There's also no real explanation for Shadow Red's appearance in the Innovator route; Orange talks at him a bit before fighting, but it's never clear whether it's All Just a Dream, a psychic projection, or just a metaphor.
Character Tiers: The strength of characters varies wildly. Some, like Indigo and Orange, are pathetic, while characters like Black are almost Game-Breaker territory.
Top Tier: Black (Mask Off), Grey High Tier: Blue, White, Black (Mask On), Green Mid Tier: Red, Yellow, Violet Low Tier: Indigo, Orange
Complete Monster: Psycho for Hire Red joins The Empire simply because it's the strongest of the factions and allows him to direct his bloodlust at the Imperialists' targets. An Axe-Crazy lunatic who favors strength above all else, Red spends the game brutally murdering or attempting to murder everyone in his path and has designs on the throne himself. He aims to backstab the Imperials and take over himself before reigning as The Caligula. He also intends to rape Violet once he learns that she's hypnotized, only demurring when he learns that she's still fully capable of fighting back.
Fan Nickname: Limit Green, for the battle against Green when she's fighting at full strength.
Game-Breaker: On the Independent route, at the vending machines before your first fight with the Imperials, grab all the Acid Bombs you can. You will win every boss fight afterwards.
Black's "Mind Blast" skill. Just buy a few Sanitizers and watch everything in your path be obliterated.
Ho Yay: Red and Orange have a bit of a vibe going on, not helped by their appearances (Red's a big, muscular, shirtless guy, Orange is a short, skinny hacker type) and switch from friends to enemies. This is made particularly clear with the Shadow Red battle, which is where Orange sorts out his complicated feelings for Red.
Ending Fatigue: Neok admits that by the time he had gotten to writing the ending, he had begun to lose steam, and, unfortunately, it shows. The final boss fight can be a major letdown to those who played the original; Aila becomes reduced to a cardboard cutout villain with no real motive due to the fact that her Motive Rant was completely removed. The endgame also lacks the explanation of things like the Back Story and Kugar that the original had. The two postgame Bonus Dungeons originally had full subplots surrounding them as well, but had to be cut because Neok had burned himself out writing the rest of the game. Fortunately, he plans to rectify this by giving those explanations in the sequel.
The postgame itself can feel this way due to the above. After such a story-heavy and character-centric game, a postgame consisting of nothing but long dungeon slogging without any additional story information can feel rather dull.
Fridge Brilliance: Psychokinesis is toxic to humans. The high level modes usually grant large amounts of EX and AP in exchange for health degeneration. What's probably happening is that they're amplifying the latent psychokinetic energy in the character equipping them, but, since that same energy is toxic, causes an overflow which saps their Life Energy.
"Interference", a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere in the dam facility. It's in the shape of a large silhouette. If you look at it closely, you'll realize that it's a silhouette of Aila, and probably some form of astral projection she's using to attack the jackal. Suddenly, its actions make sense, huh?
Fridge Horror: Erin constantly tells Leon about how the Crapsack World will corrupt a moral person like him, and so will she, due to being a cold Anti-Hero. However, she's a moral person as well — the reason she's telling Leon this is because she was exactly like him, and the same thing she describes happened to her. Kind of depressing.
If you choose the "talk" option during phase 5 after Jake and Dread join your party, Celia will ask why Jake looks so young. They do not give a direct answer, simply stating that the key to a youthful appearance lies in proper skincare products. The final lines of their conversation are:
Celia: So, do both you and Indy do this thing? (Beat) Jake: That's classified information.
Erin: When I get free from here — and I will get free because you guys are going to get me free. And God help you if you decide to run away, because I will get free someday. And when that happens, then you had best pray for death to save you. Because nothing will stop me from hunting you down and stringing you up in the most unsightly manner. So when I get free, she better be exactly as she is now, not a hair harmed on her body. Else terrible things may happen to you, that may result in harsh physical, mental, or emotional trauma, lasting the rest of your miserable lives.
In Phase IV, Ceres II, you're supposed to get to the top of the tower after parting with Scott. After reaching the top, you find Kugar's loyal servant Lavitz blocking the path, forbidding anyone from going through, but Scott as well as Violet looking dandy and all pop up. Despite what happens next, their reactions were just worth it.
*Erin fires her rifle first, only for Scott to dodge quickly*
Scott: Whoa! Holy Sh-! She actually fired! Goddammit, that was too close!
