Soul Sacrifice is a video game developed by Marvelous AQL and Japan Studio for the Play Station Vita. The concept was created by Keiji Inafune, best known for being the co-designer for the Mega Man franchise.
Soul Sacrifice is played in the third-person perspective. The player character is a slave that serves a powerful and cruel sorcerer. Just before the protagonist is going to be sacrificed, a demon in the form of a book appears before him. The book is a collection of stories that describe past fights between monsters and the powerful sorcerer. The player character is able to enter the book's world and experience the fights, thereby gaining experience and power. One particularly notable mechanic is the ability to sacrifice parts of the character's body or items to create devastating attacks. These sacrifices will be permanently marked on the player character's body, meaning that unless a slow-regaining resource is spent, they are not an infinite resource that can be tapped into.
The game was released in Japan on March 7, 2013, while the North American and European versions hit stores on April 30, 2013 and May 1, 2013 respectively.
A combination sequel-Updated Re-release, Soul Sacrifice Delta, released in Japan on March 6, 2014, and in the US and EU on the PlayStation Network on May 13 and 14 of 2014, respectively. Boasting receive overhauled graphics, systems, and AI, Delta also includes a number of new spells, more areas, monsters, and archfiends based on the Grimm Fairy Tales. Players will be able to choose between the two old factions and the third new one: Avalon, Knight Templars who seek to destroy all monsters, no exceptions; Sanctuarium, a splinter group of sorcerers who believe that monsters can and should be saved; and the new faction the Order of Grim, a cult started by a sorcerer who noticed the Eternal Recurrence of the Twin Gods' feud and whose followers bring hope to both sorcerers and non-sorcerers alike, in hope of somehow ending the vicious cycle. Which organization the player chooses to join will change what mission rewards and types of magic they can gain.
A character sheet is under construction HERE.
This game contains examples of:
- After the End: "Several Years Later" reveals that the world suffered a disastrous cataclysm 13 days after the Sorcerer you play as in the Phantom Quests became Magusar's partner, and the now-insane Magusar came to rule what remains of the world.
- All Just a Dream: If you lose to Magusar after challenging him, the battle is immediately retconned to being another story from the diary.
- If you've finished the original Soul Sacrifice, transferring your save file to Delta reveals that the final battle from the original was all a dream, with Librom wondering what you are talking about.
- All There in the Manual: The Lore section of Librom, containing backstories of Archfiends and levels, or a rundown of how certain enemies came to be.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: In two of the endings, depending on whether you choose to sacrifice or save Magusar in the final battle, you will either become the new Magusar or the new Librom.
- Arc Words: "This is where your story begins."
- Artifact of Doom: The grail, which also doubles as a Jackass Genie.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The Black Rites are incredibly powerful attacks that can turn the tide of battle, but the costs they come with can often be crippling enough to make it into a very last resort.
- Ax-Crazy: Sortiara ends up being a Deconstruction.
- Becoming the Mask: When sorcerers sacrifice monsters, they absorb the souls of those monsters. In the process, they also gain the emotions and memories of those whom they sacrificed. As a result, sorcerers start losing their sense of self.
- Being Good Sucks: You're told outright from the very beginning that Avalon considers the Rite of Salvation to be an act of heresy, and those who use it too much risk suffering "serious consequences". These consequences include reduced quest rewards, getting yourself crippled while simultaneously giving the boss a free power up, and, eventually, pissed-off bounty hunters.
- From a gameplay perspective, being good (saving more than sacrificing) makes you tougher and harder to kill, but your attack power will suffer and fights will take longer and longer to finish, so if you find yourself with a Divine arm, you're probably a glutton for punishment.
- Being neutral is also pretty hard, since your levels have to be exactly the same in order to have a "neutral arm", and the Grimm faction gives out quest rewards at random.
- Thankfully Averted in Delta, where not only can you join Sanctuarium to save Archfiends without any punishment, you can earn awesome offerings and sigils to drastically improve your damage and natural bulk from mission rewards without killing a soul.note
- Being Evil Sucks: On the other hand, people who sacrifice someone/something they cherished in order to obtain what they want often realize too late that making Deal with the Devil never ends well. Even sorcerers who sacrifice monsters ultimately succumb to all the souls they absorbed while hunting for monsters, which leads to transformation into the very monsters they fight and execution by other sorcerers. In a gameplay perspective, being "evil" (sacrificing more than saving) boosts your damage, but your defense and recovery will suffer, making battles even more risky to take on.
