Video Game / Relayer

"Relayers, those who seek the inevitable end of the universe according to its laws, and the Starchildren who resist them. This is their story."

—Opening narration

Relayer is a Turn-Based Strategy game developed by Kadokawa Games (now Dragami Games), particularly the team behind God Wars: Future Past, for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The Playstation versions released on March 24, 2022 worldwide, with the international versions published by Clouded Leopard Entertainment; the game would later see a PC port titled Relayer Advanced for Steam on October 27, 2022 and GOG.com on November 18, 2022. A demo which covers the first two chapters (9 maps total) is available on the PlayStation Network, with save data that carries over to the final game.

The game follows Terra and the Star Children of GT Labs as they pilot Mecha in battle against the extraterrestrial Relayers, who seek to use their gravitational powers to destroy humankind.

No relation to the identically-named music album by Yes, which can be found under the Music tab.

Expect unmarked spoilers for tropes relevant to the first three chapters (Parts 1-14).

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Relayer contains examples of:

• All Just a Dream: Himiko encounters this twice:
  • The Asterism Log "Aphrodite's Prison", which teases the return of Dark Walker, ends with Himiko waking up and realizing that the whole mission was in her head.
  • The DLC story "Stargazing", which features Himiko, Terra, and Dark Walker relaxing in a hot spring, is a dream that occurs after the canon ending.
• Amnesiac Hero: Terra doesn't seem to remember anything prior to the Gravity Loss incident, meaning that she only has about two years worth of memories. She doesn't have amnesia so much as she is a completely different personality; the will of the Earth took over the body of Luna's sister, who was mentally broken by Grayson's experiments.
• Antagonist Title: The game is named after the antagonist faction, the Relayers.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The player keeps any experience and opened item boxes from unsuccessful missions, though any items used during unsuccessful attempts are not restored.
  • Not only is So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear averted, the first instance of a unit leaving the party triggers a tutorial that explains exactly what happens and reminds players to re-allocate their equipment to other characters if they so choose.
  • When it was discovered that one of the "Evol" series weapons was not made available in the Simulator mission that it was supposed to be in (rendering 100% Completion impossible), the developers fixed the bug AND made the weapon in question purchasable to save time for those who already cleared the Simulator mission.
• Anti-Grinding: Attempted, since the game has EXP scaling, so attacking and debuffing lower level enemies gives a pittance of EXP. However, that scaling also applies to buffing and healing allies, so instead of discouraging grinding altogether, it just makes the easiest method of grinding to spend countless turns buffing a single higher level unit over and over.
• Apocalyptic Log: Pluto, Terra, and Himiko find a log from the first pilot of the Original One in the unit's black box, detailing the war with the Relayers 100 million years ago and speaking of ZERO — a secret weapon said to be the key to defeating the Relayers once and for all.
• Artificial Stupidity: The AI has a rough time navigating field obstacles. It's not uncommon to see enemy units waste turns pressing against walls solely because the player would otherwise be in their attack range.
• Attack Drone: Scout-type units attack using Bits, flying beam guns which look and function near-identical to their namesake in the Gundam franchise.
• Back Stab: If a unit is surrounded on opposite sides and one of the surrounding units attack, the other surrounding unit will follow up with their own attack literally titled Backstab.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Late into the Asterism Logs, it is revealed that Observer has been feeding subliminal messaging to Milky Way, Sun, Mercury, and Uranus via their simulator sessions, and activates their programming to force them to turn on their teammates as part of a Secret Test of Character.
• Bittersweet Ending: With Aphrodite defeated, Himiko says her goodbyes to a wheelchair-bound Terra, then steals the Original One and sets off with Sirius to search for ZERO in outer space. Luna and Terra talk, with Terra asking Luna to take her name because "Luna" committed a ton of crimes. They both watch the Original One take off, then Luna offers to wheel Terra indoors before realizing that Terra has passed away. Somewhere deep in space, Yodaka bids his master farewell.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: While adequate as a whole, there are a handful of issues with the game's English translation:
