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  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • For most of the game, Steven is very much like his canon self. The final dungeon puts a different spin on Steven's character by showing that the corruption has brought out his worst self. He takes on the form of his mother, who is portrayed as someone whose All-Loving Hero persona beneath the surface is selfish, petulant and controlling and wishes to make the Crystal Gems what he wants them to be. To this end, he is willing to brush the Great Diamond Authority's actions under the carpet because he knew he couldn't forgive them and he cared about having a happy ending where everyone got along, rather than what the victims of the Diamonds actually needed.
    • In contrast, Steven (as Stevonnie) himself is clearly traumatized and guilt-ridden and suffers from a major case of self-loathing and self-aggrandization. He hates Rose Quartz because he believes she was perfect and that he cannot live up to the expectations he had of her; his fantasy of her and Pink Diamond being the same person is his own attempt to justify his self loathing and inability to accept his mother's imperfections to himself, with him even acknowledging that such a thing is stupid and nonsensical when it's pointed out to him by the other gems yet choosing to backpedal anyway. Bismuth even points that Rose Quartz being Pink Diamond means that he is Pink Diamond which works with Steven viewing himself as controlling and selfish much like White Diamond.
    • Just how much of Steven's corrupted state is actually himself? During the final dungeon, Rose Quartz is used to represent the part of Steven's mind containing his worst aspects yet Steven himself is guilt-ridden and scared when fused as Stevonnie. When the corruption finally takes hold, Steven becomes delusional and sees himself as perfect yet goes into denial when he realizes that he can't keep the gems in the room. Rather than try to shatter them, he decides to bubble them all and when called out by the gems for his selfishness and cowardice, Steven can only offer weak justifications before feeling guilty. This implies that Steven is still a good person, horribly tormented by his worst aspects and his own expectations. It finally takes Jasper getting through to him for Steven to finally let go and accept that he's just a child and that he can't save everyone.
  • Anticlimax Boss:
    • Despite Jasper being one of the strongest non-Diamond gems in canon, even being called the Ultimate Quartz, she's an absolute joke when you fight her on the bad ending route after forcing her to choose between her Diamond and her friends with Corrupted Steven being the only challenge left.
    • Though Steven was always intended to be easy due to being a Post-Final Boss akin to the Mother series, cutting out the planned Rose-Steven fight meant that Corrupted Steven himself feels quite underwhelming after the Boss Rush (and optionally the Perfect Crystal) His attacks aren't all that threatening with them being easily outhealed and while his HP is obscured, you can easily take him down and Earn Your Bad Ending unless you decide to snap Steven out of his corrupted state. This is averted if you decide to get the early bad endings in which case the fight is borderline unwinnable.
  • Breather Boss: As corrupted Peridot was designed and released first, she has fewer gimmicks and is significantly easier than the other bosses in the game. She only uses her single-target attack and respawns her Mooks. Even in the Rose's Room rematch, this is true. Compared to the crowd control of The Drowned and The Shattered being able to crack fallen gems, The Derelict is a simple fight. The only other boss rematch to be this easy would be The Bound.
  • Broken Base: For some, Steven and Jasper's characterization and their relationship is either faithful enough to the show or it's an excuse to demonize Steven to promote their fantasy of Jasper being the star of the show.
  • Character Tiers:
    • S: Stevonnie: Versatile main character that has the highest DPS potential of the cast. Connie has Focus (adds 2.5x multiplier to next attack) + good damaging moves like Supernova (hits all) and Flare (1.5x damage to one, reaches 3.75x damage in 2 turns for only 1 star point). Also, you get them from the start so you can reach ridiculous power levels where you can assign all their stat points to attack. Additionally, unlike other characters who only have partial resistance to one ailment, they have total immunity to Interference and Cracked, which can be handy in a pinch. Steven has some unique healing skills which are decent because there are so few healers as well (but given Stevonnie's potential as an attacker, they should probably be only used for healing in a pinch).
    • A:
      • Pearl: Gets Focus and two good attacking skills in Meteor (ranged) and Eclipse (ignores defense). Also, if you can't generate enough star points to support two attackers, Pearl can attack twice in a turn with Quick Strike to generate two star points per turn. Alternatively, she can use Quick Strike to do chip damage and poof enemies that hang on at 1 HP after other attackers have gone, or take advantage of her free second turn to use an item.