- Big Bad: Magusar for the single player campaign.
- Black Magic: Pretty much all magic is bad news, since it turns man and beast into monsters. Unfortunately, only a sorcerer can kill a monster, so there's a catch-22 for cleaning up all this magical contamination.
- Blood Knight: The Valkyrie constantly seeks out Sorcerers to fight, believing that each victory she achieves will bring her closer to her dead father.
- The Dullahan was one both in life and as an Archfiend. The man was a Combat Sadomasochist who built up a rather fearsome reputation for actively directing his opponents to always wound him, even making sure they never hit him fatally. It got to the point that he wore chains during his fights, and eventually ordered his footmen to torture him for his own pleasure during his off-time.
- Blood Magic/Bloody Murder: One of the possible offensive magics, available in two flavors: the blood spray or a melee claw flurry. While these are powerful, they are Cast from Hit Points, meaning you have to watch out for your health.
- Body Horror: The way you use magic practically revolves around this.
- Chaos mode is particularly nasty.
- The way that some monsters and Archfiends are created. For example, Ouroboros was electrocuted and has his body twisted and elongated like a snake to form a wheel, the Harpy's insatiable appetite bloated her body and formed a gaping hole in her stomach, Bahamut is the result of a Lizard Man melding its body with an Orchalcum, and Hansel and Gretel used to be normal children until their body turned into fucking candy while getting eaten alive by locusts and merging with said locusts.
- Boss Banter: Some Archfiends and Bounty Hunters engage in this, though in the case of the Archfiends, they speak in garbled gibberish that's translated in the subtitles.
- Boss Game: Yes, there are the odd quests where you have to kill a certain number of Foul Creatures and Fetch Quests that are even more uncommon, but the overwhelming majority of the pacts you will embark on will be battles against Archfiends.
- Breakable Weapons: A strange example. Since the only things that can be equipped are spells, it's possible to "break" your spells. Though it must be noted that story-wise the objects that break are not the spells themselves but the offerings that lets the sorcerer wield them.
- But Thou Must!: You must sacrifice Nimue/Sortiara when you face her. Attempting to save her will bring her back and make the fight against her continue. This is also true of the assassins sent after you for saving Archfiends. In both cases, however, you need to save them the first time if you want to get their Life soul.
- Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff": Standard monster names, decidedly NON-standard designs and origins. Goblins are giant rats made up out of other, smaller rats. "Orcs" are housecats mutated by magic into horrible blobby cannibalistic things with gaping mouths full of human skulls. Kobolds are trees that are transformed by residual magic. Ghouls are crows who fed on the corpses of sorcerers until the magic made them just as intelligent as humans, even creating their own society.
- Soul Sacrifice Delta introduces fairies, which were bees infected with magic, gaining self awareness and had overthrown their queen. Also introduced are gnomes (hares that have been horrifically mutated by magic, gaining the ability to merge with the ground and attack with giant ear hands) and orichalcum (snails who have gained a sense of self through magic, and had their shells transformed into treasure chests).
- Cosmic Plaything: What the chosen saviors amount to. The older god chooses a person completely devoid of greed, then that sorcerer is forced to face the apocalypse caused by a crazed magician. The sorcerer wins and sacrifices the magician to restore the world... in that point becoming tainted with the same curse that causes the previous end of the world. With luck, they may fight the greed that consumes them since their victory, and avoid losing their very identity, but even if they'd be able to win against it, it'd only mean than another crazier sorcerer would take their place, forcing a new savior to come and repeat the process.
- Crapsack World: It goes without saying. Every level has a story and every single one of those stories ends in horror.
