The protagonists and this is just several of them. note
Tales of Asteria is a mobile game released in April 2014 for Android and iOS, featuring characters from the Tales Series. The game is Japanese-only.Due to being a crossover adapting the original series, spoilers for all games up to Arise will be unmarked.
On March 16th 2023, the developers announced
the game would be ending service on May 18th, 2023, shutting down servers after nine years.
Tales of Asteria contains examples of:
- Adaptational Badass:
- Most noticeably with Luke, justified that he actually did fight a lot more than his own game counterpart. He of all people is able to fight solo against Chronos.
- The Great Spirits are considered a major threat in this game and require a lot of effort and good strategy from the heroes just to defeat one. Can be justified by the fact that most of the heroes don't have access to their own plot-related powers from the original games (just like many of the escort games) and have to rely on their own with their own skills.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In Tales of Xillia 2, an alternate universe version of Elle with violet eyes instead of green dies, driving a different alternate version of Ludger to mourn until he meets his world's version of Elle's mother and conceives his version of Elle with her. However, as violet-eyed Elle survives to become an adult in Asteria, it becomes unclear why that Ludger would still marry Lara and name their daughter Elle when the first Elle is still alive and present. Making matters worse is that the two Elles were not raised together, putting into question where violet-eyed Elle went after green-eyed Elle was born.
- Alternate Universe: Arc 6 of Asteria adapts the Fractured Dimensions of Tales of Xillia 2, with the world of Asteria as its own Prime Dimension. The first chapter of the story features a Fractured Sorey who became the new Lord of Calamity after being corrupted by Schwartz's Black Mist, and Fractured Mikleo is aware that they're not the Prime Dimension.
- Always Save the Girl: Ludger, Julius, and Victor (Ludger's Alternate Self) discuss Victor's killing of Julius, Jude, and several other characters in order to keep his daughter, Elle, from being sacrificed to save the world. Julius admits he can understand Victor's reasoning, because he would also choose to protect Ludger if there was no way to do so besides harming someone else, and Victor ends up telling Ludger that although he didn't intend to kill everyone, he still considers it the best possible result because it allows Elle to live a peaceful life. However, Ludger is horrified and disagrees, believing there must have been another way to resolve things without killing others.
- Bookends: The first scene and tutorial of the game involves Cress having a dream of the first arc's heroes fighting against a corrupted Tirug. The finale to Asteria's story as a whole has the original heroes face off against him again, complete with the same party setup as in the tutorial.
- Broken Bridge: To advance to the next part of the chapter, players are required to switch characters and until they do, the story for the character they are playing as will stay locked. To also access the future chapters, players must reach a certain level in order to be able to play that scenario. However, in Savior of Light and Darkness onwards, the players are simply required to finish each character's story line before moving onto the next.
- Bigotry Exception: In Fractured Mikleo's world, Sorey has a notable following of seraphim who willingly guard him and address him as "Sorey-sama", despite their goals of exterminating humanity, of which Sorey includes himself. One seraph in particular calls him "our guiding light".
- But Now I Must Go: After the events of the main story, Tirug decides the world of Asteria no longer needs his help or protection, and decides to leave for the next world that might need him.
- Cosmic Retcon: In Arc 4, everyone's old memories and life-style has been heavily altered. If anyone starts to remember or shows signs of getting their old memories, they will be labelled wanted and get captured. Only a few exceptions retain their memory before the story starts: Sorey who escaped crystallization at the end of the previous arc, Velvet, the main character of this arc, and Kyle, who is from the future.
- Crossover: The game has featured collaborations with other games such as Granblue Fantasy, Merc Storia, The iDOLM@STER series (also including Cinderella Girls, [THE iDOLM@STER: Million Live! Million Live!]] and Side M), God Eater, and Scarlet Nexus. In these events, characters from the other games are rendered playable in Asteria, alongside Tales characters wearing outfits from the collaborating game.
- Crossover Alternate Universe: Asteria adapts and combines the plots of the Tales games into one universe, even those that canonically take place in different time periods, making the spinoff an alternate universe to the series' respective games and resulting in some characters acting differently. For example, Luke from Tales of the Abyss's personality is that of his Pre-Character Development self as the story to his game is yet to start.
