History VideoGame / Sora

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The game initially ends with Sora slowly plummeting down to Earth, with faint hopes that the skies above will clear up as she loses consciousness after stopping Star Breaker from unleashing an EarthShatteringKaboom [[TakingYouWithMe as a last-ditch effort to destroy Sora]] along with the planet. After the v1.1 update, the game received a True Final Boss battle and a happier ending.]]

* GoldenEnding: [[spoiler:During Stage EX, after waking up 10,000 years later, Sora notices the sky is still dark and hazy, and believes her efforts to save the Earth were for naught -- in reality it is simply snowing, something she's never seen and can't recognize. She then finds Hime and Suguri on Earth and, blaming them for the fighting that ruined the world, proceeds to attack them. Once the fighting is over, Suguri shows Sora that above the snowy clouds, the sky has returned to the beautiful clear blue color she once remembered from her childhood and the planet is thriving with life once more.]]

''sora'' is a horizontally-scrolling {{bullet hell}} [[ShootEmUp shoot 'em up]] by [[Creator/OrangeJuice Orange_Juice]], which was released in 2010 for Windows PC during Comiket 78. It is the prequel to ''VideoGame/{{SUGURI}}'', which was initially teased at the end of ''Acceleration of SUGURI''[='s=] Arcade Mode if players managed to encounter Sora as a secret boss. The game's story takes place many years prior to the events of its predecessor where Sora, a girl gifted with the combat capabilities beyond anything the world has ever seen, was born in the middle of an ongoing war between two unknown armies that has brought death and destruction throughout the world. Against her own will, Sora drafted to fight for one side of the war, when all she wants is the Earth and once-beautiful skies to return their former glory. Like Suguri before her, Sora can amass a large arsenal of weapons at her disposal, ranging from [[RayGun beam rifles]], a [[GrenadeLauncher bazooka]], a [[LaserBlade beam sword]], and even a {{pile bunker}} thrown in for good measure. The game maintains its trademark dashing and lock-on shooting gameplay from its predecessor with some fundamental changes, such Sora being able use to three weapons instead of two (generally an energy-based weapon, a ballistics weapon, and a melee weapon), revises the combo-based scoring system, and incentivises dashing through or "catching" enemy fire by dashing as Sora can recover some lost vitality while building energy for her [[LimitBreak Hyper Attacks]].

The game unfortunately received a terribly-made English localization on June 1st, 2012 by ΩTH who turned out to be an Internet troll by the name of [=FalcomGameFan=]. It involves use of such terms as "[[VideoGame/MegaManX reploids]]" when the characters are actually referred to as "altered humans", unnecessary [[DubNameChange name changes]] that threw its ThemeNaming off, poorly-implemented [=SecuROM=] UsefulNotes/{{D|igitalRightsManagement}}RM that botched the game from being playable after purchase, swapped music that didn't belong in the game, introduced bugs and glitches that were never present in the original version of the game, and above all else, [[BlindIdiotTranslation a terrible translation]] of the game filled with out-of-place pop-culture references. Not only that, but the company even copyright flagging videos of the game on Website/YouTube showcasing the dubious quality of the localization. Fans of the previous ''SUGURI'' series localized by Rockin' Android weren't happy about this, thus leading to [[http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sora-translation/signatures an online petition]] being formed to get the game professionally localized by someone else. Although the petition didn't get the signatures it needed, near the end of 2015, Fruitbat Factory obtained publishing rights to ''sora'' and eventually released it through UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and directly from their website in 2016 with a proper localization and higher resolution visuals. The game's soundtracks, ''Sora no Kakera'' and ''Celeste -SORA EXTRA SOUNDTRACK-'', were also released digitally from Fruitbat Factory.