- Crossover: Delta with Freedom Wars, God Eater, Toukiden, and to a lesser extent, Gravity Rush, Wild ARMs, Ragnarok Odyssey Ace, and Phantasy Star Online 2 note . The crossovers included new boss fights against Dionaea (a draconic Abductor), Marduk (a lupine Aragami), and the Chthonian and Abyssal Fiends (a pair of massive Onis). The crossover DLCs also include vaious outfits based on characters from those games, such as the Sinners' outfit, the God Eaters' outfit, the Mononufus' armor, Kat's costume, Rudy's outfit, Lady Harken's armor, and even Knight Blazer's armor! There are also offerings from the respective boss monsters, such as the Sinner's Thorn and Skydrake Dragonwing from Dionaea, the Red Lupine Ruby and Red Lupine Wing from Marduk, the Chthonian Claws and Chthonian Horn from Chthonian Fiend, and the Abyssal Bead and Abyssal Arm from Abyssal Fiend.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: Most of the Avalon Pact sections have quests that are only available if you Sacrifice the segment's first Archfiend, as well as quests only available if you save it. Thus, if you're fully committed to one or the other, you'll have to go against your morals at least once in order to fully complete the Pact segment.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Black Rites, which allow the sorcerer to sacrifice part of their bodies to gain great power; in game terms, you get a significant effect, but then your stats take a serious hit until you undo the Rite with lacrima. For example, the first one you gain access to lets you summon a massive burst of flame that deals serious fire damage to everything on the field, but in return you have to give up your skin (the fire bursts out of you, causing severe burns and cutting your defense in half).
- Deadpan Snarker: Librom.
- Deal with the Devil: Many of the backstories of levels and Archfiends within Librom involve this, with people sacrificing something of theirs to get what they desire. Suffice to say, they don't end well.
- Death Seeker: Centaurs.
- Defeat Means Friendship: If you choose to save Archfiends rather than sacrifice them, then they can act as your allies for missions.
- Developer's Foresight:
- One of the unique offerings you can obtain from Marduk, a boss from God Eater 2, creates a weapon that resembles a God Arc. Not only is it quite powerful in its own right, but its charge attack has the weapon grow a huge jaw and take a bite out of whatever is standing in your way to give you a boost to attack power, much like what the God Arcs can do in their home series.
- Certain events in the main story change slightly depending on whether you ended up saving or sacrificing your target.
- Downloadable Content: Is available. Announced content so far is the Japanese audio tracks (US/EU only), around 10+ free Archfiend battles, additional Black Rites, occasional codes for more spells, and paid episodes.
- The only paid DLC in Delta are the Japanese audio tracks and "memory clods", which let you create more Blank Pages. Of course, you can always create blank pages using Lacrima, so why bother?
- Dub Name Change: The Japanese version makes whole references to Arthurian Legend, while the US/EU English versions have the references veiled due to some areas of Europe still treating the mythos as Serious Business. Hence the changing of the names of the depicted characters from Arthurian legend in the English versions.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: It took an Updated Re-release, but in contrast to the original release, Delta's True Endings are both, barring the token warning about Hope Is Scary, unambiguously happy. Considering what the characters go through (and how insanely hard the game is at that), they are planted firmly in this territory.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Ice cools fire, which burns venom, which erodes stone, which in turn grounds lightning, which finishes the circle by cracking the ice.
- Expy:
- Librom is one to Grimoire Weiss and the Necronomicon.
- Also, the grail functions similarly to behelits in that it appears before mortals who are in a state of total despair and grants their wish for a horrible price.
- It also has many similarities with Kyubey.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: Even by the Body Horror standards of the game, Magusar's arm is particularly nasty, with so many eyes... and that's before the end of the world.
- Fairy Tale Free-for-All: Soul Sacrifice Delta introduces new Archfiends based off of characters from various fairy tales, such as Red Riding Hood (a lupine Monster Knight wielding a massive spear), Snow White (a monstrous lady with Extra Eyes), The Frog Prince (a frog monster with a human torso on its tongue), The Pied Piper of Hamelin (a Monster Clown rat), Alice (a monster trapped in an Eldritch Location), Hansel and Gretel (a pair of humongous candy-coated locusts that pop out of gingerbread houses), and much more.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Most of the new monsters added in Soul Sacrifice Delta are based on fairy tales.
- Flunky Boss: Most bosses summon goblins at some point during their fight so you have something to save/sacrifice during the battle to recharge your offerings.
