The story follows Reginald P. Happenstahnce(Reggie) who, after being woken up from a coma that his father put him under by his childhood friend Pearl Moira, who is now undead but still has her sentience, he discovers that a zombie apocalypse happened while he was out cold. After getting caught up to speed by Pearl, and meeting a survivor named Buck Wampum, who happened to bust into his thought-to-be-abandoned home to loot it, they all decide to go look for a cure that Reggie’s father left behind, and take it somewhere that can hopefully use it to mass produce a cure for the virus that caused it all.
Along the way, they meet five other ‘half-zombie’ girls, including Pearl’s cousin Jordan Hollandaise, rich schoolgirl Kairi Fujisaki, the tomboyish Summer Rath, the ditzy(?) Cecilia ‘Cici’ Fontaine and the enigmatic Emily Brinehart.
Over the course of the game, you can have Reggie develop a romantic relationship with each of the girls, and get an ending together with one of them. Or all of them.
Since, unlike the girls, Reggie is unable to properly fight the weird creatures created by the virus, and at risk of being killed/turned, they fight instead of him, with him taking the role of the group’s ‘loot donkey’, carrying any items and weapons they find.
Game tropes include:
- 100% Completion: Aside from getting every Trophy/Achievement, there's getting all of the CGs, which requires a minimum of 8 playthroughs, getting a different ending each time and then starting a New Game Plus.
- Abandoned Hospital: Beastmooreland Hospital.
- Abandoned Laboratory: Swain Industries and Krik Elemental Labs.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Justified, as Sanctuary Sewers leads to a safe haven for survivors and people researching the virus.
- Action Girl: All six of the half-zombie girls.
- After the End: The game's events take place a few weeks after the zombie plague started spreading, and everywhere they go is almost completely abandoned, minus the other half-zombie girls and monsters, with the exception of the prison past the sewers being used as a safe haven and research facility.
- Alliterative Name: Several area names:
- Podunk Precinct
- Mainman Mall
- Karaage Karaoke
- Sanctuary Sewers
- Ambidextrous Sprite: Averted. Character Portraits aren’t mirrored, so any scars don’t suddenly appear on the wrong side of the character’s bodies(ie. Kairi’s dead eye will always be her left eye, same for her neck bite on the same side)
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- From the first version of the game:
- Defeating an enemy lets you see it’s weaknesses/resistances the next time you fight them even if you didn’t actually hit them during a battle.
- If you use a Skill that uses up a weapon’s DP and the attack misses, no DP is consumed.
- A small bit of HP/SP is restored when picking up items in dungeons.
- The party is fully healed afterwards if you activate a subevent.
- Sub-events that haven't been finished for a dungeon are shown in the upper right of the screen when at Buck's Truck, and disappear once seen. This resets on a NG+ run, so all will be listed(in alphabetical order by area name), and will scroll down slowly until going back to the top.
- A Quality of Life patch added a few, such as
- Using Tactical Flashlights let you walk over pitfalls without falling through
- A few basic items, such as low healing items and Vaudeville Hooks, can be exchanged for Scrap at Buck's Truck.
- Cursor Memory
- Letting you dismantle equipment for Scrap or discard unneeded items in dungeons if you reach max carrying capacity
- Ability to change equipment at Buck’s Truck(previously only able to do it in dungeons)
- Balancing for the Funpocalypse and lower difficulties
- Boosted EXP gain on NG+(that increases with each cycle)
- Automatic inventory sorting
- Reduced loading times
- From the first version of the game:
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Of the six party members, you can only take three into a dungeon at once. Justified, as they say bringing everyone would attract too much attention from the enemies, and to watch out for Buck's safety back at the truck.
- Attractive Zombie: All of the girls are this.
- Beach Episode: Lampshaded/referenced in the description for the CG you get after everyone gets drenched in sewer water in Sanctuary Sewers.
- Bland-Name Product: Several, some being of real-life stores, such as ‘Ceers’, ‘Animacy’s’, ‘Gloomydale's’, and ‘Bananer Funpublik’, and some of real-life products(’Pyne Sol’ and ‘Ex-Body Spray’).
- Breakable Weapons: All weapons have Durability Points(DP), and will break, and be lost, if they run out. One trophy/achievement is gained by letting this happen at least once. DP can be repaired at Buck’s Truck by using Scrap gained from dismantling equipment that you find. Physical skills use up DP when used, with how much being shown next to it. Any weapons you find that are ‘Rare’ tend to start with lower DP than normal versions of them. A weapon’s DP can be increased up to 99(which also nets you another trophy/achievement).