      • Peridot: Quality wall. After she upgrades her Metallic Shield, she can reach naturally high defenses as well as HP. It becomes more profitable to keep the shield up and use her as a wall instead of attacking with Metallic Strike. She also is the only other character to get Encouragement for healing, and in a pinch she can use Rising Tides to generate star points for a fast kill.
    • B:
      • Bismuth: You get Bismuth quite late, and her buff abilities are often too expensive to be worth it. Rallying Cry, a 6 star point move that heals everyone, is decent in a pinch, but if you have the scrap the item Together Breakfast is a better option that heals more and takes no star points.
      • Amethyst: Whip Strike can be very useful if Stevonnie's Focus+Supernova is unable to poof all the enemies at once but leaves them at low health. Since it hits not only a row of 3 but also the leader slot if attacking the front row, with most later fights it can hit 4 enemies at once. Her other moves are not that useful, however, and her natural stats of high defense and low health are horrid and give her very little survivability.
      • Jasper: Probably the highest DPS character in early game, Jasper's Event Horizon is a very good damage option as she will be taking most of the hits at the time, and this move does more damage the less HP she has. However, as this will most likely make you invest attack into her so her Event Horizon does more damage, when she is later outclassed by other high-damage characters her most useful trait is to serve as a weak wall. Also, investing in HP for her decreases the usefulness of Event Horizon, which does more damage the lower HP she has, while investing in defense is a bit useless in late game since many enemies have defense-bypassing attacks.
    • C: Garnet: Basically outclassed by Focus Pearl and Stevonnie. If you get her before Pearl she can be an asset (which by itself isn't too likely since her gauntlet will make you want to get other characters), but the high cost for high damage nature of her attacks means that you'll probably not charge up enough star points to use her on normal battles, and you have to choose which DPS you want for boss battles because you need other characters as walls.
  • Creepy Cute: The spider enemies in Garnet's dungeon are fuzzy and adorable, and fall on people's heads to spread the cuddling.
  • Demonic Spiders: Any enemy that can inflict Cracked such as the Dragons in The Great Desert or any enemy that uses counterattacks such as the Weavers in Strawberry Battlefield or Monsters or Moles in the Alpha Kindergarten.
  • Designated Hero: Steven Universe (the character)'s canon self was considered by this by the developer if their Director's Commentary Artist's Statement is any indication. The game itself allows you to play Steven as one of these in-universe by picking every single bad decision possible in the healing sequences, being a jerk to Jasper at every chance you get and picking options that reflect badly on Steven as a character.
  • Difficulty Spike: Bismuth's dungeon is much harder than the other dungeons. It's practically impossible to do it first because it starts at stage 4, and even once you catch up, her boss fight attacks multiple times and is generally very hard without a full set of characters, as they can all be poofed in one turn if you're unlucky.
  • Epileptic Trees: The Perfect Crystal is stated to be a representation of Steven's guilt over the Diamonds being shattered and Rose tries to dissuade you from fighting it. However Steven had never met Pink Diamond and the shattering of Yellow Diamond, Blue Diamond and White Diamond was completely out of his hands. So either Steven believed that their deaths were his fault or Rose's memories must've leaked into Steven's mind in order for him to feel guilt over Pink's death.
  • Game-Breaker: Discussed in the developer commentary, which states there was a dedicated effort to avoid making Garnet overpowered as she was in Attack the Light. They may have overcorrected, as Garnet is instead one of the weaker characters outclassed by the rest of the party in most situations.
  • Goddamned Bats: The enemies in the Alpha Kindergarten have this annoying tendency to counterattack you whenever you damage them and the high encounter rate makes it tedious to deal with them when you're going back and forth trying to find the other keystones. Worse still, if you don't have characters such as Pearl, Garnet or Bismuth in your party, your attacks won't be strong enough to chip away at their defences.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Despite this fangame being in development before Steven Universe Future (something the developer commentary notes), it still managed to unintentionally predict things from that show:
    • Steven having a bond with Jasper. Flawed Crystals has Steven purify Jasper but an error causes Jasper to lose her memories. Later on, when Steven purifies her gem for real, she isn't happy about having to deal with Steven but decides to help him nonetheless. Future has Steven go to Jasper for help for dealing with his new Pink Powers; Jasper in this case serves as an Evil Mentor whose influence gradually causes Steven's decline until he corrupts. Both of them even end with Steven bonding with Jasper.