- Fusion Dance: Done in rather grotesque fashion, as many monsters are amalgam of beasts and men.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: The sheer existence of the Grim faction is one, since nobody was supposed to notice the Twin Gods' Feud and the Eternal Recurrence.
- God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Technically a spoiler, but given that both the "good" and "evil" gods appear as DLC bonus bosses, and the state of the world, it'd be more surprising if it wasn't true. Come Delta, and they upgrade from super-hard DLC bosses to the Greater Scope Villains, whose feud has caught humanity in the middle and drives the Eternal Recurrence, and thus the plot.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Gods who created the setting's world. While the older believes in order, the other likes chaos and greed, and that's why he created the chalice and gave sorcery to his people (the druids). And that's why the world is in a constant state of destruction and restoration, because he engineered for an especially greedy individual to destroy the world... the same person who was chosen by the other god to be devoid of greed and be able to save it. The pure stubborn refusal of either of these Gods to give an inch in their feud drives the Eternal Recurrence.
- Finally able to be faced. In the original game, you only got a free DLC that let you face the two in a pair of Forgotten Pacts. Delta lets you fight God-Magusar, who is possessed by the Twin Gods, as the True Final Boss.
- Greed: Arguably one of the main reasons why the world has become so dark. Orcs and other monsters turn to devouring sorcerers just to further increase their power, a human will make a Deal with the Devil and end up an Archfiend... it also plays an important part in the legend of how the world was formed.
- Guest Fighter: Updates to Delta added monsters from God Eater 2, Freedom Wars, and Toukiden as bosses.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Pretty much all sorcerers in general. Sooner or later, all sorcerers succumb to all the souls of monsters they absorbed and transform into monsters themselves.
- Hidden Depths: Often the case for most other sorcerers that the player meets, who often gets bad vibes from them right off the bat.
- Sortiara: Appears to be a brash and hateful woman who would kill you with no hesitation but comes to appreciate and rely on the player character, and would rather die to see him survive instead, her only regret being that he will inherit her insatiable bloodlust
- Radux: Comes off as a quirky boy who can barely speak and constantly scratches at his chest. Is later revealed to have been raised by a monster who attacked him, goading him into killing her because he's a sorcerer and that's what he must do. He's wracked with guilt, driving him to claw at his chest
- Terroria: A weirdly skeletal girl who the player character partners with while looking into the source of a drug that turns people into monsters. it is revealed that Terroria is "half archfiend" (her mother turned into an archfiend while pregnant with her) and her blood is that very same drug that she personally peddles. However, she only gives the drug to criminals who are too far gone, giving her an excuse to kill them, as monsters. She does this in an effort to become renowned and accepted because her heritage left her ostracized by society.
- Calixto: A haughty man who is obsessed with himself to the point of complete narcissism. Turns out the reason why is because he was forced to sacrifice the love of his life, who loved him in turn completely. This love for him transferred to him, forcing him to love himself more than anything
- Carnatux: A greedy man who will quickly extort someone of everything they're worth. He only does this to certain people, and will not exploit others who are already in a bad place. The money he raises is used to help the downtrodden
- Monstrux: A man who is on the verge of becoming a monster himself after sacrificing thousands of them in the line of duty. Despite this, and the constant pain that wracks his body, he continues, hoping to find the monster that was once his lover and put her to rest himself by sacrificing her. When asked why not save her instead, he reveals that while he had restored her to human form, her heart was never mended, and she turned back into a monster. Unfortunately for him, the player character had already killed her by pure chance long before
- Terrwyn: A Sorcerer who seeks to save the world by putting it into eternal slumber. However, she only really desires to be with her brother in her dreams, who she killed after putting off her advances
- Holy Grail: The Holy Grail appears as a sentient entity who appears to humans who are at their lowest, promising to grant their deepest desire in return for "an offering". In reality, however, it ends up turning the human into an Archfiend.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Unsurprisingly, Magusar isn't really happy to be immortal while being forced to sacrifice monsters non-stop to fuel that very immortality.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Notably exemplified by Harpy, although there are other monsters who indulge in this as well.