- Buffy Speak: When listening to one of Buck's stories, Kairi calls a gas funnel a 'plastic dongle device'.
- Childhood Friends: Reggie, Pearl and Jordan.
- Cooking Duel: Pearl and Cici decide in two subevents to have one of these after being cured, with Reggie joining in as well, and Jordan getting roped into being a judge.
- Combos: A Combo Meter, called the Exponential Exploitation(EE)Wheel, is slowly built up by .2(from 1.0 to 5.0) from hitting enemy weaknesses, and can used to multiply attack damage and healing power. If a Combo Skill is used and hits more than one weakness(since the attributes of both Skills are applied), it'll go up by .5, instead. If you don’t hit a weakness, or the enemy Resists the damage taken, the meter is dropped back to 1.0, however.
- Combination Attack: There are special Skills that can be used only by having two characters use specific Skills one after the other(i.e. Using First Aid then Second Aid creates the party-wide healing spell Third Aid). Setting the required Skills to a Macro makes it easier to pull them off.
- Creator Cameo: One enemy you encounter is named ‘Undead Mr. Tired’.
- Cross-Popping Veins: Occasionally appears in dialogue scenes, along with a Sweat Drop, Exclamations Points, Question Marks and Hearts.
- Developer's Foresight: If you have an open party slot when Summer, Cici or Emily join, they’ll immediately be in the party instead of going to Buck’s Truck, though Summer’s lines about going to the food court in Mainman Mall don’t change.
- Dialogue Tree: Many times during the story and in almost all subevents, you'll get several choices to pick, which lead to different dialogue, a character's Arc scenes and possible AFF points. Often, different choices can reveal little tidbits about the character(s). Aside from picking whose ending you want to see from whichever ones are available at the very end, the overall story progression doesn't change.
- Door to Before: All of the dungeons besides Mainman Mall have this in some way, usually by flipping a switch or finding a keycard.
- Easter Egg:
- The ‘breadcrumbs’ footsteps showing where you walked from on the map change color and shape depending on the character in the first slot. Pearl is Pink, Jordan is Red, Kairi is Dark Blue, Summer is Orange, Cici is Yellow and Emily is Dark Purple.
- There is a chance for the girls to switch to their blushing character portraits when you hit the option to check their bios.
- Pearl recovers more HP than she actually has if she eats her favorite food, Bourbon Chicken.
- If revived with a Crow’s Pinion, Emily’s recovered HP will end in a six, a reference to the Number of the Beast.
- The clocks in Podunk Precinct will show your system’s current time.
- Buck has unique lines when repairing certain equipment.
- The loading screen is a scaled down version of real battles, the girls even having their current stats factored in during it. If it picks enemies you haven’t seen yet, they’ll be replaced with joke enemy sprites, one being an undead Sena-chan, who is Sekai Project’s mascot.
- Elemental Powers: Magic spells that inflict Fire, Ice, Electric, Light and Dark damage.
- Weapons and skills also do a specific ‘type’ of damage: Slash, Blunt, and Pierce.
- Encounter Bait: The 'Human Chum' item increases the encounter rate.
- Encounter Repellant: The 'Monster Chum' item decreases the encounter rate.
- Escape Rope: The 'Vaudeville Hook' item warps you out of a dungeon. They can be exchanged for one Scrap per hook at Buck's Truck after a Qo L patch.
- Everyone Can See It: Pearl is not very subtle about liking Reggie, and the others catch on easily, occasionally commenting on it.
- Fictional Currency: The Scrap you get from breaking down equipment is treated as such, being used to repair weapons, and getting items from Buck.
- Flavor Text: Every skill, item and piece of equipment has this, with many being silly or referencing other media.
- Good Morning, Crono: The game starts with Reggie being woken up by his now-zombified friend Pearl.
- Hand Wave: The girls being able to use magic after becoming undead is handled this way in an early event, as well as why Yuurei High School is based off a Japanese school despite the game taking place in the United States(they theorize that maybe the ones who ran it liked the Japanese school system, but Jordan stops the discussion with "None of this matters!", and it’s dropped after that).
- Heal It with Blood: The Blood Vial items, which restore a large amount of SP.
- Hidden Depths: All of the girls are more than meets the eye.
- Horror Hunger: The girls still have the usual zombie eating ‘urges’ despite retaining their sentience.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Despite them being undead and not being able to really eat/keep down normal food anymore, except in Emily's case, the girls still heal from the various food items you find, such as Candy Corn, Popcorn, Bourbon Chicken, and Flat/Warm Soda(for SP).
- Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: The desks in Yuurei High School that are, presumably, stuck both together and to the floor, making navigating the school very maze-like. Emily seems to have been the one who set it up that way, somehow. One subevent has them comment on this, with Summer thinking about trying to jump over them, but her zombification has made her legs hurt more just from jumping in place, and Reggie saying that carrying everyone's stuff makes it harder for him to pass over them.
- Leitmotif: Each character besides Reggie has one that plays in scenes focused on them.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: At several points, the group splits to talk or explore separately, and you can pick who you want Reggie to hang out with to both learn more about them and potentially gain AFF with. Several characters' Arc scenes are available during these moments, and will be blocked out if either their AFF stat is too low or you didn't do/properly finish their previous one.
- Life Drain: The ‘Absorption’ Skill drains enemy HP if it hits, implied to be them taking a bite out of the enemy. This attack and the similar ‘Brain Feast’ Skill have low accuracy, however.
- Limited Loadout: Reggie can only carry so many items at once, though he can have Buck use Scrap to increase how much, up to 30 items, which is the same amount of items that can be stored in his truck(and can't be increased).
- Loading Screen: When entering a dungeon or changing floors in one, a loading screen with a battle between any available party members, whether they're in your current party or not, and enemies in the dungeon(or possibly joke enemies) will be shown, all with retro pixel sprites. Their current stats are even factored into these 'battles'.
- Mana Drain: The ‘Brain Feast’ Skill drains enemy SP if it hits.
- Multiple Endings:
- One for each of the girls(6; you need to have seen all three of each girls' Arc scenes to have their endings be available, and you won't be able to see all of them in one playthrough. At most, you can get 5 out of 6 endings available, as at one point, you have to choose to see either Pearl or Kairi's final Arc Scene, if available)
- Harem Ending(7; the AFF stat for each of the girls needs to be at 70 or higher by the end)
- Buck(8; always available, though will be the only option if none of the other endings' conditions are met)
- Getting a ‘Game Over’ is considered an ending, as well, though it just gives you the option to reload your last save.
- New Game Plus:
- Levels, the AFF Stat, Map Progress, non-key items, collected Scrap and equipment are carried over.
- Seen C Gs are carried over as well, but if you saw multiple endings on a previous playthrough, only the one you made the Clear Save will be carried over(they aren’t saved to a System Data, so you’ll need to finish the game at least 8 times to get ALL of the C Gs).
- Picked dialogue choices are grayed out.
- Random encounters can be toggled On or Off.
- After a Qo L patch, you’ll gain more experience on each new playthrough to get everyone to level 99 faster that increases with each cycle.
- No Antagonist: There's no 'main villain' for the group to take down, just any people/creatures affected by the virus that get in their way to deliver the cure.
- No Zombie Cannibals: In a way; the creatures transformed by the virus only really attack the party due to Reggie’s presence, seeing another potential meal, and the girls are getting in their way by protecting him.
- One-Hit Kill: Certain Dark-type spells have a chance to KO their target as well as doing damage. These are available to both the party AND enemies.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Some enemies include: Egg creatures with arms and legs, undead baristas and old ladies, rats wearing golfing clothes, and more. These are occasionally commented on.
- Our Zombies Are Different: All of the girls retain their sanity and personalities they had while alive, though still have ‘urges’ for fresh meat.
- When talking about when they turned at one point, Kairi says it felt like 'such a natural feeling' that she couldn't tell when she 'died', Pearl not remembering 'dying', and Cici thinking that they aren't '-dead- dead' since they're still there.
- Palette Swap: A few later enemies are recolors of older ones.
- Point of No Return: At the safe haven past Sanctuary Sewers, once you pick either 'Make the Final Decision' or 'Hear Emily Out' if it's available(which will then automatically go to the former option afterwards but with Emily's ending available), you can't back out to go explore more. The game does give you a warning about this beforehand.
- Punny Name: All over the place, from locations to items.
- Pit Trap: There are many of these in both Yuurei High School and Beastmooreland Hospital that drop you down a floor. Using a Tactical Flashlight after a Qo L patch lets you pass over them safety, though you’ll be required to drop through a couple specific ones to progress(and find Pearl’s second Arc event in a sealed-off area of the latter dungeon).
- Random Drops: Aside from what enemies carry, there are Treasure icons around the dungeons that give you items or equipment, changing for each dungeon. They respawn whenever you change maps.
- Random Encounters: How most fights happen, though there are also Pre-existing Encounters of three varieties, shown on the maps as weird differently colored muffins(like the one in the logo):
- Green Muffins reset if you leave the current map and can be run from.