Once you find all the shards and give them to all the Jokers, you can return to Stynx's entrance and speak to a new Joker. He'll seemingly challenge you to a fight, only for the game to cut to some parody character, Ryan, who wears a headband taht says "Not Leon". He'll attempt to fight the punks from the first battle of the game, only to realize the developer didn't implement a battle system, causing him to beam out of here. Talking to the Joker again will seemingly have him challenge you for real this time, only for him to admit he'd probably lose. He then leaves after giving the party a special key item.
Static damage syncs, like G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N. (1100 dmg per hit) and C.R.I.S.I.S. (1400 dmg per hit) are pretty useful on characters with multi-hit attacks.
Also the Vice/Pulsar/Chaos modes, which gives characters tons of EX and AP per round. Only downside is that they have extreme health degeneration, but with a good source of healing such as Erin, that's not a problem.
Speed Boost/Crush Fields. Nothing can seriously challenge you when you're getting twelve turns to an enemy's one.
Devices, special items that had passive effects such as increasing experience gain, were so gamebreaking that Neok actually made them Dummied Out! You can gain them anyway by defeating the final Optional Boss, however.
Equip two Zero-Systems and a Flame Bolster. Let your HP run out. Execute an EX attack. Watch the damage numbers go through the roof. One can be found in a chest, while more can be bought from Tinder within a small time frame.
You can also buy enhancers, which permanently raise your stats, potentially making any character in the game a tank of you can spare enough money. They cost 2,000 Creds a piece for the single enhancers, 3,000 for one that raises two stats simultaneously, and 4,000 for raising all three. Just fight machine enemies that drop common parts and sell them; for every three or so you sell can get one regular enhancer. Near the endgame, the enemies will drop Rare Parts, which sell for a whopping 10,000 Creds. Prepare to watch your stats go through the roof.
Note that you will need to buy a lot in order to see any worthwhile change, as they only increase your stats by pitiful amounts. They can add up, though.
Equipping Demon King Cradle or Tear of All Ocean to a character with a WPN-based AOE EX skill allows them to easily wipe out mobs of any type. Moreso with Jeebes, who with the right Mode and Facilitator setup can max his EX and AP on the first turn.
Erin is very distrustful of everyone due to living in a ruthless place like Stynx and due to her father being an evil dictator.
Dread is by far the biggest Jerkass of the team, but he has faced his own share of tragedy due to his best friend betraying his gang. As a result, Dread ends up with his face burned beyond repaired and is sent to Stynx.
Low-Tier Letdown: Despite the author's best efforts to balance characters this time around, Jake and Hawk are too weak/slow to be useful, and Indy's only use (equipping a static-damage sync and dishing out Vampire constantly) is superseded by Violet, who is better at it and less squishy.
Nightmare Fuel: The Orbital Prison. Especially the core.
Tear Jerker: If you didn't choke up upon seeing Lavitz's death, you have no soul.
The ending doesn't pull any punches either. It contains no less than three (nearly four)Heroic Sacrifices in quick succession, and Scott's is absolutely heartbreaking.
The cutscene explaining Hawk's backstory, where it's revealed that he formed the Rebellion — the one group that looked like it had actual morals in the game's Crapsack World — just to preserve his pride. It's more dramatic than saddening, until Celia — a naive, six-year-old girl, looks at Hawk like she's heartbroken, and says simply, "Old man...did you really form the Rebellion...just to save your pride?"
The early scenes with Erin on a replay, when you know that she's lying to Leon about not being a monster...yet you also know that she desperately wants to believe those lies as well. Imagining the internal pain and confusion she's going through is rather depressing.
That One Boss: Ultima Weapon and Limit Leon are one of the few fights where you're pretty much guaranteed to say "screw this" and just chuck bombs.
Also, GWeapon. It takes half damage from all Attack abilities, and there's only one character on your team at that point who is even capable of using a Spell-type ability. To make matters worse, it has a constant Debilitate field effect, which can render you helpless if you haven't bought a ton of Animant effects to cancel it out.
That One Level: The Underwater Facility is a maze-like dungeon featuring some of the toughest puzzles in the game. At the end of the level, you have two boss battles: a Final Boss Preview against Aila (with only two party members) and a Duel Boss battle against Leon (where you play as Erin).