- Improbable Weapon User: The protagonist, who uses his own body parts as weapons.
- Insistent Terminology: Librom is quick to remind you that the Lacrima are not his tears. So stop asking if they are.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Librom may be a Deadpan Snarker who sometimes throw insults at you, but not only does he cares about you deep down, he wants to help you Save the World, and his best friend, Magusar. Carnatux, of all people, turns out to be one towards the end of his quest chain. He's a greedy merchant, but he's actually earning money for his friends and family members, who became monsters. Delta shows that Carnatuax uses his influence to help the poor and refuses to extort or deceive anyone.
- Knight Templar: The sorcerers of Avalon must follow one rule: All monsters must be slain. They're willing to turn a blind eye to the occasional saved target. But for those who consistently save monsters, well, see No Good Deed Goes Unpunished below...
- Limit Break: At low health, you can perform ultimate sacrificial spells called Black Rites. While they are powerful, they have negative side effects that do not go away until you fix them with Librom's Lacrima.
- Magical Society: The Secret Sect Avalon, a sorcerers' guild whose members are the descendants of surviving Druids.
- Medieval European Fantasy: Noteworthy as the game's world is essentially an alternative version of Arthurian Legend.
- Multiple Endings: Three in the original game, five in Delta.
- The original three. In Delta, you can only get these endings if you avoided completing certain quests.
- If you defeat Magusar before finishing all the main story chapters in Librom, the game ends immediately after Magusar's defeat, with the protagonist musing about how his/her actions have saved himself/herself, but the future of the world is still uncertain.
- If you complete all the main story chapters and choose to sacrifice Magusar in the final battle, then the grail fulfills your wish and returns the world to its original form; however, the protagonist is left with the curse of Magusar and his right arm, unsure of what the future holds for him or the world but still believing that hope can change it for the better.
- If you complete all the main story chapters and choose to save Magusar, the protagonist begins a cycle of defeating and saving Magusar over and over, while the line between the protagonist and Librom becomes blurred and they become one. They fight with Magusar for years until the protagonist's body breaks down and can no longer fight. Like the original Librom, they sacrifice their body to become a book that will pass on both their story and Librom's tale to the next prisoner that can take on Magusar.
- The two added in Delta, which require you to complete a certain series of quests, unlocking the True Final Boss: the God-Dragon, Magusar possessed by the Twin Gods and turned into a tyrant.
- If you choose to save God-Magusar, the wills of the Twin Gods are destroyed and Magusar still holds their power. He becomes a benevolent guardian deity of humanity, watching over them to help combat the madness to come.
- If you choose to sacrifice God-Magusar, the wills of the Twin Gods are destroyed and the protagonist achieves apotheosis. Magusar and Librom have a heart-to-heart over what will become of the world.
- The original three. In Delta, you can only get these endings if you avoided completing certain quests.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The histories of areas and Archfiends have cases of this.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: If you primarily save the bosses instead of killing them, you'll eventually start encountering vigilantes hired by Avalon, who are not happy with you saving so many monsters.
- Old Save Bonus: Importing a save file from the demo adds the Spirits' Heart spell. You can import your save from the original Soul Sacrifice into Delta.
- One-Winged Angel: Magusar. After you defeat his human form, he turns into a gigantic dragon.
- Optional Boss:
- While it's not exactly harder than, say Double Illecebra, the Leviathan you see in the tutorial can only be encountered in the tenth Avalon pact's group, where all combats are extremely hard.
- From Delta:
- Bahamuts only appear when they feel like it, randomly dropping in at the beginning of pacts.
- Odin is one of the few Archfiends that gets a 15 star pact with no additional conditions or backup from other Archfiends. It's easy to see why: Open wide and say 'Infernus Black Rite'!
