History VideoGame / TrialsOfMana

* DarkSkinnedBlonde: Kevin and most of the beastmen have dark skin and light hair.

* TurtlePower: Life's a beach. Vuscav, a giant turtle wearing scuba goggles and a racing flag, can take you anyplace that is accessible by coastline, where the party can play the Ferry Flute to summon him. He's also equipped with a ship's horn which can be sounded with the A button, but it's purely aesthetic. "Inexplicable" sums him up best.

** Hawkeye as a Ninja Master gets the ability to multi target all his previous spells. This lets Shuriken hit all enemies, lower evasion/accuracy, cause knockback, and deal good damage, all with a fast cast time and costing only 1 MP. Fans call it "The One MP Wonder".
** Angela's Dark-Dark class, the Magus, gains no new elemental spells but has the highest INT of all her classes. This turns her humble level 1 spells into fast-casting low cost powerhouses.

* LimitBreak: Three levels of them, the second and third being learned after the class changes. The second and third limit breaks are different depending on the class chosen.

* AscendedGlitch: In the SNES version of the game, you could use a special hammer you got in the story to shrink your party, then use it again to go back to normal. As the game only allows for one negative status effect at a time, this would cancel any prior negative effect and cure your entire party of whatever ailment they had. While this oversight was fixed in the remake, the developers gave you a moogle icon upon beating a bonus boss, which allows you to do the same thing only with the moogle status effect. The thing is, you have to beat the game to even challenge the boss that has it and it has no practical purpose, thus the icon is mainly as a nod to the fan's clever use of the oversight.

** Bil and Ben. If you're from the UK, the name instantly screams out "'''''[[WesternAnimation/BillAndBenTheFlowerpotMen weed]]'''''"! Alternatively, one may think of [[WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine a pair of train engines]] instead.

* EvilVersusEvil: The three evil factions (Ferolia, Altena and Nevarl) are all fighting for the Mana Sword, and are in fact a greater danger to each other than the PC group. This all comes to a head when the path to the Sanctuary of Mana becomes open for the villains to invade; all three factions come in well before your party does because your party needs to waste time to find a means of transportation up into the Sanctuary of Mana. Who comes out on top depends on who you chose as the main protagonist, and the fates of those that were toppled are revealed as your party returns back to the map's entrance. [[spoiler:If the Altenans are vanquished, the Darkshine Knight states that Dragonsmaw was also besieged and the Crimson Wizard killed in action during the battle of the Sanctuary, only to soon expire as a result of being cut off from the life-sustaining power of the Dragon Lord.]] [[spoiler:If the Ferolians are driven away, Goremand is caught attempting to flee, then tells the party how the Mirage Palace was crushed during the battle, and the Masked Mage with it. If Charlotte is in the party Goremand tells her that Heath was returned back to normal (but not returned to Wendel) after The Masked Mage was killed. Goremand slips from the scene, but not before giving the party some pessimistic and counterintuitive advice]]. [[spoiler:If the Nevarlans failed their mission, Belladona is seend standing above Malocchio's corpse, having failed to revive His Dark Majesty after the latter used his life force to bring back the Dark Mana Stone. Belladona herself was responsible for killing Malocchio after the latter got both of them caught up in this mess. She then states that Jessica will recover from her curse and Elliot was sent back to Laurent without incident before having herself implode along with the remains of Malocchio, not wanting to be in a world where His Dark Majesty was lost forever]]. From then on, the victorious faction focuses entirely on the player party.

** Charlotte's scene in the ending differs depending on who was selected as party members. Usually she runs into the Priest of Light, but if the Masked Mage timeline was selected for the run or if she was a party member, she runs into [[spoiler:Heath]] instead.

** Notice that Riesz has blonde hair and blue eyes, and won't stand by while her kingdom is invaded by Nevarlan forces.

** Choosing either Kevin or Charlotte will have them facing against Goremond, Tainted Soul, and their BigBad, the Masked Mage, as the FinalBoss.

** Angela never appears past her cameo in Jadd if she's not a party member (she may appear in Charlotte's intro, but this role is randomized). Everyone else at least makes some other kind of cameo past that point. If she's a party member outside the Dragon Lord timeline, she doesn't get her own monologue about continuing her adventure after witnessing the sudden downfall of the Crimson Wizard and the Darkshine Knight.

* BigFirstChoice: The first character the player picks for his party determines which of the three routes the game takes at the end, including which group of villains the heroes have to face.

** Dark Majesty is the primary antagonist behind Belladonna and Malocchio, and he has a fitting name.

** Before recruiting your teammates, each tells their story in a DeliberatelyMonochrome cutscene.

** Charlotte's scene in the ending differs depending on who the main protagonist. Usually she runs into the Priest of Light, but if the Masked Mage timeline was selected for the run or if she was a party member, she runs into [[spoiler:Heath]] instead.

** Angela never appears past her cameo in Jadd if she's not a party member (she may appear in Charlotte's intro, but this role is randomized). Everyone else at least makes some other kind of cameo past that point.

* TheScrappy: {{Invoked}}. While Kevin is amused by Domperi's antics and Riesz tolerates him, even they have limits to what they can endure from his {{troll}}ing. The other party members hate his guts, especially Charlotte.