- Deuteragonist: Leon ends up being one in the last few chapter of Savior of Light and Darkness. Light of the Guidance and the Crystal of Earth also has a "Key Character" to go along with every protagonist, such as Gaius (for Stahn), Wingul (for Ludger), and Emil (for Tear).
- Fanservice: Several limited gachas evoke this, featuring characters in swimsuits, maid and butler outfits, cute girls in cute idol outfits, and handsome guys in suits.
- Fate Worse than Death: In Arc 6, it's revealed that one way to resolve the mana depletion is to use the Key of Kresnik's powers to redistribute mana through the multiverse. But since the human body is mortal, the solution would be take the Key's soul from their body and seal it to use their powers forever.Making things worse is that the Key of Kresnik is either an eight year old girl or a newborn baby. Prime Ludger finds the plan horrifying, and it's enough to drive a Fractured version of him to kill the people who suggested it.
- Fighting from the Inside: Fractured Sorey is unable to stop himself from giving into his despair and anger while under the influence of the Black Mist, but briefly snaps out of it to save a human from being killed by his seraph ally.
- Fighting Your Friend: Although Fractured Mikleo disagrees with his destructive ideology, Fractured Sorey still considers him a friend and tries to spare him, refusing to fight until Mikleo tells him outright that he'll kill him, at which point he stops holding back.
- Future Me Scares Me: In Arc 6, when Ludger learns that his older Alternate Self in a Fractured Dimension murdered that world's version of Julius, Jude, and several of his friends, all to protect someone important to him, he's deeply troubled by it. Julius assures him that it doesn't reflect upon Ludger himself, as his Fractured self is both possessed and not the same person Prime Ludger is.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: After Fractured Mikleo states his intent to kill Fractured Sorey, and tells him that he's different from the Mikleo that Sorey remembers, Sorey thanks him for the advice... then says he's changed too and takes off running.
- Hate Plague: In Mikleo's chapter of Arc 6, Fractured Sorey and others are corrupted by Schwartz's Black Mist, which takes its name from Legendia, though its properties derive from Zestiria's malevolence without the side effect of transforming the subject. When Sorey is affected, it amplifies his despair and anger until he abandons his characteristic kindness and begins believing the only way to stop the war between seraphim and humanity is to Kill All Humans.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The players are allowed to put in whatever name they want to contact other players.
- Hero of Another Story:
- Played straight in Star Fragments, as the protagonists never met with each other while doing their own things up until the finale (Except Yuri and Milla who meet with each other earlier and having their stories interconnected).
- Downplayed in Savior of Light and Darkness as they met and join with the other protagonists a lot sooner. Though this can be justified that their character storylines takes place at the same time.
- Almost averted in Light of the Guidance and the Crystal of Earth as each protagonist met the 'main group' within a few scenes after their chapter becomes available.
- Ironic Echo: When Sorey becomes the Shepherd in the Prime Dimension (Arc 3 of Asteria's story), he repeats Lailah's wording of being a "guiding light" from darkness. In the Fractured Dimension, Sorey as the Lord of Calamity is described by one of his seraph followers as "their guiding light" from human persecution. This particularly upsets Mikleo, as in Arc 4, the trigger that allows him to recover his suppressed memory is Sorey calling himself that.
- I Should Write a Book About This: In the game's finale, Orie decides to compile the events of the game into a book as a gift to Tirug, and requests the protagonists of each arc help summarise. She names the book "Tales of Asteria".
- Luck-Based Mission: Aside from matching elements to their respective units (what elements appear are themselves randomised to a degree), and the short tapping game before each battle, the gameplay is entirely randomised, with each unit having a set number of attacks that will activate a certain percentage of the time. The only arte you can use of your own volition is a character's Mystic Arte, which must be charged up to use.
