Our Witches Are Different: Here, Witches are young girls with magical powers (though only Merlyn dresses in the classic witch attire). However, it's not fully understood or explained what witches are or how they came to be in this world, that not even the witches in your party themselves know much either. The basics of what can be gathered about them is: 1) they can be born from a lineage that has a witch (most notably Libra and her village), 2) a Muggle can undergo massive emotional trauma to become one (such as Lunalynn, Valeriede, Iris and Rean), 3) they are all girls, 4) they all have magical powers that depend on the individual's traits such as personality and occupation, 5) they are generally reviled by society, a view encouraged by the Church of Longinus and 6) they existed before the Curses.
- Power Up Letdown: Certain stats affect characters less the higher their levels are, DEF Break being one of them. As a result, levelling up your Witches from 241 to 265 (without upgrading your equipment at least) results in them actually dealing
less damage the higher level they are, offsetting any increase in stats they may have gained from levelling up. Thankfully, the rate of decrease drops sharply after that, enough that you no longer lose damage from levelling up. And specifically for levels 250 and 260, upgrading equipment at those levels does more than offset the loss in damage they suffer in total from the previous 10 levels. As an additional note, this same quirk in the game mechanics allows for the level 1 Lunalynn cheese strategy, particularly against levels without the Unhindered or Debuff Immunity buffs, as equipping CRIT runes that would have given her a marginally better chance to inflict a Critical Hit (which she needs to inflict her debuff) at level 240 or higher instead gives her a near certain chance to crit at level 1 regardless of the targets' CRIT RES stat, and the runes with Debuff ACC (a stat which increases the chance of a debuff being inflicted) give her a similar boost against enemies' Debuff RES stats. At this point, even one turn of near guaranteed Silence can matter a lot due to the Rocket-Tag Gameplay. - Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Natch. At later stages, it's not uncommon for your party to either completely wipe the enemy without taking any damage, or get wiped themselves, as at that point every single enemy can inflict a One-Hit Kill, so leaving any of them alive can result in the lone survivor inflicting a Total Party Kill. Thus the best way to pass those stages is to completely wipe out the enemy party before they can even move.
- Story Breadcrumbs: You're quickly thrown into the game with nothing more than the opening movie and the starting girls expositing a bit on your goals as the Successor of the Staff to give an idea of the setting you're entering. More details about the lore of the world have to be pieced together by yourself as you play, usually from the main story or the Memories of the girls. Even details about what happens to the Witches of Qlipha after you defeat and recruit them are explored in their own Memories... if you can get them, that is.
- Weapon Specialization: Each Witch of base rarity SR or higher has a Unique Weapon whose parts you can buy with crystals and synthesize to obtain those weapons. While a Witch can equip the Unique Weapons of other Witches of the same Type as her, she gains unique bonuses only from her own Unique Weapon, which (usually) buffs her skills one way or another.
- Witch Hunt: While the Calamity has been going on for some time, even with the world's best warriors available there was no end to it. The Church then decided that the best course of action was to blame everything on the Witches, since they were already discriminated by society, and start one of these. Unfortunately for everyone, a good number of the events related to the Witch Hunts awoke majority of the Witches of Qlipha, who then devastated their home countries with their Curses.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The 10 Witches of Qlipha (although all the witches count to some extent). To become one, a girl (regardless of whether she's already a witch or not) has to experience great levels of negative emotions, with a mysterious girl wielding a spear sometimes having a part in their awakening. This then unleashes a country-wide curse that causes indiscriminate destruction. Only the Successor of the Staff of Tikkun can undo their curses and save them from themselves, and in some cases with anyone related to the Witch of Qlipha in question.