** Duran and Angela get extra dialogue when they meet outside Cascade Caverns if they're the first two party members chosen, the former angrily accusing the latter's country's aggression while the latter tries to distance herself from the Crimson Wizard as much as possible. Hawkeye and Reisz simply introduce themselves to one another and Kevin flat-out ''can't'' meet Charlotte at this point due to her unique path at this point in the game.

** Angela never appears past her cameo in Jadd if she's not a party member (as well as her appearance during Charlotte's prologue if she's in the party). Everyone else at least makes some other kind of cameo past that point.

* HypnotizeThePrincess: The Crimson Wizard and Belladonna pose as {{Evil Chancellor}}s of sorts to the north and south. They work independently to provoke fighting with their neighbors. The Crimson Wizard reveals that he [[spoiler:hypnotized the True Queen into becoming a warmonger]], and Belladonna prostitutes herself out to Lord Flamekhan. By the time Eagle and Hawkeye notice something's amiss, she now has mind control powers over the ''entire'' ninja clan, including Bil and Ben, and Eagle is brainwashed soon after.

** Charlotte's scene in the ending differs depending on who the main protagonist. Usually she runs into the Priest of Light, but if the Masked Mage timeline was selected for the run, she runs into [[spoiler:Heath]] instead.

** A skill you get from Anise the Witch grants infinite item use in battle. Not only does this allow you to cover any holes in the party's line-up, it allows for infinite amounts of healing too. The only thing deflating the impact is that Anise is the second-most powerful entity in the entire game (surpassed only by the Black Rabite), and you have to beat her on Hard mode in under two minutes to get this skill. And Anise is the only boss in the entire game that has more than one form, since she gets ScaledUp into a dragon after beating her human form. If you can beat Anise in less than two minutes on the game's hardest difficulty, you could already break the game in half without the need for infinite items.

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The 2020 remake edits Angela's ''Pink Typhoon'' attack to remove her mooning and shaking her butt at enemies. This is particularly strange because unlike the original SNES/Super Famicom version, her class outfits are actually modeled rather than simply being a PaletteSwap, and her Dark Classess (''especially'' Magus and [[spoiler:Spellbinder]]) are downright {{Stripperiffic}}. So it's perfectly acceptable for her to walk around virtually naked, but god forbid she shake her ass.

** If the story doesn't follow the Masked Mage or His Dark Majesty's timelines, their respective factions return those they have stolen without incident ([[spoiler:Heath's brainwashing is undone and is returned to Wendel, Karl is still alive and rescued by King Gauser, Jessica recovers from the fatigue she suffered from the Choker of Death, and Prince Elliot is sent back to Laurent]]). While [[spoiler:Queen Valda is also released from control under the Crimson Wizard]] even outside the Dragon Lord's timeline, the nature regarding the Darkshine Knight (specifically [[spoiler:the fact that he's Loki, Duran's father]]) is never resolved, as he vanishes before he can reveal the truth.

** Heath, [[spoiler:the Masked Mage is your father]].
** Charlotte, the Elf-King is your ''other'' grandfather.

* DifficultButAwesome: You can customize your team to your liking, even going so far as screwing yourself out of any healing magic or other desirable buffs by, say, picking Hawk, Riesz and Angela. None of them ever learn any health restoration, ever. Such teams are popular in self-imposed challenges, since any mistake can mean a party wipe. They also deliver high damage and serious debuffing capability, allowing them to bring quick death to the enemy, as well.

** Everybody's hometown gets invaded, either by the baddie for various nefarious reasons, or the heroes themselves in order to kick the bad guys out.

* EvilVersusEvil: The three evil factions (Ferolia, Altena and Nevarl) are all fighting for the Mana Sword, and are in fact a greater danger to each other than the PC group. This all comes to a head when the path to the Sanctuary of Mana becomes open for the villains to invade; all three factions come in well before your party does because your party needs to waste time to find a means of transportation up into the Sanctuary of Mana. Who comes out on top depends on who you chose as the main protagonist, and the fates of those that were toppled are revealed as your party returns back to the map's entrance. [[spoiler:If the Altenans are vanquished, the Darkshine Knight states that Dragonsmaw was also besieged and the Crimson Wizard killed in action during the battle of the Sanctuary, only to soon expire as a result of being cut off from the life-sustaining power of the Dragon Lord.]] [[spoiler:If the Ferolians are driven away, Goremand is caught attempting to flee, then tells the party how the Mirage Palace was crushed during the battle, and the Masked Mage with it. If Charlotte is in the party Goremand tells her that Heath was returned back to Wendel after The Masked Mage was killed. Goremand slips from the scene, but not before giving the party some pessimistic and counterintuitive advice]]. [[spoiler:If the Nevarlans failed their mission, Belladona is seend standing above Malocchio's corpse, having failed to revive His Dark Majesty after the latter used his life force to bring back the Dark Mana Stone. Belladona herself was responsible for killing Malocchio after the latter got both of them caught up in this mess. She then states that Jessica will recover from her curse and Elliot was sent back to Laurent without incident before having herself implode along with the remains of Malocchio, not wanting to be in a world where His Dark Majesty was lost forever]]. From then on, the victorious faction focuses entirely on the player party.