As with ''SUGURI'' before it, ''sora'' was followed up with a shoot 'em up-fighting game hybrid with ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' released during Comiket 80 in 2011. The game features both the heroines and boss characters of their respective games as playable characters, a Story Mode, an Arcade Mode, a local and online Versus Mode. During it's initial release however, lacked certain key features originally planned for the game and suffered from character balance issues, but thankfully these were through patches. ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' was also localized by Fruitbat Factory in 2018, with similar quality-of-life improvements that ''sora'' received, an online lobby system through Steamworks, and rebalanced gameplay. Sora and some of the boss characters from her game also make an appearance in ''VideoGame/OneHundredPercentOrangeJuice'' along with characters from ''SUGURI'', ''VideoGame/QPShooting'', ''Flying Red Barrel'', and other games by Orange_Juice. She also makes an unofficial cameo appearance in Daisessen's ''[[VideoGame/LethalCrisis Lethal Crisis: ProtoSphere]]''.

* ArtEvolution: A huge improvement from the artists in terms of the art-style and overall visual quality in ''sora'' compared to ''SUGURI''. The same goes for ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' compared to its predecessor.

* HighlyVisibleNinja: Mira, who fights with ninja-esque weapons out in the open.

* UpdatedRerelease: Fruitbat Factory's overseas version of ''sora'' features higher resolution graphics, support for HD and widescreen resolutions, native keyboard and controller remapping, and supports XInput-based controllers compared to the original C78 release. ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' received a similar treatment for its overseas re-release with a lobby and match making system à la ''VideoGame/OneHundredPercentOrangeJuice'' along with various gameplay tweaks and rebalancing.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: ''sora'''s English localization by ΩTH, which received widespread backlash from the fans of the previous ''SUGURI'' games localized by Rockin' Android. Thankfully, Fruitbat Factory averted this with their localization of ''sora''.

* BookEnds: [[spoiler:The first boss fight in ''sora'' ends with Alte grabbing onto Sora. The final (true) boss fight with Suguri ends with her grabbing onto Sora. The Song "Accelerator" in ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' is also this, combining a remix of Suguri's theme Icarus with a remix of the very first stage in ''SUGURI'', Green Bird.]]

* CoveredWithScars: Alte and Sham have some nasty burn scars, Alte's scars covering half of her face and Sham's scars covering a good portion of her body and parts of her face.

* GoldenEnding: [[spoiler:During the EX Stage, after waking up 10,000 years later, Sora notices the sky is still dark and hazy, and believes her efforts to save the Earth were for naught -- in reality it is simply snowing, something she's never seen and can't recognize. She then finds Hime and Suguri on Earth and, blaming them for the fighting that ruined the world, proceeds to attack them. Once the fighting is over, Suguri shows Sora that above the snowy clouds, the sky has returned to the beautiful clear blue color she once remembered from her childhood and the planet is thriving with life once more.]]

* TitleDrop: [[spoiler:After the credits from ''sora'''s EX Stage, it was revealed that the is game is titled as ''sora: suguri II''.]]

* TrueFinalBoss: [[spoiler:Two in this game, Hime and Suguri in the EX Stage of v1.1EX in ''sora''.]]

* UpdatedRerelease: Fruitbat Factory's overseas version of ''sora'' features support for higher resolutions, widescreen support, native keyboard and controller remapping, and support for Xbox 360 (or similar) controllers. ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' received a similar treatment for its overseas re-release with a lobby and match making system à la ''VideoGame/OneHundredPercentOrangeJuice'' along with various gameplay tweaks and rebalancing.

* WarIsHell: Sora gets first-hand experience of how terrible the war was after being drafted to fight in it, and then some.

* ZergRush: Sham has a Hyper Attack in ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' where she summons a swarm of robots to rush in and bombard opponents.