- Taking the place of Leviathan is Hansel and Gretel, who easily match it in both size and difficulty.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Magusar's dragon forms, which are both Draconic Abominations. It is not so much a dragon as it is a dragon-shaped mountain of bone and corpses. Ditto with God Magusar's dragon form in Delta, a two-headed Draconic Abomination that contains and traps the will of the Gods, if not, the Gods themselves. Delta also gives us Bahamut, a Draconic Humanoid made of stone who randomly shows up in missions without warning, and the afformentioned Dionaea, a robotic wyvern that came from the Freedom Wars universe as a Guest Fighter boss monster.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Oh boy, where do we start? For the Mooks, Goblins are giant rats, Orcs are bloated and gluttonous feline abominations, and Gnomes are just annoying elemental rabbits. As for the boss monsters, we got Ouroboros, a giant glowing face on a wheel that's made of its twisted and elongated body, the Frog Prince, a giant frog-like monster with a human torso as its tongue's tip, and Hansel and Gretel, a pair of giant candy-coated locusts. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
- Permanently Missable Content: Averted. Even if you sacrifice someone the first time through a mission, you can replay that mission to save them, or vice-versa. This is in fact required to achieve 100% Completion in the forgotten pacts, as you'll need to play through some branching questlines more than once to access all the missions.
- Point of No Return: Subverted in Delta. You can always go back to the pre-New Game Plus content by erasing your character's name from the marker inside their cell.
- Power at a Price: Almost all monsters, especially ones who were once humans, sacrificed something/someone they cherished in order to be granted a tremendous power.
- Power Incontinence: In the setting, this often happens to magicians who get consumed by the souls of monsters they absorbed. Thankfully, this doesn't happen in-game.
- Power-Upgrading Deformation: The creation of monsters in a nutshell, to put it mildly.
- Press X to Die: You can actually go right to the Final Boss at the very beginning of the game, which ends about as well as you'd expect.
- Red Right Hand: A sorcerer's right arm becomes corrupted by "the blight" due to the magic they wield. It gets worse the more they sacrifice monsters and better the more they save them.
- Relationship Values: Allies have an Affinity bar that rises with the more quests you complete alongside them. In addition to this, Allies with Divine or Dark arms can actually lose affinity if you save (Dark) or sacrifice (Divine) an Archfiend while they're with you, and if you do this too many times, that Ally will become "Separated" from you, preventing you from using him/her. Allies with Neutral arms don't care whether you save or sacrifice Archfiends.
- In Delta, with the introduction of Grim, now you have to keep to the ideas of the Faction to gain Relationship points and not piss them off. This is used due to the fact that some Neutral Arm characters (such as Magusar, Radux, and Sortiara) do not approve of you saving Archfiends, despite them usually uncaring about your choices.
- Retcon: This is actually a game mechanic. By using Lacrima, you're able to alter certain events and aspects of the journal, which include undoing the status buffs caused by Black Rites and resurrecting fallen Allies.
- The Reveal: The author of Librom is Librom himself.
- Rotten Reincarnation: The world is a miserable place because it's stuck in an eternal cycle of destruction and resurrection caused by the Twin Gods, and it's up to The Nameless Sorcerer to break the cycle by destroying the Sacred Chalice and defeating the Twin Gods.
- Scenery Gorn: The world of Soul Sacrifice (Delta) is both breath-taking and disturbing, or at least bizarre. For straight examples, Ruins of Tatarus appears to be an abandoned village covered in giant dead trees, Valhalla Abbey is a gloomy yet stunning building, and Wormcoach Periphery is a giant wagon carried by a giant grotesque worm. For straight forward Scenery Porn, Icarus Pasture is a lush farm field that has windmills with feathered wings, Lake Andromeda is a frozen lake with floating chains, and the Luna Wastes is an absolutely beautiful space-themed area.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Most boss monsters are categorized this way based on what sins they most indulged in before turning into monsters. There is an eighth category known as the Desperate, who represent the strength of will (Jack-o'-Lanterns and Jack Frosts) and madness (Unicorn and Phoenix) that people go through during life.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The game starts very deeply in the cynical end of the scale, thanks to a Crapsack World setting filled with Eldritch Abominations caused by malevolent gods, and one of the gods entices mortals to make horrific sacrifices for their desires. Then little by little, notions like companionship, friendship, and especially hope, make their way into the plot, finally becoming a powerful force by the ending. As of Delta, the game finally climbs its top to the idealistic end, as humanity triumphs over the Gods, and the world is free from the Eternal Recurrence, all thanks to the efforts of the Player Character, Magusar, and Similia. While the game steps back a little from the idealistic end with a Hope Is Scary message, the idea of hope and changing the world for the better are ultimately the game's themes.