  • The demo had numerous spelling and grammar errors in dialogue, many of which were ironed out in the actual game.
  • The Winning Plate's passive effect, which gives 1.2x money, is rendered "Get 1.2 times obtaining".
  • Chapter 5's synopsis claims that the Asterism "combats the Dark Knight and his Starchild", when they actually pull an Enemy Mine against Dark Lord.
  • Observer is referred to as plural in some of the later Synopsis entries.
• The Chosen Many: The Starchildren, who each carry the "will" of the celestial body that they are named after and gain the ability to manipulate GY Particles.
• Colony Drop: How did the Ancient Aliens seal Aphrodite? They threw planet Nibiru into a planet that existed between Mars and Jupiter to create Tia, then flung Tia into Earth. Fragments of Tia and Earth combined to form the Moon.
• Cooking Duel: The DLC story "Space Gourmet (Star Council Edition)" is a cooking competition between Alnilam and Alnitak, with Jupiter, Mintaka, and Saturn joining in.
• Draw Aggro: Aggro is a rating that can both be increased and decreased through skills. Scouts have the ability to deploy Decoys that can't attack but spawn with a massive amount of Aggro.
• Defend Command: Units can choose to defend instead of attacking; indeed, Tank-type units are generally built towards accruing massive amounts of Aggro, defending, and taking the heat off of their allies while throwing in counterattacks. However, defending causes the amount of SP that the unit recovers next turn to be split in half, forcing players to think about whether they want to defend, attack, or stay out of the opponents' range and end the unit's turn via the Standby command.
• Dub Name Change:
  • "Amanogawa" is an Odd Name Out in the Japanese version, going by the Japanese name of her namesake celestial body whereas most of the Starchildren use the English names. The English version corrects this by changing her name to Milky Way.
  • Likewise, "Hoshino Oji" becomes Little Prince. This leads to some awkwardness, as his personal mecha's name, Prince Star, is a direct translation of Hoshino Oji; the encyclopedia entry for the mecha has to specify that the name "is derived from the English translation of its pilot's Japanese name".
• Duel Boss: Part 12 is a one-on-one between Terra and Luna as Terra tries to stop Luna from opening a black hole to swallow up the moon and taking herself, the God Relayer, and the Asterism with it.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: Exaggerated. Nearly half of the final roster doesn't join permanently until the last ten missions of the game.
• Excuse Plot: Perhaps unsurprisingly given that it's Post-End Game Content, the Asterism Expedition Logs are largely a series of maps with a loosely connected plot that is more setup for brief character interactions than anything else. The last ten missions have slightly stronger continuity and contain a significant amount of world-building.
• First-Episode Twist: Downplayed with the reveal that Terra and Luna are Grayson Order's daughters; the reveal comes at the end of the second chapter, which is seven missions in but early enough to serve as the final scene of the demo.
• Grand Theft Prototype: The first mission sees Luna stealing the Original One, the precursor to Stellar Gears that led to the initial discovery of the Relayers. Luna does it again in Part 15 by snatching Selene from GT Labs, with several parties lampshading how easy this trope seems to be for her.
• Gravity Master: The Relayers can manipulate gravity. Heavily downplayed with the Starchildren, who also have those powers but can't do much beyond powering their mecha. In gameplay, Gravity is the equivalent of Magic in fantasy SRPGs, with each unit having Gravity Attack (G-ATK) and Gravity Defense (G-DEF) stats.
• Gravity Screw: The Gravity Loss incidents occurred due to a Relayer weapon that caused gravity to invert, pulling its victims into outer space to meet their doom.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Luna feigns willingness to stop hostilities and reconcile with Terra in an attempt to set up a cheap shot on her sister. It catches Terra off-guard, but she manages to survive and it doesn't change her willingness to reconcile with Luna.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Xoth's connection to the Relayers is spelled out via the Xoth Chairman's profile long before the sides are seen interacting.
  • In what is almost certainly a script error, Nile is referred to as Sirius in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it piece of dialogue well before that reveal.
• Karma Houdini: Invoked. Terra's last gift to Luna is swapping their names, since Luna racks up a list of misdeeds over the course of the game that would likely see her executed if she were ever found by the Earth government.