    • The final dungeon of Flawed Crystals has Steven's ideal versions of the gems undergo Flanderization: Pearl is happy being Steven's pearl, Garnet is split up so Steven can put them back together and Amethyst cares more about the Diamond's party than the defective Amethysts being shattered. The Movie has Spinel reset them, causing Pearl to be an obedient servant, much to Greg's discomfort, Garnet is split up into Ruby and Sapphire, and Amethyst is reduced to a child-like state. Flawed Crystals has Steven want the gems to be Flanderized while in the Movie Steven is trying to return the Crystal Gems to their normal selves.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Steven's controlling aspects. Flawed Crystals allows you to try and gaslight the gems during their healing sequences and even try and rewrite Jasper's personality. The final dungeon has Steven's worst self showcase several puppets representing what he wants the Crystal Gems to be, much to their confusion and horror. Future has Steven decide to take up planting to cope with his friends moving on with their lives, naming the plants after said friends while expressing that they can't leave him. In both cases, it ends poorly for Steven. Flawed Crystals has Steven corrupt due to his guilt and panic over his Room fantasy while Future has a cactus turn into Cactus Steven, a monster who repeats Steven's problems with the gems who the gems have to fight, leading to Steven accepting that he messed up by being an awful role model and to never tell anyone his problems again.
    • The final boss being a Corrupted Steven. Flawed Crystals has Steven corrupt after purifying all the gems (including Jasper), with the final dungeon involving Steven's worst self manifesting through his corruption. When he finally corrupts, Steven turns into a canine beast who still retains his human mind. The gems deal with Corrupted Steven by calling him out for his selfish and cowardly behavior before Jasper can get through to him. Future has Steven shatter Jasper before resurrecting her and later going into denial, before finally having a meltdown and finally corrupting into Monster Steven. In this case, the opposite applies. Steven turns into a Godzilla-like creature who acts like a Corrupted Gem and is overcome via emotional support and a group hug due to the gems being unable to attack him physically and Monster Steven being far too strong for them to take down. Jasper is nowhere to be seen and doesn't show up again until the ending. In both cases, Steven is seen recovering and in a far better state than he was previously.
  • That One Boss:
    • The Lost, Pearl's corrupted form. Unlike most bosses who bring flunkies who are easy to deal with, she is backed up by the minibosses The Sun and Son of the Sun, as well as Satellites. The Satellites will often use One For All to take hits for The Lost and her two allies, and they are positioned in such an awkward way that it's difficult to specifically pick them off. The Sun helps out with hard-hitting attacks like Nova and Flare, while Son of the Sun can heal its allies or resurrect the Satellites, and both can set up Thorns or Bubbles to stop your strongest attacks. The Lost herself is no slouch, with a high ATK stat, access to Quick Strike and Meteor to pick off squishier targets, and a full-party Interference or Disharmony attack to cripple bulkier ones. And no, you can't just take out The Sun or Son of the Sun as The Lost will immediately use Undying Memories to resurrect them to full health.
    • Out of all the Room rematches, The Drowned is a surprisingly nasty upgrade from her role as a Warm-Up Boss. Unlike your first bout with her, you have a full party which is both a curse and a blessing. While you do have more chances to strike due to being able to easily accumulate Star Points, this is made difficult due to The Drowned using her water clones to wear you down while she uses Mutilate to debuff her defence so her Attack Reflector will deal more damage. Even when you get a chance to attack, your party members will take damage from her attacks, and she'll quickly replace any fallen clones to stall for time.
  • That One Level: The Alpha Kindergarten. There is a high encounter rate, enemies often ambush you, and the area is underground, so you can't call Lapis to save you from a tight spot. The enemies themselves have high DEF and take a while to get rid of, and have access to counterattacks and status effects to make battles even more frustrating. It doesn't help that a bug can cause you to lose your keystones, making the color puzzle Unintentionally Unwinnable.

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