- Stable Time Loop: Heavily implied in the ending.
- Summon Magic: There's a whole class of Offerings appropriately called Summon. Most Summon Offerings summon Golems, gigantic elemental beings that make up their lack of mobility and range with tremendous damage. They're not just limited to Golems; Sorcerers can summon Archfiends or parts of them, like the Frog Prince, the arm of Hansel and Gretel, and the infamous Abyssal Fiend.
- Swiss-Army Tears: The game's currency.
- Together in Death: Illecebra's goal is to die with Magusar. Later, Librom and Magusar are united like this in the sacrifice ending.
- Video Game Caring Potential: In Delta, players who joined Sanctuarium gain points by saving monsters. Not only that, but saving common fiends such as orcs and gnomes refresh your offerings (sacrificing them boosts your damage while letting fate decide speeds you up). You can even gain points by being saved by a fellow sorcerer, which also benefits said sorcerer if (s)he's on the same faction.
- Mercy Rewarded: "Saved" boss monsters unlock AI-controlled NPC comrades for the single-player version of the campaign.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: One of the biggest aspects of the game is sacrificing your comrades in battle. It may be a subversion, however. While sacrificing your comrade will take him out of the fight, it will not only give you a very powerful attack spawned from his sacrificed carcass, but at the end, he'll get bonus rewards for being sacrificed, so it's a win-win situation.
- Monsters may be "saved" or "sacrificed" when you get them near death. Saving them turns them back to a normal creature (a housecat, a civilian, whatever); it heals you and boosts your defense. Sacrificing them increases your attack power and recharges your offensive spells. Leaning too heavily on one or the other is a potentially powerful strategy that could really unbalance you if you're not careful.
- As of Delta, you need to do your faction's favoured action (save for Sanctuarium, sacrifice for Avalon, and fate for Grim) to recharge your offerings.
- You can also tip Librom over by tapping at him. He'll then get up and make a few snarky comments.
- Monsters may be "saved" or "sacrificed" when you get them near death. Saving them turns them back to a normal creature (a housecat, a civilian, whatever); it heals you and boosts your defense. Sacrificing them increases your attack power and recharges your offensive spells. Leaning too heavily on one or the other is a potentially powerful strategy that could really unbalance you if you're not careful.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Zig-zagged. The game may deal a lot of punishment to moral choices, while giving easier outcomes and rewards to those who choose selfishly (in the vanilla game; Avalon-affiliated players still gain points by sacrificing), but there are some genuine perks to salvation. If you save a team-mate, half of your health goes away to heal him. If you choose to sacrifice him instead? Your spells get a nice recharge, and a very powerful attack erupts from the sacrificed, instakilling all normal enemies and harming quite a bit the bosses. Still, there are upsides to having multiple people splitting the Archfiend's attention, while the health loss can be dealt with on both sides with a quick healing item/terrain effect.
- Voice of the Legion: The narrator of the diary speaks with both a male and female voice simultaneously. Librom does the same in the Japanese voice track, but only has a single, male voice in the English one.
- Was Once a Man: Every single Archfiend.
- Weird Currency: The book occasionally cries moisture from its eye, and wiping away the tears is how you get your currency. It insists they're not tears, and calls them "lacrima," but that's just a fancy word that means "tears" anyway.
- Wham Line: The Postscript.My name is Geoffery Librom.
- Whole-Plot Reference: It revolves around horrific creatures that were once men (and animals) born from profane magic, which is spread by a shining, wish-making, innocent-looking entity who comes at people at their weakest moment. The only way to kill said monsters is to use said magic, which will end up transforming YOU into a monster eventually for others to kill in an endless cycle. Souls, despair, and hope are all central to the story, as despair is what triggers the transformation from man to beast. The main storyline also involves a friendship between two sorcerers, one of which locks himself into an endless loop in order to save his dear friend. Yeah, it's that kind of game.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Pretty much any Archfiend listed under "The Desperate", as well as a number of the ones in other categories, like the Minotaur.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: When you sacrifice monsters, this is essentially what you do.