• Late Character Syndrome: Inverted. Characters who join the party for the first time do so at the recommended level of the most recent stage. Barring some form of grinding, the recommended level scales much faster than your units gain levels, meaning that it's not uncommon for new units to join at much higher levels than your preexisting units.
• Level Grinding:
  • Encouraged with the Battle Simulator, which lets the players revisit previous maps to level up their team. It's helpful given that the enemies in the main story aggressively scale in levels, making it easy for the player's units to fall behind.
  • Active skills, including those that are purely support effects, also give a small measure of EXP which can help units try to keep pace with the game's rapidly-increasing recommended level.
• Limit Break: "Big Bang", special techniques only usable by Starchildren that drain the Big Bang Gauge. Bosses have an equivalent named Dark Side which, unlike the player version, can be cast with SP.
• Mecha: Battles are waged with giant robots, with the United Earth Goverment's Stellar Gears battling the Relayers' Dark Gears.
• The Multiverse: The Wormhole Missions see the Asterism visit alternate universes, including one where Observer leads the Starchildren, one where Grayson Order successfully kills off the heroes, one where Himiko, Mars, and Alnilam defect to join the Relayers, one where the entire team submits to the God Relayers, and one where Aphrodite has effectively destroyed the Earth. Subverted at the very end, where it is revealed that they simply fell into a trap created by Hermes and generate another black hole to escape.
• My Greatest Failure: Terra tries - and fails - to stop Luna from falling into the sky during the attack on Hoshinomiya City, which she doesn't get over. It only gets worse when Terra learns that Luna is alive, only for Luna to respond by repeatedly trying to kill her.
• Mythical Motifs: Most everything related to the God Relayers and their battle with the Ancient Aliens is essentially Greek Mythology IN SPACE, including Aphrodite, her lover Apollo, an engineer named Typhon whose descendants created the technology for Stellar Gears, and Prometheus who loves the humans and wants to take revenge on Zeus.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Getting the wills of all of the planets of the solar system in one place, accomplished by reconciling everyone's personal conflicts, is the key to unsealing Aphrodite. Oops.
• Not Allowed to Grow Old: While everyone's ages are vague, you would think that there was be some kind of physical changes between the crux of the story in 2052 and the last Asterism Log in June 2058. Nope, everyone looks the exact same.
• Older Than They Look: Dark Walker has the appearance of a young girl but is actually 100 million years old.
• One-Hit Kill: Snipers and Scouts have a chance of inflicting Overkill, which instantly destroys their opponent.
• Only Six Faces: Nearly every woman in the game (and Pluto) has the same head shape, eye shape, and nigh-invisible nose. The only exceptions are Chairman Xoth, who visually appears to be middle-aged or older, and Aphrodite, who is perhaps aided by her lipstick and unusual idle pose.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Luna wants to see Terra dead, but snipes Venera in Part 7 to keep her from getting to Terra first.
• Permanently Missable Content: The optional character interactions typically only stay open for a single mission, meaning that they will be lost for the entirety of that save file if the player forgets to check for them.
• Production Throwback: In the DLC story "Stargazing", Himiko describes Tanabata to Terra and Dark Walker, with two silhouetted characters appearing on screen to represent Hikoboshi and Orihime. Those two silhouettes? Altair and Vega from Kadokawa's Starly Girls, which Relayer owes much of its premise to.
• Recycled Premise: Relayer is a more somber, less colorful repackage of ideas from Kadokawa's defunct mobile game Starly Girls, to the extent that the developers were forced to specify that Relayer is not the promised console version of Starly Girls. The basic description of "cute girls who serve aboard a ship named the Asterism who use gravity-manipulating mecha to fend off an alien invasion" applies to both.
• Revenge: Revenge is the most recurring theme in the game, with Luna, Little Prince, Jupiter, Yodaka, Eight, and Observer all seeking it at some point for various reasons. Some eventually leave it behind, while others embrace it.
• Secretly Dying: Terra's body slowly but surely begins to fail her, something that she keeps to herself until she faints during Luna's attempt to reconcile with her during the Asterism's return from Jupiter. When Uranus is asked about it by the other Starchildren, the doctor estimates that — optimistically — she has a month left to live. She passes away in the Epilogue.