- Purple Muffins don’t reset, tend to have stronger groups of enemies, and can’t be escaped from.
- Pink Muffins are boss fights, don’t reset, and also can’t be escaped.
- Rare Random Drop: Some weapons you can find, indicated with a small diamond next to it’s name, have Skills attached to them that are either attack Skills, or status effects. They start with lower DP, however.
- Relationship Values: The AFF(Affection) stat, raised by picking certain choices in events, both in the main story and in subevents around each dungeon that require specific characters to be in the party. A small icon of the character’s head and an explosion of hearts above it is shown for whichever character it raises the stat for during the dialogue. The Arc scenes for characters, which you need to do for their endings, require the Stat to be at a certain level or higher, and having finished the previous one properly for the second and third ones.
- A higher AFF stat also increases performance in battle(such as doing more damage).
- Amusingly, enemies have an invisible ‘negative-AFF’ stat, that goes up the more of a certain one are killed, making them try harder to beat the party.
- Retraux: On the loading screens, it shows a battle between all of the currently available party members against a random assortment of the dungeon's enemies depicted in a retro style, with small animated sprites for both groups.
- Revive Kills Zombie: Averted/Inverted. KO’d allies can be revived by using a Crow Pinion item, the Zombirth spell, or the Combo Skill ‘Come On, Zombaby’(have two allies both use Zombirth on a KO’d party member).
- Shout-Out:
- Several of the officers names on a whiteboard in Podunk Precinct are of Resident Evil characters, and a whiteboard in Beastmooreland Hospital doing the same for several doctor characters, such as Sulu from Star Trek and Nurse Joy from Pokemon.
- The Trophy/Achievement description for getting a Game Over references the text shown on the Game Over screen for Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
- ED-420, and their similarly named series of enemies, are based on ED-209 from Robocop.
- One accessory is called the ‘WWGRD(What Would George Romero Do) Bracelet’.
- Emily’s ‘vassal’ Dichroma is a clear reference to Monokuma from Danganronpa. The pink blood that covers enemies when they’re defeated may be as well(the girls’ blood is shown to still be red).
- Jordan says Shana’s catchphrase ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’, at one point.
- Reggie can reference the song The Touch in Summer’s first Arc scene at the Roadblock.
- The VHS tape in the VCR Reggie finds in Verbnounia during Cici’s second Arc scene is The Cutting Edge, with a quoting of the movie’s tagline said afterwards.
- While discussing hypothetical super powers in Yuurei High School, which also has references to the X-Men, Kairi mentions wanting to have all knowledge contained within herself, saying 'perhaps I could consider it...a magical index’.
- In Beastmooreland Hospital, there’s pill bottles scattered around with ‘Pills Here’ printed on them. The boss of the same dungeon, Snaxter Boxman, is a large insect, most likely a doctor in the hospital affected by the virus, though not humanoid like who their name is based on from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987).
- In Emily’s final Arc scene, she mentions how she took out her ‘revengence’ on those who wronged her.
- Doubling as a Take That!, a certain choice in an early subevent in Podunk Precinct references Ore Imo, and, after Reggie says there’s similarities between Kirino and Jordan, the latter says "I actually have, you know, dimension".
- Shows Damage: In the menu, the girls’ expressions change depending on their current HP.
- Sinister Scythe: The 'Soul Reaper' spell and 'Party On, Death' Combo Skill have one appear and slice enemies.
- Status Effects: Silence, Blind, Confusion, Slow, Poison and Instant Death.
- Super Move Portrait Attack: Using a combo skill causes the character portraits of the party members using it to flash across the screen together quickly.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: The girls don't need to worry about drowning now, which Cici takes advantage of when the group splits at the Roadblock, deciding to nap in a river face down, looking like a corpse floating downstream to Reggie and Pearl.
- Sweat Drop: Occasionally seen during dialogue scenes, along with Cross-Popping Veins, Exclamations Points, Question Marks and Hearts.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: Before a Qo L patch added more switches to Sanctuary Sewers, it was possible to accidently softlock yourself in the dungeon, but this is no longer an issue.
- You Lose at Zero Trust. In a sense. If you are unable to pick any of the girls’ endings or the Harem Ending, your only option is Buck’s Ending.
- Wham Line: After showing what Reggie's dad said was the cure to Pierre, he tells them "...that's not the cure." and that "there is no cure.", briefly causing the girls to panic, before he clarifies that it's an ingredient to the cure, named the 'Genesis Material' by those researching it.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Referenced with an armor equipment called ‘JK Thigh-Highs’.