- Mercy Kill: A theme in Mikleo's chapter of Arc 6 is whether or not killing someone to spare them is reasonable:
- Before being sealed away, Fractured Sorey tries to ask Fractured Mikleo to kill him if he can't be saved, but Mikleo insists he won't let that happen and will find a cure. Once Sorey becomes the Lord of Calamity and Mikleo can't reason with him, though, he decides to kill him to free Sorey from his suffering and protect the honor of the Sorey he once knew. He changes his mind the moment Sorey shows signs of Fighting from the Inside.
- Before Fractured Mikleo regains hope that Sorey can be saved, he finishes off a dying soldier with Ludger's sword, saying that someone told him that death could be salvation too.note
- Metafictional Title: In the finale, Orie decides to summarise the events of the game into a book for Tirug. She names the book "Tales of Asteria", and names each arc after what the game itself refers to it as. The book's subtitle "a tale of intersecting thoughts connected by the stars" is itself a reference to the game's tagline "an RPG that connects intersecting thoughts".
- Mistaken for Flirting: A Fractured adult-version of Elle doesn't seem to recognise Ludger, and so mistakes his shocked reaction to her appearance as him trying to flirt with her. Ludger is disturbed by it since the Elle he knows is eight years old, but when he attempts to explain that he knows someone else by her name, Elle wonders if it's a pickup line about fated meetings, freaking him out into accidentally revealing he's from a different world. However, it turns out that Elle already knows who Ludger is, she's merely messing with him to lower his guard.
- Moment Killer: There’s a scene early on where Lloyd and Colette have a conversation. Near the end, Colette says she has something she’s been meaning to tell Lloyd for some time (Her mild stuttering and pauses make it seem like it might be a Love Confession), but Rita appears out of nowhere and chastises both of them for disturbing her work before she can say anything.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The story portraits tend to reuse skit artwork from characters' home games whenever possible, but this does lead to some inconsistencies, however, such as Gaius, who played a prominent role in the first Xillia game but wasn't featured in any skits until the second, thus using his skit art from the second game even though he hasn't yet undergone his character development that necessitated the change of costume.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: When Fractured Sorey asks Fractured Mikleo when he started caring for humanity, Mikleo answers that he's not on the side of humans or seraphim, but rather he wants the dream of humans and seraphim coexisting that he shared with Sorey.
- Out-Gambitted: In Arc 6, Schwartz is using Fractured Sorey to gain power from his negative emotions, and intends on killing him when he's no longer useful. Unfortunately for her, Sorey already knew of her plans, and waits until she's powered up from the negative emotions of their war before killing her and taking her power for himself.
- The Protagonist: Each chapter has a set number of main characters. Star Fragments consisted only of the Hero and Heroine of several Mothership games, Savior of Light and Darkness afterwards started including both Heroes and
Fan favorite characters. - Related Differently in the Adaptation: In Tales of the Abyss, Luke is Asch's clone. In Asteria, they are instead twin brothers.
- Rotating Protagonist: The protagonist of each chapter changes. Some characters that are main protagonists in one chapter will move down to supportive roles in another, while other characters (Especially party members in Mothership games) become protagonists in the other.
- She Is All Grown Up: When the 8-year-old Elle meets her 18-year-old Fractured self, one of the first things she remarks upon is that her older self is very pretty, before asking if she herself will grow up to look the same way.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Diverging from Tales of Xillia 2:
- The completion of Origin's Trial can only result in all the Fractured Dimensions being destroyed, and it necessitates the deaths of Victor (in order to retrieve the final Waymarker), Julius (who sacrifices himself to help the party reach Canaan), and Ludger or Elle (in order for the other person to live). In Asteria's adaptation of that plotline, the characters ultimately agree not to destroy the other Fractured Dimensions, and all the listed characters survive.
- In Victor's backstory, the violet-eyed Elle he travelled with when he was Prime Ludger's age dies during his journey to collect the Waymarkers. In Asteria's adaptation of those events, she survives when Victor refuses to let her die to save their world.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: During the last chapter of Star Fragment, and it is even discussed among the group as Yuri, Milla and Luke are on a big dispute due to their clashing personalities, much to Cress and Sophie's worry. Thankfully they were able to become True Companions before the end of the chapter.