• Sequel Hook: Only one of the 12 God Relayers and three of the 12 Master Relayers are shown. ZERO, the secret weapon to defeat the Relayers, is still out in space somewhere. Then there's Observer's revenge against Zeus, which is mentioned but not elaborated on. The game ends with Himiko and Sirius taking off in search of ZERO. The Synopsis section even states "The Starchildren's grand adventure aboard the Asterism is just beginning!" in its final entry.
• Sneeze Cut:
  • After one of Terra's early musings about her relationship with Luna, the next scene opens with Luna suddenly sneezing, groaning at the thought of her hated sister talking about her.
  • Venus, in trying to avoid having to taste Terra's cooking, convinces her to give Himiko a taste instead. Cue a brief cut to Himiko sneezing, which causes Pluto to wonder if she's catching a cold.
• Space Pirate: The Asterism crew encounters a pirate group named the Star Council. Or rather, that's what the Star Council wants people to think; they actually work for ATLAS Corp and look to steal technology from GT Labs.
• Status Buff: Status buffs are incredibly common in Relayer, to the point where it's harder to name the attacks and skills in the late game that don't add buffs or debuffs in some manner.
• Stellar Name: All of the Star Children are named after space objects, be it planets, moons, or comets.
• Suicide Attack: Luna tries to pull this on Terra, Grayson, the God Relayer, and their respective allies by forming a black hole to suck in the moon. When it's sabotaged by Terra, Luna is still satisfied with the thought of merely killing herself and Terra. That doesn't work out either, with both sisters surviving the encounter.
• Superboss: The final boss of the Asterism Logs is Hermes' Messenger, an even stronger version of the Main Story's final boss.
• Time Skip: In the postgame. The second Asterism Expedition Log occurs in October 2055. The main game kicks off in December 2051 and takes place over roughly a year if the ending is anything to go by, meaning 2-3 years pass.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of the Assaulter animations sees the attacking mech throw its sword, catch it after it bounces off of the target, and then slash the enemy.
• Toilet Humor: Most of the urgency in Part 22, which involves a deep dive into the Original One's databanks, is Pluto telling Terra and Himiko that they aren't in control of their bladder or bowels while in VR. This horrifies the ladies, especially Himiko who is fresh off of chugging down Terra's drink.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The game starts in December 2051, a time where Mecha exists and mankind has colonized the Moon.
• Villainous Rescue: The Star Council launches an attack in response to Xoth capturing the crew of the Asterism, allowing GT Labs to escape.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Dark Zeppelin, piloted by Dark Walker, is the first true challenge of the game. Not only does the average enemy level increase by three over the last map with Dark Walker herself being one level above everything else on the map, but the Dark Zeppelin also has massive attack range, can counterattack from any range while the player's units cannot counter at all, has anywhere from 2-4 times the HP of any of your units, and showcases the first enemy AOE weapon with Genocide Buster. On top of that, Dark Walker gets both the first and last moves of each turn, resulting in two back-to-back actions starting with the end of the first turn, and will constantly raise her evasion to make it harder to land attacks on Dark Zeppelin. The unit's only weaknesses are a lower-than-average G-DEF rating and the fact that, like any unit, it will chase after high Aggro units like Decoys.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Despite the external threat of the Relayers, there is a lot of in-fighting between human factions. This especially applies to GT Labs and the United Earth Government Armed Forces, with Director Grayson of the military hating GT Labs and both directly and indirectly attempting to end the organization's existence; in Parts 8 and 9, Grayson and Sun/Uranus are more than willing to let the Relayers destroy the opposing side if it means getting to the Original One. Grayson uses his influence to convince the Earth government that the Starchildren are evil during their expedition to Jupiter and the Asterism responds by destroying his superweapon, with Luna finally making good on her promise to murder him.
• What If?: The Asterism Expedition Logs are based on a hypothetical scenario where Terra somehow gets better and Himiko remains with the Asterism, with Pluto Breaking the Fourth Wall to present the scenario to players. The Wormhole Missions are a continuation of the Asterism Logs and thus run with this exact same scenario.