* ObviousBeta: The initial version of ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' had character balance issues and lacked some features originally intended upon release like the Story Mode. Thankfully these problems were remedied by v1.3 and further improved with the overseas version by Fruitbat Factory.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sora_steam_cover.png]]

[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sora_eng_cover.png]]

The game unfortunately received a terribly-made English localization on June 1st, 2012 by ΩTH who turned out to be an Internet troll by the name of [=FalcomGameFan=]. It involves use of such terms as "[[VideoGame/MegaManX reploids]]" when the characters are actually referred to as "altered humans", a few [[DubNameChange name changes]] that threw its ThemeNaming off, poorly-implemented [=SecuROM=] UsefulNotes/{{D|igitalRightsManagement}}RM that botched the game from being playable after purchase, swapped music that didn't belong in the game, bugs and glitches that were never present in the original version of the game, and above all else, [[BlindIdiotTranslation a terrible translation]] of the game filled with out-of-place pop-culture references. Not only that, but the company even copyright flagging videos of the game on Website/YouTube showcasing the dubious quality of the localization. Fans of the previous ''SUGURI'' series localized by Rockin' Android weren't happy about this, thus leading to [[http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sora-translation/signatures an online petition]] being formed to get the game professionally localized by someone else. Although the petition didn't get the signatures it needed, near the end of 2015, Fruitbat Factory obtained publishing rights to ''sora'' and eventually released it through UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and directly from their website in 2016 with a proper localization and higher resolution visuals. The game's soundtracks, ''Sora no Kakera'' and ''Celeste -SORA EXTRA SOUNDTRACK-'', were also released digitally from Fruitbat Factory.

* DarkerAndEdgier: While far from the latter, ''sora'' is much more serious and darker in tone compared to the {{lighter|AndSofter}} tone ''SUGURI'' and Orange_Juice's other works; the game takes place during a depressing war that is slowly killing the planet, a reluctant Sora is drafted into one side of the war and nearly dies on her first mission, tried to defect from the war to help Yukito and achieve their dream of a world without war and beautiful skies only to witness and/or cause some causalities herself. Many of the environments Sora travels to are often barren and lifeless, the game's soundtrack is moodier versus the energetic score of its predecessor, and some of the characters Sora encounters play a much more serious role in this game.

** Sora's parents named her after the Japanese word for "sky", referring to how beautiful they are, although it doesn't seem like the sky is beautiful at all in the game. [[spoiler:That was until Sora's efforts to help Yukito with their dream of saving the planet from the war and bringing skies back to its former glory were a success.]]

* ThemeNaming: All of the bosses save the last are named after stars. The {{Dub Name Change}}s in the original localization [[LostInTranslation threw this off]], but Fruitbat Factory's rerelease preserved it.

* PeekABangs: Alte's hair obscures one of her eyes and hides her burn scars.

** ''Acceleration of SUGURI 2'' has "Swordfish" and "Remember me", both of which are also sung in English. The latter does suffer from mistranslated lyrics; the former on the other hand, [[SurprisinglyGoodEnglish not as much]].

* EverythingsBetterWithSpinning: Like Suguri, Sora spins around as she perform forward dashes.

[[NamesTheSame Not to be confused with]] [[Franchise/KingdomHearts the Keyblade wielding boy]] or Creator/MasahiroSakurai's development team responsible for ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'' and the [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU fourth]] and [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate fifth]] ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games (which, coincidentally, features the Keyblade wielder).

** [[spoiler:Star Breaker is one to [[Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann Princess Nia]]. She has TechnicolorEyes, [[RapunzelHair long]], pastel-blue hair, wears a [[FutureSpandex skin-tight black bodysuit]] during the final sequences of ''sora''[='=]s story, as well as being bound to a spherical object of [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom doom]] during the final stage of said game.]]

** [[spoiler:Star Breaker is one to [[Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann Princess Nia]]. She has TechnicolorEyes, [[RapunzelHair long]], [[YouGottaHaveBlueHair pastel-blue hair]], wears a [[FutureSpandex skin-tight black bodysuit]] during the final sequences of ''sora''[='=]s story, as well as being bound to a spherical object of [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom doom]] during the final stage of said game.]]

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Tsih, Nath, [[spoiler:and also Star Breaker]].